Cheap DM/Player tips

[Kris]

Anyone know where do get those cheap plastic grey orcs and dwarves?

I think those mini's are from EM4 miniatures (check the link below):
http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Copy of Fantasy.html

I have got some of those myself - and admittedly the detail isn't so great - but at £0.20 each, I'm not complaining (I just wish they did more).

Also, I agree that the 'Artefacts of the Arcane' series by V Shane is very cool.

 

[Wycen]

I think the best cheap advice is to have someone who likes buying and painting all the stuff and let's you use it.

One guy in our group, who's usually the DM, uses old envelopes for drawing maps and pics of things, uses dice and anything else for figures. For his Farscape game our scale is usually much more nebulous, so a six sided dice with the 3 facing up means 3 guards are at that location, etc.

For large monsters with weird size dimensions, I have cut out pieces of paper. I'd probably get the Creature Counter stuff, but I'd never know what I might need in a specific session.

And my ultimate cheapo tactic is reusing NPC sheets by changing name, weapon used, and other things easy to change on the fly.

When I played Warhammer 40K and Epic, I had tons of styrofoam terrain, but as the years have passed most of that has been lost or thrown out. Mom might not mind the boxes of old game material in the attic but why keep this old foam with green paint on it. Now I pretty much draw terrain on my mat and wipe it off after.

 

[darklight]

Great suggestions so far...

I have begun to make my own minis, by printing out scanned drawings or illustrations found on the net (although you should be aware of possible copyright issues). I use CorelDraw to resize them, and put as many as possible on one piece of paper, but many other programs will do. I make them double-sided so when I fold them, there is a picture on both sides. To make them durable, I cut a piece of semi-hard transparent plastic (the kind that some toys are wrapped in, which makes it free) fold it like the printout and stick it in a base from an old mini Stratego game. The square bases from other minis can also be used, in fact I have used such bases with the excellent Cardboard Heroes, to make them more stable. One thing to note: not all pictures look good when resized to such a small scale. They should preferrably be crisp, clear and not overly detailed.

For a long time we used to just sketch the area on transparent plastic with a grid underneath, but our group is rather visually oriented, and it just looks bad. Besides it takes time to do the sketch, in which we could have been playing. Instead I will use printout tiles, mainly form Kris' Crooked Staff Productions (thx Kris ) which I have glued onto heavy duty cardboard and wrapped in plastic. Now whenever the pc's enter a new room (or cave etc.) I just pull it out and add it to whats already on the table! It's much quicker and it looks far better and for a visually inclined group like mine, it helps the players focus on what's where.

Obviously all this takes some time, but I enjoy making stuff like this very much. There is also the joy of saving money and the ego boost when the players really appreciate the stuff that I have done

darklight

edit:spelling

 

[Impeesa]

I've tried using little black and white beads in a row to track HP in binary - much more space-efficient, but it tends to piss people off when nobody else knows how to translate it.

When we play Magic, we use peanuts, smarties, or whatever else is handy to represent token creatures. Any that die are declared 'spoils of war' and immediately devoured.

 

[nopantsyet]

I use the Chessex glass gaming stones. I've got them in lots of colors. Not as pretty as counters or as exciting as minis, but they get the job done.