Product Review - Dungeons & Dragons Masterworks Dice Tower

(Updated October 1, 2025)

[Note - I bought this with my own cash. This is not a paid review. I did include affiliate links if you want to help a brother out.]

I really don't need a dice tower, but I couldn't resist getting one of these cool D&D Masterworks Dice Towers.  They're put out by FanRoll. (If you're interested, use my promo code for a 10% discount: DAD-10).

I went for the classic piece of Larry Elmore art from the 1983 Basic Edition (i.e., the Red Box).  I'm very pleased. It's simple but quite nice. 

It does not come with a dice tray, although there are matching ones you get get separately, I believe.

Things I Like:

• The exterior is faux leather and it feels and looks nice. I prefer that over a hunch of plastic.

• It folds down for easy transport. As I'm typically a "road DM," this works well. I have to admit, I felt a little dense trying to figure out how to set it up, but this video made it clear: link. It's not hard - I'm just not too swift.

Front

Back

Little stand thing that attaches to the back for stability.

• It's quiet. The interior is lined with felt the rolls are nice and quiet (apart from the clanking on the table, ha).

Dice Roll Test:

In the video below, you can see me testing metallic dice, acrylic dice, and 4d6. It worked fine. You have to pay attention when putting the tower together. As long as you do that, you're good to go. More on that below.

Tips on Use:

• You have to pay attention to how you set up the ramps.  If you do it wrong, dice will get stuck.  It's not hard to get right, but something to pay attention to.  Make sure the magnetic supports are folded below the ramps, not above it.

Other Info:

I was tempted by the other two, particularly the Erol Otus one, which is from the 1981 Basic Set, but the Red Box art was too iconic to pass up. 

I really like Jeff Easley's art, but I wasn't familiar with the source used for this dice tower.

Frost Giant Friday - "Frost Giant" by Antonio José Manzanedo

"Frost Giant" by Antonio José Manzanedo

Frost Giant Friday - "Enthroned" by Boxume

 

"Enthroned" by Boxume

Frost Giant Friday - "Gerti Orelsdottr - Frost Giant Jarl" by Buck Gunner

"Gerti Orelsdottr - Frost Giant Jarl" by Buck Gunner

Playing Cards for Dynamic Initiative

DD Note 9/6/2025: It was pointed out to me that Savage Worlds has been using playing cards for initiative for ages. 1.) I can't believe I forgot that... I have even played Savage Worlds before. 2.) the method detailed here is simpler. 

I've explained the differences below. 

DD Note 9/7/2025: I also just learned that Dragonbane, Year Zero, Twilight 2000 also use cards (I'm sure there are more).

I fully admit, I didn't reinvent the wheel here. This is just another spin on the concept.

I ran three games of Castles & Crusades at Gen Con 2025. (If anyone is curious, I ran each adventure in the Dwarven Glory series.)  It was a great time. One weird thing, though, is that I had occasional trouble with keeping track of initiative. 

Castles & Crusades uses dynamic initiative. Each round, the individual players and the Castle Keeper roll a d10 and people take turns from highest result to lowest.  

At home, I use tiles on the top of my GM screen to organize and display the order for each round. While displaying the order is handy, the process slows the game down. 

Since you're "on the clock" when running a game at a con, I decided not to do that and used the "traditional" method. That is, I verbally counted down from 10 to 1 and had the players chime in on their number to take their turn. 

Whether it was due to the fun of the game or fatigue of CKing three sessions back-to-back (as fun as it was), I had occasional trouble remembering where I was in the order of the round.

This got me revisiting an alternative idea I'd been mulling over - using playing cards to track initiative. I gave it a go last session with my local group and I think it worked pretty well.

Here's what I did:

• I set aside one full suit (ace to king) to be used to determine order. Naturally, I used Spades. 

• I set aside one full suit (ace to king) to be used to track order. I used a red suit (Hearts, I believe). 

• Each round, I shuffled the Spades and dolled them out to the players to determine who went first. The players kept their cards out in front of them, so it was pretty easy to see who was up.

• I stacked the Hearts from high to low and used them to keep track of where we were.

• After that, we repeated this each round.

While this was only one session, I think it worked well. It kept things moving quickly and made it easy to track turn order.  If you're looking for a way to speed up dynamic initiative, give it a try.  

How This is Different than Savage Worlds Initiative (and likely other games)

• Savage Worlds has a whole system based on using the deck of cards for initiative. I'm just replacing dice rolls.
• I don't use a whole deck of cards, only 13 from one suit.
• This eliminates ties (which can also slow down play, albeit not dramatically).

• I use a second set of 13 from one suit has a initiative tracker for myself.

Frost Giant Friday - "Frost Giant- Undead Berserker" by DMonkey Illustrations

"Frost Giant- Undead Berserker" by DMonkey Illustrations

 

My Dungeon Master Tool Kit - My Dungeon Master Binder: Part 4 - Encounters

Slowing continuing onward with my Dungeon Master binder, next up: Encounters!

The Encounters section is not for the "core" module/adventure, but rather sandbox resources. These are random tables and other tools to help me figure out what happens to the party when they're traveling on the road or wilderness.

As always, a cover page with some inspirational art.  For this one, it's "Flight" by Jeff Fairbourn (heads up - some of his stuff is NSFW/weird).

I'm running a Haunted Highlands campaign, so I have a printout of its own random encounters section.

I have a few things from James Mishler Games. He has shifted his focus to ShadowDark completely, so these Castles & Crusades ones are no longer available.  That's a shame, because they're useful.

100 Exciting Encounters - 1st Level Encounters

I also have a few official ones by Troll Lord Games, which are also unfortunately unavailable.  

Castles & Crusades - Encounters: Bands of Orcs

Castles & Crusades - Encounters: Unusual Roadside Encounters

Although it's not in my binder because it's not a random table, it's worth mentioning Castles & Crusades Classic Monsters Encounters. It's a nice collection of "side treks" and lairs.

And then last, but not least a few gems by Azukail Games. This fellow cranks out a ton of reasonably priced and useful random tables. They give a bit of detail to get your Dungeon Master mind following. He makes things for just about every system you can think of and, if that isn't enough, many are system agnostic.

100 Random Encounters for on the Road or in the Wilderness

100 Encounters for the Borderland Regions

100 Encounters in a Fey Forest

100 Things a Wandering Monster is Doing

Next up - Treasure!