This is the first of a series of short videos focusing on Dungeons and Draogns 4th Edition table tips. In this episode we’re going to look at using black t-shirts as a fog of war, pipe cleaners for area markers, egg timers to keep your players moving, bottle rings for marking miniatures, and poker chips for action points and bonuses.
I’m hoping to do these videos from time to time if people think they’re useful. Sometimes it’s more useful to actually see the stuff in action than it is to read about it. Next, I’m thinking of discussing a few more DM tips from behind the screen.
Let me know what you think!
This. Is. Amazing. Do more of these. Do A LOT more of these. I need to steal more of these things for my group. The bottle ring idea? Just what I’ve been looking for! Functionality + Low Cost (considering you get a drink out of the deal) + Recycling (sorta)! And the pipe cleaners thing is great as well. I really like the poker chip idea though,… I have some rather slow players at my table that I would like to… push along shall we say.
I’m using bottle rings for a while now, but I’ve never thought of the pipe cleaners before! I’m using transparent projector sheets with nice magic circles printed out on them, but I have to lift up the tokens and minis to put them down o the map, so it can screw the game quite easily if the area has a lot of minis. The pipe cleaners solve that problem!
I new it would be good. Can’t wait for more Table Tips episodes!
Great video! These tips are easily adaptable to nearly any game system, thus are useful to more than just 4E D&D players. Your presentation was well done, no extraneous content & just the right length. Please continue this series!
SPECTACULAR VID! Definitely going to add this blog to the News page on my site this week. I think alot of gaming groups could benefit from these suggestions… my own included!
Very nice video blog, though a steadier hand would be good! I have a short blog on my experiences with marking here: http://community.wizards.com/alphastream1/blog/2009/09/08/marking_minis and a blog on creating AoE templates here: http://community.wizards.com/alphastream1/blog/2009/08/28/making_4e_aoe_templates
In the first you can take a poll on what works best for marking minis. Some with painted minis feel soda tops can scratch them. We use 99 cent bags of hair bands, which are non-scratchy and very portable. In the second blog you can see how we used screen door spline and wire to make great AoE templates.
Keep up the good work!
Wow, thanks for the tips, Mike. I’ll absolutely be using these at my table. I didn’t even think about soda bottle rings, brilliant!
Outstanding work. I am most impressed.
Have to say, for those who have been doing LFR organized play, the rings are quite common. Some people are using the magnetic tokens instead of rings, and there are many different things I have seen used (pipe cleaners, bottle rings, little rubberband like things, etc).
The FoW with tee shirts is good, if you can set things up in advance. The DM needs prep work, not always possible in a public play place (like a game store, or con).
Tokens for AP. I didn’t use those for the longest time, and have come to be a real believer in them.
The giving of situational plus for going fast. Not so sure of. That really depends on your crowd. In a lot of cases, with players who know their char and plan ahead, there would be a lot of those on the table.
Over all, I have followed links from http://www.loremaster.org to this site, and found there were usually something interesting to be learned.
Awesome Mike! Discovered this site a few weeks ago just in time to prep for the next arc of my 4e campaign. The vid is great, concise, with tips I will use. Thanks and please keep it up.
Nice quick overview of the little tools used to run your game. Being a former miniature wargamer, I’m rather envious of the terrain pieces you put down for some of your sessions. I agree it helps capture the player’s imagination during a fight.
Oh and bottle caps and pipe cleaners FTW!!!
I would REALLY like to see more about those personalized initiative tags you had hanging from your DM screen since I use that sistem but yours seem really pro.
Nice video btw.
This is really great! I loved it. I’ll save some bottle caps for you!
Love,
Mommo
Oh gods! Mom! You’re not supposed to post here! Now I’m really not cool….
Great ideas. I’ll have to add these for my game. Thanks!
Great tips Mike! Can’t wait to hear more.
I’m starting up a new campaign shortly and things like this should help to keep the game running smoothly. I usually have a pretty bare set-up, but the rings and pipe cleaners will be great to help newer players visualize effects and prevent us from forgetting status effects.
Keep the tips coming!
Very impressive, Mike. Please continue with the video tips. I especially like the poker chip suggestion. I may see if I can get that going at my local FGLS so we can speed up the games!
I like the hanging rings.
I would like to see how the DM screen/initiative system works. I have been using index cards that I mark on with a wipe away marker. It can get troublesome when I have 8 players and another 7-10 monsters.
Loved the video, I’m sending it to all our players. We currently use the bottle rings around the bases of our characters to help our DM identify each of our characters.
We’ve also found foam (available in any craft store, pre-cut and sheets) to be very useful. They come in many sizes/shapes/colors or you can cut out your own. You can also write/erase on them with water based markers. Each player has a specific color (matches ring color) so we know who did the effect We use the tiny triangles to mark area effects (one at each corner), hearts for healing surges and circles for actions points. We currently put squares under the monsters to mark affects on them. But this method needs improvement because sometimes a monster may have 4 or more squares under it and it becomes difficult to move.
Wow! Awesome! Not too long, and filled with tips I can actually use
Please do some more of these, inspirational and I will use some of those ideas in my game.
Thanks for the tip with the pipe cleaners for aoe, I’ll definately be stealing that. I use poker chips to track how many surges players have. Gives me a great visual clue when I look around the table to see how everyones taking damage.
For action points I found a company called campaign coins which do fantasy style metal coins in different shapes, sizes, metals and denominations. It really keeps the flavour going and my players love them. Of course if you get enough of them you can hand out physical treasure too. On top of that Paizo have just started selling them on their site.
Great tips TX ! never thought of the things you showed me .
Wow, these tips are so practical and helpful! I love all the time-saving and efficiency potential. Waiting excitedly for Episode 2!!