TheTimestop D-20is my favorite piece of gaming gear this year.
Its a watch that tells the time and pretends to roll dice.
It doesnt need to do any more than that.
© Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The$160 D-20is also an expensive, limited gear thats not perfect for every game.
Despite all that, I would wear it before any other expensive smartwatch.
Tabletop RPG players are keen not to trust technology.
Instead of lugging enough rulebooks to fill a cargo ship, they bring their laptops to the table.
Dice arent just a tool for RPGs; theyre a symbol.
They represent the hobbys love of communal storytelling and theater of the mind.
I own a metric ton of dice already.
The D-20 watch would seem, perhaps, extraneous, if not sacrilegious.
Im rolling with this doohickey.
Some wont trust it, though the gentle folks running games were too kind to chide me.
But you might tell by the looks you get from strangers that they all wondered if I was cheating.
I was reading off numbers from a watch.
Did I really roll a critical success, or was I bullshitting?
That didnt matter during a session of the modern Cthulhu-conspiracy gameDelta Green.
I never have great luck in games.
In a three and a half-hour session, I succeeded in only a single roll on a D100.
The GM rolled a ten on his damage.
I was dead in an instant.
You really should playDelta Green.
Otherwise, it can roll a D4 up through a D20 straight from the main screen.
Watching the little numbers dance for a millisecond before landing on a number is incredibly satisfying.
But the watch wont work well for many modern RPGs with long-eschewed D&D dice mechanics.
Im a big fan of the post-Powered by the Apocalypse systems for story-focused games.
Im currently running a game ofThe Wildseawith my home group.
You roll multiple D6s in that game, looking for the highest result.
The D-20 watch lets you roll multiple dice, but only to add them up.
If you want to roll a dice pool, you roll it repeatedly, hoping you remember your results.
Many board games incorporate dice directly into the setting and theme.
The D-20 isnt a stand-in for dice, but it has the heart of them.
Its an old-school unit.
It tells you the time and date while the dice roller is always on-screen.
Theres a button to illuminate the electronic display in a rich, orange glow.
I love the fact that I never have to worry about charging it like myApple Watch Ultra.
The watch band with the D-20 feels secure around my wrist with its simple loop band hitch.
Whats most annoying about the gear is its cost.
Some versions without the metal frame will cost closer to $100.
Even that is pricey for something resembling an old-school Casio with a very specific use case.
I ended my PAX Unplugged run short.
A bad choice of meal over the weekend left me wracked with the worst food poisoning of my life.
I needed to remove the watch from my wrist to keep it out of the line of fire.
A week has passed, and I keep wearing it.
Its a symbol of my favorite hobby.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
Some braver than others.
