RPG Stat Mugs

The Story Behind the Designs

The first time I heard the term “gamify” was on an app called Habitica. This delightful tool helps you improve your habits by framing them in gaming terms and giving you gold and XP for completing tasks.

I may not have known there was a term for “gamifying your life”, but I definitely pretended my homework was for a magic academy in high school, and I may or may not have recently started telling myself that going to the gym was like being a cleric for a warrior god.

Unsurprisingly, gamifying my ceramics wasn’t too much of a stretch. I’d been wanting to make more original designs in addition to the fanart I’d been bringing to convention tables when the idea of the Stat Mug emerged.

Inspired by D&D and the other RPGs that shaped my life, these mugs gamify drinks that fuel both work and revelry.

They promise a status boost (or penalty) based on the drink involved and our cultural associations with those drinks — coffee gives you endurance like nothing else, while beer helps you make friends (though it may cost you a bit of physical finesse).

Making my first Stat Mug was one of the first times I felt like I got to put my whole being into a mug design. I’d been doing so through my sculptures for years, but I’d somewhat struggled to find my own stylistic voice in functional work. The Stat Mugs mark a pivotal moment that has shaped my work as an artist and the impact I hope to have through it.

We might live in a world governed by death and taxes, but these mugs might make a bit of room for the imaginative play that helps us better enjoy our time here on the material plane.