Thinking About Accessories

We love a good accessory here at Handiwork Games. Whether it’s battle mats and minis, fancy dice or metal inspiration tokens we can’t deny our commitment to feeling fancy in our hobby time.

But something we always keep in mind when making our games is that not everyone gets to splash out on all the bells and whistles. So we’re committed to making games that can be played just as effectively without the fancy stuff.

The inspiration mat and tokens from BEOWULF are fine examples of this. While we love the feeling we get from playing with the fancy versions, we began developing those tools with far more basic implements. And the BEOWULF inspiration pool that powers duet play in 5e works just fine with a piece of paper and some buttons (or in the above example a flower, an acorn and a groovy beach pebble. Cozy style!). Indeed, that’s how they began, long before we considered (admittedly incredibly beautiful, weighty and atmospheric) metal tokens and neoprene play mats.

And of course there’s a nice halfway house available as part of The Hermit’s Sanctuary in the form of a printable inspiration pool and tokens you can cut out and stick to board or coins.

Likewise, our heroic-sized Q-Workshop BEOWULF dice are a lovely thing to hold and roll, but you don’t need them to play – three (or even two) different coloured D20s work perfectly well.

Of course this all stems back to Bang and Twang, where the game comes with everything you need to play, but if you want to get fancy you can get a lovely set of metal coins to play with.

With all that in mind it seemed worthwhile taking a moment to mention if you’re playing any of our games with stuff you’ve made yourself, we’d really love to see it. And if you’re just using pencils and paper, you’re playing the real thing too.

What do you think? Let us know on Discord, Twitter or Facebook.