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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 6008670" data-attributes="member: 150">Very similar stories.... I started playing in around 77, and we played without minis.  When we discovered minis and started buying them, it vastly improved our game experience.  Then, my brother started painting the minis, and that was awesome -- even if the rest of us were not as good as he was at painting them. Didn't game much in college ... started experimenting again in grad school.... once I was out of school, started getting back into gaming....shortly after than 3.0 appeared on the scene. The Innovations that have appeared since have been great -- pre-painted plastic minis probably most of all (still not much for painting minis), then the various mapping options. About 6 years ago our group managed to score a projector and we started using that for maps a lot of the time -- with a smattering of other tools, too. -- including some of the awesome Malfeaux line of 3d terrain stuff. I have a lot of dungeon tiles, flip maps, etc. We use a combination of Alea tools discs and Dark Platypus status flags. I'm like an addict buying new condition marking systems and tools. Recently, we've upgraded from the projector to a 50" LCD TV laid flat on the game table. We don't use metal on it -- plastic only -- but it provides an excellent map and is a lot more quiet, kicks out a lot less heat, etc. One funny side note: Like any other part of the game, I've tried all kinds of solutions for initiative tracking. For years I was a huge proponent of index cards that I flipped through as DM, but I've tried the Gamemastery magnetic initiative board, Turnwatcher software and other software tools, and the best option we've come up with is still a very low-tech solution -- little tents cut from cardstock (about 1"x2" folded in the middle to make a tent) for initiative. Our group does a LOT of initiative manipulation, and we need a system that makes it easy for the players to see the order so they can be strategic about how to manipulate it, and the DM needs to be able to adjust it quickly and easily. And nothing makes both of those easy the way the initiative tents do. I've seen a variation that uses cards folded over a DM screen, but I don't DM with a screen (I'm short and they piss me off). -rg</blockquote>

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