Hey folks. Looking for some advice. I am in 2 campaigns now and our Saturday DM is being transferred out of state. The group is looking for a new DM and I used to do that decades ago during 1st edition, so I am considering picking up the mantle again. My biggest concern (well one of them) is that both DM's I have now are amazing. They use music, sound effects, have a zillion miniatures for any occasion and awesome roll up maps. I have none of these things and am looking for resources or places to get stuff for DMing.
Any suggestions besides buying like 30 packs of wizards goblin miniatures etc? I know I will not measure up to the one we are losing right away, but I don't want to just show up with dice and a DMG. I am willing to buy some things, just looking for suggestions on what and where.
I would probably ask your current dms about music/sound sources. Maybe look at printing some tokens ect. On cardstock? If you end up enjoying the dm side of the screen you can slowly build up your mini collection with major antagonists.
I'd ask the group about what they expect and hope for. Explain you're willing and able to DM, but the cash investment on some of these resources is a bit extreme, so you might just show up with a battlemat and some counters for a bit, and phase in more props as you go. Hopefully, they'll be happy someone is willing to keep the game going and cut you some slack.
Also, you can check ebay and amazon for masses of minis. You can pick up packs of random minis for pretty cheap, but then, obviously, you might not get what you actually want/need.
If you want miniatures, buy a resin 3D printer and go to various kickstarters for miniatures, support them, get the STL files and print out your army. You'll be very happy that way and save a lot and I do mean a lot of money. Don't buy a PLA printer (spool of plastic string), they will print minis but they have lines and will eat your brush tips very fast. I made that mistake and learned from it.
For tokens, go to Tactical Tokens, they are the best cheap way to do it. You get a white resign token that you can write on with eraser marker for your tokens. They got from Small to Large for reasonable prices. For $100 bundle they got, you won't need to buy anything more but eraser markers.
I also suggest looking up Pathfinder Pawns, they are honestly the best overall solution from cost and ability to ramp up. They are pre-printed card board cut outs you slide into their mounts. You can also buy the PDF and print your own for an additional cost from Paizo. They sell them by their monster manual and we are talking huge amounts if you need them. You get 300 monsters for $40 if you want to print your own add in another $18. Pathfinder has significantly better monster art than 5E as a bonus, so they will look better than 5E.
You can buy sets of miniatures from gamenerdz.com, they tend to be the cheapest but you have no control over what you get. And we are talking $500 for all monsters including rares. So yeah man, its not great for your wallet.
An alt to Pathfinder Pawns, this brand has been around and supporting TTRPGs since ... well they're basically a first generation TTRPG supporting company, like original TSR old:
EDIT: oh, and check out the Arts and Crafts section of this forum, folks are always showing off creative prop/mini/map solutions, some done on a budget.
Note I have not bought pawns, saw them at a good hobby shop, looked them online before, I like the concept of slipping the hard cardboard into the plastic holder. I looked up the sjgames version, and you slide the paper together, not as much of a fan on that one personally.
Sure, but I thought we were building on a budget. SJ's cardboard heroes (used to actually be able to buy them as sheets of card stock) are the cheapest game(piece) in town. Since they're PDF, if you wanted to do something more robust you could invest in a card stock capable printer and use binder clips as the bases.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
You can buy PDF's for Pawns and they come with bases. I don't know if you've seen Pawns, but they are very slick how they came up with them. Technically this would be the cheapest I'd go, but it does work as well. I do something similar to this for my tokens, just cutting and pasting them in.
Hey folks. Looking for some advice. I am in 2 campaigns now and our Saturday DM is being transferred out of state. The group is looking for a new DM and I used to do that decades ago during 1st edition, so I am considering picking up the mantle again. My biggest concern (well one of them) is that both DM's I have now are amazing. They use music, sound effects, have a zillion miniatures for any occasion and awesome roll up maps. I have none of these things and am looking for resources or places to get stuff for DMing.
Any suggestions besides buying like 30 packs of wizards goblin miniatures etc? I know I will not measure up to the one we are losing right away, but I don't want to just show up with dice and a DMG. I am willing to buy some things, just looking for suggestions on what and where.
Thanks!
I would probably ask your current dms about music/sound sources. Maybe look at printing some tokens ect. On cardstock? If you end up enjoying the dm side of the screen you can slowly build up your mini collection with major antagonists.
I'd ask the group about what they expect and hope for. Explain you're willing and able to DM, but the cash investment on some of these resources is a bit extreme, so you might just show up with a battlemat and some counters for a bit, and phase in more props as you go. Hopefully, they'll be happy someone is willing to keep the game going and cut you some slack.
Also, you can check ebay and amazon for masses of minis. You can pick up packs of random minis for pretty cheap, but then, obviously, you might not get what you actually want/need.
If you want miniatures, buy a resin 3D printer and go to various kickstarters for miniatures, support them, get the STL files and print out your army. You'll be very happy that way and save a lot and I do mean a lot of money. Don't buy a PLA printer (spool of plastic string), they will print minis but they have lines and will eat your brush tips very fast. I made that mistake and learned from it.
For tokens, go to Tactical Tokens, they are the best cheap way to do it. You get a white resign token that you can write on with eraser marker for your tokens. They got from Small to Large for reasonable prices. For $100 bundle they got, you won't need to buy anything more but eraser markers.
I also suggest looking up Pathfinder Pawns, they are honestly the best overall solution from cost and ability to ramp up. They are pre-printed card board cut outs you slide into their mounts. You can also buy the PDF and print your own for an additional cost from Paizo. They sell them by their monster manual and we are talking huge amounts if you need them. You get 300 monsters for $40 if you want to print your own add in another $18. Pathfinder has significantly better monster art than 5E as a bonus, so they will look better than 5E.
You can buy sets of miniatures from gamenerdz.com, they tend to be the cheapest but you have no control over what you get. And we are talking $500 for all monsters including rares. So yeah man, its not great for your wallet.
An alt to Pathfinder Pawns, this brand has been around and supporting TTRPGs since ... well they're basically a first generation TTRPG supporting company, like original TSR old:
http://www.sjgames.com/heroes/
EDIT: oh, and check out the Arts and Crafts section of this forum, folks are always showing off creative prop/mini/map solutions, some done on a budget.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Note I have not bought pawns, saw them at a good hobby shop, looked them online before, I like the concept of slipping the hard cardboard into the plastic holder. I looked up the sjgames version, and you slide the paper together, not as much of a fan on that one personally.
Sure, but I thought we were building on a budget. SJ's cardboard heroes (used to actually be able to buy them as sheets of card stock) are the cheapest game(piece) in town. Since they're PDF, if you wanted to do something more robust you could invest in a card stock capable printer and use binder clips as the bases.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
You can buy PDF's for Pawns and they come with bases. I don't know if you've seen Pawns, but they are very slick how they came up with them. Technically this would be the cheapest I'd go, but it does work as well. I do something similar to this for my tokens, just cutting and pasting them in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRHZ_ieH0f8