Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 6008560" data-attributes="member: 29398">Back in the day we used metal minis for the PCs and whatever we could find for the monsters (usually little cut-up bits of wood); we had a very few metal monsters but they were costly.The map has always been laid out on a gridded chalkboard with the grid being about 2" for 10'.Later, we had the bright idea to put the chalkboard on blocks to raise it off the table thus leaving room for character sheets, drinks, etc. underneath.A long time ago I bought a bunch of cheap/incomplete chess sets - the pieces, particularly the pawns, were great for representing opponents.The WotC plastic minis gave us much more variety in monster figures but I never got enough of any one piece to make a decent horde, so for masses of foes I still use beads or pawns.  For small groups or singles I'll pull out the plastic minis.But the rule remains even today: PCs use metal minis.I've slowly built up a collection of other props: - the little plastic stands in the middle of a pizza box are great for showing a character that is flying - small mesh bags (cheap Easter eggs come in these) for "web" areas - various interesting bits that can serve as dungeon dressing - some round paper cut-outs that are the right size to represent various radii of area-effects (these don't get used often of late, we just eyeball it) - some things that were originally balloon holders, they work great as trees or other obstacles - about the only "marker" we ever use is a penny under the character piece of someone who is invisibleLanefan</blockquote>

Verification