#RPGaDay2024 for 8 August: An accessory you appreciate

Today's prompt: An accessory you appreciate

I've been a fan of Rory's Story Cubes since I first discovered them more than a dozen years ago. I bought them to play with the Cabin Kids, which we still do, but I quickly discovered they made a great creative tool for my style of preparation, fleshing out bare bones random encounters.

Free associating with the Story Cubes helps keep me from falling into predictable ruts as a referee, as I noted in the linked post: " . . . I would never, ever have come up with anything even remotely like this on my own. The Story Cubes lead my imagination to wholly unexpected places, which is what makes them so much fun." I lean heavily into genre tropes and clichés to help with prep before the game and improvisation at the table in actual play, and toward that end I read and watch cape-and-sword fiction to feed my imagination, but what makes them tropes is their recurrence in different works. I like to think my swashbuckling 'highlight reel' is pretty extensive, but Story Cubes allow me to approach that knowledge with fresh eyes.