Re-Fried BEAN!
Once again, I am honoured to have had a very small input into a new part of the BEAN! universe. The Beans in Space supplement brings the beanfolk of Terrfavus into the space age. Packed full of information from the history of space exploration Bean! style to the brave adventurers of the All Bean Space Authority [ABSA] and the ships they fly in, there is everything an aspiring BM needs to run an out of this world D2 adventure. Available from DriveThru RPG. Indeed, I may be able to lay claim to having been the first to do just that at Beer & Pretzels in May this year. You can see a brief report about it on the Tavernmaster Games website.
Bean! There, Done That
We've already established that BEAN! is that fabulous D2 role-playing game brought forth from the fertile and twisted imagination of our good friend Jeff Freels. Inspired by the thought that an avid gamer could toss a few beans while at work instead of dice to keep the boss from noticing what they were up to, there is the challenge of finding the two-sided dice required. Using dried kidney beans with "0" and "1" written on opposite sides certainly fulfils the criteria but, in practice, they don't roll terribly well. For Bean! adventures I have run at Beer & Pretzels, therefore, we have used ordinary D6s and adopted the "low - high" approach where 1,2,3 represent 0 and 4,5,6 1. I have been on the lookout for alternatives and here is what I've come up with :-
I: Homemade 2-Sided Dice
As luck would have it, you can buy blank six-sided dice in a variety of colours and then using a permanent marker put whatever detail on them that you like. Of course, you don't have to put boring old numbers on the blank canvas that is the D6 face. When producing your own homemade 'beans' anything you like could represent the '1' and the '0' needed for the game as long as you can draw something appealing. I've tried putting some beanfolk sketches on some of mine.
Homemade D2 - Beanfolk Portrait as '1'
Part II : Manufactured Dice
Having tried my best to make my own two-sided dice for Bean! I happened across some 8-sided dice used in the game 'Ubiquity', which are basically D2s. Below is an example :-
'Ubiquity' 8-sided D2
Actually, it doesn't matter what sort of dice or method you use to create your 'beans', it's simply all about telling a story, role-playing with gusto and having lots of fun! That's what the one and only D2 role-playing game is all about, FUN!
A Smorgesborg of D2s for Bean!
Sid Orpin (aka Darrgh Tarrrho)
Octoberber 2013