Nobody here talks about the tabletop: miniatures, terrain, etc. Why is that?

[LordCdrMilitant]

I use Legos.

Go on. Bring on the hate.

Also, sometimes board game pieces appropriated from a vast array of board games. Currently I own less of them than I did as a kid, so that's a bummer. But they're handy. Heck, I've even use board game boards for maps. Labyrinth and Tikal are perpetual favorites. You basically get procedurally generating dynamic dungeons from Labyrinth pieces alone.

It's been long enough that I'm somewhat out of practice, so I haven't found the best use for my Legos yet. I mostly use them as a visual indicator of marching order, formation etc.. My paper notes tend to take up too much space to effectively play battles with them.

Legos are great. You can make characters with minifigures, and change weapons basically to your heart's content.

[anthon]

when i was a kid i had some pewter minis and i was painting them with colored ink. I wanted the ink to bake on the surface like a glaze enamel, so i made a flame thrower. My little mini's sword melted and made me very sad. I abandoned minis for the next 25 years.

i then 3D printed a mini for a 3.5e game, but his weapon snapped off at the layer seem and the DM demanded my atheist character pick a god to worship and for me, the player, to give verbal oblations to this god, or I would not be permitted to level up. I again abandoned minis, and that game table.

Years later, I was heckled into buying a mini for my fire mage in 5e. About 2 sessions in the DM decided it would be fun to have the entire group take double disintegrates back to back. 7 player characters died with no chance of recovery.

I think Legos would make good minis.

[Tanarii]

That's some serious Curse of the Mini Buyer right there anthon

[Imbalance]

Oof, that's harsh, Anthon. I would say that, at my table, if you've put significant effort into a personalized mini for your character (not necessarily $$$), it should be worth an extra death save in game.

[EggKookoo]

We use minis in our D&D 5e game. For PCs, we tend to use HeroForge and I print them on my Ender. My brother has a resin printer and printed his guy with that. Since we're all getting older and eyesight gets worse, we decided to print them at 150% scale, which puts a 6' human at somewhere around 42mm height, give or take. Makes painting easier too.

For most NPCs, I bought a few cases of cheap plastic figures (like these). I don't try to paint them, just use them as-is. They're about the right scale and they make good quick bad guys. I have printed some special NPCs, typically recurring characters so it's worth the investment. I also printed up some generic kobold, goblin, and human(ish) figures that I reuse from time to time.

We use these guys almost solely for positioning during combat. It's much easier to just put your guy where he is, and I (as the DM) don't have to continually "repaint" the scene with everyone's position. We don't use a grid, though. I have a length of twine scaled to 30 feet and knotted at 5-foot intervals, and we use that to determine distances (I also have a scaled 60 foot string for extra length if needed). Just a note: If you're going to make a knotted string, do the knots first, then cut it to the final length. Knotting consumes thread and shortened the overall length. Learned that the hard way...

[Imbalance]

Spoiler: Toll Reversal

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[Imbalance]

Spoiler: sparky

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[Kardwill]

Spoiler: Toll Reversal

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Nice looking trollskin :)

[Pugwampy]

I tried sharing pictures of my miniatures and battle scene decorations long ago . I think you can divide a DND session into half a story , half combat . I think props are half the fun and make the game more alive . Who can deny the cool factor having a castle or a dragon in the middle of a table .Thats a memorable event . My favorite DM said what is the point of DND except to make good memories . Judge for yourself .

After looking at my pics now try to imagine that castle as a top down line drawing made with a felt tip pen or the dragon as an empty cookie box . Is a felt tip pen castle a better memory than what i slapped together using old toys and some brand products ?

[rs2excelsior]

I think Legos would make good minis.

The only time I've used minis in an RPG, they were Legos, actually!

My group in college didn't own any minis, we always used pencil-drawn maps on graph paper (using letters for characters/monsters, erasing and writing them elsewhere to move them), or just used theater of the mind. I kept that up in my post-college games. The only times I've really used minis were for a couple of one-shots I ran using the old WEG Star Wars d6 system. Since it was a one-shot, I pre-made characters and let the players pick at the table... and I also used my collection of Star Wars (and other) Legos to make a mini for each PC, as well as various NPCs/enemies. I never really used a grid or even any real measurements with them, just used them to rough out positions, but it was fun - and I think the players enjoyed it a good bit. Right now most of my games are run or played over discord, so minis are a bit of a moot point.

[Imbalance]

I tried sharing pictures of my miniatures and battle scene decorations long ago . I think you can divide a DND session into half a story , half combat . I think props are half the fun and make the game more alive . Who can deny the cool factor having a castle or a dragon in the middle of a table .Thats a memorable event . My favorite DM said what is the point of DND except to make good memories . Judge for yourself .

After looking at my pics now try to imagine that castle as a top down line drawing made with a felt tip pen or the dragon as an empty cookie box . Is a felt tip pen castle a better memory than what i slapped together using old toys and some brand products ?

That's the way. Love it!

[Lord Torath]

The only time I've used minis in an RPG, they were Legos, actually!

My group in college didn't own any minis, we always used pencil-drawn maps on graph paper (using letters for characters/monsters, erasing and writing them elsewhere to move them), or just used theater of the mind. I kept that up in my post-college games. The only times I've really used minis were for a couple of one-shots I ran using the old WEG Star Wars d6 system. Since it was a one-shot, I pre-made characters and let the players pick at the table... and I also used my collection of Star Wars (and other) Legos to make a mini for each PC, as well as various NPCs/enemies. I never really used a grid or even any real measurements with them, just used them to rough out positions, but it was fun - and I think the players enjoyed it a good bit. Right now most of my games are run or played over discord, so minis are a bit of a moot point.

I use legos for minis, but I also don't use battle maps. Minis are there to give the players something to focus on, and to enhance the "theater of the mind" I use. So there are monsters (and sometimes terrain) on the table, but we never measure the actual physical distances.

I love Legos. They are so versatile!

[Pugwampy]

Hey fellow nerd people, how do you like those little figurines?
Whaddya like? 2d, 3d? Painted/unpainted? Metal/plastic/meeples carved out of soap?
Do you rock the resin tiles, plaster casts, DIY? Fly in a pre-built scene or assemble on the fly? Dry-erase on a gridded mat?
Do your click-clacks sparkle? Do you annually recolor the numbers with a 40-year-old crayon? Use a tower or a tray or just toss them willy-nilly?
Does your DM hand you a map? Are you allowed to write on it?
I know a lot of games moved online, but the plague won't be around forever. What did you do before quarantine? What do you want to do once face-to-face gaming is a thing again?

1. I am fixated on miniatures . I have over 300 . I never grew up I love toys I see minis as the ultimate toy . Even the meanest of games i played at least had miniatures for heroes if nothing else .

2. Durable painted plastic minis . I never had any interest or intention of painting anything so small . The concept of Pewter minis turned me off when a friend ordered about a half dozen most of which broke after a few months . The plastic stuff from wizards of coast or whiz kids assuming you dont take a hammer to them on purpose can last forever

3. I love decorating the battlefield with toys old or new . When it comes to dungeon crawling I make use of the cardboard map tiles and paper posters . Sometimes i combine it . We can all imagine the distance of one inch none of us need square grids . You want a nice cave , collect a bag of rocks from the garden as borders .

4. My original click claks sparkled gold and lost their sparkle real quick . I prefer basic click claks with white numbers on a solid colour . I have lots of click clacks but to me they are just tools like paper and pencil . No i do not recolour . This DM is open screen and likes tossing them into the middle of the battlefield .

5 . This DM loves trying to sell photocopied dungeon maps for gold which the player can do as he wants to it . This DM sometimes gives houses as prizes which then he hands a photocopied house plan .

[khantroll]

My group is very slowly acquiring miniatures. We use what I call the "pog" method. I have wooden discs in a variety of correct scale sizes with labels printed and taped to them to show what they are. The heroes have miniatures that bought. starting next week though, I'm cranking up the old 3D printer and we are going to make some miniatures for stuff.

We tried the whole digital table top thing, and it just didn't work for us. I hated putting in the time for it, and they hated the clunkiness of the setup. Yeah, they liked the pretty colors, but we all agreed minis were better for us.

[Imbalance]

Spoiler: rude awakening

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[DeadMech]

Right now for a campaign I'm working on I am experimenting on making myself a snes style tileset that I can use to create maps and print out on paper. It's an art style I'm used to working in. papercrafting them Is my hopeful solution to making nice looking 3d dungeon maps. I'd probably save time just hand drawing this stuff instead but I don't feel like it would look terribly good. Physical tiles and props are probably not viable because of storage concerns.

In my teenage years I've made 100% original assets like this. Once grid based in an rpg maker program that I've long since lost and haven't seen able to find a replacement for. Used to have nice in program animation tools for things like making walk cycles. 2 tile high character sprite creation. The thing I was most proud of at the time was a boat map I made with animated water tiles. Took forever to make sure all the edges lined up every frame. Unfortunately computers back then were potatoes and when I loaded that map screen up the program turned into a slide show.

Another time I made a similar hex grid tile set 100% original for a rpg I was running. It wasn't too bad but I don't want to know how much time I spent on it making edge case tiles. Things like floors meeting walls at unusual angles, circular floor pieces, transitory pieces for different enviroments.

Of course those are long gone. These days I don't know if I have the time and drive to make a 100% original tileset. So I've gone to sprite websites and such to grab ripped tilesets. Mostly from Chrono Trigger. Been cutting and pasting the pieces of that about. Taking 16x16 pixel tiles and arranging them into larger 32x32 pieces to use as my 1"-> 5' base. Recoloring stuff is relatively simple and I feel pretty confident in my ability to alter sprites and tiles as needed and have them retain their aesthetic charm.

My hope is that I can make floors and use excess paper tabs and sticky tack to temporarily construct the walls. And that all of the materials to make these maps will be able to fit into a three ring binder. If necessary perhaps glue or print them on some sort of cardstock for structural rigidity.

Also I've been doing stuff like removing background transparency colors from objects so that I can decorate rooms with things like furniture or objects. Some of which may also be 3d papercraft and other just bits of paper I can throw down as needed to decorate a scene or show revealed traps and treasures.

I wish I could say it's been smooth sailing. I just don't have the energy or time I used to as a kid. I'll work hard on it for about a week or so before my interest drifts elsewhere for a couple weeks. It also took me awhile to realize that due to limitations in how I'm going to construct this it's not terribly likely I'll be able to easily make rooms that don't fit on a square grid. It's possible but the amount of custom art assets I'd have to make for it is probably more than I'm willing to put in right now. It's also surprising how much of the existing assets don't cover what I need. Maybe of the tiles sets don't have good bottom floor edges. Since those would have been hidden behind a layer of wall in game the artists working on the game never bother to make a large number of them so I've had to make my own.

Right now most of the work I've done is on the tilesets related to Zeal. I thought it would be a nice starting point for the magic college my game is starting in. The ripped assets for it were mostly laid out in a comprehensible manner which made it relatively easy to get started with. I'm a bit more concerned with the cave tilesets. The walls and floor textures for those areas are a bit less easily readable to my eyes in the rip images.

I've certainly put more hours into this that I think I could easily justify but it's been fun to work in this art style again. This time I'm backing up my work to the google cloud so that hopefully it doesn't all go to waste even if I take a break from it or my interest shift to some other hobby for a time. If there is interest perhaps I'll link a copy of what I've got so far.

[Imbalance]

You had me at Chrono Trigger.

[DeadMech]

You had me at Chrono Trigger.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ima...ew?usp=sharing

It's not terribly well organized right now. Taking a walk around the file right now.
Top left corner is some sample layout of dormitory bedroom pods along with the first version of some tiles I drew for myself.Right from there are some beds I found online somewhere.

Continuing right there are some rips from ff4. I haven't done much with them yet. Mage college so I figured I'd need some bookshelves Further right are some in game maps of areas of Zeal that I reference for looking at how things fit together.

Top right corner is some relatively complete tilesets for carpeted floors including carpeted stairs. There is also a place I'm planning to move some of place-able objects and such from the 16x16 grid just a bit lower down.

Notably that 16x16 grid contains the walls of Zeal. With them in theory I could start building and printing rooms to do some testing of how the papercraft dungeon will look and hold up. I need to buy myself a color printer for that at some point.

Skipping down to the bottom left are more mostly complete tilesets for floors. Mostly from Zeal again with the checkerboard stone floors and the diagonal brick floors. But we also have some of the millennial fair's cobble roads and a variety of carpets.

To the right we have an in progress section for the church carpets and some finished sets of toppers. These will sit on top of and between wall blocks of the map for structure.

Bottom right is some in game maps of magus's castle to help me see how that tileset was meant to fit together.

Back up to Center left is some grabs from ogre battle march of the black queen. Character portraits and tarot cards. I might use some of these for wall portraits or other bits of decoration. I don't fully know. There are also map icons for the classes in the game. I figure these will make nice little statues and decoration treasure. Some of them came with only one color so I've been working on making a color scale for converting duplicates to the other color scheme. Also noting that the witch icon was missing entirely from the rip site so I had to grab an alternative image jpeg elsewhere which didn't color match the rest. So I spent way too many hours one day recoloring it.

Moving toward the center we have some of the rips I've done very little work on yet. Unsurprisingly these include most of the outdoor areas of the game and areas that while looking very nice contains allot of diagonal walls that I don't think I can use.

Continuing towards center right are some of the areas I have done a bit of more recent work. The millennial fair, the church Guardia castle and such. Past some of the bit of castles and dino fortress is some cut up bits of magus' castle. it's a very dark set of tiles that originally wasn't very well organized which has been difficult to work with.

[Imbalance]

Dude, that is outstanding. Makes me wish I had all those scratch-built CAD renderings I did in the early 00's of various buildings in N64 games. If only I had an inkling of foresight into today's world of 3d printing...