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Until last weekend I would have said there probably are not
that many unique RPG products coming down the pike any time soon. So much to my delight (and contrary to my cynicism)
I saw a bunch small colored plastic widgets at a
vendor’s table at Genghis Con in Denver
this past weekend. It warranted
investigation, so I walked up to the folks at Alea
Tools (www.aleatools.com) and got the lowdown
on their unique product and some samples to take home, kick around and review.
The colorful widgets I saw are plastic disks an inch in
diameter and about 3/16ths of an inch thick. Inside of each disk is a strong magnet, which
means they can be stacked together or under a metal based miniature. The colors on the batch of samples I took
home are grey, red, yellow, dark grey, light grey and white. According to the Alea
Tools website a lot of colors , patterns and sizes are
in the works. It would be nice if they
shaved the thickness of the plates by a third to half, which would make them
perfectly sized in my mind as a based figure might look a little towering with
more than one disk under them. A minor
quibble, these disks are really neat as is.
I took the time to kick these magnetic plates around. I do a lot of miniatures gaming, so metal
based figures are readily available. I
attached a fairly bulky stand onto the magnetic plate. It stuck quite nicely on the 1 inch base and
stayed put as I put it through the paces that mini might receive during the
course of a game.
What these stackable plates, or disks, do for the RPG crowd
is represent game information under the miniature. This could be alignment, spell effects,
abilities, alignment, etc. This is a
handy product, especially for D20 oriented games that are miniatures
heavy. For the war gaming crowd I think
these magnetic plates have a huge amount of potential. Games like Battleground, Spearhead, Arc of
Fire and others use a tiered injury and moral systems slipping magnetic plates
under figures would save a lot of trouble that rings, chits and markers
imply. The plate stays with the
miniature, so the confetti of a war gaming table could be a thing of the past. The six samples I picked up are about a third
of the size of a roll of life savers when stacked atop each other. That means a bunch of 30-60 (the most I could
use in a nice sized skirmish type WWII war game), would be very portable and
much less of a hassle than chits, rings, etc.
Aside from being used as markers for miniatures, the
magnetic plates can be quick counters for masses of enemies in a gaming
session. The plates are plastic, so a
dry or wet erase marker can be used to mark them as needed and then be quickly
cleaned. Or for the more artistic minded, printed decals to mark each plate accordingly.
The samples I got this last weekend are certainly nifty. When Alea Tools
brings their magnetic plate product into full production with a broad selection
of styles and colors, I will look forward to buying them by the handful to use
in my table top gaming.
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