Like many people I don’t have an inexhaustible gaming budget. So, I look for deals where I can get them. As a DM I like to provide as entertaining a Dungeons and Dragons session as possible, including handouts, a magnetic game grid, and minis, but I don’t have the hundreds of minis it would require to have a unique mini for each monster my players will find.

Here are some solutions I have tried.

• Buy in bulk and re-use. Find a site offering bulk minis, or a collection on ebay, and pick them up inexpensively. Use the orc minis to represent not only orcs, but also goblins, hobgoblins, humans, gnolls, etc.
• Visit your local second-hand stores. Many times these minis get stuck in the toy section of your local goodwill or other second hand store, where you can pick them up for a dime (or less).
• Use tokens instead of minis. Gameboard tokens, chess pawns, etc. can fill the role of kobold minions nicely. Save your nicer looking minis for the bosses. Sure this allows for some meta-gaming (since the players always know who the boss is), but that may not always be a bad thing.

The key to remember is that most of the monsters will be long forgotten by the time the players reach the next encounter. If you are careful about how you reuse the minis you do own it can draw attention to the NPC’s you want them to remember.

On the flip side there is nothing wrong with painting fabulous minis or investing in some nice pre-sculpted and pre-painted minis as well. If you have the luxury of access to dozens or even hundreds of minis then by all means, use them.

Thanks, and enjoy the game!

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Welcome back to Dungeons and Dragons Corner.

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Got an awesome map? How about a secret message you want to pass on to the party? Tired of scribbling something on a piece of scratch paper right after somebody says “I loot the bodies”?

Maybe you just would like to jazz up your pre-printed handouts.

Here are a few ideas.

Try changing your fonts. There are literally hundreds of awesome fonts out there that you can get for free. DaFont is among the best. Fonts range from hand-writing imitations to Old-English style print.

If you aren’t going to invest in buying or making specialty paper (see below), then download a good image of a scroll. A simple google image search for scroll will turn up something you can use. Paste it into the body of your document and set the properties to go behind the text. After you print it, cut the scrap of paper down to the scroll size. You can even tie them up nicely with a bit of ribbon if you print them out full page size.

Buy different paper. Paper comes in hundreds of different colors and textures. Take an afternoon to visit a specialty paper store, or take some time online to find one, and you will be well rewarded. You can find a thicker paper that already has an aged look to it. The majority of these papers are relatively inexpensive. For a few dollars you can buy enough to last you through any campaign.

You can also age your own paper. This is a fun project, particularly if you have younger children who want to help. Start with a decent grade of paper, 20 lb copier paper will work just fine. Don’t use notebook paper as the lines will still be there when you’re finished and that won’t look good.

1. Mix up a batch of your favorite brownish beverage (coffee, tea, hot cocoa, coke, etc.)
2. Place your paper in a square baking pan.
3. Dump said beverage over the paper.
4. Remove the paper from the beverage and place on a rack to dry.

You can dry the paper in the over, however use extreme caution here. The oven should never exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit or it may combust. It is just as easy to leave it out for a few days until it dries.

The paper will curl and twist and generally feel aged. I like to dry mine in as much direct sunlight as possible.

Most printers will handle this paper just fine. Not every printer will, of course, so you may want to experiment with only one piece at a time, but most printers will. In most cases you will need to feed the printer one sheet at a time.

Be warned that if you print your handout or map or whatever first and then try to age your paper the ink may run. If you used an inkjet paper you will likely lose everything, so prepare the paper first.

Thanks, and enjoy the game!

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Ok, this is the single most versatile gaming tool I have ever used.  It is not necessarily the prettiest, but it is a time saver and you can use it session after session.

The idea is very simple.

Buy a magnetic white board (recommend 24″ x 36″) and write a 1″x1″ game grid on it with a permanent marker.  That’s it. 

The advantages are tremendous.

• All you need is a dry erase marker (comes with most boards) and you can quickly draw out dungeon maps.
• Magnetic so if you apply magnets to your minis you don’t have to worry about anyone bumping the board.
• It is metal so it doesn’t break.
• The sturdy surface allows for dice rolling (and the magnets mean you don’t have to worry about the dice knocking things around).
• If you use clear plastic maps (see information here) you can simply lay them over the field, tucking one edge of the map under a corner and get the advantages of the durable magnetic surface and a pretty map.

 So, how to you get your hands on one of these things without forking out a ton of cash?

Go to your local department store or office supply store and buy:

• A magnetic white board (get a size that will fit on your gaming table)
• A couple of permanent markers (Black Sharpies)
• A couple of dry-erase markers (make sure they are dry erase, not wet erase).
• Felt backing, if desired.

 Take it home and draw your grid.

There are two basic methods.

1. Get a broom handle.  Have someone hold it flush to one edge and run your sharpie down the other side.  Move the broom handle over until the edge is flush with the line you just drew.  Now draw a line down the other side.  When you have lines all across your board, rotate it 90 degrees and do the lines the other direction.
2. Get a ruler.  Using a dry-erase marker, mark off lines 1″ apart down one edge of the board. Go to the other edge and measure/mark the same lines.  Now take a long straight edge (like broom handle) and use a permanent marker to connect the lines.  Rotate the board and repeat for the lines going the other way.

 You’ll have a product you can use for years.

Have fun gaming!

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I’ve recently uploaded a bunch of images of Monster Cards.  You can get them on the downloads page.

Here are a few tips on using them as well as explanations.

First of all, these cards are not meant to replace the Monster Manual.  The Monster Manual has all of the detailed description about the monsters, including flavor text, group behavior etc.  These cards are designed to dimply act as a reference while you are running the game so that you don’t have to have the Monster Manual at the table.  If you are like me then anything that reduces clutter at the game table is a big help.

So, how do you use them? 

When you make an Encounter Card print copies of the monster cards for that encounter and paperclip them all together with the Encounter Card on top.  (Click here for more information about making and using Encounter Cards).

When you go to run the game, have the encounter cards to one side, prepared for when the PC’s find the encounters.  I like to keep a generic set of minis (ok, I often use generic looking tokens) that I use for all my minions and a couple of more interesting minis for the more interesting monsters.

During “chat” time, when the players are doing whatever they are doing, I will often pre-roll initiatives for the monsters and note those initiatives on the monster cards.  If there are two or three of the same monster I will draw a quick column in pencil for each initiative.

As the encounter progresses, I use the cards to keep track of Hit Points, effects, and so forth.  This is particularly useful for longer encounters where I have to keep track of monsters will large amounts of Hit Points.

As the monsters die I simply flip their cards over and set them to the side.

When used in conjunction with good Encounter Cards, they essentially make it so that you can run all of your games without the need for books of any kind.

I hope this helps, and HAVE FUN!

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Last time I talked about how to make a large dungeon map on standard 8 ½” x 11″ paper.  You can see that article here.  And personally I think it works pretty good.  Sometimes, however, you know that you’ll be re-using a map a lot, or you just want something sturdier.  Here are a few ideas.

• Print it on Card Stock.  You can get card stock in various off-white colors at pretty much any office supply store.  There are several specialty paper stores as well, but the office supply stores usually sell for less, though the quality of paper won’t be as nice.
• Print it on paper and then glue it to cardboard.  This is particularly useful if you are going to build a 3D dungeon.  Tape or glue (I recommend glue in this case) the map to the cardboard.  Now you have a perfect template for building your 3D dungeon, or you can use it as-is.
• Print it on clear plastic sheets.  Depending on your printer and or copy machine resources you can print (black and white generally) to clear overhead projector sheets.  Again these are available in office supply stores, though they can get expensive fast if you are using large maps.  Why would you do this?  Well, if you happen to have an overhead projector it works nicely for overland maps.  However, a more common use would be to apply them to a magnetic game grid..  Slip the map onto the grid and you get the benefit of the magnets as well as a more interesting map.
• You could also glue the paper onto even more sturdy backing, such as plywood or even sheet metal, however that is probably going to the extreme.

If you have access to a laminator then by all means laminate to your heart’s content.  Alternatively you could apply clear contact paper to the map.  

As always, have fun with your game.

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Making fun, interesting dungeons from scratch can be difficult.  Bringing them to life at the game table can be really tough unless you are spend a lot of money buying pre-printed dungeon tiles on a 1″ grid.  So how do you get your newly created dungeon onto a 1″ battle grid?

Enter Microsoft Excel.

Ok, Microsoft has a lot of bad press, but this is a trick that will save you time.

Convert your map to an electronic image.  If you don’t have a scanner, visit a friend who does.  If you are downloading free maps from Wizards of the Coast or another site then you will already have an image to use.  The sweet thing here is that it doesn’t matter the format or size of the image, though I recommend using jpg because the file size is smallest, which works well if you plan to email the finished product around.

Now open a blank workbook in Excel. 

• Change your print margins to .5″ all around (1/2″ border all around).  You can go smaller if you like.
• Click Insert | Picture | From File. 
• Browse to the image that you saved on your computer.  Select it an click insert.
• The picture should appear in your workbook.
• Move the picture to the top leftmost area of your workbook, so that the top left corner of the map is covering cell A1.
• Click on your zoom, and change it to approximately 40%.  This will show you how many pages the map will cover when printed.
• If you don’t get the dotted lines for the pages click print preview and then go back.
• However, you’ll want to go into print preview anyway, so open it now and count the number of squares of your dungeon that appear on the page.  Assuming that you are using standard 8 ½” x 11″ paper and printed portrait then you will want 7 squares to appear on the page so that you get nice 1″ squares when you print.
• If there are more than 7 then cancel print preview and adjust your image size by dragging the bottom right corner diagonally down and to the right.
• Go back to print preview and count the squares.  If the squares are too big, then go back and make the image smaller.
• When you have the right size of squares, print the pages.
• Generally speaking you will end up with several pages.  After they print, lay them all out on the table, or the floor if you have a very large map.
• Cut the bottom ½” border off the top row of pages.  This will allow you to tape or glue (I prefer clear tape applied to both sides) the second row to the top row.
• Cut the right ½” border off the left most pages.  This will allow you to glue or tape the next row of pages together.
• The idea here is to end up with a ½” border all around your nice map but still have plenty of room for assembly.

 You can do up an entire dungeon level in one evening and save yourself a ton of time explaining and drawing maps for players.  Personally I like to let my players keep the maps of the areas they have cleared.

Hope this helps and have fun!

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If you visit any Dungeons and Dragons forum, you’ve probably heard of monster cards and power cards, perhaps even magic item cards.  Today I’d like to introduce the Dungeons and Dragons Encounter Card.

This is a handy little device that keeps me from forgetting a key component of an encounter.  Have you ever forgotten some bit of treasure?  Remember a trap only after the second player should have activated it?  Left out a monster?  Scramble to count out minis for your set up?  The encounter card is designed to help avoid those little slip ups.

The encounter card is very simple.  In fact, the term card is used pretty loosely here since I don’t always bother to print it on a 3×5″ card, often I just print them all on a page and then paperclip it to the monster stat cards for that encounter.

Here is the information I usually put on them.

• A list of the monsters that will be involved.
• The total XP award for the encounter.  (If I know ahead of time how many players will be there I may divide it out to an individual award as well).
• The total treasure award, including items for the encounter.  I always write the GP value of any items in this section.

See, pretty simple.  I then paperclip that card together with the monster cards for the encounter as well as any magic item cards for that encounter.

The beauty of the encounter card is that if the PC’s go off in a totally different direction than expected and I have to ditch the dungeon I prepared I don’t have to worry about upsetting the delicate balance of treasure and XP.  If they are slated to battle 2 orcs, and an ogre, well by golly there will be 2 orcs and an ogre, complete with treasure waiting for them wherever they happen to go.

I’ll get more into how to adjust the story later, but once you try it a time or two, you’ll see just how much flexibility this little tool can add to your campaign.

You can find a list of the Keep on the Shadowfell encounters (spoilers) which has the information that would be included on an encounter card.  I have also included a 3×5″ encounter card (Microsoft Word Format) that you can download and customize.

All downloads are available on the download page.

Thanks, and enjoy the game.

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