Dungeons & Dragons - The Witchlight Carnival Dice and Miscellany Set

 

You can buy this dice set right here.

You can buy The Wild Beyond the Witchlight right here. 

Today we're going to take a look at the new dice set, which is linked to the Feywild-themed adventure The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. 

I decided to look at the other dice sets real quick as a comparison and poked around online to see which sets are liked the best. Two things stuck out to me:

1. The Descent Into Avernus set is actually somewhat hard to find, now (It's going for around $50 on ebay currently). Looking back, I'd say it's definitely the coolest set they've put out so far.
2. Laeral Silverhand's Explorer Kit dice set is $14.99 on amazon! The thing I like most about that set is that the d20's are larger. I sort of feel like I should poke around and see what D&D products are dirt cheap right now on Amazon.
   

So! Here's what you get in this set:

• Box with felt interior
• Orange and blue dice, complete set plus 1 additional d20 and 3 additional d6's.
• Small poster map of the carnival (carnival art on the flip side). Is slightly larger than a normal Dunder-Mifflin-sized piece of paper.
• 20 Cards, most of which detail NPCs from the adventure or carnival games.

The retail price on this is $29.99. My first instinct is that these things are just too expensive, especially when you can get a set of dice in the $20 Essentials Kit or the Starter Set. 

Here's another thing to ponder. Part of the appeal of these dice sets, to me, is that if I'm running the adventure live and in person with my group, I can bust this out and make things real "official." I can show the group that we are doing this thing all the way.

But how many people are playing online, whether on roll20 or zoom? They're not even going to see it, right? 

The Dice Set

The Box: The actual box is great. It is a little odd that the bottom part has a black design while the top has a bright orange foil design. The felt interior is really nice. You can soothe your troubled spirit by slowly running your finger across the softness, even if just for a moment.

The Dice: In general, I don't like glossy dice because they roll forever. I know you can roll them in the box, but it still feels wrong to me. I still haven't recovered from all those kids rolling their dice right off the table when I ran games at the game store.

These dice are glossy, but not as much as sets in years past. For example, the red dice in the Essentials Kit are so slippery. I'd never touch them, I swear it. They are the sloppiest wandering dice I've ever encountered. In comparison, these are better.

I do wish they'd have made the d20's larger than the other dice though. Bigger d20's with some heft are easier to roll, and everyone at the table can clearly see what the result is.

The Poster Map

by Stacey Allen and Will Doyle

We get a map of the carnival. Looks good, seems useful. In fact, if I was running this, I'd probably want each player to have one of these. The actual adventure actually comes with a HUGE version of this same map, so you could slap the huge one on the table for the group to use (and hopefully not spill drinks on) while you can use this smaller one for your own personal reference behind the DM screen.

In the book's poster map, the other side has a map of the domain of Prismeer. In this dice set, the other side has art- a scene from the carnival. I'm a little torn on whether I'd prefer the Prismeer map here. On the one hand, the group could use the Prismeer map. But! Overland travel isn't a constant.. you could go sessions without referring to the Prismeer map, and when you do use it, it would likely only be for 10 minutes.

The art really goes a long way in helping the group imagine what it's actually like to be at the carnival. It looks cool and I love the style. This could go quite a long way when it comes to immersion.

The Cards

Let's take a look at these.

Game Cards: 6 of the cards feature different games at the carnival. One side has art, the other side has the game - brief explanations of the game and how to win. I really appreciate the brevity, makes it very easy to understand and run. 

You could hand the card to a player partaking in the game. The one thing that gave me pause is that the DC is right there on the card. Gave me flashbacks to a certain dude in high school who would almost certainly do the old "roll, declare the result, and then scoop up the die before anyone could verify the result" maneuver. But then, if you have a player in your group who does this kind of thing, you have a whole other set of problems to worry about, anyway.

NPC Cards: These 12 cards make up the bulk of the set. The cards don't have stats, they contain descriptions of each individual. These seem like good props to hand to the group as they encounter the various creatures.

The one that sticks out the most is the displacer beast named Dirlagraun. Looks really cool, has a plot hook (missing kitten), I like it a lot (I also wrote a guide to displacer beasts a while back). 

Carnival Prizes: One single card lists trinkets on one side, and the rules of the carnival on the other.

• Favorite Trinket: "Flask of glowworms that change color to reflect the mood of the flask's holder."
• Favorite Carnival Prize: "Bottle of Witchlight Wine. The bottle plays calliope music whenever it's uncorked and there is liquid inside."

Survey: The last card invited us to take a survey to let them know what we think of the dice set.

Overall

I like this set. I guess it's not necessary to own, but if you're going to run The Wild Beyond the Witchlight or if you want a cool dice set for your games, this is a no-brainer.