About the workshop

Geek & Gaming is a small one-person workshop in Louisville, Kentucky, making laser-cut and engraved accessories for tabletop games. The work spans Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and a handful of other tabletop systems where a well-made physical accessory still matters to the people playing.

How it started

I've been playing MTG since the early 2010s and running D&D campaigns for about as long. The first laser cutter I bought was meant to make a single deck box for myself, then a token tray for a Commander game, then a DM screen for an ongoing 5e campaign. Friends started asking for copies. At some point the cost of the laser cutter had paid itself off in commissions, and the workshop became a real, if small, business.

The workshop

A small dedicated space in a Louisville workshop building, with one CO2 laser cutter, a finishing bench with sanders and oil, a stack of sheet stock (Baltic birch ply, walnut ply, cast acrylic in a range of colours), and an organised mess of templates and prototypes. The laser does the heavy lifting; everything that comes off it still gets hand-finished before it ships.

What the workshop makes well

• Deck boxes and storage. Sized to actual sleeves and sleeves-plus-double-sleeves, not generic card dimensions. Magnetic closures, real hinges where the design calls for them.
• Life counters. Mechanical dial counters in wood and acrylic, starting at 20 for standard formats and going up to 40 for Commander.
• DM screens. Modular, sized for a real-table footprint, not the giant cardboard kind that takes up half the play area. Player-facing engravings on request.
• Initiative trackers and condition rings. The small things that make running a combat encounter faster.
• Token and counter trays. Compartmentalised, slot-cut for specific token sizes used at our regular table and others.

What the workshop avoids

• 3D-printed pieces. There are great 3D-print shops; this isn't one. The laser cutter is the right tool here.
• Anything that requires licensed artwork. The shop doesn't print copyrighted card art or character art. Original engravings only, or your own art with permission.
• Bulk production runs over a few hundred units. The workshop is one person and runs out of capacity quickly. For larger orders, a different maker is probably the right answer.

About the founder

I live in Louisville. I play in two long-running D&D campaigns, one as a player and one as DM. I play Commander mostly, with the occasional Modern game when a friend's brought a deck over. I make most of these accessories first as something I'd want at our own table, then refine them after a few weeks of play before listing them.

Local pickup

If you're in Louisville and the order isn't urgent, local pickup saves you the shipping cost and gives me a chance to swap notes about what you're playing. Just mention it in the order email and we'll arrange a time.

Contact

Email [email protected]. Replies usually within a working day. For commissions, including a sentence about the game system, the rough budget, and the deadline gets us to a useful answer quickly.