Awesomedice a website review

I received a request to review a site that specializes in dice sales. For disclosure I will state that they have not sent me any coupons or free dice or in anyway have attempted to illicit a more positive review.

From their main page

“Awesome Dice’s goal is to be the premiere online dice store and the best place to buy dice online. We carry a vast selection of the coolest dice on the planet, and unlike general online game stores, we work hard to have all those cool dice in stock! So when you want to buy dice online, you know that you can actually get what you see listed in the store. Our goal is to do one thing — be a dice store — and do it better than anyone else. That’s why you’ll only find dice and directly dice-related products on this site. Awesome Dice is a verified Authorize.net merchant, bringing you secure online ordering.”

http://www.awesomedice.com

The Good

The site is fairly minimal in design, easy to navigate, and dice are placed in categories that make sense to the gamer mind. The people who run the site claim to be gamers and it is obvious they are. I zipped around the site, visited every page I wanted to. Their images are clear so you know exactly what you are buying and they include an option to select dice by the game  using the major game lines (IE White Wolf and D&D) to help you select the appropriate dice you will need. This is an excellent option for newer players.

The site is also informative, with little dice industry snippets about the various dice companies and the creation of dice.

The Meh

The prices are pretty much standard, which means you can get a better deal on Amazon especially with supersaver shipping. Dice bag selection is ho-hum which is sad for a site claiming  ”Our goal is to do one thing — be a dice store — and do it better than anyone else. That’s why you’ll only find dice and directly dice-related products on this site”

The Ugly

As a collector of unusual dice, their specialty dice section is kinda run of the mill and only two pages. If you are looking for very different dice then there are other sites with better selection here. They say”We carry a vast selection of the coolest dice on the planet”.

I said the prices were pretty much standard, there is one exception to this. The Pound ‘O’ Dice is over priced compared to other sites I have seen.

There is no way to tell if something you selected is out of stock until you go to the checkout. So if you pick a bunch of things half of the coolness you selected might be unavailable. To me that’s kind of like going to a store selecting a bunch of books and then being told when you go to pay for them “Sorry, you can’t have that one.”

I went to order the Pathfinder dice set and was told they weren’t available. The site says “we work hard to have all those cool dice in stock!” Being as Pathfinder is a hot ticket right now you would think they  would have that one stocked up as the gift giving season approaches.

There is no mention of what type of shipping is available until you go to the checkout. When you get there you are given one choice. $5.90 flat rate. Which I assume means USPS, a shipping method I try to avoid due to some “irregularities” I noticed with our local mail service. This of course means that if you buy only one set of dice (say you are trying out D&D for the first time) and buy one standard seven die set you will pay more for shipping then the cost of the dice. If I ordered from them I would feel compelled to order more just to make the shipping charges worth it. I don’t like it when I feel compelled to do anything, working in retail has made me suspicious when I get that gut feeling that a choice was made to separate me from my money.

Overall

I know it sounds like I am lambasting them, but the site is one of the nicer ones I have seen. it is organized well and they people running it do seem to be gamers. Unfortunately I can get dice just about anywhere and if you are going to go around with the goal “to be the premiere online dice store and the best place to buy dice online”  You had better be prepared to back it up or take your shots when you get ‘em (it builds character).

If you don’t mind paying a little more for a couple of things and for flat rate shipping then give these guys some business.  In today’s money tight economy though I would rather get twice the dice for my money. You can visit the site at http://www.awesomedice.com

Strike through note: Apparently I somehow failed to notice the availability, so on that score I present a retraction.

Review; Agents of Swing PDF

This is my first review type thing, so let’s see how this goes.   Some ground rules first, I will rate this on the following areas; Layout, Content, Art, and System Mechanics. Each category will be rated 1-3  with 1 being Gag, 2 being meh, and three being solid. I will  end with some closing remarks. I had wished my first review thing would be of a bad game so I could vent…eh such is…FATE??

Agents of Swing is a 344 page PDF by Postmortem Studios. I received this as a complimentary copy from James Desborough after complaining of the skill pyramid in FATE.  So let’s get on with this then.

Title:Agents of Swing

Publisher: Postmortem Studios

Cost: $9.99

Pages: 344

Genre: Spyfi

Content: {3} This book contains a LOT of material for the price. Best of all,  it is all either helpful material, or interesting material. The game attempts to emulate the over the top spy shows of the cold war era and gives you so much background that you feel immersed in the period. It has a distinct British view of this period which helps give a more neutral tone to the heated politics of that time.

Also, one of the first things I check for is either some pre-made baddies, or a quick way to make them. The making of adversaries in a RPG is one of the biggest time sucks in gaming. Agents of Swing provides not only a great selection of these, but other Swing Agents that can be used as NPCs or plot complications. There is a massive amount of information and explanation in this book, enough that I went a bit cross eyed when reading through it. In fact the only negative to this game (if it is even really a negative) is that it pushes on the edge of over explanation. It also has  quick reference tables in the back, which if printed out would make an excellent GM screen (or to use the games parlance, Control) Agents of Swing delivers everything you need to play this game and then a bit more.

Layout:{3} The layout is simple, clean, and sets the mood perfectly. the background image is a manila folder with top secret “stamped” on it in various places. The folder tabs have the current chapter on them, and any side notes are made to look stapled to the folder. There isn’t any weirdly shaded areas, or ungainly boxes marring the read. My only complaint here is that with such a large book a ToC would have been helpful, either in the PDF sidebar or in the front of the book. There is a nice index in the back however, so it isn’t really a big deal.

Art:{2} The books art is comprised of silhouettes and character sketch head shots made to look like photos. The silhouettes are evocative of the mood, bringing to mind the opening of every James Bond movie ever. Providing enough shape to be enticing. The line art is very cool, whimsical 1960s to ’70s garbed hip folk. I wish there was a bit more of this art.

System mechanics:{3} This is fun. It is a stripped down and modded version of the FATE system. You use three 3d6 of different colors (the author suggests using red, white, and blue as it is more patriotic…which I found chuckle worthy as it works with the USA as well as the UK) With “Swing” dice allowing for more narrative  control, great use of “aspects” and an awesome list of “stunts”. Basically if you roll really well you get a “swing” die which you can use to replace any other dice rolled. Aspects work in a similar fashion to other FATE games but are very appropriate to this genre. Stunts are over the top actions that you really want your over the top agent to do. The number one great thing that is done is the removal of the skill pyramid. Instead you are given a pool of points to distribute among your skills. I am not going to spell out the whole system here, if you want a general idea of the system then FATE is available for free, or you can look at its parent system FUDGE (also free).

Closing remarks: While reading this book my brain went into hyperdrive with things that this could be used for, and foremost in my mind was that this game would make a great basis for a Ghost in the Shell game with minimal tweaking. It would also work well for emulating an X-Files game.  Either way ten bucks for a three hundred and forty four page PDF is a good deal and this is definitely worth every penny especially for you of the Rolpunker mindset.

You can purchase the PDF here

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=91482

You can bug Postmortem here

http://postmortemstudios.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/dd-5e-flee/