Rollacrit Revives, Updates ThinkGeek Messenger Bag of Holding

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By Daniel P. Dern: If your bag of choice to, ahem, hold your stuff in was the original ThinkGeek Messenger Bag Of Holding (“R/MBoH”) and yours has worn out — or you missed buying one before it (and ThinkGeek) was no longer was available, you’re in luck: you can now (as of July 10, 2024) buy a new, improved version, the Rollacrit Messenger Bag of Holding (a.k.a. “Messenger Bag of Holding by Rollacrit”), for $150 (plus tax and shipping, and not counting any accessories you add to your order).

(A quasi-seasonal note: If you’re looking for a gift for a gamer (or to put on your wish list), or something to carry gifts (received or to give) in, this might be a good addition to that list.)

Whether you’re a table-top/board gamer off to an event, or simply Someone Who Often Has To Carry A Lot Of Stuff Around to a con, trip or elsewhere, the right bag/pack can, ahem, spell the difference between having the right stuff, in an organized fashion, versus being three hands shy of managing your carry-load…and this, particularly for boardgame-toters.

A “messenger bag” (averaging out a few definitions), a.k.a. “courier bag,” is a side-bag (or often resting on the lower back), usually carried by a shoulder/chest strap, used per the name, by couriers (Pony Expressers, bicycling delivery people (non-food, I assume), mailpersons, people packing notebooks and camera gear, and people carrying a buncha stuff and wanting the compartments, pockets, and closures to help keep things organized and accessible. An Amazon search on “messenger bags” yields over 2,000 hits, and it’s a popular review category, e.g., in NYTimes’ Wirecutter, USnews and Packhacker.

For peripatetic tabletop/board gamers, the right messenger bag combines game-and-accessory-sized compartments and pockets, useful features and accessories — and a look-and-feel/style that acknowledges you’re a gamer. And for other of us tote-too-muchers, the right messenger bag can help with non-gaming stuff – mobile tech, sammiches, coffee mugs, water bottles, umbrella, rain shell, toiletries and change of clothes, your ferret, or whatever.

REVISING (AND IMPROVING) THE CLASSIC THINKGEEK MESSENGER BAG OF HOLDING

Rollacrit’s new bag is the result of over a year of brainstorming combined with iterative testing for usability and robustness, fueled by with a highly-successful Kickstarter campaign, launched September 5, 2023 with a comparatively modest goal of $75,000. By the October 4, 2023 close-of-campaign, Rollacrit’s Kickstarter had pledges from 7,686 backers — all but about 500 in one of the “get a Bag” levels — for an impressive 17x total of $1,284,078. (So, >7,000 pre-orders.)

And that doesn’t reflect post-Kickstarter sales (via the website, convents/events, and retailers.

Key upgrades and other details of the Rollacrit Messenger Bag of Holding compared to its ThinkGeek predecessor include:

  • Size: 16″x14″x9.5″ (an inch thicker than the original ThinkGeek bag) — with a main compartment big enough for a board game, e.g. Rollacrit’s own Heroes of Arcadia which (comes in a 12″x12″x5″ box), and a 16″x14″ laptop/tablet pocket
  • Weight (including straps): 3.25 pounds
  • Designed to hold up to 50 pounds
  • Backpack straps (than can tuck away in the back compartment), along with the carry handle and shoulder strap
  • 21 pockets! — 22 including the secret pocket. (I don’t remember how many the ThinkGeek one had, my mental image is “less than ten.”) And seven sections. (Rollacrit includes a few of the pockets in the section count.)
  • Bag made of a water-resistant canvas material; straps are made of a nylon seatbelt material
  • Meets all current TSA and FAA requirements for carry-on luggage
  • Poster tube/play mat holder
  • Adjustable slide sleeves suitable for water bottles, umbrella, dungeon maps
  • Includes a waterproof plastic bag big enough for entire MBoH, fitting into a small dedicated zippered pocket until needed. (Note, the MBoH’s material is water-resistant.)

Rollacrit also offers optional, useful-looking straps and related accessories including:

A few years ago, I actually had, late in the, ahem, game, bought two of the ThinkGeek Messenger Bags of Holding (the second, post-ThinkGeek’s demise, via eBay), but determined they weren’t a match for my needs, so in 2022 I ended up selling them — one slightly used, one still-in-the-plastic-bag — to friends, who have put them to good gaming and non-game-toting use.

However, various features of Rollacrit’s new improved version (notably, backpack straps, and a few more compartments) have me reconsidering — while I’m not a gamer (if you don’t count Doom 1, back in the day, and, still, ASCII-terminal-style NetHack), I’ve got other possible uses, like for when I’m doing my magic (as in card-etc. tricks/show, not the cap-M card game) shows (at con DragonsLair/kids programming, etc.). Or going to a trade show or other event where I expect to fill up on vendor tchotchkes.

BAGS OF HOLDING: FROM IN-GAME TO OFF-THE-SHELF

Containers that are bigger inside than outside are a staple of folk/fairy tale, fantasy and science fiction. Probably the most well-known of these is the “Bag of Holding” commonly found in D&D and other tabletop/board/role-playing games. According to D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com), a D&D Bag of Holding (not to be confused with, among other things, a Bag of Devouring) “has an interior space considerably larger than its outside dimensions, roughly 2 feet in diameter at the mouth and 4 feet deep. The bag can hold up to 500 pounds, not exceeding a volume of 64 cubic feet. The bag weighs 15 pounds, regardless of its contents…”

(See https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Bag_of_holding and https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Bag_of_holding for more info.)

For many years, ThinkGeek.com offered non-magical but real-world Bags of Holding, along with lots of other fun/useful fannish garb, gear, and other merch…according to 16bit.com, “In the early 2010’s ThinkGeek was the retailer for nerd stuff – where you could get everything from D20’s that lit up when you rolled a 20 to a mini-cabinet that turned an iPad into a tiny arcade.”

ThinkGeek’s Bags of Holdings also included the smaller, very popular (but no longer available!) Con-Survival Bag of Holding (which I mentioned briefly back in August 7, 2018, at File 770 — see my “(7) Geek Shopping” item there. The Con-Survival Bag is still my favorite go-to side bag for day trips/events — and I’ve seen many of its fellow at sf cons over the years.

However, in 2017, GameStop acquired ThinkGeek… and, in 2019, announced (See my “(9) ThinkGeek Sale” item in File770.com, June 14, 2019):

IS THINKGEEK SHUTTING DOWN?

Nope. On July 2nd, 2019, ThinkGeek.com will be moving in with our parent company GameStop. After this move, you will be able to shop a curated selection of unique items historically found on ThinkGeek.com via a ThinkGeek section at GameStop

ThinkGeek’s Bags of Holding did not make the cut.

That doesn’t leave gamers and others out in the cold, of course.

Currently, for example, (having just done a quick web search) there are numerous gaming-stuff-oriented Messenger (and other) Bags of Holding (though not necessarily available), including Enhance Gaming’s  Board Game Backpack Collector’s Edition and  (collapsible) Board Game Shoulder Bag, House of Loth’s Dnd Bag of Holding Backpack, and, looking like the D&D manual entry, GameStop’s Ultra Pro Dungeons and Dragons Bag of Holding Gamer Pouch.

(And for Minecraft users, Curseforge has these digital (“in-Mine”?) bags.)

Here’s two interesting (and helpful) bag round-ups, BTW, including some non-messengers: TangleBay’s 2023 13 Best Bags for DND (Dungeons and Dragons) and Roleplaying Games, and Meaghan Colleran/BellofLostSouls’ RPG Accessories: Bags of Holding.”

Of course, if you were jonesing for a ThinkGeek Messenger Bag of Holding, that’s probably cold comfort.

ROLLACRIT TO THE RESCUE: GAMERS GET A BRAND NEW BAG

Founded in 2020 by ThinkGeek alum and now Rollacrit CEO Erin Zipperle, (and according to LinkedIn several other ThinkGeek alums who also work at Rollacrit), per Rollacrit’s Facebook page, “work[s] with game studios to create tabletop and board game collectibles, accessories, apparel, and more.” And as of June 2021, the company is “…Gen Con’s official merchandise partner.” Currently, Rollacrit lists hundreds of items on its site, including the Rollacrit-created Heroes of Barcadia tabletop/board game.

In an interview with Jeff McAleer, Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch,  Zipperle said: “…When Rollacrit was formed, one of our missions was to resurrect some of our favorite old products with a new twist.” Notably, the ThinkGeek Messenger Bag of Holding. “We’ve learned a lot since that original Bag of Holding and we’ve put some solid time into research, development and magic…”

And in an interview with GamingTrend’s Mike Dunn at Gen Con 2023, Rollacrit CEO Erin Zipperle talked about how the company “redesigned, reimagined, and strengthened” the original ThinkGeek Messenger Bag of Holding. “We focused on durability and strength…[and] anything that we would want ourselves, and…what we saw as comments, and posts, and experience working with previous versions… we put  a year and two months into this bag.”

Some of the ways the new bag’s design and materials aim for higher durability, along with protecting contents, according to Zipperle in the GamingTrend interview, include:

  • Everything is triple cross-stitched, all parts are metal rather than plastic
  • Reinforced the bottom, so it’s water-resistant (although not water proof)
  • Self-lubricating zippers, sewn with triple seams
  • On the laptop pocket, padding not just on the front, but also on the compartment bottom and corners
  • Reinforcement on the outside  corners, to prevent damaging the edges of any RPG books or other items that have pointy areas that are in the bag.

Testing, according to Zipperle (in the GamingTrend interview), “included pulling on the bags until they ripped, and then going back to the factory and showed all the places where we ripped it so they could replace them. So we’re confidant there’s no way you can put enough in the bag or carry anything heavy enough that it will ever tear.”

BIO: Daniel P. Dern is a freelance technology/business/science-fiction writer, who, often carrying Too Much Stuff, wouldn’t mind finding a real bigger-inside-than-out bag of holding.

SIDEBAR: Reviews, Interviews, And Related Links:

Here’s some Bag (prototype) reviews, interviews and other links:

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8 thoughts on “Rollacrit Revives, Updates ThinkGeek Messenger Bag of Holding”

  1. Pingback: AMAZING NEWS FROM FANDOM: November 17, 2024 - Amazing Stories

  2. I use my tote bag from the Saratoga World Fantasy Convention. Also have other tote bags from various American Booksellers Assn conventions, and a zippered/fold over shoulder strapped bag I bought at the most recent Worldcon in Kansas City, from a dealer.

    Then there was the over-the-shoulder Penguin Books bag that had a flap over it, which I found several other people using at the 2001 or so Boston Worldcon.

    Eventually, they inevitably wear out.

  3. Great to see that so much thought and care and destructive testing went into the design. Interesting that it has backpack straps. I used to carry a messenger bag all the time, but the uneven weight on one shoulder was hurting my back. Switched to backpacks. Another plus for the BoH is it doesn’t shout “laptop inside”.

  4. It occurred to me to think about the syllables in the company name, and ask whether “roll a crit” had any meaning. It does.

    Here’s the explanation for one game in particular: “How do critical hits work in DND 5e?”

    …In essence, a critical hit represents a stroke of luck, extraordinary skill,
    or a well-placed strike that bypasses a foe’s defences, resulting in a more
    significant and often devastating blow. When a critical hit is confirmed,
    the attack boasts increased damage, potentially leading to epic moments in
    your DND adventures.

    WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF ROLLING A CRITICAL HIT?

    The odds of rolling a critical hit in DND 5e are 5%. This is because to
    achieve a critical hit, you need to roll a natural 20 on a 20-sided die
    (d20), and there are 20 possible outcomes when rolling a d20. So, 1 out of
    those 20 possible outcomes (1/20) is a critical hit….

    This seems like more than a coincidence.

  5. I assumed that was the origin of the name.

    “I Scrolled a Natural 20 for a Pixular Hit”

  6. Over the decades I have searched for a messenger bag that most closely resembles Indiana Jones’ carry all, which I learned was actually a WWI gas mask carrier.

    The closest I come to finding a contemporary counterpart is the 2016 MidAmericon Worldcon souvenir bag, which has served me well. There are other, more expensive bags available right now but I’m happy with mine, until it eventually wears out…

    Chris B.

  7. What a fantastic deep dive into the evolution of the Messenger Bag of Holding! It’s impressive to see how Rollacrit is not just reviving a beloved product but also enhancing it with thoughtful features like backpack straps. As someone who often carries a mix of gaming gear and everyday essentials, I can appreciate the importance of a well-designed bag. It sounds like this new iteration could be a game-changer for both gamers and those of us who simply have a lot to tote around. Excited to see how it performs in real-world use!

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