While my minions toll away at building my Ultimate Crunch army of Ultimate Power to crush the Fluff Kingdom, I have a game to prepare for next Friday.
Recent musings by Dante over at Stupid Ranger has made me ponder about the number of D&D books and gaming aids I use….
I have a lot of them (D&D being my main personal hobby with Magic the Gathering and D&D Online). So here’s a list and the reasons why I like them.
D&D library:
A kind reader, liking my last.fm widget way down this page, dropped me a link to Librarything.com on Gmail. So click here to see my D&D library. I still have to add my ton of modules and Dragon/Dungeon Magazines.
Battlemaps:
I own all D&D Fantastic Location battle maps (City of Peril is missing from the list, I have that one too). Each pack contains 3-4 full color large battlemaps as well as an adventure booklet to showcase each map. Whenever I create an adventure or adapt a published one, I try to use one of theses maps. They look really great and are large enough to stage action-packed combats.
I also bought the City-Square and Scroll-like blank Flip-Mats as replacements to my 3 aging , and stained, Chessex Megamaps. Unlike their vinyl predecessors, the plastic Flip-mats are impervious to Permanent Markers!
Aside: Those Staedtler German markers are too similar! That’s why I have a part of the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil forever marked into one of my old Megamats.
Dungeon Tiles:
I own one copy of each, I use a Customizable Tackle Box to store them, sorted by Tile size. I’ve only used them once so far, but the players loved it. This week’s adventure features a room using them again.
D&D Minis:
I bought at least 2 boxes of each set. Purist will tell me that it betrays the imagination part of the game. They’d be right, but, hot damn, when you drop an Otyugh on the battlemap, the players get worried. I don’t try to fit the creatures perfectly, a kobold will stand for a goblin. But when pressed for time, I’ll create a scene using Minis I actually have. (oh and owning a 34$ Umber Hulk figurine rocks!)
I use another tackle box for small and medium miniatures. The large and huge ones occupy a shelf in my IKEA gaming cabinet.
Combat Pad:
I’ve touched on this before, but this tool is the best initiative, Hit Point and special conditions tracker I’ve ever used. The Magnetic Tags, Round and Initiative markers are awesome! And It’s wet-erase and dry-erase proof!
Item Cards:
Managing magical Bling has always been a pain for me. Jotting down the item’s powers bugs me. These items always end up getting identified by one of my famous slips. These cards
are absolutely awesome to address that (and they look really good too). I put a Square 2”x2” post-it behind them with an item reference code. I keep another associated post-it in my DM binder with the item’s details. Once identified, I switch the post-its and voilà! Plus the players seem to enjoy handling a physical object to represent a magical item.
Steel Sqwire Templates:
A series of steel wire Spell Templates that can be placed on a battle map with minimal fuss and show what gets hit by Lillie’s Glitterdust spell. Really practical.
Critical Hits Deck:
Last but not least, this little deck replaces Critical Hits with damage-type specific special effects (from the usual Double Damage to a crushed skull dealing 3d6 Int Damage). This causes a slight power creep (which I’m cool with) but should be constrained to players and Bosses onl
y.
If you allow mooks to use them, expect players to die all over the place.
That’s about it. Crunchy and Geeky! That’s how I like it!
What about you? Any commercial or homegrown/cheap tools and props that you use in your games?
I use the three core books and a module. I have a few extra books I bought but which are all DM-only, and to be honest I have not really had a use for them, yet.
My players were allowed to pick a mini from the dozen old metal ones I still have, I use Fudge dice and wooden markers for enemies. I still use the original white battlemap poster or various pieces of paper with a grid on it for battles. Instead of drawing on them, I use erasers and pencils to indicate where the walls are, if at all. These days I try to cut back on the battlemap use if possible.
I use the eight pages Reference Sheet v2.9 available from Necromancer Games as much as possible these days.
Nice and simple. I respect that!
I forgot to mention the Battleboxes (Iron Heroes and d20) from Fiery Dragon Production.
Dude, it’s like 2:00 AM in ‘Suisse’! Don’t you sleep? 🙂
Graph paper is my friend. In my current Star Frontiers game I’ve mapped out serveral star ships and a space station with it. Plus any quick map sketches are usually done on it.
In the vietnam game that I was running before the current campaign. I took and map several large maps out of poster board. They are 56cm x 71cm in size. Some have been totally drawn up. With villages, rice paddies, and road crosings. One is just a green back ground. I have also made a bunch of terrain objects that I can place all over them. Especially the green background one. I figured there would be a lot of scenes in the random jungle. So I wanted to be able to customize each encounter. So that the map wouldnt be the same every time. I have a friend who doesnt roleplay. But is a big time wargamer. So I bummed a bunch of american, VC, and NVA troops off him. All of them 1/72 scale, painted.
In the GI Joe game I ran up at the comic shop. I made a custom GM screen. With all the important game info for me. On the outside all sorts of GI joe pics.
In the criminal game I ran. I made use of a dry erase board. That worked pretty well. I dont really have a place to put up here in my game room. Other wise I would use it more for quick maps and etc.
For my buddies D&D game. I really dig those item cards. But I’m not going to pay for them. So I created a bunch of them. Using blank note cards. I drew the object in question on the card. Then wrote out an explaination on the back. They have worked out really well.
That green Jungle map must have been sweet!
Cool stuff Ronin and it’s nice that you made your own Item cards. I’m not that artistically inclined…. 🙂
Our setups sound pretty similar. I’ve been using D&D minis since they came out, along with various battlemaps (chessex for a while, but eventually I switched to laminated ones I printed.) I also have a few maps from Dragon magazines that I use when possible. I’m going to check out the Fantastic Locations on your recommendation.
I have all the Dungeon Tiles as well, but my current game is the first one I’ve gotten to use them in. Ditto with the item cards. I plan on picking up some Steel Sqwire, but for now I use templates copied onto transparencies.
The only thing I use that you don’t is some extra bits like furniture, trees, columns, etc leftover from other board games.
So here’s a big question for ya: how do you keep your dungeon tiles organized and ready for the game? Do you do reveal the dungeon as the players explore, or do you set it all up at once?
Last time I created a simple setup (a 2 room dungeon) that I memorized and built as the players were going along using tiles I set aside from my stash.
This week, I have cave rooms I drew on various maps (one encounter room per map) One of the room is actually ‘finished’ (i.e. masonry walls and tile floors). Since I ran out of maps, I took out the necessary tiles and put them in a ziplock bag, ready to be dropped on the play area and built according to my mental plan.
I would suggest that you create each room in advance and put them in ziplocks along with door tiles and props (even minis). Then have corridors sitting on the side and build the dungeon as the players go along.
Your explorers will love it.
Excellent idea!
Though Bartoneus already makes fun of me when I show up to his house with a tacklebox, convert minis case, art box, and plastic tub… now I’ll have to figure out how to bring a bunch of plastic baggies full of stuff.
I’d consider one or two large tote bags and an insurance contract that cover Chiropractics!
🙂