Well, when I was younger, my parents were not supportive of me playing tabletop games, especially things like d&d. They said it was stupid and expensive. I didnt get ANY minis till I was nearly a decade into the hobby. I live in the UK and it is rather rainy, so I spent alot of time indoors with my friends. Though I had no minis, I would use things I had round the house; Lego peices, coins and some of my small toys. But most creative was the terrain. While my parents still thought it was stupid, my grandmother was always supportive, she showed me all kinds of tricks with foam and wood and I made some cool scenery. One that I still have is a kind of hellish and lovecraftian set with blood and gore. I suppose my most exciting and creative miniatures were two little monsters made of clay and pipe cleaners as well as some cheap jewelry and clock parts which I have used alot. They look like fleshy lumps of metal and meat with tentacles and clockwork sticking out everywhere. I also used toy animals and stuff as I had alot of those little collectable things. I still love to make and craft my own stuff as it is a great way to exercise the creativity as well as save some cash. Thanks alot Theo, love your channel. It has got me threw some very difficult times.
This is just so touching and sweet. Made me smile and tear up. Thank you for sharing it with me! I love your grandma so much! I'm so glad to have you as part of our goblin family!
The silliest thing I've ever used for a mini was a rubber ducky that was suppose to represent a gold dragon. My players found it hilarious and we just pretended that is was a golden dragon with duck like characteristics. It was so funny and and fun!
I distinctly remember one of the most jank sessions I ever ran for my group. It was back when I was just getting really excited about miniatures so I just had the starter adventurer pack. The session had my players fighting a giant and a beholder, the first of which I used a princess peach mcdonalds toy for, and for the second I used a beer pong ball on top of a toilet paper tube. These lovely pieces were set on a piece of notebook paper I had ripped out and drawn a map on with a marker that ran out half way through, so I had to finish it with a highlighter. The struggle was real.
So back in the day when I was younger the local supermarket had these strawberry desserts which always came with a little animal inside and my granny always got them for me. Now when I started playing dnd about a year ago they worked wonders for my wild shape and even as regular creatures. Now my granny died a few years ago but playing with mini animals she gave me back in the day is really special to me. I also used small lego pieces and builds on regular math paper in the group I DM'ed. I made little builds to represent each class and sometimes even for the monsters!
When me and my brothers began playing, i used Tootsie rolls for goblins and kobolds, and let them eat the tootsie roll when they killed them. I also used a Pepsi can for an elder evil once.
Well... there are solo adventures... In all seriousness though, there's actually a lot of Internet groups looking for players these days too. It may take a few tries to find a group you mesh with, but there's usually one or two practice sessions for that purpose so everyone can get comfortable. -Grady
One time my friend brought a shrek action figure to our game that was the perfect size for a medium creature... There's a half-orc barbarian idea right there.
I'm a chef so I often make garnishes for banquets out of food items. I have made things like viking ships out of a watermelons to use as fruit bowls for parties, and made pods of whales along side the ships from cucumbers. One night for D&D we needed a bulette, so I quickly carved one from a large Vlasic pickle we had on the snack table. Our host then stuck some corn cob holders from his kitchen drawer into it as legs, and WALAH, we had a bulette. It was a huge hit, great laughs, and after we killed it we cut it into pieces and ate it in triumph.
When I was a kid before learning about role playing games, my brother and I created a dueling dice game with our GI Joes and other action figures as our minis. I use actual minis for PCs, party NPCs, and major baddies. However, for typical bad guys - especially mooks and hordes - I use a variety of those multi-colored glass beads that lay flat. We call them dobbers, and they’re cheap at the craft store - storing easily in a spare dice bag. The most interesting mini I saw were matchbox and micromachine vehicles that guns and spikes were affixed to for CarWars and Battletech.
We were facing off against a massive magic construct and we had nothing big enough to show it properly. We ended up using a jesus statue that stood about 16 inches tall, and that was by far the best mini we have ever used.
The giveaway is probably over by now, but I wanted to share. The one thing we had in an almost limitless supply of in my household was tumbled stones. My mother was a sucker for those "fill a bag of rocks" boxes at the beach, and we always came home with two or three of them every year. For over ten years. So when the time came for me to host my first game, the very first thing I did was pull out the bags and bags of rocks and go "Pick your favorite. That is your character for this game." Any unchosen rocks became enemies for the party to fight. My cousin actually still keeps her character rock in her dice box, as it was her mini for one of her first campaigns and holds a special place in her heart.
That's pretty awesome! I appreciate you sharing that story with us! And those are the kinds of keepsakes that can be set into necklaces or other heirlooms later on if you choose to. I love it! -Theo
That's what I told a friend new to the hobby 2 do we just painted the players characters helmets with nail polish I'm blue his gf is red the cleric is purple and the bard is pink
I've always just used dice of which I have a LOT. But the game I was running at my local library we used these minis, well the other set. I dig these too.
The silliest miniature I've ever used was: my dog. I used it as a Dragon and everyone laughed so hard when the "mini" was put in the table. Everything was fine until it decided to go away and jumped off the table, meaning it was a win for the PCs.
When I first started playing D&D, at Kmart we could still buy what must've been the original packs of cheap plastic creatures which contained the toys the rust monster, bullet, and some of the other entries in the first Monster Manual were modeled after. We rounded these out with plastic dinosaurs, gumball machine toys, Halloween spider rings, and candy.
A picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger to represent the player's spiritual weapon, the idea being that Arnie would use different weapons to attack the baddies, according to the player.
In my campaing I was the artist responsible of doing quick drawing of the party and the monsters that the DM was going to use on each session. We bring some sissors to quickly cut the paper minis. They were not 100% accurate to the monster manual but in the end they served their purpose.
Just ordered me a set. Thanks. While I have a decent horde of official pre-painted minis, I can see a lot of uses for these to supplement. As for the strangest item's I've used to replace mini's... dice, glass tokens, poker chips, and plastic beads.
Hey Theo, always enjoy cheap minis. Back in the 80's we used tokens from other games. Sorry game we used the colored pegs, monopoly pieces as markers for the bad guys. Dice, we used as our characters. Probably the one thing we didn't have was minis, they were way to expensive back then. Thanks Theo & have a great day.
I had gold-colored silly-putty from when I was a kid. I keep it in my desk as and play with it as a "stress-ball"-thing sometimes. It's container is a clear plastic disc-shaped case that is a perfect 4x4 on the battlemap, so I just unscrew the top, mold it into shape, and it makes the perfect orchre jelly. I use plastic "Peeples" pawns (because they are human-shaped) for my game (I let each person choose their color and put small rubber-bands around the PC and important NPC ones to set them apart from generic NPCs. The same company also has medieval fantasy-themed "Meeples" (knights, rogues, wizards, orcs, goblins, zombies, ect) but I don't use those. I also have some pawns that are just mini white dry-erase boards that I can just doodle a monster on when I need to.
When I first started we had a few little metal minis mostly to represent the PCs. but in one campaign we needed a dragon and none of us had one. Well I just Drew a picture of a dragon and what I thought was Close to the appropriate size and cut it out and moved it around the map.
I had a subscription to Dungeon/Dragon magazines before I ever actually started playing, and Dungeon would occasionally come with a cardboard insert with 1'' circles with art on them, so we never had to use something off the wall crazy, or funny, or creative. I also had fairly inexpensive rent when we started playing, so the Reaper minis started filling up my collection, then when Wizards started the plastic prepainted ones, I was addicted.
Thanks guys! I've had a chance to look over the material and I really like it! I'm a sucker for magic items. You guys rock thanks for putting out awesome content!
Great clip, Theo. I cut my teeth on these when I started playing 5e several years ago but they were in tubes with other sets called “Wicked Duals” running about $20 on Amazon. They take paint pretty well. I haven’t snagged these yet, so I am excited. I think the best, most colorful substitutes for minis are the big pawn collections from Pathfinder & Paizo; yours for around $20 at Half Price which would barely buy a booster box of 4 instead of giving you the whole codex. Thanks for posting. My wife and I love your stuff.
Those are pretty cool. They remind me of the old 80's Fantasy Army Playsets like "Forest of Doom" or "Dragonriders of the Styx". I have used different colored grapes as minis once for an Orc battle! Green for the Orcs, Red for the PCs :)
I used to cut out little squares of cardboard or paper and write the creature name and AC on it so everyone would know. I kept HP a secret for obvious reasons :)
Being a gashapon enthusiast, I've amassed over the years a huge collection of small robot figures from the Gundam SD Full Color line by Bandai. I tend to use them for my dwarfes, gnomes and halflings, claiming that they are from a highly advanced civilization and wearing power armor.
I have seen these many times on Amazon and EBay, like you said it would make a great set for beginners on a budget . I hope the winner is someone like that!!! Congrats to the 3 winner, I really bet it's an awesome tool that you guys will get some great use out of!
When I was still new to D&D (3.5e) we used dice and coins. But When I started to be the forever DM I had to be crafty as a teacher salary won't let me splurge on minis. I remember using guitar picks as creature markers. Also, I've gone so far to have used pebbles and sea shells from my mom's old "sea bottle"
I've always used Lego minifigures for my PCs. They can easily customize them by swapping out armors and weapons as they collect them, and I put them on a 2x3 base which is color coded, so myself and my PCs can easily identify and coordinate notes by color.
I once use a peanut as a miniature for phase spider. Whenever certain members of my group would attack, that person would have to roll with disadvantage because their character had a peanut allergy. I even had them roll to see if the epi-pen worked if they got bit by the peanut spider.
Was not for a #ttrpg, but I remember in '96 at high school a friend and I tried to play a WW1 RISK style boardgame at lunchtime where several mini pieces were missing. I managed to convince him to play by pulling out of my coat: two small pebbles, a 20c coin, a throat lozenge (in wrapper), and a scrap of paper which we wrote the word 'Scout' on. Don't remember the outcome, but we played up to the next lesson bell. Sometimes you just gotta improvise with what you have on you.
I’ve just starting out playing D&D and I am currently using cardboard rectangles I have cut to scale, I stand them up by clipping them to fold back clips and using those as bases. Works quite well considering how inexpensive it is
i first used pieces from a version of Risk set in the future with mechs. So all the creatures were mechs that were maybe a 1/3rd or quarter size of a regular mini, played on a handdrawn map that was scaled down to 3/4ths of a inch.
when i first played 40k, my friends insisted on a 1000pt army, and i hardly had enough minis to field that many points. I resorted to use quarters with post it notes pasted on there with writing on what unit it is. It wasn't elegant, but was enough to identify which one were which!
Miniatures are indeed pricey! The silliest thing I’ve ever used as a mini is a stuffed koala toy (no clothes), which I used to represent an insane giant town mayor. Did koalas have a place in my Europe-setting game with distinctly American friends in the Eastern United States? No, but people found it hilarious.
Hey! I love this video! You guys rock! I am definitely a guy that had needed to cut corners in order to get a more immersive experience. I appreciate this so much!
One of the cheapest but funniest items I used as figures for my roleplays before I got minis was candies and marshmallows! For bigger or more impactful characters I’d even try to sculpt the marshmallows. Once slain just eat them up, easy clean up 😄
Shield wolf puts out some great minis fairly cheap . I got some knock off sisters of battle that I highly recommend at 20 for $40 USD they come with a great variety of weapons ( though no chainswords 😒). We understand why you haven't answered many of our posts Theo, heck the sheer amount of videos you guys have given us lately amazes me that you guys can out that many out while still maintaining the quality your viewers love so no need to ever apologize because you and Grady are doing all of us a great service!!!
Me and my friends didn’t have d&d minis, but one of my friends had a massive Star Wars mini collection from when he was a kid that he played with his parent. So we had to use a lot of imagination to say this Wookiee was Dragonborn, or that a stormtrooper was a goblin. Good times
We used a lot of toys from five cent vending machines at the front of corner stores and five and tens. Mostly army guys and robots. My wizard was a stamped tin ring with a lightning bolt.
In the 90’s my girlfriend (now wife, I’m not stupid!) and I were playing in a Star Trek RPG. At the time either ST minis were not available or really rare. We couldn’t find any. My wife made character drawings of our characters on ShrinkyDink plastic. We cut them out and shrunk them. Then ended up shrinking a little tall, but they were colorful and very recognizable as to who they were. We still have ours somewhere!
I used to use legos, which were definitely too big but worked all right, especially with me having many of the Serpentine legos for Yuan Ti. Also I found it was better to buy the board game for Tomb of Annihilation then buy the Booster Bricks, although of course they are unpainted. Finally sometimes I used whatever was lying around, including a bunch of cheap plastic dinosaurs for Tomb of Annihilation. A massive Pteranadon and tiny T Rex aren't perfect but they got the job done. Great video as always.
Working in injection molded plastics factory we have ‘purged’ material, that is essentially just wasted blobs of plastic. I collected some small cooled pieces and hot glued odds and ends together to make them into black puddings and ochre jellies:
Just starting out we would use just about anything! I think the weirdest was using a plastic finger puppet of a monster with multiple arms as a Grick. We would use random toys to stand in for creatures. I “borrowed” all of the Lord of the Rings war game minis from my dad to be NPCs, goblins, orcs, etc. I bought a cheap plastic dragon from a hobby store and repainted it to be Venomfang from Lost Mine of Phandelver. It was actually close to the correct scale. And I made an evil tree (sort of a lesser form of a gulthias tree) by cutting apart and gluing a set of train set trees. But out of everything the plastic finger puppet has appeared more often than any other. It was a grick the first time but since then we just keep finding reasons to use it!
The yuan-ti was almost enough for me to rethink and get one for heck of it... but the sci-fi one reminds me of that robot race planescape setting... starts with an M.??
The "orc" makes a great orge IMO. Especially since the skull on his base is about the size of a 28mm human's. My ogres are mainly from the old Dark World game as well as a bunch of Heroclix big fellas (like some Hulk and Hulk-adjacent pieces) and he's just a smidge taller than those. He might be too small compared to Wizkids ogres though... I have a Wizkids Ettin and he's just comically oversized, odds are their ogres are just as comically big.
We were in a campaign and were at a fight with two large lizards and realized the minis were left at someone’s home. My girlfriend had two chicken salt and pepper shakers and they were the stand ins. We ended up starting a new campaign called 'Goodwill' where all the monsters were nick-knacks and random things from Goodwill. You would be surprised how many 'monsters' you can find on the shelves at Goodwill.
You should check out origin miniatures enemy minions, it is a bit more expensive at $50 for 36 minis, but it is a substantial step up in quality. Plus it come with a decent case.
When I started gaming prior to geting into minis and painting I used gi Joe's and other action figures I'd seen robes and armor like fau leather my mum is and was a seamstress so I'd plenty of scraps to work from and thread lol
In my college group we would each use a die that we would not normally need (either a d6 or a percentile) and we would flip them to show our initiative (1 going first etc.)
I once reached in one of my friends fishtanks to take out a tower they had for decoration for using in a campaign. No fish were harmed, but the bbeg who stood on the mini definitely did some harm to my pc's
Probably the silliest thing I've ever used as a miniature were the Toa pieces from a Bionicle board game; they fit the dimensions well enough, but didn't match with the aesthetic at all.
In 3.5 edition I had a monk that rushed into battle against an undead minotaur. Since I was entering it's threat range I would receive an attack of opportunity against me. I figured that since it was the first turn of the first round that even if he hits I could still take it since I haven't lost any health. In 3.5e the crit system made it to where you can keep rolling the d20, doubling the damage output as long as you keep getting 20. It succussfully rolled 2 20's and succeeded on the attack roll to confirm so it dealt X4 damage, instantly killing my character. Didn't even get to punch it.
I think the funniest thing I ever used to represent minis was a small gathering of old Gogo's toys i had. Funny enough, they for perfectly in the medium category size. I tried to color code then cause I was DMing for a group of new players: blue for PC's, green for friendly NPC's, red for unfriendly, purple for neutral and Gold for some Very special NPC's It was a bit awkward but It was a great substitute.
Dollar stores were always a good place to find tubes of random soldiers/Wild West/animals miniatures in tubes. And at Halloween plenty of skeletons and spiders too.
When my friends and I started we used a 2" grid so we could just use our Amiibos, Skylander figures, DC Chess pieces, or even Funko power ranger figures. Bahamut was a Blue Eyes White Dragon Funko POP......
In Thailand we used baht coins... single baht coins for small creatures, 5 baht coins for medium creatures and 10 baht coins for the leaders... we would write numbers on them with markers! Now Thailand is starting to get some game stores :)
I've mostly used some old Warhammer fantasy miniatures for my games but there was one time I was dming at my friends house so I only had a handful of them with me and when it came time for the encounter I realized I was short a player character mini. A few minutes of us all scrambling round the house looking for something to use we found a little pink bear? Toy with an over sized head and giant cartoonist eyes looked very funny amongst gw sculpts
Well, when I was younger, my parents were not supportive of me playing tabletop games, especially things like d&d. They said it was stupid and expensive. I didnt get ANY minis till I was nearly a decade into the hobby.
I live in the UK and it is rather rainy, so I spent alot of time indoors with my friends. Though I had no minis, I would use things I had round the house; Lego peices, coins and some of my small toys. But most creative was the terrain. While my parents still thought it was stupid, my grandmother was always supportive, she showed me all kinds of tricks with foam and wood and I made some cool scenery. One that I still have is a kind of hellish and lovecraftian set with blood and gore.
I suppose my most exciting and creative miniatures were two little monsters made of clay and pipe cleaners as well as some cheap jewelry and clock parts which I have used alot.
They look like fleshy lumps of metal and meat with tentacles and clockwork sticking out everywhere.
I also used toy animals and stuff as I had alot of those little collectable things.
I still love to make and craft my own stuff as it is a great way to exercise the creativity as well as save some cash.
Thanks alot Theo, love your channel. It has got me threw some very difficult times.
This is just so touching and sweet. Made me smile and tear up. Thank you for sharing it with me! I love your grandma so much! I'm so glad to have you as part of our goblin family!
The silliest thing I've ever used for a mini was a rubber ducky that was suppose to represent a gold dragon. My players found it hilarious and we just pretended that is was a golden dragon with duck like characteristics. It was so funny and and fun!
I distinctly remember one of the most jank sessions I ever ran for my group. It was back when I was just getting really excited about miniatures so I just had the starter adventurer pack. The session had my players fighting a giant and a beholder, the first of which I used a princess peach mcdonalds toy for, and for the second I used a beer pong ball on top of a toilet paper tube. These lovely pieces were set on a piece of notebook paper I had ripped out and drawn a map on with a marker that ran out half way through, so I had to finish it with a highlighter. The struggle was real.
Love it! -Theo
So back in the day when I was younger the local supermarket had these strawberry desserts which always came with a little animal inside and my granny always got them for me. Now when I started playing dnd about a year ago they worked wonders for my wild shape and even as regular creatures. Now my granny died a few years ago but playing with mini animals she gave me back in the day is really special to me. I also used small lego pieces and builds on regular math paper in the group I DM'ed. I made little builds to represent each class and sometimes even for the monsters!
Needed something in place of a giant so we used a small bust of Mao Tse-tung, it was a red fire giant.
Seems appropriate! -Theo
When me and my brothers began playing, i used Tootsie rolls for goblins and kobolds, and let them eat the tootsie roll when they killed them.
I also used a Pepsi can for an elder evil once.
Theo: all you need is some dice and some friends
Me: cries in no friends
Also I have used a small stuffed tortoise as a dragon turtle
Well... there are solo adventures...
In all seriousness though, there's actually a lot of Internet groups looking for players these days too. It may take a few tries to find a group you mesh with, but there's usually one or two practice sessions for that purpose so everyone can get comfortable. -Grady
I got a discord where we play D&D online. Ill be ur friend :)
One time my friend brought a shrek action figure to our game that was the perfect size for a medium creature... There's a half-orc barbarian idea right there.
My group mostly used legos, but we have also used dice in place of minis, and on rare occasions we've used food items like grapes
Instead of minis I've used Skittles so when we kill monsters we eat them :p
I have used candy in place of minis. Makes it all the more satisfying to devour your enemies once you have vanquished them.
The best mini I have ever seen, would be starburst. You have colors and you can label the wrappers. Bonus you get to eat what you kill
One of the most handy things to have is a bulk of meeples. they can represent anything!
YES! I have been using meeples and they are so versatile
I used Pringle can tops with taped on pictures for large figures. They looked pretty good too!
I'm a chef so I often make garnishes for banquets out of food items. I have made things like viking ships out of a watermelons to use as fruit bowls for parties, and made pods of whales along side the ships from cucumbers. One night for D&D we needed a bulette, so I quickly carved one from a large Vlasic pickle we had on the snack table. Our host then stuck some corn cob holders from his kitchen drawer into it as legs, and WALAH, we had a bulette. It was a huge hit, great laughs, and after we killed it we cut it into pieces and ate it in triumph.
When I was a kid before learning about role playing games, my brother and I created a dueling dice game with our GI Joes and other action figures as our minis.
I use actual minis for PCs, party NPCs, and major baddies. However, for typical bad guys - especially mooks and hordes - I use a variety of those multi-colored glass beads that lay flat. We call them dobbers, and they’re cheap at the craft store - storing easily in a spare dice bag.
The most interesting mini I saw were matchbox and micromachine vehicles that guns and spikes were affixed to for CarWars and Battletech.
We were facing off against a massive magic construct and we had nothing big enough to show it properly. We ended up using a jesus statue that stood about 16 inches tall, and that was by far the best mini we have ever used.
The giveaway is probably over by now, but I wanted to share.
The one thing we had in an almost limitless supply of in my household was tumbled stones. My mother was a sucker for those "fill a bag of rocks" boxes at the beach, and we always came home with two or three of them every year. For over ten years.
So when the time came for me to host my first game, the very first thing I did was pull out the bags and bags of rocks and go "Pick your favorite. That is your character for this game." Any unchosen rocks became enemies for the party to fight.
My cousin actually still keeps her character rock in her dice box, as it was her mini for one of her first campaigns and holds a special place in her heart.
That's pretty awesome! I appreciate you sharing that story with us! And those are the kinds of keepsakes that can be set into necklaces or other heirlooms later on if you choose to. I love it! -Theo
When I first started my group made paper cut out styled with coin bases man we have come so far from there, ohhh memories
I used a bag of army men from the Dollar Tree. They even have some laying down so I could switch out dead ones.
That's what I told a friend new to the hobby 2 do we just painted the players characters helmets with nail polish I'm blue his gf is red the cleric is purple and the bard is pink
When I started out as kid in 79, it was army men and my superman batman 12 inch action figures as bosses.
I've always just used dice of which I have a LOT. But the game I was running at my local library we used these minis, well the other set. I dig these too.
The silliest miniature I've ever used was: my dog.
I used it as a Dragon and everyone laughed so hard when the "mini" was put in the table. Everything was fine until it decided to go away and jumped off the table, meaning it was a win for the PCs.
When I first started playing D&D, at Kmart we could still buy what must've been the original packs of cheap plastic creatures which contained the toys the rust monster, bullet, and some of the other entries in the first Monster Manual were modeled after. We rounded these out with plastic dinosaurs, gumball machine toys, Halloween spider rings, and candy.
A picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger to represent the player's spiritual weapon, the idea being that Arnie would use different weapons to attack the baddies, according to the player.
In my campaing I was the artist responsible of doing quick drawing of the party and the monsters that the DM was going to use on each session. We bring some sissors to quickly cut the paper minis. They were not 100% accurate to the monster manual but in the end they served their purpose.
Just ordered me a set. Thanks. While I have a decent horde of official pre-painted minis, I can see a lot of uses for these to supplement. As for the strangest item's I've used to replace mini's... dice, glass tokens, poker chips, and plastic beads.
Hey Theo, always enjoy cheap minis. Back in the 80's we used tokens from other games. Sorry game we used the colored pegs, monopoly pieces as markers for the bad guys. Dice, we used as our characters. Probably the one thing we didn't have was minis, they were way to expensive back then.
Thanks Theo & have a great day.
I love the use Monopoly pieces! Thank you! -Theo
I had gold-colored silly-putty from when I was a kid. I keep it in my desk as and play with it as a "stress-ball"-thing sometimes. It's container is a clear plastic disc-shaped case that is a perfect 4x4 on the battlemap, so I just unscrew the top, mold it into shape, and it makes the perfect orchre jelly.
I use plastic "Peeples" pawns (because they are human-shaped) for my game (I let each person choose their color and put small rubber-bands around the PC and important NPC ones to set them apart from generic NPCs. The same company also has medieval fantasy-themed "Meeples" (knights, rogues, wizards, orcs, goblins, zombies, ect) but I don't use those. I also have some pawns that are just mini white dry-erase boards that I can just doodle a monster on when I need to.
When I first started we had a few little metal minis mostly to represent the PCs. but in one campaign we needed a dragon and none of us had one. Well I just Drew a picture of a dragon and what I thought was Close to the appropriate size and cut it out and moved it around the map.
I had a subscription to Dungeon/Dragon magazines before I ever actually started playing, and Dungeon would occasionally come with a cardboard insert with 1'' circles with art on them, so we never had to use something off the wall crazy, or funny, or creative. I also had fairly inexpensive rent when we started playing, so the Reaper minis started filling up my collection, then when Wizards started the plastic prepainted ones, I was addicted.
Thanks guys!
I've had a chance to look over the material and I really like it! I'm a sucker for magic items. You guys rock thanks for putting out awesome content!
The craziest thing I’ve ever used instead of minis was my imagination
Great clip, Theo. I cut my teeth on these when I started playing 5e several years ago but they were in tubes with other sets called “Wicked Duals” running about $20 on Amazon. They take paint pretty well. I haven’t snagged these yet, so I am excited. I think the best, most colorful substitutes for minis are the big pawn collections from Pathfinder & Paizo; yours for around $20 at Half Price which would barely buy a booster box of 4 instead of giving you the whole codex. Thanks for posting. My wife and I love your stuff.
Those are pretty cool. They remind me of the old 80's Fantasy Army Playsets like "Forest of Doom" or "Dragonriders of the Styx". I have used different colored grapes as minis once for an Orc battle! Green for the Orcs, Red for the PCs :)
I have a lot of paper minis. The silliest thing I’ve used is probably collectible pins.
They also paint pretty well. You will have to prime them with a good Vallejo primer. Rattle cans will make them sticky and gunky.
I used Star Wars Command Figures when I started out, some of them work pretty well for bosses (General Grievous with 4 attacks wipes out all)
I used to cut out little squares of cardboard or paper and write the creature name and AC on it so everyone would know. I kept HP a secret for obvious reasons :)
Being a gashapon enthusiast, I've amassed over the years a huge collection of small robot figures from the Gundam SD Full Color line by Bandai. I tend to use them for my dwarfes, gnomes and halflings, claiming that they are from a highly advanced civilization and wearing power armor.
I have seen these many times on Amazon and EBay, like you said it would make a great set for beginners on a budget . I hope the winner is someone like that!!!
Congrats to the 3 winner, I really bet it's an awesome tool that you guys will get some great use out of!
Thank you, Joseph! -Theo
When I was still new to D&D (3.5e) we used dice and coins. But When I started to be the forever DM I had to be crafty as a teacher salary won't let me splurge on minis. I remember using guitar picks as creature markers. Also, I've gone so far to have used pebbles and sea shells from my mom's old "sea bottle"
No one knows as much about being crafty and stretching limited budgets as a teacher! Shells are a fantastic idea though! -Theo
@@TheGallantGoblin thank you! My players seem to like the shells on the table, especially my students
I once used erasers with the first letter of the characters name written on the top.
I've always used Lego minifigures for my PCs. They can easily customize them by swapping out armors and weapons as they collect them, and I put them on a 2x3 base which is color coded, so myself and my PCs can easily identify and coordinate notes by color.
I used to have little glass beads that had different colors to mark miniatures and for players I painted the symbols of their classes .
I've used Bottle caps, an Apple sitting on a masking tape (painters tape) and balls of paper.
I once use a peanut as a miniature for phase spider. Whenever certain members of my group would attack, that person would have to roll with disadvantage because their character had a peanut allergy. I even had them roll to see if the epi-pen worked if they got bit by the peanut spider.
Was not for a #ttrpg, but I remember in '96 at high school a friend and I tried to play a WW1 RISK style boardgame at lunchtime where several mini pieces were missing. I managed to convince him to play by pulling out of my coat: two small pebbles, a 20c coin, a throat lozenge (in wrapper), and a scrap of paper which we wrote the word 'Scout' on.
Don't remember the outcome, but we played up to the next lesson bell. Sometimes you just gotta improvise with what you have on you.
Amen, buddy! -Theo
That's an AWESOME way to start out.. Thanks Theo!!
Thanks, Chip! -Theo
I’ve just starting out playing D&D and I am currently using cardboard rectangles I have cut to scale, I stand them up by clipping them to fold back clips and using those as bases. Works quite well considering how inexpensive it is
This pack is perfect for filling in the ranks of monsters. Love it!
i first used pieces from a version of Risk set in the future with mechs. So all the creatures were mechs that were maybe a 1/3rd or quarter size of a regular mini, played on a handdrawn map that was scaled down to 3/4ths of a inch.
One time I rolled with my cat being on the table and said it was a young tarrasque, the players panicked until the cat got off
Easy, a large bag of dorrito's was used once in place of a colossal spider, "pass the spider guts' was used at the table ever since.
when i first played 40k, my friends insisted on a 1000pt army, and i hardly had enough minis to field that many points. I resorted to use quarters with post it notes pasted on there with writing on what unit it is. It wasn't elegant, but was enough to identify which one were which!
For a while I used mostly Heroclix guys and small pieces of cardboard I found around the house
Miniatures are indeed pricey! The silliest thing I’ve ever used as a mini is a stuffed koala toy (no clothes), which I used to represent an insane giant town mayor. Did koalas have a place in my Europe-setting game with distinctly American friends in the Eastern United States? No, but people found it hilarious.
Heh, koalas are always appropriate! -Theo
Hey! I love this video! You guys rock! I am definitely a guy that had needed to cut corners in order to get a more immersive experience. I appreciate this so much!
Instead of minis, we once used an assortment of fruit shoot bottles/juice bottles and their lids
One of the cheapest but funniest items I used as figures for my roleplays before I got minis was candies and marshmallows! For bigger or more impactful characters I’d even try to sculpt the marshmallows. Once slain just eat them up, easy clean up 😄
Shield wolf puts out some great minis fairly cheap . I got some knock off sisters of battle that I highly recommend at 20 for $40 USD they come with a great variety of weapons ( though no chainswords 😒).
We understand why you haven't answered many of our posts Theo, heck the sheer amount of videos you guys have given us lately amazes me that you guys can out that many out while still maintaining the quality your viewers love so no need to ever apologize because you and Grady are doing all of us a great service!!!
Working on it! Thank you though! -Theo
Me and my friends didn’t have d&d minis, but one of my friends had a massive Star Wars mini collection from when he was a kid that he played with his parent. So we had to use a lot of imagination to say this Wookiee was Dragonborn, or that a stormtrooper was a goblin. Good times
We used a lot of toys from five cent vending machines at the front of corner stores and five and tens. Mostly army guys and robots. My wizard was a stamped tin ring with a lightning bolt.
In the 90’s my girlfriend (now wife, I’m not stupid!) and I were playing in a Star Trek RPG. At the time either ST minis were not available or really rare. We couldn’t find any. My wife made character drawings of our characters on ShrinkyDink plastic. We cut them out and shrunk them. Then ended up shrinking a little tall, but they were colorful and very recognizable as to who they were. We still have ours somewhere!
I love this so much! -Theo
I used to use legos, which were definitely too big but worked all right, especially with me having many of the Serpentine legos for Yuan Ti. Also I found it was better to buy the board game for Tomb of Annihilation then buy the Booster Bricks, although of course they are unpainted. Finally sometimes I used whatever was lying around, including a bunch of cheap plastic dinosaurs for Tomb of Annihilation. A massive Pteranadon and tiny T Rex aren't perfect but they got the job done. Great video as always.
I once made a sculpt out of taffy for a monster in a christmas themed one shot I DMd for 😂
Working in injection molded plastics factory we have ‘purged’ material, that is essentially just wasted blobs of plastic. I collected some small cooled pieces and hot glued odds and ends together to make them into black puddings and ochre jellies:
Just starting out we would use just about anything! I think the weirdest was using a plastic finger puppet of a monster with multiple arms as a Grick. We would use random toys to stand in for creatures. I “borrowed” all of the Lord of the Rings war game minis from my dad to be NPCs, goblins, orcs, etc. I bought a cheap plastic dragon from a hobby store and repainted it to be Venomfang from Lost Mine of Phandelver. It was actually close to the correct scale. And I made an evil tree (sort of a lesser form of a gulthias tree) by cutting apart and gluing a set of train set trees. But out of everything the plastic finger puppet has appeared more often than any other. It was a grick the first time but since then we just keep finding reasons to use it!
The yuan-ti was almost enough for me to rethink and get one for heck of it... but the sci-fi one reminds me of that robot race planescape setting... starts with an M.??
The "orc" makes a great orge IMO. Especially since the skull on his base is about the size of a 28mm human's. My ogres are mainly from the old Dark World game as well as a bunch of Heroclix big fellas (like some Hulk and Hulk-adjacent pieces) and he's just a smidge taller than those.
He might be too small compared to Wizkids ogres though... I have a Wizkids Ettin and he's just comically oversized, odds are their ogres are just as comically big.
Good idea! Also good because we don’t have a ton of official modern ogre minis. -Theo
We were in a campaign and were at a fight with two large lizards and realized the minis were left at someone’s home. My girlfriend had two chicken salt and pepper shakers and they were the stand ins.
We ended up starting a new campaign called 'Goodwill' where all the monsters were nick-knacks and random things from Goodwill. You would be surprised how many 'monsters' you can find on the shelves at Goodwill.
You should check out origin miniatures enemy minions, it is a bit more expensive at $50 for 36 minis, but it is a substantial step up in quality. Plus it come with a decent case.
I will look those up! Thank you! -Theo
When I started gaming prior to geting into minis and painting I used gi Joe's and other action figures I'd seen robes and armor like fau leather my mum is and was a seamstress so I'd plenty of scraps to work from and thread lol
In my college group we would each use a die that we would not normally need (either a d6 or a percentile) and we would flip them to show our initiative (1 going first etc.)
My favorites would be the griffon, serpentfolk, and the dragons.
I once reached in one of my friends fishtanks to take out a tower they had for decoration for using in a campaign. No fish were harmed, but the bbeg who stood on the mini definitely did some harm to my pc's
Probably the silliest thing I've ever used as a miniature were the Toa pieces from a Bionicle board game; they fit the dimensions well enough, but didn't match with the aesthetic at all.
In 3.5 edition I had a monk that rushed into battle against an undead minotaur. Since I was entering it's threat range I would receive an attack of opportunity against me. I figured that since it was the first turn of the first round that even if he hits I could still take it since I haven't lost any health. In 3.5e the crit system made it to where you can keep rolling the d20, doubling the damage output as long as you keep getting 20. It succussfully rolled 2 20's and succeeded on the attack roll to confirm so it dealt X4 damage, instantly killing my character. Didn't even get to punch it.
I one time used a Soda to represent a dragon. My friend wasn't to happen he couldn't drink his drink during the entire encounter. Lol
I do like how they use 2 different shades for the minis so it can be easier to call them out in combat!
Didn’t have a gargantuan mini so used a cup from a Theme park. My party fought the dreaded dragon: Busch Gardenia.
It was funny seeing a yoda LEGO figure trying to represent an Aasymar in the Death House a couple of sessions ago
Excellent! -Theo
I have used chunks of blue tack as monsters before because it is easy to represent either medium or large on the play at.
I think the funniest thing I ever used to represent minis was a small gathering of old Gogo's toys i had. Funny enough, they for perfectly in the medium category size. I tried to color code then cause I was DMing for a group of new players: blue for PC's, green for friendly NPC's, red for unfriendly, purple for neutral and Gold for some Very special NPC's It was a bit awkward but It was a great substitute.
Dollar stores were always a good place to find tubes of random soldiers/Wild West/animals miniatures in tubes. And at Halloween plenty of skeletons and spiders too.
I have created monsters out of Lego on occasion as huge and gigantic minis cost a lot.
I have used candy as monster tokens and the pc that makes the kill gets to eat the candy to clear it from the mat.
Once used a Jell-O shot to represent a Gelatinous Cube (had some leftover from a party lol)
D4’s standing in for overachieving, respawning Hobgoblins - the room got very full - and 3 of 4 of our party went down before we finally prevailed! 😵😅
I used dice once before I had a few minis but as you can guess they got mixed and confused
When my friends and I started we used a 2" grid so we could just use our Amiibos, Skylander figures, DC Chess pieces, or even Funko power ranger figures. Bahamut was a Blue Eyes White Dragon Funko POP......
That's amazing
In Thailand we used baht coins... single baht coins for small creatures, 5 baht coins for medium creatures and 10 baht coins for the leaders... we would write numbers on them with markers!
Now Thailand is starting to get some game stores :)
Excellent! I lived in Japan for a good while and didn't see a lot of D&D or related products there either. -Theo
Oh those are cool. Little paint and they'll make a great addition to any campaign.
When you need minis and stick a bunch of lego men onto quarters... :)
Beer bottlecaps work great for markers.
Especially when you can assign logos to each of your pcs.
We onced used a "NO face" money box from spirited away as a black ooze. Was creepy due to the fact it could pick minis up and tip them into its mouth.
These come in a box now?
i love your vidoes and me and some friends had to use
lego figures from my childhood to be goblins in battle
Thank you! Legos are a classic! -T
I've mostly used some old Warhammer fantasy miniatures for my games but there was one time I was dming at my friends house so I only had a handful of them with me and when it came time for the encounter I realized I was short a player character mini. A few minutes of us all scrambling round the house looking for something to use we found a little pink bear? Toy with an over sized head and giant cartoonist eyes looked very funny amongst gw sculpts
I've used dice, coins, and once even popcorns to stand in as goblins
Good motivation to kill them quickly. Nom nom! -Theo