Ultra PRO’s Dekan Wheeler on bringing the history, artwork and lore of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS into game accessories

Dekan, it’s great to catch up. Before we dive into your DUNGEONS & DRAGONS collection, for anyone new to Ultra PRO, how would you pitch what you guys do?
Ultra PRO is a California-based manufacturer known for producing high-quality gaming and sports card accessories. Our product line includes tabletop game and role-playing game accessories, as well as photo and scrapbooking albums and pages. We’ve been designing and manufacturing products since 1952 and our brands are recognised for their high-quality standards and design innovations.

Our Entertainment division publishes and distributes a variety of family-friendly board games and electronic toys, while our TableTopics division offers a broad line of TableTopics Conversation Starter sets to spark great conversations at social gatherings.

“We selected a leatherette exterior material for these products due to the wonderful, organic texture that resembles dragon skin.”

This year sees DUNGEONS & DRAGONS celebrate its 50th anniversary and you guys have new launches tied to the occasion! Can you talk us through these?
This year is an exciting one for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and Ultra PRO collectively. We’ve been teaming with D&D for nearly two decades and have been honoured to produce some really outstanding accessories to go along with the deep-rooted game. To celebrate D&D’s 50th anniversary, we specifically designed several storage and gaming products that commemorate their 50th year.

We selected a leatherette exterior material for these products due to the wonderful, organic texture that resembles dragon skin. The base red material aligns with D&D’s iconic Evil Red Dragon and has a raised gold patina that you just have to see and feel in person!

The interior gold material across all products reflects D&D’s golden anniversary. One final design element I’d like to highlight is how we included illustrations of Dragons and Dice from David A. Trampier that were found in the original books.

Some fantastic details there – and you’re clearly passionate about the brand. On that, what makes D&D an exciting IP to build products around?
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS has been a great fit for what Ultra PRO brings to the table for so many years. D&D’s fan base is so strong and focused on the particulars of the game that it’s easy for us to home in on what accessories we need to produce to complement the game.

With 50 years of people, places and stories in this alternate world, everyone is invited to collaborate by adding to the story of D&D when they create their own games. I personally do that on my own time – D&D is very much a ‘jobby’ for me! Honestly, I just think about what my players or I could use and I pitch it. Recently we’ve been discussing more and more “in world” items that can be both used when playing or storing the game as well as props for decoration.

You mentioned David A. Trampier’s artwork earlier. How do you assess D&D artwork when deciding what to bring into the product range?
This is one of the most exciting parts about working with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS! With so much history, artwork and lore to draw from, we are always able to find the right piece to represent an iconic or favourite experience for many players.

A great example of this would be our Class Folios; these were a ton of fun to create. When I joined the team in 2020, we had a Wizard Folio in the line, and I pushed to make variants of it for the other 12 classes in the game. I poured over 1,000 pages of artwork for days to find the right pieces, to not only show the classes, but also to represent as many real world and imagined ancestries as I could.

Great example. And your Mimic Book Bag and Mimic Gamer Pouch also caught the eye! What are some of the benefits to taking a playful, character-led approach to things like gamer pouches and book bags?
I’m so glad, these are among some of my favourite products too! The Mimic is such a useful tool when designing products. Not only are they popular monsters, but also a Mimic could literally be hiding as anything. So why not use that story to make a useful product that a Mimic is pretending to be. Once we have that foundation, building other products in the same footprint is incredibly easy and fun.

I want to talk about dice for a moment! It’s a category that I imagine doesn’t get the credit it deserves when it comes to the quality and design-thinking behind it. Can you tell us a little bit about how you authentically translate the brand into dice?
Part of our mission is to connect the dots, if you will, so that what we produce to complement the game is as functional as it is aesthetically pleasing. The dice have always been an essential, necessary part of the game – so to design these weighted gold-painted dice just came naturally to us to celebrate a 50th anniversary. They’re made of zinc alloy metal, but they present beautifully as gold dice. Players are going to love playing with them.

Last question: Why do you feel D&D has continued to grow and thrive across the past 50 years?
Without a doubt, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS has established an incredible following of gaming enthusiasts since its inception in 1974. The game’s ability to connect and bring people together is second to none. When players immerse themselves into the fantasy worlds of D&D, it becomes a very real experience, and many gain a true sense of ownership over their own stories. That creates passionate fans!

Dekan, this has been fun. Congrats again on Ultra PRO’s D&D 50th anniversary collection.