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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 7114488" data-attributes="member: 6796661">I do both theater of the mind as well as elaborate set ups. I second the recommendation for DM Scotty, but I find I just don't have much time to craft. I made some cavern pieces using is 2.5 D system so I can throw together a cavern craw on the fly. I also made a bunch of his measuring sticks for gridless play. They are helpful even when playing with grids. Dwarven forge is too much of an investment for me. For minis, I'll buy prepainted from sellers on e-bay so that I get what I want. I hate the buying blind approach. It may keep the cost down for mini, but a cheap unwanted mini is not a value to me. My issue is when I want to have a horde of monsters. I looked into 3D printers, but the time they take to make pieces that I still have to paint turned me off. They were not THAT cheap, you still have to paint them, you have to wait a long time to have a lot of pieces, and you need space with sufficient ventilation to avoid making you sick with the fumes of running a 3D printer for days at a time. My solution was to buy a Silhouette paper butter (Cricket is another popular brand).  Then I bought a bung of One Monk paper miniature templates (in DriveThruRPG) that come with cut files. I can now make a small army of kobolds, lizard folk, goblins, etc. in a couple hours. For terrain, I like Fat Drag Games's paper terrain. The forums have links to cut files for most of their products. Paper terrain and minis look much better than you might think. Unless you are a talents painter, crafter, or have lots of money, it is hard to get great looking terrain sets in 3D. Also, 3D can be hard to actually play on. Also, because of the cost, you end up using them over and over and over again. For mats, I prefer the felt maps with patterns on them. Tere are a number of companies. I use Ceri Designs, usually from Kickstarter when they offer good deals. But you can buy from their web page. The plain "grass" one is the most used. I also have one for sand, dungeon floor, and village/town streets. I also bought some felt terrain pieces which I use along with some old D&D and pathfinder carboard dungeon tile style terrain pieces for when I don't have time for a more 3-D setup. You can get coupons for various craft stores like Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc. and get lots of stuff that can be re-purposed as terrain (rocks, fake bushes and trees, ...)And, of course, I still have my trusty Chessex Battlemap and dry erase markers.</blockquote>

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