Coffee and gaming, especially the table-top variety, are having a bit of a moment right now. The pairing is nothing new, of course; caffeine has long fueled deep-into-the-night DnD campaigns and Magic tournaments. But the intersection of coffee and gaming has never been as varied, or frankly as good, as it is now.
There’s an expansive list of coffee-themed board games, covering everything from running a coffee to pouring latte art. There are gaming cafes across the country—like Houston’s Coral Sword, the Game Parlour in San Francisco, and Spielbound Board Game Cafe in Omaha—pairing specialty coffee and board games, curated in equal measure.
As coffee-gaming becomes *a thing*, the true believers are going to need their own specialized coffee-gaming equipment. There are already coffee playing cards, but what about when you desperately need to roll a 20? Luckily for you, there are coffee dice, and they are live on Kickstarter.
Created by Focus Dice Studio, the Coffee Bean Dice—not be be confused with James Hoffmann’s AeroPress Coffee Brewing Dice—are made with the coffee-fueled RPG player in mind. The seven-piece set comes in the standard polyhedron collection needed to play Dungeons & Dragons and other like role-playing games. But these, have coffee in them. Per the Kickstarter, the sharp-edged resin dice all contain roasted whole-bean coffee, each hand-placed to “keep balance” and ensure the beans stayed centered in the setting process.
The Coffee Bean Dice comes in two different color options. There’s Americano, made with a transparent brown resin, as well as Latte, a combination of transparent brown and semi-transparent white.
With a week left on the Kickstarter campaign, the Coffee Bean Dice have just met their $1,000 goal, but discounts still abound. For $45 or more, you can receive the full seven-dice set in your choice of Americano or Latte as well as a bag of roasted coffee. (For $5 less, you can get the full set, but you won’t have much of a say on the color.) Or, if you are more into other styles of table top game, a set of four of just the six-sided dice in your choice of color can be had for just $28. Rewards are slated to begin shipping out in March 2023.
So next time your campaign takes you to an orc’s coffee shop in search of adventure and you are in desperate need of some good luck on your next roll, the Coffee Bean Dice might be just the juice. For more information, visit the Coffee Bean Dice Kickstarter page.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
All media via Coffee Bean Dice