thullgrim
Hero
Sometimes. Also used for meta-currency, tracking rounds, makeshift clocks and any other ad-doc thing I need them for. Also gives me something tactile to fidget with.
Your Most Useful and Most Used RPG Products
- Thread starter SlyFlourish
- Start date
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
They are also good to put under minis to indicate status effect. I had moved to using Alea Tools Magnetic Status markers. You have to stick small metal stickers on the bottom your mini's bases to get the most of them. However, to save money and time I bought a Silhouette paper cutter to cut out two sided paper mini standees that I would put into slotted bases (pro tip, get the curved slots, like those from Litko, they hold the paper minis much better than straight slots). So I just got a bunch of magnetic stickers from Alea in various sized and affixted them to the bottom of a large number of slotted based.
Near the end of the period when I was still running in-person games, I could grab a box of thousands of paper minis, categorized and filed alphabetically in a box, bags of slotted bases organized by size, my Alea tools case with all the magnetic status markers, a chessex battlemap, and wet erase markers, and my DM notbook or laptop. Everything could fit on one bookbag (well...okay...the Chessex battlemap would be carried on the other hand).
So to revise my earlier post, my absolutely most useful and useful kit for in-person gaming (for D&D, WFRP, PF, and other games that you want to include tactical mini play):
- Color printer with a stock of card-stock paper
- Paper Cutter Machine (I bought a Silouhette Portait on sale and its been a work horse, they have many more expensive models, but the cheap Portrait worked just fine for my needs, Cricket is another popular brand of paper cutters, but I have no experience with them). I looked into 3D printers, but I didn't want to deal with the expense and how slow they are. I can create an undead armies the night before a game with a printer and paper cutter.
- A whole lot of #10 envelopes. Drop you horde of Kobolds in an envelope and write "Kobolds" on the front of the envelope. Do the same with other categories of minis, whatever organization makes sense to you. Get a box that it a little wider than envelopes so they don't move around but are easy to pull out and put in. When you don't have enough printed paper minis to take up the space in the box, fill it with blank envelopes behind the ones once containing minis. This keeps them from being shuffled around when moving them and you will have blank envelopes ready to add more minis to or to organize them by encounter for a session.
- A bunch of Litko round slotted bases in various sizes. I generally bought either the clear ones or black ones, whatever was cheaper. Since I stick metal stickers on the bottem of them, even the clear ones become black. Only have to buy them once and can reuse them over and over again with you paper standee minis.
- A bunch of metal stickers in various sizes to stick on the bottom of your bases. I just bought those sold by Alea Tools. But I'm sure you could fine cheaper options like sheets you can punch/cut out your self or just buy metal blanks and glue them to the bottom of your bases.
- Alea Tools 1" Ultimate Game Masters Kit. For status markers. I just bought all 1". I don't mind if the mini bases is a bit smaller or larger than the status marker. For gargantuan creatures, I just use a clear litko base with is large enough to mark status effect on the base with a wet erase marker.
- Chessex Battlemap (no need to link this, right?). I bought the largest one in my FLGS that has square grid on one side and hex grid on the other. I took pretty good care of it, and while there is some discoloration due to not cleaning off certain colors in a timely manner, it remains servicable after years of heavy use.
- Wet erase markers. Non-alcoholic wet wipes.
- Large book bag.
For the cheap and lazy, instead of a paper cutting machine, get a cheap paper punch and a bunch of metal blanks. For paper punches, I find Fiskers to be reliable. You can find cheaper, but even the Fiskers are generally only $13-$17. You can get 300 1" metal blanks for around $25. It is also pretty easy to find larger and smaller metal blanks.
Just print token art (you can find art collections that have tokens for the entire monster manual and there are vast amounts of round token art sold by artists primarily for VTT use, but which you can use for print) on to card stock, punch it out, and glue onto a metal blank. Makes them much heavier to carry your entire collection around. And takes more time than using a paper-cutting machine, but they are cheap and the metal blanks allow the use of magnetic status markers.
A middle ground is to use the print and punch method for tokens. Ignore paper-cutting machines and ignore status markers. Get a cheap lamination machine instead (the Amazon Basics one is under $25 and a 100 pack of Amazon Basics laminating sheets is like $13). Print the tokens on card stock, laminate the card stock, then punch it out with a paper puncher. Just note status effects on the token with a wet erase marker. If I were to go this route, I would probably get a 1.25 inch punch for 1" tokens to have some white space around the token to more clearly make status marks (which for me are generally just color coded dots and sometimes numbers). This method has the advantage of being cheap and easy and still very compact storage.
Though...I have to say, after running games in a VTT for the past few years, this ALL seems like a lot of work.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Yeah, poker chips have a lot of uses. Status effects, tokens / metacurrency, fidget toys, and just in case...poker chips. If a few people can't make it and there's nothing quick and easy to play, turn RPG night into poker night. Or have the PCs of the players who did show up enter a poker tournament and play a few hands in character before doing some other side RP or downtime stuff.
Ringtail
World Traveller (She/Her)
I've bought many accessories and game books over the years, and continue to do so, but there are a handful of staples:
- I've been using the same Chessex Wet-Erase battle map for 12 years. It was one of the first things I bought as a baby GM (from my FLGS) in high school, its been with me for my entire gaming lifespan, as well as the entirety of my longest running (8 years) group.
- Scythe Metal Coin set. D&D inspiration, Pathfinder Hero Points, any game that has a token system I bust out these big fat gold coins that go with the board game Scythe. Runner up I also have some crappy metal pirate coins, the kind you find at gift shops at the beach (or on amazon now). I swap between them based on vibes.
- My mini collection. I've been building onto it over the years certainly, but I've been using the same core collection of miniatures since about 2019, and the oldest ones go back to when I bought the battle map. It all fits in one skinny tackle box style container that I can slide into my bag and has all the basics (Orcs, Goblins, Skeletons, Guards, Bandits, etc.) Plus a few large minis like a pair of trolls and an owlbear. Once I got all of these "core" minis, I found I stopped buying new ones. I had pretty much everything covered and super specific minis would rarely make it into the box. Prioritizing space.
and @darjr:
- They're free online so you can send them to your players.
- They have full character building options to 3rd level.
- They're lightweight and easy to throw into your RPG go bag.
- They're easy to teach to new players – no complicated skills, feats, subclasses, or proficiency bonuses.
- They can teach people how 5e works if you want to graduate to it.
- If they're already familiar with 5e, it's even easier to pick up.
adrianthebard
Villager
it might be a naughty word response, but my chessex battlemat and my gm screen are the absolute staples. point is, the essentials are essentials for a reason, and if they are good quality everything else flows easier.
the chessex smh retains colors once they dry and it's hard to erase (but not impossible) so i had to case it in a transparent sheet of plastic, but it has been a great companion otherwise
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!
A lot of just great suggestions below, thank you for taking the time to compose all that!
They are also good to put under minis to indicate status effect. I had moved to using Alea Tools Magnetic Status markers. You have to stick small metal stickers on the bottom your mini's bases to get the most of them. However, to save money and time I bought a Silhouette paper cutter to cut out two sided paper mini standees that I would put into slotted bases (pro tip, get the curved slots, like those from Litko, they hold the paper minis much better than straight slots). So I just got a bunch of magnetic stickers from Alea in various sized and affixted them to the bottom of a large number of slotted based.
Near the end of the period when I was still running in-person games, I could grab a box of thousands of paper minis, categorized and filed alphabetically in a box, bags of slotted bases organized by size, my Alea tools case with all the magnetic status markers, a chessex battlemap, and wet erase markers, and my DM notbook or laptop. Everything could fit on one bookbag (well...okay...the Chessex battlemap would be carried on the other hand).
So to revise my earlier post, my absolutely most useful and useful kit for in-person gaming (for D&D, WFRP, PF, and other games that you want to include tactical mini play):
You can now have hundreds, even thousands of minis, with status effect markers ready to go and fit in one easy to carry bag. If you use a fold up cardboard battlemap like those sold by WotC and Paizo, everything can fit in the bag, but I love my huge Chessex one, carried lovingly in a poster tube.
- Color printer with a stock of card-stock paper
- Paper Cutter Machine (I bought a Silouhette Portait on sale and its been a work horse, they have many more expensive models, but the cheap Portrait worked just fine for my needs, Cricket is another popular brand of paper cutters, but I have no experience with them). I looked into 3D printers, but I didn't want to deal with the expense and how slow they are. I can create an undead armies the night before a game with a printer and paper cutter.
- A whole lot of #10 envelopes. Drop you horde of Kobolds in an envelope and write "Kobolds" on the front of the envelope. Do the same with other categories of minis, whatever organization makes sense to you. Get a box that it a little wider than envelopes so they don't move around but are easy to pull out and put in. When you don't have enough printed paper minis to take up the space in the box, fill it with blank envelopes behind the ones once containing minis. This keeps them from being shuffled around when moving them and you will have blank envelopes ready to add more minis to or to organize them by encounter for a session.
- A bunch of Litko round slotted bases in various sizes. I generally bought either the clear ones or black ones, whatever was cheaper. Since I stick metal stickers on the bottem of them, even the clear ones become black. Only have to buy them once and can reuse them over and over again with you paper standee minis.
- A bunch of metal stickers in various sizes to stick on the bottom of your bases. I just bought those sold by Alea Tools. But I'm sure you could fine cheaper options like sheets you can punch/cut out your self or just buy metal blanks and glue them to the bottom of your bases.
- Alea Tools 1" Ultimate Game Masters Kit. For status markers. I just bought all 1". I don't mind if the mini bases is a bit smaller or larger than the status marker. For gargantuan creatures, I just use a clear litko base with is large enough to mark status effect on the base with a wet erase marker.
- Chessex Battlemap (no need to link this, right?). I bought the largest one in my FLGS that has square grid on one side and hex grid on the other. I took pretty good care of it, and while there is some discoloration due to not cleaning off certain colors in a timely manner, it remains servicable after years of heavy use.
- Wet erase markers. Non-alcoholic wet wipes.
- Large book bag.
For the cheap and lazy, instead of a paper cutting machine, get a cheap paper punch and a bunch of metal blanks. For paper punches, I find Fiskers to be reliable. You can find cheaper, but even the Fiskers are generally only $13-$17. You can get 300 1" metal blanks for around $25. It is also pretty easy to find larger and smaller metal blanks.
Just print token art (you can find art collections that have tokens for the entire monster manual and there are vast amounts of round token art sold by artists primarily for VTT use, but which you can use for print) on to card stock, punch it out, and glue onto a metal blank. Makes them much heavier to carry your entire collection around. And takes more time than using a paper-cutting machine, but they are cheap and the metal blanks allow the use of magnetic status markers.
A middle ground is to use the print and punch method for tokens. Ignore paper-cutting machines and ignore status markers. Get a cheap lamination machine instead (the Amazon Basics one is under $25 and a 100 pack of Amazon Basics laminating sheets is like $13). Print the tokens on card stock, laminate the card stock, then punch it out with a paper puncher. Just note status effects on the token with a wet erase marker. If I were to go this route, I would probably get a 1.25 inch punch for 1" tokens to have some white space around the token to more clearly make status marks (which for me are generally just color coded dots and sometimes numbers). This method has the advantage of being cheap and easy and still very compact storage.
Though...I have to say, after running games in a VTT for the past few years, this ALL seems like a lot of work.
John Lloyd1
Rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty
Tiddly winks are great for medium/small creatures. Also, you can write the damage on them.
kigmatzomat
Legend
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?
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?
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