Best / Coolest Game Accessories


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Sczarni RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

What game accessories do you use?

What are the coolest things you have found to really help your game?

What are those cool things that you find you don't need but add something fun to the game or make your life just a little bit easier?

Try to post links if you can.

I will post my own later when I have a bit more time to a good post about it.

Sovereign Court

Too busy to link at the moment but these things are pretty great:

Chessex battle mat.

Minis (Bones I & II)

Laptop/tablet for GMing.

PF condition deck

Paizo combat tracker


A laminator...
Props :)


Pan wrote:

Too busy to link at the moment but these things are pretty great:

Chessex battle mat.

Paizo combat tracker

Love these two. Have them.

I do have Minis for the PC's, but not enough for monsters, so I use candy with laminated pictures stuck to them. :)


I'd save on the Chessex battle mat and download & print a massive battle map. It can be much larger in size, on white paper,and has hexes or squares all the way to the edge. Get some plastic sheets to place over and draw on the plastic.

printable graph or hex paper

I second the Paizo combat tracker. It's well worth it.

I also recommend beer

-MD


play-doh


I love my battle mat because it's reusable and reversible and I've had problems with the plastic sheets before. They get stained too easily.Plus, do you know how big of a printer you'd need to make a mat as big as the chessex one?

Shadow Lodge

I have a giant stryophome d6 the size of my dog (I have a collie they are classed as large long haired dogs)
I only really use it for think like HP


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Lord Foul II wrote:

I have a giant stryophome d6 the size of my dog (I have a collie 5Thwy are classed as large long haired dogs)

I only really use it for think like HP

I'd be using it to throw at players for bad puns :D


I printed my battle sheet at Kinkos for a few bucks. I never gets dirty since I draw on the plastic pieces that go over the map. And it's twice as large as the Chessex one and with the wacked out movement rate in PF that's a good thing. But to each their own.

Sovereign Court

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Yeah if you are on a budget that sounds great Muad'Dib but I don't consider battle mats to be expensive. I do fully support beer and bourbon however.

Shadow Lodge

Liranys wrote:
Lord Foul II wrote:

I have a giant stryophome d6 the size of my dog (I have a collie 5Thwy are classed as large long haired dogs)

I only really use it for think like HP
I'd be using it to throw at players for bad puns :D

im not the DM and I sit next to the guy who makes the puns

(Our DM throws D4s)


Lord Foul II wrote:
Liranys wrote:
Lord Foul II wrote:

I have a giant stryophome d6 the size of my dog (I have a collie 5Thwy are classed as large long haired dogs)

I only really use it for think like HP
I'd be using it to throw at players for bad puns :D

im not the DM and I sit next to the guy who makes the puns

(Our DM throws D4s)

Ow. Not the metal ones I hope! :D


Muad'Dib wrote:
I printed my battle sheet at Kinkos for a few bucks. I never gets dirty since I draw on the plastic pieces that go over the map. And it's twice as large as the Chessex one and with the wacked out movement rate in PF that's a good thing. But to each their own.

How much is a "few bucks" and I don't want a mat bigger than mine! We have trouble fitting it on tables as is!

Liberty's Edge

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All Dms are required to throw axes at players who make bad puns, then set them on fire. That is my idea.

My acessory is a guinea pig.


snickersimba wrote:

All Dms are required to throw axes at players who make bad puns, then set them on fire. That is my idea.

My acessory is a guinea pig.

Now I'm having visions of DM's throwing inflatable axes at their players....

Shadow Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Liranys wrote:
Lord Foul II wrote:
Liranys wrote:
Lord Foul II wrote:

I have a giant stryophome d6 the size of my dog (I have a collie 5Thwy are classed as large long haired dogs)

I only really use it for think like HP
I'd be using it to throw at players for bad puns :D

im not the DM and I sit next to the guy who makes the puns

(Our DM throws D4s)
Ow. Not the metal ones I hope! :D

no he can't afford those


Lord Foul II wrote:

DM and I sit next to the guy who makes the puns

(Our DM throws D4s)

We call those Caltrops... because they hurt like hell if you step on them.


Liranys wrote:
Muad'Dib wrote:
I printed my battle sheet at Kinkos for a few bucks. I never gets dirty since I draw on the plastic pieces that go over the map. And it's twice as large as the Chessex one and with the wacked out movement rate in PF that's a good thing. But to each their own.
How much is a "few bucks" and I don't want a mat bigger than mine! We have trouble fitting it on tables as is!

I think the print was around 7 bucks. But if you followed the link you would see that you can pretty much print any size you want. I just printed the largest size kinkos had. I don't recall how much I paid for the plastic. One of the sheets is just a plastic from on old poster frame that sells on amazon for about 12 bucks. Honestly most the plastic we have is 20 years old. We have been using them for that long without replacement.

A chessex map is 20 bucks.

Chessex maps are awesome. However I have had a few problems with them. If you use the wrong pen they stain permanently. Even with the recomended pens you can't leave the image on for a few weeks or they can stain. Also the dark grey or brown color of the chessex mat rules out a lot of pen colors. On a white mats I can use the full color spectrum and a much larger variety of pens. Lastly with the plexiglass I can draw out dungeons in advance as we have multiple sheets.

If you don't need a bigger mat and move around a lot then the chessex is your mat.

We have play at the same place for 20 years on a table as large as a bed. The chessex looks like a stamp in the middle on an envelope when placed on that table. lol

-MD


Muad'Dib wrote:


If you don't need a bigger mat and move around a lot then the chessex is your mat.

We have play at the same place for 20 years on a table as large as a bed. The chessex looks like a stamp in the middle on an envelope when placed on that table. lol

-MD

Okay, I can see your point about the table. Our mat practically takes up the entire table except for the two ends. I was talking about plastic sheets like tablecloth type plastic, not plexiglass. That would be cool and much more sturdy than what I thought you were talking about.

I wouldn't want to use those for Cons tho, which is where I have a tendency to DM. The chessex mat is so easily portable and I also have a tube for it, which makes it even easier. I haven't had a problem with colors on my mat. I can use the yellow pens on it and they show up just fine. Mine is a light tan color.

Liberty's Edge

Im talking legit tomahawks, not rubber axes.


A suggestion, go to the Chessex website and look for a factory second battlemat. I got the Mondomat (4'x8') for $72.


silverhair2008 wrote:
A suggestion, go to the Chessex website and look for a factory second battlemat. I got the Mondomat (4'x8') for $72.

That's bigger than our table at home! lol


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My crown Royal bag...

because tradition xD


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PIXIE DUST wrote:

My crown Royal bag...

because tradition xD

Love mine, but it's starting to get a hole in it and barely fits all of my dice. (I like dice)

I do have a mini crown royal bag that I carry my RPG dice around tho, in my purse. Yes I'm a huge geek.

So, I mentioned a laminator above. Great fact, you can laminate a character sheet, write on it with fine tip sharpie and then write on it with wet erase for notes and erase those without erasing the sharpie. Need to erase the sharpie, use Dry Erase markers to write over the sharpie marker and erase. Comes off like magic.

We also use that technique for the Paizo combat tracker. We write the PC's name down in permanent marker and if we need to erase it, we use dry erase. It's a really nifty trick.


snickersimba wrote:

All Dms are required to throw axes at players who make bad puns, then set them on fire. That is my idea.

My acessory is a guinea pig.

Burning axes are t3h 4wes0m3.

Sovereign Court

Liranys wrote:
PIXIE DUST wrote:

My crown Royal bag...

because tradition xD

Love mine, but it's starting to get a hole in it and barely fits all of my dice. (I like dice)

I do have a mini crown royal bag that I carry my RPG dice around tho, in my purse. Yes I'm a huge geek.

So, I mentioned a laminator above. Great fact, you can laminate a character sheet, write on it with fine tip sharpie and then write on it with wet erase for notes and erase those without erasing the sharpie. Need to erase the sharpie, use Dry Erase markers to write over the sharpie marker and erase. Comes off like magic.

We also use that technique for the Paizo combat tracker. We write the PC's name down in permanent marker and if we need to erase it, we use dry erase. It's a really nifty trick.

Even cheaper are those see thru plastic binder sheets. You can swap em with each different character you play. Or get a bunch for way cheap and keep a binder with all your PCs. This way when you level up you can make hard corrections or simply print a new sheet and toss the old one.


Pan wrote:


Even cheaper are those see thru plastic binder sheets. You can swap em with each different character you play. Or get a bunch for way cheap and keep a binder with all your PCs. This way when you level up you can make hard corrections or simply print a new sheet and toss the old one.

That works too, unless your friends are all a bunch of klutz and so are you... We have a tendency to spill liquids and food and what not while playing. These sheets you can get wet and not care, the plastic binder sheets are still vulnerable to wet if it gets in the top. But we have used those before.

I just really like how the laminated sheets feel and how easy they are to use.

We use the laminator for other things too. Most recently I'm making my own Deck of Many Things and some "Achievement" awards for PCs at the game I'm running at our local Con in November. As well as using it to make "paper monsters" more durable. It can be a little expensive to start up (the laminators run anywhere from $30 to $100+ and 100 sheets is about $20) but I, personally, think it was worth every penny.

Dark Archive

Dice by Ceramic Wombat. All of them.


xn0o0cl3 wrote:
Ceramic Wombat et. al.

Dude, those are so evil! I love them!


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During the climactic battle of a campaign I ran, the skies over the Inner Sea were turned into one giant portal from which Azathoth slowly emerged as it awoke. When the skies opened, I reached into a trash bag beneath the table and pulled out this Tentacle Arm and waved it high over the table where their miniatures stood, explaining that the tentacle was to scale and that it was one of dozens that darkened the sky. Even though I only used it once for that one session, it was my favorite use of a prop/accessory to date.


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We don't really have room for a battle mat (though we've used it when playing at the FLGS). I bought a 2x3 foot magnetic, erasable white board at a yard sale for $2 and it's become our go-to accessory.


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When I used to run Stars Wars D6 I used my collection of Star Wars action figures to play out all fights.


It's hard to find but sometimes you can find the half gallons or gallon bottles of crown royal, and yes they come with a bag large enough for a lot of dice. My old gm had one till he filled it up.

My battlemat, gm screen, combat tracker, and because I like it copies of the critical hit and critical failure decks. Oh and plot twist cards, I do like them.


limsk wrote:
When I used to run Stars Wars D6 I used my collection of Star Wars action figures to play out all fights.

I have several hand painted miniatures to use for our PC characters and even a few monsters, but, for a while, I couldn't find them. So I used the little star wars Monopoly pewter figurines. It was pretty funny. "Which one are you?" "Darth Vader" "And I'm Luke"...

haruhiko88 wrote:

It's hard to find but sometimes you can find the half gallons or gallon bottles of crown royal, and yes they come with a bag large enough for a lot of dice. My old gm had one till he filled it up.

My battlemat, gm screen, combat tracker, and because I like it copies of the critical hit and critical failure decks. Oh and plot twist cards, I do like them.

I got those plot twist cards. They look entirely entertaining and I'm going to use them for my Con games

Sovereign Court

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I was shopping Target a few years ago and their dollar store section had a cup o' farm animals. I use them for familiars and animal minis all the time. Chickens, cows, lambs, horses, dogs... nice pick up for a dollar.


Pan wrote:

I was shopping Target a few years ago and their dollar store section had a cup o' farm animals. I use them for familiars and animal minis all the time. Chickens, cows, lambs, horses, dogs... nice pick up for a dollar.

Yeah, I have a bunch of plastic horses too. I also have some pewter ones I picked up in a bits bin, but I need to paint them still.


In Seattle we are fortunate to have a store called Archie McPHee's.

They have bins of figurine sized animals for 5-10 cents each. On my last visit they had a bin of plastic D&D type figs that I think might have been made for the board game Hero Quest. Anyway I bought an absolute army of them for just a few bucks. Great for when you need orcs in bulk.

Oh, another money saving tip for those of you who use figs. If you are in need of an awesome dragon fig but can't spare the cost of the 70 to 90 dollar WotC dragon. Mcfarlane toys used to make a series of dragon figurines. You can still find them on ebay, many sell for as low as 10-25 dollars. Most are in the 25 dollar range, and they are amazing looking and perfectly scaled. Far better that the ones WotC made and at a fraction of the price. And they have a great variety of dragon types.

McFarlane Toys can be found at

http://www.spawn.com/toys/

Also search ebay using McFarlane dragons and you should get a ton of hits

-MD

PS: Gaming is an endless money pit lol


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duplicate post...paizo site is moving at a snails pace

Liberty's Edge

I have several pieces laminated light card stock. Yeah, the guy at kinkos looked at me funny when I had them made, but they're great. I've also gotten the poster maps laminated for durability and markability.

Flipmats. Blank and otherwise.

Combat tracker magnets. I have my own small magnetic white board.

The Noteboard - Never leave home without it.

Crayola Dry Erase Crayons. Seriously, I can't recommend these enough for people using laminated maps and surfaces or regular white boards. Not sure how they'd fare on Chessex stuff.

Some... specialty paints. You see if you look carefully at the home store you can find magnetic primer and white board epoxy paint. Now, you'll probably need more primer then you think and it will never be as strong as a sheet of mild steel, but it's very nice to turn a cheap kitchen table or some conveniently sized pieces of MDF hardboard (also at the home store) into magnetic dry erase surfaces.

Glass beads and baubles.

At the craft store you can find an piles of wood discs in the convenient 1", 2", and 3" sizes. Removable stickers or even just a sharpie to write numbers on them work great for mooks. With some miniscule effort you can print art onto those stickers to make real world tokens.

Report covers. Notes, character sheets, etc.

Post-It flags.

My Moleskine campaign book and Parker Jotter pen with a Fisher Black Fine Point Space Pen Pressurized Cartridge inside.


Krensky wrote:

I have several pieces laminated light card stock. Yeah, the guy at kinkos looked at me funny when I had them made, but they're great. I've also gotten the poster maps laminated for durability and markability.

That totally gives me an idea for passing notes to players. Laminated index cards and wet erase markers (or the permanent markers and dry erase to erase them).

I think I shall do that. Thanks!

Liberty's Edge

The crayons are much better than any marker I've ever used. Resistant like wet erase, cleans like dry erase.


Krensky wrote:
The crayons are much better than any marker I've ever used. Resistant like wet erase, cleans like dry erase.

What kind of crayons? The ones I tried didn't even write on the laminate.

Wait, there are dry erase crayola crayons? I've never heard of those.


Things I use...

A 20+ year old Chessex battle mat (1" grid)

Dry erase markers

A huge d20. Seriously-- this thing is the size of an apple! I think it's 55mm. It's numbered as a counter die, and that's what I use it for. (Usually the current round of a fight, but I sometimes use it to count backward if the PCs have triggered a timer...)

Counters for Hero Points. Every player has a tiny china saucer with two kinds of tokens: glass beads or a faux gold doubloon. (Beads and coins from the Dread Pirate board game.)

My hero point system:
It's kind of half Hero Points, and half "bennies" from Savage Worlds. The glass beads are regular Hero Points. Additionally, the doubloon is an extra Hero Point that can be used once per game session, and refreshes the next time. I collect them at the end of each game. Each player has a different color of glass bead.

A handful of pizza savers, that I use to represent flying/levitating creatures.

A buddy of mine has a 3-D printer, and he printed me out two sets of 10 generic pawns, each set in a different color.

A collection of homemade paper minis.

My teenaged daughter is rather artistic. She made me three giant spider minis our of steel wire and beads: one Medium, one Large, and one Huge. (She also rather likes spiders...)


Haladir wrote:

Things I use...

A 20+ year old Chessex battle mat (1" grid)

Dry erase markers

My battle mat is wet erase only. Dry erase will stain it.

Sovereign Court

Liranys wrote:
Krensky wrote:

I have several pieces laminated light card stock. Yeah, the guy at kinkos looked at me funny when I had them made, but they're great. I've also gotten the poster maps laminated for durability and markability.

That totally gives me an idea for passing notes to players. Laminated index cards and wet erase markers (or the permanent markers and dry erase to erase them).

I think I shall do that. Thanks!

lol index card are like 2 bucks a box. You must really love your laminating Liranys! :)


Pan wrote:

lol index card are like 2 bucks a box. You must really love your laminating Liranys! :)

It's more that I hate carrying a lot of stuff around and laminating them makes them reusable. It's for a Con after all. If it were just at home, yeah, would't bother with the laminating.

Liberty's Edge

Liranys wrote:
Krensky wrote:
The crayons are much better than any marker I've ever used. Resistant like wet erase, cleans like dry erase.

What kind of crayons? The ones I tried didn't even write on the laminate.

Wait, there are dry erase crayola crayons? I've never heard of those.

'

Indeed there are.

16 total colors, 8 regular and 8 'bright'. Available separately or in a 16 color box. Similar in size to the large crayons. Comes with a cleaning cloth (the smooth microfiber sort) and a sharpener. The older ones came with a fleece like erasing 'mitt' that doubled as a bag.

They're somewhat like a grease pencil, but less messy. No smearing, cleans easier. They don't dry out, don't smell, it takes a lot more inattention for an adult to ruin clothing or furniture with them, no caps to lose.

They last as well as wet erase markers, clean with just a little pressure, and they clean just as easily from laminated maps (Kinko's standard glossy laminate) and the tracker magnets months down the line (after sitting in the car during 100 degree summer days in the sun. The crayons, while softer while hot, did not melt. The bright colors are good on dark surfaces.

Now, they're not as fine pointed as markers can be and it takes a little more effort to get a good line, but I love them. They're also only like $5.


Krensky wrote:


Now, they're not as fine pointed as markers can be and it takes a little more effort to get a good line, but I love them. They're also only like $5.

I want those for Kobolds ate my baby. :) Making adults use crayons for a character sheet just cracks me up. But for the normal stuff, I think I'll stick to pens. My hand writing is bad enough without using crayons. They aren't sharp enough for little stuff.


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Liranys wrote:
Haladir wrote:

Things I use...

A 20+ year old Chessex battle mat (1" grid)

Dry wet erase markers

My battle mat is wet erase only. Dry erase will stain it.

Oops.

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