Tools of the Trade
Pathfinder, and the D&D edition it's based on, makes a lot of use of a grid and figures to represent characters, particularly in combat. It's really helpful, given the way certain combat rules work, to have some decent representation of the characters, their opponents, and the surrounding terrain. For some players, this means miniatures - sometimes made of metal, sometimes plastic - ideally painted to represent the characters and monsters.
Back in earlier days of the hobby, particularly when D&D was just growing out of its wargaming roots, miniatures were fairly common. The 1st edition of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules used miniature scale measurements for movement, attacking ranges, and so on (10 feet = 1" of scale). But the use of miniatures fell out of vogue with the second edition of the game when most miniature scale measurements were removed in favor of unscaled, descriptive ones (100 feet was listed as 100 feet, not 10").
Then with more detailed combat tactical elements in late 2nd edition materials and 3rd edition, emphasis was put back on using some form of grid and representative tokens to manage the detail. Miniatures were back in style. Sometimes we used dice to represent out characters because we didn't have personalized miniature figures or monsters. They were kind of expensive and a hassle to cart around. Then came another solution, one I was already familiar with... the chit.
Chits have been around a long time too. Cardboard chits are a staple among certain types of wargames or other strategic board games like Civilization or Advanced Squad Leader. But there was at least one RPG I played a lot in middle and high schools that regularly incorporated them... Villains and Vigilantes, the superhero RPG.
Fantasy Games Unlimited, publisher of V&V and its adventure scenarios back in the day, included a couple sheets of cardstock chits in most of its adventures. They'd be drawn in comic book style, often by Jeff Dee - game creator and comic book illustrator, sometimes by Patrick Zircher (also a comic book illustrator). We'd use them again and again. They'd pick up sweat on a hot summer day and stick to our fingers as we played in the non-air conditioned kitchen of our friend's trailer. They weren't as cool as actual miniatures, but they were cheaper to produce and they did the job.
The chit made a comeback for D&D with the products from Fiery Dragon. They sold cardstock packs of chits drawn mostly by Claudio Pozas, Brazilian RPG illustrator and author. And thanks to the game licensing by a friendly Wizards of the Coast, they could base their illustrations on D&D intellectual properties. I bought a bunch of them (they even had some for Call of Cthulhu). Then they took another great step forward and released graphics files for the chits on CD. Suddenly, I could produce my own, in any number I wanted. I could even resize them (useful for some variations on creatures like dragons or especially large specimens of common monsters). And they look fantastic.
Now, when I'm running an adventure and plan on using a battle grid to manage fights, I make up a set of chits, print them on a color printer (they look best from a color laser printer), cut them out and away we go. Since I'm making them out of regular paper, they're pretty cheap (and recyclable). I don't mind writing on them as well, jotting down how much damage a figure has taken or if there are any hampering conditions put on them like fear or some other weakness. They're super handy. And using them as inspiration, I can also make up my own graphic files, a few hundred pixels per side, with screen shots of anything I want. I sometimes cull my Pathfinder PDFs for chits based on their own illustrations for NPCs and new monster types. And I can tote them all around in a zipper sandwich bag rather than a big tacklebox full of miniatures (which saves wear and tear on me, I ain't getting any younger).
Back in earlier days of the hobby, particularly when D&D was just growing out of its wargaming roots, miniatures were fairly common. The 1st edition of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules used miniature scale measurements for movement, attacking ranges, and so on (10 feet = 1" of scale). But the use of miniatures fell out of vogue with the second edition of the game when most miniature scale measurements were removed in favor of unscaled, descriptive ones (100 feet was listed as 100 feet, not 10").
Then with more detailed combat tactical elements in late 2nd edition materials and 3rd edition, emphasis was put back on using some form of grid and representative tokens to manage the detail. Miniatures were back in style. Sometimes we used dice to represent out characters because we didn't have personalized miniature figures or monsters. They were kind of expensive and a hassle to cart around. Then came another solution, one I was already familiar with... the chit.
Chits have been around a long time too. Cardboard chits are a staple among certain types of wargames or other strategic board games like Civilization or Advanced Squad Leader. But there was at least one RPG I played a lot in middle and high schools that regularly incorporated them... Villains and Vigilantes, the superhero RPG.
Fantasy Games Unlimited, publisher of V&V and its adventure scenarios back in the day, included a couple sheets of cardstock chits in most of its adventures. They'd be drawn in comic book style, often by Jeff Dee - game creator and comic book illustrator, sometimes by Patrick Zircher (also a comic book illustrator). We'd use them again and again. They'd pick up sweat on a hot summer day and stick to our fingers as we played in the non-air conditioned kitchen of our friend's trailer. They weren't as cool as actual miniatures, but they were cheaper to produce and they did the job.
The chit made a comeback for D&D with the products from Fiery Dragon. They sold cardstock packs of chits drawn mostly by Claudio Pozas, Brazilian RPG illustrator and author. And thanks to the game licensing by a friendly Wizards of the Coast, they could base their illustrations on D&D intellectual properties. I bought a bunch of them (they even had some for Call of Cthulhu). Then they took another great step forward and released graphics files for the chits on CD. Suddenly, I could produce my own, in any number I wanted. I could even resize them (useful for some variations on creatures like dragons or especially large specimens of common monsters). And they look fantastic.
Now, when I'm running an adventure and plan on using a battle grid to manage fights, I make up a set of chits, print them on a color printer (they look best from a color laser printer), cut them out and away we go. Since I'm making them out of regular paper, they're pretty cheap (and recyclable). I don't mind writing on them as well, jotting down how much damage a figure has taken or if there are any hampering conditions put on them like fear or some other weakness. They're super handy. And using them as inspiration, I can also make up my own graphic files, a few hundred pixels per side, with screen shots of anything I want. I sometimes cull my Pathfinder PDFs for chits based on their own illustrations for NPCs and new monster types. And I can tote them all around in a zipper sandwich bag rather than a big tacklebox full of miniatures (which saves wear and tear on me, I ain't getting any younger).
posted by Bill D91 at 6:52 AM
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