Your Most Useful and Most Used RPG Products

[MNblockhead]

I should consider using poker chips perhaps in the future.

A lot of just great suggestions below, thank you for taking the time to compose all that!

Yeah, poker chips are great, but I just like the extra convenience of my status marker sticking to and moving with the mini.

That said, use some blue tac and you can save a lot more money and time by just using poker chips.

Could also replace minis and pogs with poker chips, but I enjoy less abstract representations of the actors.

 

[aco175]

For status markers, I just use the plastic rings that come on soda bottles after you twist the cap off. I have mostly red for bloodied, but a few other colors can pull double duty. I mean, how many effects are going on at one time. Put the ring on the mini and on the player's turn he see it and is- oh, right, I'm still blind or whatever.

 

[Zaukrie]

dndbeyond. We use it in both the in person and virtual games. It's not perfect, but for managing characters it has uncountable value to us. IMO, if you play DnD with casual players, its almost irreplaceable.

In person:

The old DND minis maps. The combat tracker. I don't know if I could run games that I like w/o these, and they are in constant use. I could be happy using just these things and not minis if I was worried about gifts. We do have minis and tiles and tokens and 3d terrain, all of which really enhances the game for us, but I could do w/o.

Virtually:
Foundry, though I've considered going back to Roll20 because they have better sales and free stuff. I used to recommend dungeondraft or Dungeon Alchemist, but there are so many free maps on the internet, I don't think I NEED these anymore.

 

[billd91]

Things I use (or have used) a lot:

Dice (well, duh)
Vinyl megamat with vis a vis wet-erase markers (I've tried tac tiles and they're nice but they got very dinged up corners over the course of a couple of years so I went back to the megamat)
Fiery Dragon Counter Collection Digital (I make and print my own counters all the time)
iPad
Tablet-sized white board and dry erase markers (for initiatives and statuses)
Poker chips (for hero points and bruises in M&M)
Rulebooks
Roll20 + Discord for game sessions that are online

 

[Distracted DM]

Magical Medieval Society Western Europe - this is the book I thumb through all the time for ideas. The power structures and kingdom builder helps me think big picture, city builder is medium scale and the manor level is small scale. And the layers of manoral officials remind me that every official domain in an organization is an opportunity for a story.

the 3e DMG is probably one of my other favorites, just for the demographic system if nothing else. I find the act of defining how common various races & classes are and the levels of magic available in the setting drive a lot of second and third order aspects. Is this Eberron with a caster in every village or Lord of the Rings where many people don't even know how far away the closest wizard is?

You have the physical version? Which one? I'm looking at DTRPG but also used ones of older printings. I'd prefer something nice to a POD.

Edit: looks like they're all softcover POD
Oh well, ordered the newest version

 

[kigmatzomat]

You have the physical version? Which one? I'm looking at DTRPG but also used ones of older printings. I'd prefer something nice to a POD.

Edit: looks like they're all softcover POD
Oh well, ordered the newest version

Mine is a softcover and pretty old. I think I got it as a kickstarter but thats because I buy a lot of 3rd party stuff on kickstarter.

I also have MMS Silk Road. It is well done but less transformative for me, probably because I had my own simplified merchant system prior to SR being published.

 

[Hand of Evil]

AEG's Toolbox, still find it useful and pull it out when needing a kick in the juicer.
A few "maps" picked up somewhere, on card stock and can quickly used in a game.

 

[Voadam]

I have easily hundreds if not thousands of paper minis from collections in PDF form.

I don't print them out and store them physically, I mostly have my core monster vault ones for the staples, I printed out whatever custom monster I expected to potentially need for the next session.

I would also do image searches for oddball specific things, paste them onto a word document at the 1" scale, and make a sheet of say 10 small heat miser themed summer fey and 1 medium heat miser to print and then cut out for an encounter. Which was much better than finding the closest stock fey for the fight from my collection, which was also an option. One or two print out sheet per game was not a big deal, although I normally did black and white (players used minis, monsters were counters). Having the different perspectives of 3d players minis versus 2d black and white counters worked for instantly showing where the PCs were among the monsters.

 

[adrianthebard]

Skyrim Official Game Guide by Prima Games, and of course, donjon.bin.sh

oh! donjon my beloved!

 

[adrianthebard]

I have easily hundreds if not thousands of paper minis from collections in PDF form.

I don't print them out and store them physically, I mostly have my core monster vault ones for the staples, I printed out whatever custom monster I expected to potentially need for the next session.

I would also do image searches for oddball specific things, paste them onto a word document at the 1" scale, and make a sheet of say 10 small heat miser themed summer fey and 1 medium heat miser to print and then cut out for an encounter. Which was much better than finding the closest stock fey for the fight from my collection, which was also an option. One or two print out sheet per game was not a big deal, although I normally did black and white (players used minis, monsters were counters). Having the different perspectives of 3d players minis versus 2d black and white counters worked for instantly showing where the PCs were among the monsters.

i do that too, then encase the prints in see through tape to limit wear and tear