this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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D&D Next - 5e Discussion

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Item tokens? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hi all!

I make tabletop game tokens, and I'm planning to design a set for miscellaneous objects in the game world. I've already got a draft list (chests, trees, campfires, healing potions, etc.) But I'm curious to hear from others, what item tokens do you use or wish you had in your collection? Are there any specific ones you'd like to have?

Thanks, appreciate any and all feedback.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Objects that convey cover or height would be what I would like. Assuming they are made to a 1" grid scale, I think that would be most useful to support immersion during combat. Boxes and barrels always seem to come up. Also, a chest, wagon, sarcophagus/coffin, stone table, and a generic macgiffin (however you choose to represent it) would be the most useful at my table.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Rght, this is really useful, thank you... a little falcon statue as the universal McGuffin token is funny to me, but I feel like that be immersion-breaking i.e. better to have various little object icon tokens and let people pick out their McGuffins individually.

Also, that actually just made me realize -- probably the object tokens should be sized consistent with the other tokens, e.g. healing potions and amulets and such should be considered tiny and get ½" tokens, chests and swords on the ground should be considered small and get ¾" tokens, etc.

(Also I'm still wrestling with the eternal question of whether a horse is a player token, a creature token, or an object token (since those categories have different color schemes / art styles to keep the battlefield visually organized). Currently horses are themed as objects, with mastiffs themed as creatures, but that's always bothered me slightly and I can't come up with a system for it that makes me happy.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it moves, breathes, or bites, it's a creature.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, I agree clearly it's a creature -- I'm just talking about how to categorize it in order to give it an art style. It's useful for a visual hierarchy if the player tokens on the battlefield are heavily distinct from the creature tokens so you can look quickly and say "blue = me, red and orange = other players, tokens with complex graphics = monsters" or something like that.

I think what I'm going to settle on is that the default style is that anything that's player related (players, horses, healing potions, etc) gets a white background, and anything that's monster related gets fully colored (either a solid color background or graphics all the way to the edge of the token). And mastiffs are "monster related" even though if you're hip you're going to be a halfling riding one. 🙂

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Could you make the bases modular with different color choices? For example, snapping a yellow base on player characters and blue for monsters etc? I was thinking about how nice that would be a couple weeks ago. My players like to know when a monster is bloodied (half hit points) and we mark that by putting a red baby poker chip underneath the token. It's kind of annoying to move them around but would be easy if it was a modular base you could set on there or whatever. Just a thought.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hm, that's a good thought... like just multicolored bases of some sort, and you can decide what different colors mean however makes it make more sense. I know you can get different colored plastic rings on Etsy and etc that are designed to snap around a mini / token and indicate different things about the creature, also.

I just recently started doing brass bases for some of the player tokens; in my mind they were going to be super popular and it would solve the problem automatically, because the creature tokens would have a totally different construction so it would be immediately apparent, but it seems like people are still into the wooden tokens for whatever reason 🙂.

One other idea which I think I might incorporate at some point is Sly Flourish's using letters for creatures and incorporating damage with the letter -- maybe I'm not explaining it well, but I really liked the idea:

During the game, when a character damages a monster, ask the player to identify an interesting physical characteristic of the monster they hit that starts with the letter of the token. Thus, the ghoul represented by the skull A token becomes the "ghoul with an arrow in her head". This way you have an in-game narrative that connects the story of the monster with the token. Skull A is a ghoul with an arrow in her head. Skull B is the ghoul with the bones sticking out of his back. Skull C is the ghoul with the caved-in chest, and so on. This is far better than fighting "ghoul A".

I actually have some vague plans to switch over to using letters for groups of creatures for exactly this reason -- this might be an idea that makes it easier to keep track of which creatures are badly damaged also (because the players have a lot more vivid conceptual reference of which one is which in their minds).