PAWNS: Need More Pawns (to buy)


Accessories

Grand Lodge

So, I have all six of the Bestiary Pawn boxes, all the Codices and such, and I think 18 or 19 of the AP Pawn Boxes. Easily enough tokens.

What I don't have enough of -- want more of -- is extra mooks.

For example: The Villain Codex has SIX "Bandits" (#160). Which is great. But sometimes I need more than six Bandits; I need nine or ten. Better yet, it has TWO "Glabrezu Outriders" (#77) -- great token! I Really need nine or ten of those!

The Bestiary only has TWO "Mummys" (107) -- I mean, I need about 15!

Now, there is some overlap -- I have "Gugs" from about six different Pawn boxes, probably more than a dozen total Gug Pawns. Great. But even though I have, like, ten or fifteen "Twisted Nail Orcs," I wouldn't say "No" to buying more of them.

Here's what I'm asking:

Is it financially plausible -- is there a demand for -- 'made-to-order' Tokens?

ONCE a Box of Pawns is Sold Out.

So, I understand Paizo can't just sell made-to-order Pawns from, like, the PF2 Bestiary 3 if they still have a bunch in the warehouse they're trying to sell.

But,....
With all the sold-out Pawn boxes from Pathfinder, could you set up a Page in your Web Store where we could special order a dozen of this monster and a dozen of that monster?

You could only make them 'to-order' so you're not stuck with any in the warehouse -- customers would have to understand that they may take 4-6 weeks or something before shipping (since they aren't printed until after the order is made).

I would certainly buy a whole heap of Pawns. I always need more mooks, and I really like using tokens on the battlemat.


Quote:
Is it financially plausible -- is there a demand for -- 'made-to-order' Tokens?

To get a rough estimate of the finacial plausibility, take a sheet of pawns to your local specialty print shop.

Ask them how much you'd pay if you could provide the artwork for that page, and they simply printed and die-cut the pieces on the correct weight of card stock.

This is assuming that you yourself are supplying the art assets labor to get the correct pawns on the page and aligned so precisely that the die-cut machine does not mangle them while cutting.

I assume that your plea to Paizo is for them to pay for the labor of laying out the master, but we'll make it zero in this case, since you can buy the PDF/.jpg and do that yourself.

Check on the cost of setting up the die (or dies). Check on the cost per page of that cardstock. Check on the printing cost of actual four-color printing (not color photocopies).

Then come back and suggest a reasonable price point for that service from Paizo.

Grand Lodge

Dancing Wind wrote:
Take a sheet of pawns to your local specialty print shop. .... Ask them how much you'd pay if you could provide the artwork for that page, and they simply printed and die-cut the pieces on the correct weight of card stock.

.

Sure, a couple years ago I went to my local print shop and started with, 'What is your thickest card stock for color printing?'

Their thickest is barely poster-paper thick. Couldn't possibly be used for Pathfinder Pawns. .... I've tried to think of other ideas over the years -- arts-and-crafts is Not my jam; actually I Hate it.

I've looked on Ebay & Etsy and such to see if folks are selling theirs.

Finally I just came here. Maybe there could be a demand for 'made-to-order' Pawns. No harm in asking.


You need to find a specialty print shop, not the FedEx/local copy shop. One that can actually do color printing, not just color photocopying. If they aren't equipped to do precision die embossing and cutting, then they aren't the kind of specialty shop you need.

They'll be able to source the kind of cardstock you need to fit the pawn bases as well as do the precision printing/cutting required.

Quite honestly, producing pawns is an extremely high level of craftmanship printing. And most of that is set-up costs for the levels of precision printing and cutting that the pawns require. Then you have to add on the unusual paper/cardstock required.

I would expect 'made-to-order' pawns to run into the hundreds of dollars just for a single print run. Trying to load all those set-up costs onto a single page of cardboard would be astronomical.

The labor costs of designing the sheet to be printed would be small in comparison.

If Paizo can't mass produce pawns at a profitable level, there's no way they could produce custom pawns for us. Sometimes what seems to be a simple problem turns out to be quite complex.

One thing you might consider is finding a source of the cardstock you wanted*, and then having your local shop color copy the pawns onto 'sticker' paper with an adhesive back. Then you could press the printed page onto the cardboard, and cut out the pawns with an X-acto knife

*You'll quickly find out that there's an international shortage of cardboard as well as paper in general. And the prices have skyrocketed. You're looking for 100 pt chipboard. (approximately .1 inch thick or 2.5mm)

For the curious:
Specialty die-cut printing business webpage with prices


Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Buy the PDF, print it on label stock, adhere to foamcore or two sheets of chipboard glued together. I've done this many times when I needed a custom pawn.


The method I've used to create (way too many of) my own pawns is explained in a previous thread by yours truly: Creating Pawns from PDF Files

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