I think my inner nerd has finally taken full control of me.

I recently started playing Dungeons & Dragons (4th Edition) after listening to the podcasts Penny Arcade did at Wizards of the Coast (who publish D&D). I’m DMing the Keep on the Shadowfell campaign for a bunch of other new players. We’re all thoroughly enjoying it. And yes, that makes us all thoroughly nerdy.

I don’t have very many miniatures, which is a problem because 4th Edition relies heavily on moving characters and monsters around on a grid during combat. There are many alternatives (such as Lego men, dice, or other small objects), but I wanted something a little slicker. I wanted my game pieces to have a uniform look and feel, and not break the immersion by forcing the players to think too much about what each item represented:

“Ok, so the quarter is a goblin, and the dime is an orc. No wait, the dime is the goblin, and the quarter is the orc. Got that? Oh, and 3 more goblins appear from around the corner. Does anyone have any change?

I had a look round online for ideas for replacements, and found several people had made their own tokens using images found around the web. To be honest I was disappointed by these, as they were usually mismatched and of dubious quality. I needed a better solution. Continue reading →