I only have like 10 minis and the party I DM for is 5 people, so I use a lot of random stuff as minis. I’m slowly building a collection, but it’s expensive lol
In many cases you don’t need mini at all, it’s rpg not a miniature game.
No mini nor battlemap gives more freedom to everyone (at the price of less tactical depth), and if you need a view on the situation, a whiteboard with a sketch + cross/letter does can bring you pretty far
As a totally cheap-ass DM, my recommendation is to find some printable DnD tokens that you like and glue them to things like bottle-caps, or small round bits of wood (like chunks off of a dowel from the hardware store). There are a bunch around. If you want to splurge, take the bits you want somewhere you can pay for a quality color printout.
I glued these to some sculpey discs of the same color. I also used transparent binder sleeves for HP tracker sheets, so I could use dry-erase marker. Lastly, my battle map was a large (but cheap) poster frame with 1" grid paper inside1. This let me use those dry-erase markers to draw terrain.
1. For more thrift, some wrapping paper brands print a barely visible 1" grid on the backside. Some quality time with a ruler and pen can turn that into something useful.
I only have like 10 minis and the party I DM for is 5 people, so I use a lot of random stuff as minis. I’m slowly building a collection, but it’s expensive lol
In many cases you don’t need mini at all, it’s rpg not a miniature game.
No mini nor battlemap gives more freedom to everyone (at the price of less tactical depth), and if you need a view on the situation, a whiteboard with a sketch + cross/letter does can bring you pretty far
As a totally cheap-ass DM, my recommendation is to find some printable DnD tokens that you like and glue them to things like bottle-caps, or small round bits of wood (like chunks off of a dowel from the hardware store). There are a bunch around. If you want to splurge, take the bits you want somewhere you can pay for a quality color printout.
Personally, I’m a fan of these generic tokens by “Acquitt”. They’re useful for every encounter: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FV7egJC87nsVUTybGs5E3DwvRihmz6KduUfniSJk6Fec.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D57f11a74865814f31c7236adb1555a43529ca355
I glued these to some sculpey discs of the same color. I also used transparent binder sleeves for HP tracker sheets, so I could use dry-erase marker. Lastly, my battle map was a large (but cheap) poster frame with 1" grid paper inside1. This let me use those dry-erase markers to draw terrain.
1. For more thrift, some wrapping paper brands print a barely visible 1" grid on the backside. Some quality time with a ruler and pen can turn that into something useful.