A green and beige Plano tackle box, handle on top, retasked as a dungeon master / game master box. It features a NOT A MIMIC sticker on top.

Game Master Toolbox (aka the Box of Holding)

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On Season 1, Episode 12, we discuss the idea of a game master toolbox … and the Plano tackle boxes that I use to organize my on-the-go game supplies like dice, wet-erase markers, templates, miniatures, and more. I call it my “box of holding” (in a nod to the classic Dungeons & Dragons magic item, the bag of holding) but in polling others online, the tool goes by a number of different names:

  • Dungeon Master Box
  • Dungeon Master Toolkit
  • Gamemaster Toolbox
  • Gamemaster Toolkit
  • The Bags
  • The Books
  • The Game Crate

Regardless of the name, they all serve a similar purpose:

  1. If I’m running a game at friend’s house, it ensures I have all of my essential gear with me .
  2. If I’m running a game at a convention, it helps focus what I needs to bring to the con and cuts down on extraneous gear.
  3. Home or away, they keep me organized.

I have two game master boxes:

Both come with modular storage trays that can be re-arranged to accommodate different-sized fiddly bits for games and are large enough to hold a few rulebooks for their respective games.

Resources

Looking for more inspiration about how to organize your gear? Check out these websites.

Savage Worlds Game Master Toolbox

The smaller of the two boxes is dedicated to Savage Worlds and is filled with tokens, templates, cards, and other tools acquired through the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Kickstarter.

A plastic tackle box, with the top open used as a game master toolbox for Savage Worlds. An assortment of game supplies can be seen in the top compartment.
The Plano 728 case used for Savage Worlds.
A close up view of several decks of Savage Worlds-specific cards, as well as clear-plastic templates for measuring spell effects.
A close-up view of the campaign box. It includes a blast template, cone template, action cards, power cards, adventure deck, and status cards (as well as a handy bookmark)
The front of the tackle box is open, and a small plastic tray - with clips to lock it closed - is halfway out of its storage compartment.
The Savage Worlds box with one its removable storage trays.
A plastic storage tray, with a sealable top, containing a variety of tokens, chips, and dice.
Inside one of the storage compartments, filled with status tokens (shaken, fatigued, bound, hold, etc.) as well as Savage Worlds branded bennies (aka poker chips) and dice.

Dungeons & Dragons Game Master Toolbox

The Dungeons & Dragons box is larger so that it can accommodate the larger rule books. The larger storage cases are also nice for organizing dice, pens, minis, and other essentials. Photos credit: Ken Newquist.

A closed tackle box with a sticker that says NOT A MIMIC on top, used as a game master toolbox for Dungeons & Dragons.
The Plano 732 case. Clearly not a mimic.
The top of the tackle box opened to reveal dice, index cards, etc.
Upper storage compartment. Holds my ancient dice bag, dice in dice boxes, X-Men playing cards, color index cards and regular index cards.
A view of the front of the tackle box, with a storage tray half-slid out of the box.
Main storage compartment, with individual storage cases.
A view of the front storage compartment of the game master toolbox, with two RPG rule books and two storage trays.
Swapping out a storage case for some rule books (pictured here: Tomb of Annihilation and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
One of the storage trays that slide into the game master toolbox. It is open to show off a bunch of blue, white, green, and grey plastic miniatures.
Plastic minis (skeletons, goblins, trolls, armored humans, etc.) taken from the HeroQuest board game.
A storage try featuring dice, glass beads, and a variety of other RPG tools.
An assortment of dice (funky dice for Dungeon Crawl Classics, Fate dice, a bunch of d6s), colored glass beads to indicate status, and several tokens (poker chips, amber and clear crystals) to represent D&D’s inspiration mechanic (or battle map uses). Also: Dungeonmorph dice and a bunch of pens, wet erase markers, and pencils).

2 thoughts on “Game Master Toolbox (aka the Box of Holding)”

  1. Pingback: S1S12 So Many Books, So Much Trek, So Many Game Master Hacks – Lair Of Secrets

  2. Pingback: S3E9 The Game Master’s Toolbox – Lair Of Secrets

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