However, the miniatures that Wizards of the Coast sells pose several problems. First, there is a finite amount of them that you can buy; not every DM has the oodles of money around to build a perfect collection of every miniature he or she requires at all times during a campaign. Secondly, even if all of these miniatures were acquired, it would be a hefty amount of them to transport for every session that is not at the DM's place of residence. Third, even if they could be acquired and transported, the DM would still expand his or her collection in parts; without a nearby hobby shop or a desire to pay overnight shipping, it may be difficult to acquire the necessary miniatures in a timely manner for the next session. Last, and certainly not least, the miniatures are limited by the creator's imagination; very often, the DM wishes to do something more eclectic than can be represented by a mass-produced item.
My solution has been an adventure in arts and crafts. Using my printer, some old cardboard, and Elmer's glue, I've been able to produce hundreds of markers for any situation. You start by finding pictures of the monsters and NPCs online; Google's image search is indispensable here. The best pictures are those that are simple, color sketches as opposed to photo-quality images. These images need to look good at sizes around 1"x1", and it might take some searching to find the perfect image that both fits the campaign and scales best to that small size.
When you have found enough images, you open Microsoft Word (or your other favorite word processor) and make a table that consists of 1"x1" cells. With left-right margins of 0.25" and top-bottom margins of 0.5", you can make 80 such miniatures (8x10 cells) with one printout.
After you print out the page, I recommend getting a paper plate and pouring some glue onto it. With a q-tip, spread the glue very lightly over the back of the printout. You don't need a lot of glue; just enough for the paper to stick to the cardboard backing. Then, affix the printout to the cardboard and flatten it gently. Make sure there's no bumps or pockets of air. Let this dry for approximately 15 minutes before cutting them into small squares.
What I usually do next is write little identifying letters in one of the corners; this allows me to identify each of the same race by letter, such as orc-A, orc-B, etc. for as many as are on the printout. Sometimes the lettering scheme lends itself to meta-gaming; if the players first see Vampire-Z, then it might seem as if the vampire has 25 buddies of his that may eventually be thrown into battle one day. To counter this, I usually randomize the letters a bit so that the players cannot ever figure out how many of a particular marker I've made.
The advantage to making markers this way is that you are limited only by your imagination, artistic talent, or Google's image search. I've made hundreds of these, and in many cases, have only used a set of markers for one encounter. They're no replacement for WotC's miniatures where the utmost quality is desired; for most other times where no suitable miniature can be found, these have proven to me to be most useful.
While using counters and proxies for enemies and other parts of an encounter is all well and good (as not every DM or player has 20 goblins or skeletons handy at any given time), I do believe that every player should have a mini that is at least somewhat accurate of the character they are playing.
It has worked wonders, and cheap too. I personally used all my old Magic cards and made about 2000 tokens. The sad thing is though I decided to jump on the DDM bandwagon and bought a crap load of them too, so I use them, not the washers, but at least I know when I need tons of others or when I go to other peoples games (not at my house) I can bring the washers, more easy to transfer and harder to break...
http://www.aleatools.com/HowBasicTopPlate.aspx
I prefer gummi bears, peanut m&m's, and those mini cookie things for really big baddies. Why? Because whoever beats 'em gets to eat 'em. :D
Nice! I want to join your group!
Nice! I want to join your group!
"Okay, the five orcs are the green peanut m&m's, the fireball happy mage is the red gummie bear, and his familiar is this oversized nerd candy. Got it?"
"Man, I prefer fighting kobolds, they taste better!"
:P
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I fit as many of these on a page as I can and then print them out on cardstock paper (which you can buy at places like Staples/Business Depot), fold them over and tape the two halves of the base together underneath to make a T-shaped standup of whatever I need. I usually use a bit of duct tape on the bottom, and cover the whole base, because duct tape is heavy enough (relatively speaking) to add a bit of weight to the mini's base.
My friends have commented that it's a lot of work when I could just use goblin minis as kobolds (for example), but I'm a very visual person. If the party is fighting kobolds, I like to see kobolds on the map.
My players are very satisfied and happy with that solution.
Also, we tend to keep the map and the dice behind the DM screen, to make it easier to track invisibility, darkness, and that sort of thing. Works startlingly well.
I have recently jumped on the DDM bandwagon myself, however, I do use paper standups for anything I need but don't have. I used my basic paint program to draw a "flattened" stand up. When I'm drawing it on my computer, I size the base to fit whatever number of squares the critter ought to occupy and then cut it in half and attach each half to opposite sides of the fold up. On my screen, each fold up looks something like this (with two images of the monster on the long parts, head to head):
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I fit as many of these on a page as I can and then print them out on cardstock paper (which you can buy at places like Staples/Business Depot), fold them over and tape the two halves of the base together underneath to make a T-shaped standup of whatever I need. I usually use a bit of duct tape on the bottom, and cover the whole base, because duct tape is heavy enough (relatively speaking) to add a bit of weight to the mini's base.
My friends have commented that it's a lot of work when I could just use goblin minis as kobolds (for example), but I'm a very visual person. If the party is fighting kobolds, I like to see kobolds on the map.
I do something very similar, except that I form the paper into a stand-up triangle by folding the two non-illustrated tabs inward, overlapping them, and taping them together. I also tape a penny to the bottom to add weight and stability.
I take them into photoshop (or if pressed for time, just reduce the image by photocopying it) to colorize and resize. I'll try the grid and back image ideas. Now to use the cardstock I have laying around...
If only I could find @ symbols for the PCs....
For more basic minis for DM use, I cut out a bunch of 1"X1", 2"X2", etc. pieces of 1/8th inch thick white board, and can just write numbers, letters, description, or what ever on the pieces with a fine tipped dry erase marker. When the encounter is over, I just wipe 'em clean. This also works really well for 3D combats as you can note the actual flying height right on the piece.
Just my two coppers.
--Greven
Also, fun sized Almond Joy bars are almost the perfect size and shape for horses. Use the mound variety for riderless horses, and the almond kind for horses with riders.
No no NO! The almond kind are for CAMELS!
:D
My group pooled together all our Lego men and equipment and then for bases just cut the thin Lego boards into squares that full either the medium or large creature. It works pretty well and is customizable enough where the minis seem realistic to the characters. Minis are just too expensive and random for my liking.
I agree completely! I use Lego men almost exclusively, but I haven't been able to convince my friends of Lego's superiority. We're not hurting for minis though. There's one guy in our group who actually likes to buy minis, and our usual DM has bags full of plastic army men.
Chessex dice containers, and their lids, come in very handy. We usually place a mini on top of a lid to represent temporarily enlarged creatures, and on top of the clear containers to represent flying creatures.
You know, a 1" square is about 3 Lego studs square. I usually use 2x3 pieces, sticking the Lego person's feet in the middle two.
6x6 works well for Large creatures, and 8x8 works for Huge. (or two 4x8 plates side by side...) Anything bigger you'll probably have to put smaller plates together to make the base.
However, all the people I play with like using D&D minis, and Lego people are noticeably taller than the figurines. I had a Dwarven Wizard once, who was made of legos, in a party of D&D minis. He was the only Dwarf I've ever seen who was a good foot taller than the full grown humans...Of course now that I have a couple of those little legs they give Yoda, I could probably make him fit in the game if we still played it.
It takes a lot of time and effort, but I like to make my own miniatures out of paperclip wire frames and baking modeling clay. Its fun having Minis that look like official D&D minis but being my own custom characters.
These are all very groovy ideas, except Edymnions, whose is groovylicious. Seriously, Ed, Those game-pieces (or reeses-pieces, whichever) would not last long at all around me. :D
Indeed. Our group used Swedish Fish for ordinary baddies, and larger and larger food objects for bigger badguys. Putting mounted characters on top of dice made them visibly taller and covered the size/space issues. DM had minis for each major party role (though some were a bit of a stretch).
Giving a whole new meaning to "so-and-so eats it". Bonus EXP for whoever brings in the best cand-err, minis! =P
Oz
I like the using candy for monsters idea, positive reinforcement. If you kill the monsters, you get candy!
http://www.incompetech.com/beta/plainGraphPaper/
