As the title suggests, feel free to rant about any type of representation for gaming you wish. Here is the place to do it.
I'll start.
Pogs... Please. Just give it up. Sure pogs are fine if you want to toss them in as freebies in a magazine or something. It might be nice to have if you are going to a local con and don't want to risk or bother taking your nice miniatures. Other than that, their crappy. Make your own. Glue and laminate them and then you can write on them if you wish.
Tokens. Ok, I know that some folks are absolutely wowed by PF's Beginner Box tokens. I will say this. I was toying with the idea of getting the BB, especially when I heard there were going to be "tokens" in them. My hope, something of at least the quality of the old HeroQuest guys. Then I saw the pictures of the actual products. Pogs on stands. Not interested. I see cardboard cut outs in place of miniatures, my first thought is "gee, they are cheap aren't they". I feel this is barely a step above the plastic pawns in a game of Sorry.
My preference from lowest to highest (you'll note pogs and tokens aren't even included):
unpainted plastic < unpainted but color coded plastic < unpainted metal < pre-painted plastic < pre-painted metal (yeah right)
Of course price plays a big part as well. I'd rather get 10 times as many unpainted plastics than unpainted metals. I'd rather have 1 unpainted metal for the same price as 1 painted plastic. In case you don't get my drift, plastic should always be cheaper.
Well, of course painted metal figures are best. A friend of mine absolutely, positively creates works of stunning beauty. Downside is that he needs a two-digit number of hours for this. Per mini. (I, on the other hand, am an absolute klutz when it comes to painting)
This may be in order for characters you are intending to play for a long time. For a Baddy you might only use once... hmm... umm... no.
Second problem (just coming up because I'm going to GM an AP): I simply don't have the funds to even buy all the metal minis I'd need, let alone buy them pre-painted, or have someone paint them. That's why I resort to paper minis in this case. If that's too cheap for you; well, no one is forcing you to play at my table.
Heck, if there is no mini available, the group even uses colored dice as stand-ins.
I like metal miniatures for pure quality and durability, but from a playability perspective, metal miniatures are sometimes too heavy for some of the shaky 3D terrain that GMs use. I have the only metal mini in our bi-weekly game and it's alway my mini that causes the bridge to fall over or the stairs to collapse...
Minis are expensive. I don't like buying metal minis for every single lowly orc my players run across. It's so much more manageable to have a sack of glass counters or tumbled rocks (my favorite) and save the minis for bosses.
So a typical encounter would have the orc captain and his shaman as metal minis, the smattering of green rocks are the goblins, and the smaller cluster of blue rocks are the elite troops. In a perfect world they'd all be fully-painted glorious-looking minis but give the DM a break man.
Minis are expensive. I don't like buying metal minis for every single lowly orc my players run across. It's so much more manageable to have a sack of glass counters or tumbled rocks (my favorite) and save the minis for bosses.So a typical encounter would have the orc captain and his shaman as metal minis, the smattering of green rocks are the goblins, and the smaller cluster of blue rocks are the elite troops. In a perfect world they'd all be fully-painted glorious-looking minis but give the DM a break man.
This was my technique for years, decades actually, before I decided I could make usable, if aesthetically challenged, minis that at least were recognizable as orcs, kobolds, ogres, or whatever, and had the weapon that the encounter called for. It helps a lot to not have to say "No! This rock is the goblin with the spear! Those rocks are the goblins with the slings!"
I bought some sculpey clay and some basic paints for maybe $20 total and made dozens of minis for my campaigns.
This was my technique for years, decades actually, before I decided I could make usable, if aesthetically challenged, minis that at least were recognizable as orcs, kobolds, ogres, or whatever, and had the weapon that the encounter called for. It helps a lot to not have to say "No! This rock is the goblin with the spear! Those rocks are the goblins with the slings!"
Haha! The worst is when there are both enemies and allies on the same map. "Noo, you can't attack him, that's the watch captain!"
We use a big 'ol mix of stuff on our table. I have a relatively huge collection of D&D minis and our group game room has a ton of metal minis (ranging from really well painted to sloppy to bare metal). We also have a collection of D&D dungeon tiles, molded scenery, trees, furniture, etc.
Even so, we sometimes throw down some dice or stones and draw rooms on a vinyl battlemap. It all depends on what you've got and what the situation requires. When I DM I try to deploy representative minis and terrain wherever possible.
I agree that I've never been a big fan of pog-type tokens or 'cardboard heroes' standup things...but I reckon they're better than MTG life tokens.
M
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I enjoy painting minis so painted metal is my preference. I also have a largish collection of prepainted plastic as well. I found the Horror Clix minis on clearance for ~$.30 each and scooped up a ton of them and they are great for any number of fantasy gaming, their unique style also tends to get a lot of positive comments.
I used cardboard standups for a while and they worked fine but weren't very nice looking and tended to look floppy, 'pogs' or similar flat markers have no appeal to me because they are harder to move, particularly if you have normal minis on the table also.