Category: Collecting

Art, Collecting, Music, Rant, Red Dwarf, Star Trek

My first NFTs… wait… what?

Written by TardisCaptain July 6, 2022July 1, 2023

Note: This article was originally started in June and was held in a draft form until it was completed and released now.

Adopters of new technology. Grabbing something that has a buzzword attached to it and running with it. It’s trendy with techies to jump into something shiny. There was even a course I had to take at my college to identify and understanding emerging technologies. Well I’ve actually dipped my toe into that water, and it wasn’t on purpose.

I’ve got the reputation for being a “technology whisperer” when it comes to computer issues. From family members to previous jobs, I had people approaching me about how to fix various IT issues. If I can get my hands on the device, I can usually “scare” it into working again. Most of this happens by poking around in the device until I find the correct settings or functions. However fixing them and understanding them didn’t mean that I was interested in being the first to get them. At first I was hesitant about getting wireless routers set up in my home because I was concerned about outside connections. Later as I saw the security options, I adopted the technology. I don’t need the latest OS or cell phone when the hype is the biggest because I know they will have some bugs that need to be worked out. I have no problems letting someone else be a guinea pig and getting burned while all the kinks are resolved. So when I heard about cryptocurrencies and NFTs, I thought “no thanks”.

Why was that? Well the first time I heard about NFTs was from my college aged art student. Apparently anyone can take a piece of art and turn it into an NFT without the artists permission. Something that really bothered the art community. For those of you who don’t know, NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Boiled down, an NFT item (mostly artwork, but it can be assigned to videos. music, in-game items and other things) has a blockchain code attached to it. This code cannot be duplicated (the non-fungible part) and the record of it’s ownership is contained within the blockchain. Allegedly this gives a value to the image in question by trying to make it rare. Yea, a piece of artwork that has a limited run number imprinted on it (such as number 30 of 100 prints) is something similar, but I tend to trust the individual artists who put these out since I can support them directly. Here is an example of a limited print run artwork.

Print 1 of 10 of Starbug (Red Dwarf) by the artist, Michael Goodwin

To me, this has value. The artist made it, the artist signed it, the artist got money for it. I can enjoy it on my wall and it will still be there if a server goes down. I still own it if someone hacks the account the NFT is connected to. An NFT can’t be held in my hand. It’s a glorified graphic file which anyone can right click and save. I’ve noticed when someone tries to artificially inflate the value of something, and I tend to avoid it. While I’ve enjoyed collectable card games, I didn’t jump on them right away. When they first came out and I noticed that they had the word “collectable” attached to it, I held off. When a comic publisher releases 12 versions of the same issue with different covers, I just buy one because I want the story on the inside. The NFTs producers even tried to attach them to a brand name with limited success. So it was no surprise that no one was buying the Star Trek NFTs at the official Star Trek convention in April. When the Admiral Pack went on sale at Mission: Chicago, it had a list price of $250. Now you can get one on their website for $189 (at the time of this article’s publication) Yea that collectors item really took off. One of the more popular NFT themes, the bored apes, had a unit sell for $50,000 in 2021 only to be re-sold in 2022 for $115. Ouch. While that may have been a one-time anomaly, an article in Marketwatch stated that the bored apes had lost 60% of their value in a month earlier this year.

OK Carl, I get what you are saying, but how do you now own NFTs if this trend is going south?

Believe me, I was just as shocked as you are. I received an email from a vendor for an upcoming concert that I purchased tickets for. Basically it said, “Congratulations, we are giving you an NFT of your ticket (which can’t be used to get into the concert) for free.” I remember raising an eyebrow at this email. When I looked at the NFT website (which was legit from the ticket company), it showed two generic looking tickets attached to my account. The same looking thing. Perhaps if there had been a different image on each NFT ticket, it may have been interesting. But it was just a boring looking ticket. And since I had purchased tickets to a second concert later in the year, another pair of NFT “tickets” showed up in the account a few weeks later. Again with similar boring illustrations on it. “Trade them with your friends, give them as gifts or sell them off to collectors.” Big whoop.

I purchased the tickets to the two concerts because my wife and I wanted to enjoy an evening together watching an artist we liked. Had I been on the fence about purchasing the tickets; the cost, not the opportunity to get an NFT, would have been the deciding factor.

I’ve talked with other friends about this whole NFT fiasco. And I think I’ll end this rant with a comment that has stuck out ever since I heard it. “The way you’ll know if NFTs are really going to take off is if the porn industry gets involved with it.” The more I thought about it, the more I believed this person was right. The porn industry has always been early adopters of new technology that gets their product out to the masses while making them money. Magazines, cable TV, VHS tapes, pay-per-view, the internet, DVDs, Blu-rays, 4K High Def, streaming, etc. When holodecks become common place, I’m sure that the porn industry will be right behind NASA and PBS in adopting the medium. If you look closely there hasn’t been any movement by the porn industry into NFTs. There are plenty of bondage chains, but no blockchains. (Fade Out)

Collecting, Star Trek

June 2022 Star Trek ebook deals

Written by TardisCaptain June 3, 2022

The cover to the dead tree version of Star Trek: Discovery Dead Endless

As I mentioned last month, I love finding bargains when it comes to my collection. Simon and Schuster has announced another round of 99 cent Star Trek ebook deals. Yes, I own a physical copy of Dead Endless, but now I can carry it with me on my tablet. This way I can start the next book when I’ve finished the previous one.

Which book do you think would make for an interesting Star Trek Adventures scenario?

Star Trek: Discovery Dead Endless by Dave Galanter
Star Trek: The Next Generation Collateral Damage by David Mack
Star Trek: The Next Generation Losing the Peace by William Letsner
Star Trek: Titan Taking Wing by Michael A. Martin
Star Trek: Titan The Red King by Michael A. Martin
Star Trek: Titan Over a Torrent Sea by Christopher L. Bennett
Star Trek: Titan Synthesis by James Swallow
Star Trek: Titan Fallen Gods by Michael A. Martin
Star Trek: Titan Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller
Star Trek: Titan Sight Unseen by James Swallow
Star Trek: Titan Fortune of War by David Mack

Feel free to tell me which book you picked up so we can compare notes about them later. I’m interested in seeing if others thought of the books in the same way that I have.

Collecting, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

DriveThruRPG Print on Demand Review

Written by TardisCaptain May 31, 2022May 30, 2022

The Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia and Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn print on demand books.

A package arrived for me the other day. It contained my hardcover print-on-demand copy of Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn from DriveThruRPG. This was the second POD that I had ordered from DriveThruRPG. Before the first Character Creation Challenge, I had ordered a POD of the Dungeons and Dragons Rule Cyclopedia hoping that I could use it in the challenge. It had arrived too late for that event, but it made me realize that I could use the POD options to obtain books that I’ve been wanting to add to my collection. While PDFs are good for reference and quick searching, I still like the feel of a book in my hands. Especially when I’m learning a new system or wanting to recall reading the books for the first time. While I had my own copies of the BECMI Red Box books, I’ve been wanting a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia. Star Frontiers was one of those games that my group of gaming friends wanted to play when it first came out, but for one reason or another, we never got the opportunity to do so. With the credits that I had been building up from DriveThruRPG (thank you) I thought I’d pick up a POD for me to enjoy.

Another thought hit me as I was opening the package, I should write a review of the POD copies that came from DTRPG. So I took some pictures and decided to write down my thoughts. This will be a review of the POD, not a review of the games themselves (which will be handled in a later blog post).

Ordering the books was pretty easy in both cases. Go to the entry on the website and see the options available. Just keep in mind that there is a charge for shipping as well. I don’t recall how long the Dungeons and Dragons book took to arrive (I had ordered at the tail end of the holiday season which is probably the worst time to try to get things by mail), but the Star Frontiers book arrived in ten days after ordering. Both books were printed in Tennessee. A USPS tracking number was provided in both cases.

Both books were packaged very well. The container the D&D book did get a little roughed up in transit, but the book itself was just fine. There was no damage to the container that the SF book arrived in.

Top views of the bindings for both books.

As you can see, the bindings for both books look pretty solid. The covers are not attached directly to the prints themselves which has allowed for repeated book opening. While I haven’t had a chance to go through the Star Frontiers book, I have had several sessions where I’ve sat down to read chapters in the Rule Cyclopedia and I cannot see any additional wear from these readings.

As you can see from the earlier picture, the covers are pretty sharp. The back image on the Star Frontiers book does slightly bleed onto the spine. The Rules Cyclopedia front and back cover appear to be the same as the original publication. As for Star Frontiers, it appears that “The Original” was added to the top of both covers. Another note on the Star Frontiers, book, they did not change the wording of the description on the back. So the hardbound book talks about how “the box set includes…”. Since they had slightly changed the cover, I’m surprised that they didn’t change the description. But it was an interesting read to see what the original box set stated.

A colored map in the Star Frontiers book.

The Grand Duchy of Karameikos map in the Rules Cyclopedia.

Considering these prints are from a scan of the original books, they came out sharp in the publication. The colors stood out just fine (as seen by the photos above). There were a few pages that contained blue text in the Star Frontiers book (which I believe was the same in the original book). The art printed out OK as well. Again, for a scan, these came out readable and usable. Nothing extra blurry or hard to read.

Now that I own Star Frontiers, I’ll be able to use it in the 2023 Character Creation Challenge. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to play it, but I can at least read and understand one of the classic games that I saw advertised early in my RPG days. I’m also planning to pick up a few more POD books that I’d like to have dead tree versions of without having to pay expensive collector prices for.

Collecting, Star Trek

May Star Trek eBook deals that I picked up

Written by TardisCaptain May 10, 2022

Cover to the dead tree version of Star Trek: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow

I love reading the Star Trek novels. As you can see from the photo above I have a lot of books on the shelves (I need to get them organized). I’ve been trying to catch up on my reading, but that time is often rare. Lately I’ve discovered that if I have soft copies of books and comics I can pull them upon with the Kindle app on my Fire tablet at any time. When I purchase the Star Wars comics, they come with a code I can put into their website and get digital copies of the books that get imported into Kindle. When I reviewed the first Star Trek: Picard novel “Last Best Hope”, I read it on my tablet. I was able to highlight great quotes and tidbits that I might want to look up later.

Owning a large number of the dead tree versions of the books makes me very hesitant to re-buy electronic versions of books. But I love finding items that I could pick up at a bargain price. Pocket Books has been running a special sale on a handful of Star Trek novels each month for 99 cents each. Some months Amazon would even give me a $1.00 credit if I selected certain shipping options on other purchases. There were several months I already had 3-5 bucks in credit waiting when the next month rolled around. Free books baby.

So while there was one Star Trek book that I still refused to buy (another topic for another blog post later) I’ve been gathering my eBook copies of various titles. This has helped me build up a library of books to read when time allows. Even if I’ve read the book before in the dead tree version, there are still a few that I like to re-visit.

Here are the books that are on the 99 cent sale for May 2022 which includes several sets.

Star Trek: Mirror Universe: Rise Like Lions by David Mack

Star Trek: The Fall: Revelation and Dust (Book 1) by David R. George III

Star Trek: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow (Book 2) by Una McCormack

Star Trek: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses (Book 3) by David Mack

Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice (Book 4) by James Swallow

Star Trek: The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms (Book 5) by Dayton Ward

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Cold Equations: The Persistence of Memory (Book 1) by David Mack

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Cold Equations: Silent Weapons (Book 2) by David Mack

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Cold Equations: The Body Electric (Book 3) by David Mack

Feel free to tell me which book you picked up so we can compare notes about them later. I’m interested in seeing if others thought of the books in the same way that I have.

Collecting, Red Dwarf, Reviews, Science Fiction

Book Review: Total Immersion

Written by TardisCaptain February 10, 2022

One of my favorite shows is the British Sci-Fi comedy Red Dwarf. What? You haven’t heard of Red Dwarf yet? OK, go watch this clip showing three of the main characters and then come back to this blog.

Done? Good let’s continue.

Long story short, Red Dwarf is a show about the last human left alive (Lister, the guy trying to teach the android Kryten how to lie) who is marooned in space on a mining vessel called the Red Dwarf. His companions are a life form that evolved from his cat (the snazzy looking guy who they called over), the hologram of Lister’s dead bunkmate called Arnold J Rimmer (he’s a smeghead) and an insane artificial intelligence that runs the ship called Holly. The crew is attempting to return to Earth after being lost in space for three-million years (there is a very good reason for this in the pilot episode called “The End).

Being one of my favorite shows and a collector of resource books, I had to pick up the two volume set called Total Immersion: The Comprehensive Unauthorized Red Dwarf Encyclopedia written by Paul C. Giachetti. These two book were published by Hasslein Books in 2014 and are very, very detailed. The title of the books is a reference to the Total Immersion artificial reality video game that the crew finds and uses in several episodes. Think a holodeck but you have to wear special VR goggles and equipment. Players get plugged into a virtual world for various roleplaying in realistic environments. Let’s just say the title is very appropriate for these two encyclopedias. The entries cover everything from the various TV series (including both American pilots), novels, resource books, roleplaying games, smegazines (magazines), official websites, DVD extras and more. I’m talking the level that would normally be seen in a fan Wikipedia. If a label was on a container in a scene, that information will be found in these books. Was there a difference between the close captioning and the script on the spelling of a name? It has been documented here. With the show being British there were some comments and jokes that I didn’t get at first. Total Immersion explained the reference to me and let me in on the joke. Everything is referenced to the source(s) that the entry came from. Here is an example.

This guide was at the bottom of every page that did not contain the art found in the book. This helped document where certain information came from. This also lead to my only snag in the book. Every once in a while an entry had a reference that wasn’t listed in the bottom guide. For example in the photo above one of the entries is listed as coming from “X-APR”. The “X” is for the miscellaneous category, but the code of “APR” is not defined. There isn’t even an APR in the other categories. This is something I could forgive because it was very rare. These two publications are the type of books that I would love to write. Detailed an interesting without being overly burdensome on a subject that I just can’t get enough of.

Another interesting feature of this two volume set is the artwork. The covers are based upon the panels seen on the side of the Red Dwarf vessel. Internally there is a bunch of black and white artwork drawn by Pat Carbajal. It wasn’t just the main characters and devices, there were some drawings of characters that only made small, but memorable, appearances. A lot of these were very detailed and impressive. Here is an example I randomly pulled from the books.

The back of the second book was an appendix which contained a categorized index. If you are looking for a list of inmates in “the tank”, you will find it here. Locations by address, yes that is here as well. Listed is all entries related to “Starbug”. While everything is listed alphabetically, it would have been helpful to give page numbers here. But I did find this to be a helpful section when trying to look up some of the details.

It is my fondest hope that there will be an updated volume to these books as we’ve been blessed with additional seasons of Red Dwarf. Until then, these books are a must for any fans of the Red Dwarf franchise and merchandise. To date, I have not found any other printed encyclopedias for the show. This two-volume set was written by fans, for fans.

Details:

Total Immersion Volume I (A-K), ISBN 978-0-578-15057-4, Trade Paperback with 327 pages.

Total Immersion Volume II (L-Z), ISBN 978-0-578-15058-1, Trade Paperback with 323 pages.

Collecting, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews

Cooking with Dungeons & Dragons

Written by TardisCaptain February 6, 2022August 10, 2025

This is one of the posts that would have happened last month if I didn’t have a 31 day challenge going on. They say that there is an official (and sometimes unofficial) cookbook for everything. Late last year I picked up Heroes’ Feast, the official Dungeons and Dragons cookbook. This 212 page hardbound book was published by Ten Speed Press in 2020. ISBN: 978-1-9848-5890-0 with a cover price of $35.00US. The book was written by Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson and Michael Witwer.

My college age kid wanted to see this book after she had heard about it. It sounded interesting so I picked it up. I do some minor cooking on the side (nothing too deep, mostly crockpot experiments of recipes that I find online) but nothing that I’d write home about. My wife has some secret recipes that she has which I am very grateful for. Her meatloaf is to die for and often requested in the house. For me, if the recipe is too complicated, I tend to find something easier. While I’m still reading the book, I’ve flipped through several of the recipes. We decided upon the first recipe that we were going to try came from Mithral Hall, Potato Leek Soup. We already had a family recipe for this and we wanted to see how it compared.

For something like this, I wisely stayed out of the way. And I’m glad that I did. While I’m not going to post the recipe here, I will say that they had a special ingredient, bacon. The family loved the soup with this special ingredient. We’ve added bacon to the family recipe and it has been added to the rotation. This Dwarven recipe was listed as one of the Heroes’ Feast entries that was specially marked.

In the book is divided into several sections with specific recipes for each. Human Cuisine (with 19 recipes), Elven Cuisine (with 13 recipes), Dwarven Cuisine (with 12 recipes), Hafling Cuisine (with 11 recipes), Uncommon Cuisine (with 11 recipes from different races) and finally Elixirs & Ales (with 13 drinks, some of them alcoholic). There are also menus from several famous inns and taverns from different Dungeons & Dragons game worlds. Included in the book are tips on cooking and prepping for meals around gaming sessions. I was also impressed with the art and photos that the book contained. Some of the images looked like something you would see on a restaurant website, but they looked really good.

A few of the recipes that I am interested trying are Hand Pies, Otik’s Skillet-Fried Spiced Potatoes, Tavern “Steak”, Greenspear Bundles in Bacon, Meal’s End, Bangers and Smash, Black Pudding, Arkhan the Cruel’s Flame-Roasted Halfling Chili, “Orc” Bacon and Barovian Butterscotch Pudding.

Even if you are not big on cooking, I’d still recommend this book for some of the back story behind some of the locations and recipes. Heroes’ Feast will be sitting on my shelf next to the other Dungeons and Dragons books that I have collected. As for my daughter, she stated that she felt like Ratatouille after she had completed the recipe so she was very happy.

Character Creation Challenge, Collecting, Dune, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Spy-Fi, Star Trek, Star Wars

Prepping for the 2022 Character Creation Challenge

Written by TardisCaptain December 28, 2021March 29, 2022

Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2022 #CharacterCreationChallenge

When participating in a month long challenge, like the Character Creation Challenge, it is always a good idea to put a little prep work in ahead of time. I took some of the preparation and after action lessons from the 2021 challenge and I am putting them into use here.

I’ve once again took advantage of one of my online spreadsheets and created a schedule for the month of January. I’ve tried to place the games that I’m not very familiar with on my days off so I can dedicate more time to them. I’ve heard from some participants stating that they would also be doing prep work before the challenge starts.

Speaking of participants, I’ve had several people email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com stating that they would be partaking of the challenge. Good for you. A lot of people have also been posting on the Character Creation Challenge post at RPG.net stating that they would be releasing their entries there. Several blogs will also be posting entries and others will just post them on social media. If you use social media, please use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge so that others can find them and enjoy them.

If you are reading this after January 1st and you still want to jump into the challenge, please do. A few participants last year either did a quick catch up or just made sure they ran a full 31 days. The choice is yours. This challenge is just for fun with our gaming systems.

I’ve re-read some of my past entries and entries from other participants. In fact, while I was researching one of my games that I selected for the start of the challenge, I found a blog that had participated in 2021. The World of Philosopherzeus had several good entries that were also written like game reviews. I’m going to have to look more into the Low Fantasy Gaming system that the blog recommended. If you participated in 2021 and I did not link your blog to the Character Creation Challenge page, please email me and I’ll add it. If you are participating in 2022, also shoot me the link so I can promote it.

The image above is some of the physical books that I plan to use for the 2022 challenge. Several of them were purchases that I’ve made over the past year or gifts from friends who were looking to unload books. I made sure they had a good home to go to. I’ve also got several games in PDF format that I’ve purchased from DriveThruRPG or on one of the various bundle sales that are out there. One of the PDFs that I’m looking forward to trying out is the original Traveller little black book editions. Another PDF game is the Wendy’s Feast of Legends marketing game that was put out a few years ago. A participant used it in the 2021 challenge and I smacked my head not thinking about it then. So I’ve added it to the list for 2022.

Another interesting tidbit recently came up that the 2021 challenge helped me with. I’ve been wanting to play Star Trek Adventures for quite some time (a lot of local groups are still unable to get together). On one of the STA facebook groups a GM announced a game with a day warning that it would start. I sent him the link from my 2021 STA entry and asked if I could play. The GM accepted it because it was actually rolled up and not created with one of the quick generation websites. So I’ve had at least one session with the game and we hope to wrap up the adventure in a follow up game.

Remember to have fun with this. That was one of the primary goals of the challenge.

You can also use this graphic to help promote the #CharacterCreationChallenge.

31 Day Character Creation Challenge — Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.

Collecting, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

More FASA catalogs

Written by TardisCaptain December 2, 2021March 29, 2022

I posted a bunch of scanned catalogs from FASA in a previous blog entry. There was also a second blog entry where readers had sent me a couple of scans that were missing. Well I’ve come across a couple more catalogs for my collection. Technically both of these catalogs have been posted before on this blog, but now that I have physical copies, I decided to scan them in myself. As I continue to empty out boxes in storage, I’ll keep an eye out for additional catalogs that I haven’t scanned in yet and post them here.

FASA-2-1983-Catalog Download

In the first blog post, I only had photos of this catalog provided by a friend. In the second blog post, this catalog was posted but was in two parts. I had recently picked up a 1st edition Klingons boxed set by FASA off of Ebay. This catalog was one of the books contained within the boxed set.

FASA-Spring-1986-Catalog-Full Download

I found this catalog while going through some of the boxes in my garage. When a reader sent me a PDF of this catalog for a previous blog entry, I knew it looked familiar. And my suspicions were confirmed when it had been uncovered. Since that catalog only contained the Star Trek items, I decided to scan the entire book into a PDF format. This will allow anyone wishing to conduct research on early FASA products to see the book in it’s entirety. One thing I did notice while going through the PDF. The description for the module “Decision at Midnight” talked about how the commanding officer of the USS Arkadelphia was Captain Barbara Vellacora and how she was the youngest woman to ever be promoted to the center chair. When the module was published, the name had been changed to Ian Vellacora and the sex changed to male.

The quest to get more of my collection out of generic (and falling apart) cardboard boxes continues. There are several items that I’ve got listed down in my records, but I am unable to locate now. I’m really hoping that I haven’t lost them. Seeing some of the prices for things that I already own on Ebay has only made me more determined to find them. I really can’t afford to replace these games.

Collecting, Reviews, Role Playing Games

I look at dice purchased from Dollar Tree

Written by TardisCaptain October 5, 2021September 16, 2024

Dollar Store dice — How do you say “Critical Fumble” in French?

I follow several twitter accounts that cover the subject of Role Playing Games and I noticed a trend over the past month. Gamers buying the cheap sets of RPG dice from the local dollar stores and then posting photos of them. It was a cute trend that allowed the collectors of the shiny math rocks to show off their latest acquisitions. As photos of dealers tables from gaming cons have shown up online (mostly to display the older books that were for sale) fans noticed that the dollar store dice had been picked up by vendors and added to their booth with a mild markup (usually $3-5 for a set).

Before this trend had started, I noticed that my local Dollar Tree had a bunch of dice for sale. Like most items you pick up at the dollar store, you are not going for quality. Of the three packages they had at the time, I noticed that one package had two D8 dice instead of two D10s that you normally find in a dice set. So I chuckled and passed on getting a set. The dice sets that I’ve usually picked up from the local gaming stores come in containers that allow you to open them up before purchase. I like giving a few test rolls before purchase to get the “feel” for the dice. Since these dice were sealed in a package, I had no way to test the dice beforehand.

When I realized that the trend was gaining steam, I decided to go grab a set for myself. Not because I wanted to follow the trend, but because I wanted to give a review for the blog. New gamers may want to buy a set for themselves at a lower cost. Other gamers had posted that they were buying the cheap sets to give to potential gamers showing interest in the game. Or perhaps you discovered that you had left your dice bag at home while at the con and you wanted a quick set to play with for the day.

As you can see from the image above, the dice were packaged for English and French speaking markets. According to the limited information on the back (see image below), the set was made in China but imported for the US market by a company called Grenbrier International. Canadian markets had this product imported by DTSC Imports. A quick Google search revealed that this was the parent company that operated the various Dollar Tree locations across the US and Canada.

Lot’s of white space, but that saves on ink costs.

When I decided to do a review of the set, I decided to compare them against another set I had in my collection from Chessex. Primarily because it was the only set I still had the original container for with the detail sheet inside.

One of the things I noticed is that the choking hazard warning had different ages listed. The Chessex recommended over the ages of eight while the Dollar Tree dice recommended over the age of four. Personally I’d probably feel more comfortable with any players closer to the age of nine than four. The Dollar Tree dice were made in China while the Chessex set came from Denmark. I had actually never paid attention to the country on my Chessex dice until now, but the Denmark dice sounds kinda kewl.

From the various social media posts that I’ve seen, the Dollar Tree set only comes in the satin brown color. If anyone has seen any other colors besides that one, let me know. As you can see, the sizes are about the same. I didn’t notice any difference from the different angles. I did notice a difference in weight. When you hold a D20 from one set in one hand and the other in the opposite hand, the Chessex dice were heavier. While taking the photos I noticed that the number locations were slightly different. The D4 seemed to be the only die matching the number location. I figured this was due to the lack of options in the smaller die. I pulled out several other die from my dice bag and noticed this trend continued with different die depending upon the source. I wonder if this is a copyright issue? Most of the D20s had the “20” opposite of the “1”, but some of the D12s had a “5” opposite of the “12”. This was another item I had never really thought about until now. As long as the dice continued to give me good rolls, I continued to use them.

I can see how the Dollar Tree set could be a good intro set for game masters wanting to give sets away to new players. The lack of a storage container would hopefully encourage the new players to obtain a dice bag of some sort. The dice make the right rolling sound when played on a hard surface. I had thought about doing the 100 roll test and seeing how many of each number comes up for the blog. But I started having flashback to the oddball math questions that came up in school so I elected not to take this route.

So I’ll be tossing the package in the recycle bin and slipping these new dice into the dice bag. Hopefully someday I’ll get a chance to participate in a game around a table with friends soon so I can actually see these dice in action. But before I decided to put the dice away, I wanted to take one more picture with a D4 from the Dollar Tree set, another D4 from the Chessex set and one of my original D4s that came with a boxed game many years ago just for an off the wall comparison.

UPDATE: I’ve been informed by a reader that there were other colors besides satin brown. So you may find different colors at your local stores.

Collecting, Doctor Who, Role Playing Games, Star Trek, Top Secret

#RPGaDay2021 Day 25: Box

Written by TardisCaptain August 25, 2021April 24, 2022 1 Comment

Day 25: Box

I have loved boxed sets for different role playing games. Besides the various books, sometimes there are extras that are included in the box. Dice, maps, character sheets, player aids and (one of my favorites) catalogs. I also think that the boxes look better than some of the books when I’m taking a shelfie (a picture of books on a shelf) of my role playing game collection.

The bad thing about the boxes is that they are made out of a type of cardboard. This cardboard can be easily crushed or damaged at the corners. Games that have been kept in temporary storage boxes (more cardboard that can easily be crushed), over stuffing the box with more than it’s capable of holding, moved from place to play by friends who don’t know what’s inside, constant opening, etc. can take a toll on some of these boxes.

Here are some photos of some of the boxes that I have in my collection that are in need of repair.

Several boxed sets for the FASA Star Trek Role Playing Game.

Boxed Romulan supplement for the Star Trek RPG by Last Unicorn Games.

Damaged corner from the Pirates and Plunder boxed set.

Split corner from the Pirates and Plunder boxed set.

A split corner on the Top Secret boxed set by TSR.

As you can see, some of these boxes are so damaged that I don’t even want to move them on the shelves. This is not good. I’ve been researching how to repair these boxes without damaging them further. I really don’t want to tape up the box as the tape will eventually fade and fail (I’ve got one book that I did this to in the 90’s and I wish I had done something differently now). One site suggested getting candy boxes with thin cardboard and cut them for use in the corners of the box that you wish to reinforce. I’d have to make sure the box is free of any food particles before I do that.

I think the first thing I’m going to do is buy some used board games at a thrift store that come in boxes with similar thickness. Toss the game contents and then use the boxes as my test platforms. I can experiment with different glues and repair styles. This way if I mess up, I’m not further damaging a collectable. I don’t know if I want to go all the way in my restoration project to make the game like mint. Sometimes having a little bit of wear and tear shows the love for the game. But I’d like to be able to pull my Star Trek RPG box out without praying that the entire box doesn’t disintegrate on me.

I’ll make a future blog post with details when I take this project on.

Final Thoughts:

“Welcome” could easily be a post about how to make sure that all players feel welcomed at your gaming table. “Tradition” could be a host of things, none that are coming to me currently. “Fresh” could be a post on how to keep your game from becoming stale and stagnant. I could see some possibilities in today’s recommendations.