The Timestop D-20 is Nearly as Good as Rolling Cube in D&D

The Timestop D-20 is my favourite piece of gaming gear this yr. It’s a watch that tells the time and pretends to roll cube. That’s it. It doesn’t must do any greater than that. It received’t assist me roll higher in any sport of Dungeons & Dragons or different TTRPG, and it might probably’t change actual cube. The $160 D-20 can be an costly, restricted gadget that’s not excellent for each sport. Regardless of all that, I might put on it earlier than some other costly smartwatch.

Tabletop RPG gamers are eager to not belief expertise. They’re not Luddites. As a substitute of lugging sufficient rulebooks to fill a cargo ship, they carry their laptops to the desk. Cube aren’t only a instrument for RPGs; they’re an emblem. They symbolize the interest’s love of communal storytelling and theater of the thoughts. 

I personal a metric ton of cube already. The D-20 watch would appear, maybe, extraneous, if not sacrilegious. I took it round PAX Unplugged, a gaming conference in Philadelphia, for 2 days, bringing it out for board video games and RPGs alike. I needed to be the one participant on the desk who continuously mentioned, “Oh, I’ve a watch that I’m utilizing. I’m rolling with this doohickey.”

Some received’t belief it, although the light people working video games have been too sort to chide me. However you’ll be able to inform by the seems to be you get from strangers that all of them puzzled if I used to be dishonest. I used to be studying off numbers from a watch. Did I actually roll a vital success, or was I bullshitting? 

That didn’t matter throughout a session of the fashionable Cthulhu-conspiracy sport Delta Green. I by no means have nice luck in video games. In a 3 and a half-hour session, I succeeded in solely a single roll on a D100. My character, a poor sap who labored as a claims analyst for the Federal Emergency Administration Company, bought shot point-blank within the chest whereas making an attempt to smash an eldritch-infused particle accelerator. My watch rolled above an 86 on my Dodge test. The GM rolled a ten on his harm. I used to be lifeless instantly. You actually ought to play Delta Inexperienced. 

The D-20 doesn’t have a cube icon for a D100, although you’ll be able to entry it by way of one of many two modes accessible with one of many buttons on the facet. In any other case, it might probably roll a D4 up by way of a D20 straight from the principle display screen. Watching the little numbers dance for a millisecond earlier than touchdown on a quantity is extremely satisfying. 

However the watch received’t work effectively for a lot of trendy RPGs with long-eschewed D&D cube mechanics. I’m a giant fan of the post-Powered by the Apocalypse techniques for story-focused video games. I’m presently working a sport of The Wildsea with my house group. At PAX, I performed a session of CBR+PNK, a sport made for one-shots utilizing the cube mechanics pulled straight from Blades in the Dark. You roll a number of D6s in that sport, in search of the best outcome. A 1-3 is a failure, a 4 and 5 leads to successful with issues, whereas a 6 is a pure success. The D-20 watch allows you to roll a number of cube, however solely so as to add them up. If you wish to roll a cube pool, you roll it repeatedly, hoping you keep in mind your outcomes.

Many board video games incorporate cube straight into the setting and theme. I performed Wyrd Video games’ Vagrantsong, a sport about bringing humanity again to the souls of lifeless passengers on a ghost prepare. Vagrantsong refers back to the cube as “bones,” a phrase so becoming that utilizing a digital cube curler can be anathema. 

The D-20 isn’t a stand-in for cube, however it has the center of them. It’s an old-school gadget. It tells you the time and date whereas the cube curler is all the time on-screen. There’s a button to light up the digital show in a wealthy, orange glow.

Devin Montgomery, the gadget’s lead designer, informed me the watch is meant to emulate the wearables of the late Nineteen Seventies when the primary D&D boxed units hit the scene. I like the truth that I by no means have to fret about charging it like my Apple Watch Ultra. The watch band with the D-20 feels safe round my wrist with its easy loop band hitch.

What’s most annoying concerning the gadget is its price. The metallic body feels premium, however for $160, it’s probably over 16 instances the price of your fundamental set of cube. Some variations with out the steel body will price nearer to $100. Even that’s expensive for one thing resembling an old-school Casio with a really particular use case.

I ended my PAX Unplugged run brief. A nasty alternative of meal over the weekend left me wracked with the worst meals poisoning of my life. I wanted to take away the watch from my wrist to maintain it out of the road of fireside. Every week has handed, and I maintain sporting it. It’s an emblem of my favourite interest. And whereas I’m not nerd sufficient to tie my cube bag round my neck, I’m to randomly roll a D20 on my wrist when no one’s wanting.