Cheap DM/Player tips

[Tsyr]

Craft styrofoam is your friend. It makes houses, trees, mountains, hills, walls, deformed blobs, etc... all with just a hunk of foam and a parring knife.

 

[WanderingMonster]

At Gen Con (and presumably your FLGS), I got these little 1/2" glass gemstones (flat bottoms, round tops). They come in a wide variety of colors and are pretty cheap. Plus, they're a little classier than carboard counters and such.

Index cards are also very cool (and I got some ideas from bardolph...thanks!). I try and make rumors for each session and pass them out. Sometimes I write info that a given character is likely to know, but the player isn't. When the info becomes important, the player has it at hand, and I don't have to remind him.

Certain kid's toys make good monsters of huge size and larger. It get's silly if you have a big stuffed Blue's Clues doll representing the Great Wyrm they're currently fighting, but it's CHEAP!

 

[Tsyr]

Those little glass gemstones are _EVERYWHERE_, and very cheep.

I get 'em at Wal-Mart in plastic bags back in the crafts section, like 2 dollars for a bag of 50-ish, I think.

Other places I have seen sell them -

Craft stores, Pet Stores (Often sold as aquarium decoration), Mom&Pop toy stores, and drug stores (though don't ask me what the latter was doing with them... probably a fluke, don't bet on that one)

I've got a gallon ice cream pail full of the suckers in all different colours.

 

[The Kender]

Counters:
Poker Chips. You can either A) trace the poker chip and draw the character on it or B) Print a picture off the computer, cut it out, and glue it. This also works well for a character riding a mount or something.

Maps:
I got my mom to make this 3.5 x 3.5 foot piece of cardboard covered with some kind of strange paper. Anyway, you can draw with crayons on it. It rubs right off with a towel and not on your hand or minis. I keep track of Initiative right on the board.

 

[Asmo]

Not so Cheap trix..

Somebody remembers Talisman, the boadgame?
We are a couple of guys that still gets together two times a year to play this game. During a trip to London -92 I managed to get hold of most of the miniatures from the original game + all the expansions. A good friend of mine painted most of them, and we use them in our D&D games. We have good looking Druids, Rouges, Trolls..heck we even have a Hobgoblin
Great stuff to play with.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Re: Bardolph's handy-dandy DM tricks

If I'm feeling particularly creative, I will bundle a group of "loot" index cards, and stick them in an envelope, then label the envelope "OAKEN TREASURE CHEST," or "ORC's BACKPACK," or some such. The player can then have that warm, fuzzy feeling of opening up the envelope and finding a stack of treasure inside!!

Another boon with the 3x5 index card: if the player loses the card, then the character lost the item. If the players are arguing over which character actually picked up the item first, I simply ask them who has the card. Ownership is nine-tenths of the law. If the player sells an item, I require the player to give me the card back, at which time I rip it up and throw it away, and give them a card with "250 gp" written on it, or some such.

!

I love this idea! Yet another use for my growing collection of index cards! Thanks bardolph - I'm offically 'yoinking' this idea.

**YOINK**

 

[omedon]

I am of the same mind as Holy Bovine. Thank you for the great idea bardolph!

I can't wait to use this one

 

[Drayan]

We've resorted to using Mageknight minis. Only one of use has the patience to sit and paint, so it's a big plus that Mageknight figures come pre-painted. However, their bases are a little bigger than 1 inch wide, but most of the figures will fit on a 1 inch base if you hack 'em off their base, which is no prob for us, we got out about 3 weeks after we got in.

 

[android]

Re: Not so Cheap trix..

Somebody remembers Talisman, the boadgame?
We are a couple of guys that still gets together two times a year to play this game. During a trip to London -92 I managed to get hold of most of the miniatures from the original game + all the expansions. A good friend of mine painted most of them, and we use them in our D&D games. We have good looking Druids, Rouges, Trolls..heck we even have a Hobgoblin
Great stuff to play with.

Let me start by saying that I love Talisman. It is an awesome game that I got to play thanks to the game checkout booth at Origins last year. So awesome in fact that I came home and tried to find a copy of it on ebay so i could play it at home... well.. seeing your comment prompted me to find a link for you to look at.

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1701989072

I have seen dozens of auctions at this value for Talisman. Maybe this will change your mind about using those pieces for D&D?

 

[Voneth]

I'll second the vote on Mage Knight figs, one can get the "weak" versions for $1 each or less. If your lucky, you may already have a player who has a MK collection, just have him bring it over. Recenlty the game just had dungeon crawl expansion with plastic versions of Ral Partha figs. This expansion also offers some personality figs that would work for some player minis.

While the bases are big, there are several fixes, the cheapest being to use a tape measure and common sense (for AoO) instead of a battlemat.

If one has a battle mat, then one can denote that the front of the fig repesents which square the fig is in (for small fights). Or one can mark up the board to make 2 in X 2 in squares. And then there is the "hack the fig off and put it on a real base" answer too.