While I was at ConnectiCon I was tempted to purchase a board game called "Arena" for one primary reason: they had cardboard cutout trees and bushes. These were basically cardboard trees that slide into one-another to create a quick and easy three-dimensional tree without the need for bases to hold it up or anything... and seeing I use environmental obstacles in my game, I was tempted at this just for the trees themselves. (The $80 price tag dissuaded me, however.)
This got me thinking. Paizo offers a nice line of pawns for monsters and now for NPCs (which can likely be used for PCs in a pinch as well). Why not create a line for environmental obstacles as well? Little things like trees, tables and benches, small stone walls, and the like would be handy for players. I'm not talking anything complex like the TerraClicks terrain for Malifaux; just simple trees and other such objects that would be easy to put together or take apart and store. I suspect there'd be a good market for such a product, and it would make the game more immersive to see three-dimensional obstacles for the miniatures or pawns, even if they're paperboard.
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And of course made from 100% recycled materials, because it seems especially perverse to kill a tree in order to make a cardboard figure of a tree.
I'd buy this in a heartbeat. Trees, bushes, boulders, streams, bridges all as indivual tokens/pawns is something I've been wanting for decades now.
Just throwing this out there. Making miniature trees is ridiculously easy. As in mind-numbingly easy. Do a search on "making miniature trees" to see thousands of how-tos and videos on multiple ways to do it.
I've used the wire twisting method, the pick up some twigs from the yard method, the OMG empty grape vines make awesome trees and bushes method, the coil a green pipe cleaner method and the cut some trees from construction paper or poster board method. I've also used cheap dollar store foam packs for this.
Of all of those the cheapest and easiest is probably just cutting them from poster board or construction paper method.
Yes, I know. I could very likely find all sorts of instructions on how to create various things using paperboard and the like. And I could download pawns for various monsters if I wanted and do that instead of Paizo's pawns. But that means I have to go through that extra work, likely print stickers and cut them out onto the board (though paper the thickness of business cards might work, assuming the printer doesn't jam up again)...
If Paizo did this all? I'd buy it. It's quick and easy that way. And I'm not alone in this. Heck, why do you think the TerraClicks are popular? Anyone could print that sort of thing out using drawings and the like already available online... but it's a hassle. Having a product that offers this? It's much easier and less work. And I work for a living; I don't have time to custom-build props for a game that runs once a month if I'm lucky.
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Tangent. Time is money. If you are spending money, you are spending time.
I'd buy this too.
Boulders = large gravel or riverstone.
Trees = Model railroad scenery (O-scale oughta be right, but a 3-4" tree will do no matter the scale.)