Why I Hate Tokens

[KarinsDad]

I've come to the conclusion that I really hate tokens.

It's not that they are difficult to use. They are in fact extremely easy to use. In our game, it takes slightly less time to flip a token over as bloodied or to put on or take off our different colored soda bottle rings for conditions on/off a token than on/off a miniature.

The problem is in identification.

Most same sized tokens look pretty much the same to me. Yes, the colors are somewhat a bit different and the faces painted on them are different if looked at closely, but when I am playing the game, they all mostly just blur together as a bunch of homogeneous foes.

Because of this, I find myself making tactical mistakes during combats because my mind doesn't process token #1 as the foe that we've discovered that has threatening reach or token #4 as the foe that has an aura.

Token numbers or picture colors just don't equate to NPC characteristics in my mind.

Granted, the DM can interrupt the encounter to remind the players of certain features of certain NPCs, but that's less desirable than the player having a good grasp of which monsters are which. The DM interrupting the player to remind him of certain monster features can mean that the game slows down because instead of being prepared for the actions of his turn, the player might have to shift gears on which movement and actions that he was planning to do.


When we use representative miniatures such as skeletal undead being skeletal miniatures, wraith-like undead using ghostly type miniatures, humanoid monsters with weapons using monster miniatures with weapons, humanoid non-monsters with weapons using human-like miniatures with weapons and armor, a foe with a reach weapon attack using a spear or polearm miniature, dragon-like foes using reptillian miniatures with wings, etc., then I have a much stronger mental connection to what my PC is fighting.

Miniatures are not perfect in this regard, but for me, they work a whole lot better than tokens.


And miniatures are much cooler looking which makes the entire experience much cooler.

 

[delericho]

I agree, except that for me the use of miniatures breaks down the moment you have to use the 'wrong' mini. I'm not talking about things like using hobgoblins instead of orcs, or minor differences like that, but if the encounter calls for iron cobras, and you only have wolves...

With tokens, that's a non-issue - with a colour printer and some card I can create my own reasonably quickly. (I did for my Shackled City campaign.)

But, yeah, minis are just cooler. Especially if you also have some nice terrain to go with them.

 

[Mengu]

I've played in games where candy was used for monsters, and a white blank grid for battlefield. I've also played in games where beautiful 3-d terrain was used with miniatures. The former works in a pinch to get your gaming fix, as well as your sugar rush, and I wouldn't even say it annoys me, but the latter is a far superior experience.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I kind of like tokens. Tokens are better than some of the alternatives, some of the time.

I have zero (0) miniatures, no desire to spend a small fortune acquiring some, nor the time/patience to paint them up nice-nice. I wish I did on all counts.

That said, tokens can be a lot more flavourful than dice or coins. Tokens have colourful pictures on them which make them easier to discern from one another than a wad of d6es or pile of pennies. You can flip them over to display their bloodied status clearly.

Coins and dice, however, are rarely sized for creatures larger than Medium or Small. Even the whacky 1$ and 2$ Canuck coins are scarcely larger than one square or hex.

Dice are better when there are more of a given creature in the encounter than you have tokens, and have the advantage of helping keep things straight by being able to display a number. Coins make great minions; especially pennies, as like minions, they are numerous and expendable.

Tokens suck when you don't have the "right" ones almost as much as it does for minis. We recently had a scrape with 6 Stone Golems, but there was only a single Stone Golem token, so we subbed in various giants instead. There weren't enough of a single type of anything to have all 6 numbered properly, so the tokens had dice sitting on top of them anyway.

They're good in a pinch, when you're just starting out, on a budget, or any other time when minis are unavailable. I think hate is extreme. Disdain? I can understand that, but hate? They have their uses.

This thread makes me wish I knew someone about to divest themselves of the hobby and all its trappings.

 

[nnms]

I could totally see this being an issue. When the red box came out, we gave tokens a try. We put out a poster map for a fight and found that the fold lines of the map stuck up enough that a token could hide behind it and go unseen by people on the other side of the fold line. Since then, he have grabbed a couple 1/8th inch 18x24 plexiglass sheets and we pop them down to flatten the map.

One player has complained he finds the tokens hard to distinguish from where he sits so I've encouraged people to feel free to stand up when they can't see. Any glare issue tends to vanish as soon as you change your viewing angle. And standing up while you play D&D is awesome.

But as far as target recognition issues go, I don't think there's much in the way of mitigating that. I guess it just means more work in terms of taking the time to identify the monsters in question. I often run with 7 PCs and have a lot of monsters on the table. Combat speed is very important to me and I tell everyone in advance to make sure to pay as much attention as they need to because a tactical mistake won't be retconned as we have too many players to be redoing turns in the initiative order. So far we've only had one such instance.

 

[Ryujin]

KarinsDad, I agree whole heartedly. Dice, pogs, coins, tokens, or even cardboard stand-ups, which I tried with little success, just don't help as much as even generic stand-in figures do. For some reason it's just easier, when there's a three dinensional figure that you can tie to the creature's features.

Then again it's also a better visceral experience, when you see something like this....

 

[Matt James]

There's still several big miniatures companies out there, if you prefer minis. Reaper does some great work.

 

[Klaus]

When making Fiery Dragon counters, I try my best to make each counter easily identifiable, since each separate stat block in the MMs has its own counter. And I also try to add hints to a creature's ability into the image (so a creature with lightning powers has a lightning crackle somewhere, etc).

My preference is to use counters for monsters and minis for PCs. I also like minis for the larger monsters (namely, dragons).

 

[interwyrm]

I prefer minis for heroes, tokens for monsters. It just makes it easier to distinguish what's what.

For multiples of the same monster, I usually change the hue on the image.

 

[Vael]

Main problem is showing which tokens are prone.

I tend to mix it up. The PCs invariably use minis, so I'll use tokens or minis depending on the situation. Tokens make it easy to identify monsters vs PCs ... which in the drop in style of Encounters or Game days makes it much easier on everyone.