This is a friendly reminder that the ENTIRE ruleset for Patherfinder, both first and second edition, are totally free on-line. Not just only four classes. I'm not sure about the new Critical Role system. Big name companies are never satisfied with _some_ of the money, they want _all_ of the money. All of the time. Thanks for the video.
Patherfinder...I'm going to assume you're talking about "Pathfinder," and if so, you must really think everyone will believe anything you say, because that is total bullshit.
@@NoNameBoi9987 he actually means it legally, the entire game SRD is usually on the Archive of Nethys website, still updating to the remaster. The thing is that it includes absolutely everything, from every single book and supplement, as opposed to a regular SRD which only have a fraction of the rules legally available for free, usually without what the supplements offer.
@@NoNameBoi9987 They weren't saying to play pathfinder over D&D, they meant that TTRPGs are intended for accessibility. This video is all about that so it makes sense that comments reflect that, too. If the comment was a dig at anything, it is at big name companies that try to profit from a hobby that can be narrowed down to pencil, paper, and a set of dice.
D&D for free is nice. Washable markers to draw the map on a window or a varnished table. (Of course none of these are free unless you have a garden and some level frontier living) Food stamps for a few snacks or leftovers from the week's meals or potluck. The cardboard from last sessions pop or other beverages to make new scenery with the window markers. Small painted stones representing characters. A small indoor window garden for a forest scene. A painted q-tip box as a building. I'm currently working the free budget, so I'm still making up the materials as I go. To the creator: Thank you so much for the reassuring validation.
As an indie TTRPG designer, I really appreciate these kind of videos. The indie scene in general is exploding with games designed for accessibility, and for GMs on a budget. TTRPGs are a movement more than a product. Harkening back to the days of gathering around a campfire and telling stories. DIY is the way.
@@nathancarmen1685 I'm sorry, do you not read your comments as you're writing them? There's really not much difference, but I wouldn't expect you to admit that, since you're clearly trying to deflect with nonsense. I mean, come on, saying "I don't" in response makes no sense.
@@mattpace1026 I never said “I don’t” you know you could just copy and paste what I actually said right? If your whole argument hinges on misquoting me, you’re not worth talking to.
Im going to get into d&d when i get a job (im 16 and nobodies hiring me) and im going all out on d&d. Ive made a amazon list of stuff ill get (funny tid bit the name of the amazon list is “nerdy shit” 😂) and so far everything has totalled up to $300 Edit: i may have been slightly off about the price.. only a little bit tho its just $1,144.82 😬 what ever tho it will all be bought once i get a job 💪
@@Spoiledmilk3507 you the type that will never get into it cause you think you need all that, i just wrote a adventure and it was free. it is my first one and it took 3 days.
@@Spoiledmilk3507 also i bet you haven't even tried to get a job at taco bell, they will grab you up and not let you leave until you already worked the closing shift lol
The thing about the "Theater of the Mind" is that even if everyone hears the same description, they're all going to be imagining something different. Ask 100 people to name a creature that is as tall as a house, has tough leathery hide, two enormous teeth, and ears as big as radar dishes, and you'll get 100 different names. Sure, some might actually call it an elephant (what I was describing), but everyone's imaginations will work differently. Having a map with figures for placement will at least keep everyone on the same page as to where everything is.
I was definitely thinking a big dorky looking dragon haha. But yeah I agree. And I have ADHD, so its already hard for me to keep all of these things in my head, especially when it's as rapid-fire as D&D can be sometimes. Having physical representation of the players, enemies, scenery, etc. helps me a lot because I can focus on more important stuff while the visual stuff's always there for me to reference quickly.
@@jeremyanimatespoorly9573 Glad I'm not alone. A map is absolutely essential for TRPGs. I cannot even list the number of arguments it's stopped before they began, especially since one of the players in my group literally tried to argue that straight ahead could also mean diagonal.
@@whiterabbit75 I used to think maps were essential but this isn't necessarily the case for all games. I've switched to Barbarians Of Lemuria in the past year and thought for sure I'd still need maps, minis and tokens but no, it runs fantastically purely on Theatre Of The Mind. Granted, I tend to give my players a solid visual of the creatures encountered (often even just an illustration out of the book) so there's no risk of them thinking a venator is anything other than a small raptor-like creature.
Again, I tip my hat off to you for ways for me to possibly get into DnD without necissarily breaking the bank.(Especially given alot of the bogus buisness practices that Hasbro and WOTC have been pulling recently.)
DnD is the onlu ttrpg on the market that requires you to buy 3 books and 90% of their content is about combat, rather than actual... Well... Roleplaying. Forcing you to invest in more products like maps and minis. If you just want to play DnD without hassle and wrestling with Hasbro, try reading about OSR.
They are already talking about a $60+ price tag on the 2024 books that are getting released after September '24. I'm probably not going to waste my chump change on that. I went back to AD&D 2nd Edition, and my friends and I are having a blast with an original Dragonlance Campaign setting from the 1990's. Thanks for the video, and the Update!
My local comic book shop sells common Heroclix singles for $1 each. Lots of 'em are easily adaptable to D&D. Just tear off the Heroclix base and repaint 'em (with dollar store paints). My dollar store also had cheap 1-foot x 1-foot wall tiles that just happened to have a 1-inch grid made out of plastic tiles. That was a great score.
Love your concept. As a DM from 1979, I have played with as little as Green Army Men and cereal cardboard dungeon tiles. What ever works to get you to be able to play is great. Spend on goodies as you are able, not because you must.
Great ideas for handling "required" rolls being failed, like adjusting the circumstances, grades of success/failure instead of a flat pass-fail, etc.! I jotted some notes down, thanks. 🙂
There is so much free and cheap stuff for D&D, look what they put in creative commons if your sticking w 5e. The OSR and it old school clones of D&D can be very affordable (Basic Fantasy is one) Clear Contact paper can be used if you cant get it laminated
While DnD does need a map, a thing that sets it apart from many rpgs (dnd's insistence on measuring in feet makes it nessecary to know exactly where everyone is), even that map is itself an abstraction. That abstraction can go back pretty far - a pencil sketch on some 1' graph paper and paper tokens with a crude sketch and/or a name is enough - and emotional investment in the characters and their situation will do a lot for you
@@DanyTheMe It requires a lot of shifts in who has agency if you remove the ability to know how far things are from each other. Any ability that mentions feet goes from "you do X" to "you can do X if the GM agrees youre close enough". Which isnt untennable, but is a very different dynamic than spells are meant to be. There's a reason every other edition didnt have "(optional)" next to saying you need some maps and minis, and 5e didn't change the concepts that made it required
@@Luna_Everywhere depends on how you play it. I always just let my players say where they are relative to the enemy at the start of combat and allow them to move during their turn (within reason) without penalizing them for it. But the players always know where they are since they can always ask about the room, the enemies location, and move around as they wish. It can be less restrictive in some cases, with a grid you can be like 1ft short of hitting an enemy whereas in narrated combat that won't happen unless your dm is a dick (in which case that's a problem with the dm, not the game format)
@@DanyTheMe regardless of the way you choose to run it, it does hold that ultimately the scene goes from displayed cleanly on a map of some kind (which, usually, are abstracted to 5-foot-increments, which is fine since 99% of the things in dnd are measured in multiples of 5 feet, except jumping for some reason) to kept largely in your head, even if youre very good and consistent at explaining it. And when you need to be absolutely sure who is and isnt within the 20-foot radius of that fireball, that's a pretty big shift
@@Luna_Everywhere yeah it's different, I'm just saying that maps and grids aren't required to play. You might prefer them and that's fine, I'm just saying they're not necessary. ("Hey dm, if I cast fireball would it hit the paladin? " "Yeah, he hit the bad guy with his sword just now so he's definitely within range")
ThankYou for tht dollar store video. You were very creative, and have given me a spark of hope. I am gonna try with my nieces and nephews...and see if I can stir their imaginations. Thanx again for the inspiration.
I like maps even for games without minis, players always knowing where they are saves a lot of time on descriptions and confusion and I also think it helps players be creative
I Can safely say that a lot of the games I have, most people didn't know that there was an RPG for that type of setting. One that I'm looking forward to getting in print Is Mothership, Which is a hard SF game in the vein of 2001 and Alien. It has a massive zine community. And now to explain that term. When the term first got used, It was a portmanteau of fan magazine or fanzine. An old example is how we got World of Darkness to begin with, as that is how White Wolf started out. Now a zine is anything from a trifold/bifold pamphlet in size to under 100 pages.
I seldom play dungeons and dragons anymore, I switched to palladium system because they stopped with 2e and just added new rift worlds , rift being an offshoot of palladium that goes beyond the mideval aspect of the original. D&D just kept changing the rules. After years of theater of the mind we are going to start tactical games with the minis because we think its easier for players to visualize distances in combat. I am the dm and glad for all the you tubes giving advice on the subject. Thank you for your videos.
I'm currently in a campaign where we are level 7 and started playing in February (currently late july as of posting this) and all we had is some dice and character sheets and im surprising my DM with a portable DM kit with a everything you need and i did it on a very tight budget and the first video was a HUGE help
I saw your dollar store video sometime ago, and watched it again recently. nice to know there was this quick little update idea. What your encounter reminded me of, was when I played in an Adventurer's League game that took place in the jungle of Chult, where there was, in fact, a zombie-barfing dinosaur baddie. Pretty sure that module was Tomb of Annihilation. I started playing DND when 3.5e was already out for a while, and I remember the DMG having a crapload of free terrain / dungeon printables in the back of the book. I printed a whole bunch on heavy cardstock, and while they nevewr got used, I remember being grsteful they were a thing casue I had no idea where to get started. So if you newer players can find copies of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e DMG, that's also an option.
Just subbed cause you're awesome. Literally just discovered you through D&D and thought the dollar store video was very informative and helpful. Thank you.
That video was excellent, I'm glad you made it just to highlight various tricks of the trade to help make RPGs more accessible. In fact, I would argue the worst and most expensive part of playing DnD is actually DnD itself. Yes, I'm aware you can use the free starter rules or SRD or whatever, but come on, man. You can tell they deliberately gave you the bare minimum to count as letting you play the game for free, to the point where I think they designed the default SRD subclasses to be as boring and mediocre as possible to encourage players to get tired of those and buy the big book to get the cool shit. There's tons of RPGs out there that give you their FULL RULES for free. Just off the top of my head, Pathfinder 2e does it, Fate does it, there are systems called Risus and Freeform Universal that are basically pamphlet sized free PDFs, GURPS Lite is free, there's a ton of free OSR games made to emulate old school DnD which in a lot of ways makes the game way simpler and easier to just sit down with some beer and pretzels and hang out with your friends (I like Basic Fantasy and For Gold and Glory). I've been working on a whole notepad list of every free RPG I can find, and the list is huge if you just know where to look. Some of these are fantasy-specific, but a bunch of them are generic so you can run any genre you want, and even the fantasy ones can be hacked to be a genre you find more appealing. The potential is literally infinite and you save so much money that can be put back into the stuff you care about rather than funding Hasbro's attempt to turn DnD into a trendy little app you have on your phone.
if it makes you feel any better, i think your dnd set up was quite charming and easy for me to get a sense of whats going on. and i think ide rather make my character out of lego minifig parts instead of paying over 50 bucks for a little plastic statue that i might not be able to use for very long if ever
whats so interesting is that like.... gaming magazines in the 70s would literally include grid maps and paper minis IN THE MAGAZINE!! it doesnt need to be crazy,... i mean jeez, i played in college with the white boards in the university rooms we booked out at night and drew our maps badly as we went, and board games just give you printed cardboard tokens on printed cardboard playmats.... there are SO many ways to visualise space and there's no reason that ANY tabletop game should be that expensive to play. if you want to, go for it, but theres a lot of beauty in simplicity. We use pdfs of the rules online but its really my intention to minimize screens at the table. My group and I play to have something screenless to do.
Although I haven't played in about 10 years, I used to play quite regularly from the mid-eighties until my youngest was born in the late 2000s and I've actually NEVER used miniatures to play D&D, so it is definitely not required to have full map layouts and it does not detract from the fun in the slightest. We DID always map out the dungeons ourselves as we explored and had that in the middle of the table as we played.
A great follow up video. Like you said, I was a bit bummed out when they said D&D was "under-monitized" and felt as they were trying to suck more blood out of us (WoD Ref). But I did appreciate your methods and ideas. I'll be hitting the dollar store tomorrow before the game.
i play dnd at a club in my highschool and we just use dry erase boards with grids on them for our map so the dm can draw out the situations rocks for the figures and dnd beyond for our character sheets
I LOVED your original video. It gave me a lot of inspiration and encouragement that staying in this hobby does not have to become an excessive expense. I prefer Pathfinder 1E and Starfinder over anything D&D has done since 3.5. I love your discussion on murder hobos and how to correct that. Thank you for the video!
Purchasing terrain also pushes your cost up, my early gaming experience was almost entirely just drawing on the board what we saw. I fondly remember purchasing my first vinyl mat (squares on the front, hexes on the back for BattleTech), and having this huge mat opened up so many doors for huge combats. When we did terrain, a lot of it was cardboard because it was so cheap and easy to paint w/ craft paint.
3:25 - So you don't expect people to have a phone for an app, but you expect them to have tables and chairs? These days a smart phone is almost ubiquitous. There are people in Africa, living in huts with dirt floors and no electricity that have smart phones. I don't think it is an unreasonable expectation to think that a player or DM would have a smart phone.
When I GM Pathfinder, I don't even use minis, I use pennies marked with dollar-store dry erase pens. It's not pretty, I'll be honest, but it's functional.
The "theater of the mind" comment made me chuckle, just because a lot of this takes me back to when I first started playing AD&D -- back when it was TSR and 2nd edition was a few months away. Not only did we not have the money... these accessory things just didn't exist. I knew a _few_ people with Ral Partha miniatures, but not very many. So our old-school games were almost entirely theatre-of-the-mind, because we had to! The newer rulesets, though, admittedly, definitely are designed around grid-based tactical settings. Honestly not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. :D
I have to disagree. I been playing since 1980. You could buy lead minis even back then. A wet erase map was available since 1981 (found my old one last quarter). But I do/did live in either military town, or big town. Even the Dragon magazine had ads for various accessories.
@@RottenRogerDM They may have existed, but they were not readily available in my backwater hometown, I was lucky to find the books in bookstores, "game stores" didn't exist. Mail order was expensive and when you were working off the pennies from your allowance, you didn't risk your money on things you couldn't see or really read about. So yeah, it just wasn't a thing. I knew one adult who played D&D who had some miniatures, but we kids didn't have that kind of disposable income, so we were lucky to have the dice & books, and we were happy.
I was just at Target a bit ago doing Christmas shopping and I found some dnd stuff to look at. The cheapest thing was like a $14 comic book. Then there was a randomized roll table for hundreds of situations for well over $30 as well as other books and a continuation of the phandelvar area not the secondary, even a pop up book. It was crazy
Trying to make a free rpg would be such a great idea!! That would have some really interesting results and be super helpful for a lot of people. I know I would really appreciate it 😁
The folks from Tephra came to our game store something like 10 years ago, and ran demos. Seemed like a really cool game/system! And it was D12, if I remember correctly.
Your comment about not having your players roll and potentially fail on something they need to move the plot took me back to the first campaign I ever DM’d. I had this idea that in the first room, there would be vases. In one case there would be a key for the only other door they could see. Naturally, as I had hoped, they started smashing vases. One player decided they wanted to keep one…. The one that had the key. They kept failing the check that should have let them hear the metal key jangling in the clay pot… other people failed the check to hear the key. They argued over the pot. I had already described all the pots as having the same basic design, heavy, but of no real value. They still kept the pot. The other players found the secret door that lead to a different, dead end, room that I added for lore and flavor text. We ran out of time before they ever opened the door….. they never got to see the rest of the one-off I was in charge of. They didn’t get to hit the first encounter that was supposed to happen once they opened the door. Years later, that has become my lesson on what I could have done. I could have lied about the roll to move the plot. I could have said the key was in a different one they hadn’t smashed yet. I could have said they noticed a glint of something in the shards of a different one. I could have said they were too loud when they were arguing and just had the baddies open the door to investigate, roll for initiative. 🤦🏻♀️ I still laugh at myself about this. 😅 Thanks for reading.
I hate the term "gentrification" for what is happening to dnd and rpgs in general because it's not a correct term. Dnd had higher dollar items before and there’s people who had built dedicated rooms for role-playing over the years. It's because rpg went mainstream as well as the perfect timing of the pandemic that blown rpg sales out of the water. It's pretty much a bubble in the market and everyone is trying to get in on it. As for books, I got 5th ed on sale for 25usd each. It's another option for people to look for used book stores that might have rpgs on the shelves. As for the mainstream argument is that I remember only seeing basic D6 sold in 6 packs at the dollar store for dice and now there's full sets for most games. 3d printing is a great way to get models and you don't have to get the printer. Usually a ton of libraries, community tech workshops, or even schools that are willing to print stuff out. Now for helping out with getting new players into the hobby, make a community group that can help new players as well as new gms get play time in as well as maybe start a revolving book giveaway. While not everyone has the money to pitch in so it would be voluntary but it is possible to get more people involved with less money than what people think that it would take.
I got my copy of Index Card RPG master edition for like 8 bucks because I waited for it to go on sale on DTRPG, and that's before I knew about all the free systems out there. Other than that, I've bought a few dice sets, markers, colored pencils and a patently unreasonable number of index cards. I did also splurge on some binder clips to serve as bases for minis, but I could have also used tape and pennies. This is the direction I want the hobby to go in. Make your own stuff, make your own rules, and make it freaking rad as hell without throwing your money at some scummy corporation.
I’ve seen alot of the more spicy stuff about what dnd and hasbro have been doing but this is the first video i’ve seen about their financial failures which has been very interesting
1000%, glad somebody is saying it. for some reason, a pack of those generic green army men is like $4 for a 50 pack but dnd mini's are easily 10x (if not 20x) that price. it's literally plastic. hand painted and artisan mini's are one thing, but the generic grey plastic molds shouldn't be that expensive.
I think a good toy lime to go over would be the new kamen rider geats toys. The buckles really work visually and help to grant more combinations the more buckles you got
I liked the dollar store DnD video. Some of your solutions were very creative. If you need miniatures of something specific, you can always find pictures on the web, and size them on your computer before printing out on paper. If you leave a tab on the bottom, you can fold that over and glue it to a penny. Pennies make great bases.
I just make my dungeon tiles out of those little cardstock pages they put with magazines and if the players don't like it, they can buy their own damn tiles.
As both a player and dm we mostly didn't do any of the landscaping and miniatures. Just dice and maps, either hand drawn or from a world campaign already published. I have been playing since 1rst edition and was not impressed by 5th edition and since Hasbro took over the system has been even less impressive. I like the idea of using dollar store items for creating 3d experience though
Fun random fact, the Dark Sun boxed set back in the day was sold for just about what they made it for... a dollar less. There is a reason TSR doesn't exist anymore. Yes, Hasbro is greedy. But there's an alternative that's worse.
I started playing GURPS with nothing but 10 inherited lead miniatures (yes, lead!!!) some shit photocopied sheets and one Core Rulebook. This went on for more than 7 years, until we started working and bought our stuff.
I honestly thought the video was great, shows you don’t need all the fancy stuff just to play the game. My DM usually just uses paper tokens for monsters, small toys and the like. I myself have an assortment of these mini figures Minecraft uses to release as collectibles that work pretty well as character minis.
Everything gotten so expensive, might as well make up your own game and rules, and just get the dice. I have a group, we have like an American History RPG, we will mostly re enact the Revolutionary War, Civil War and World War II. We make the sessions fit in with the History and what happen, as much as possible. We have fun doing it.
Nice hat makes me think of dream finder . Or Disney Dan . The only table top role playing games I played was a little ninjas and super spies and the filsinger wrestling card and dice games .
I really always played D&D with just the power of the mind, the combat tactics were never important for me and the other players, luckily. Like who cares, most rooms are squared and most often the enemies are going to be in front of you or around you, do you REALLY need the visualization? I don't think the tactics are that deep or important, honestly, even playing regularly with many other groups, very rarely mattered
In the example you made I really don't understand why it's important to have miniatures for that. 4 walls, 2 windows east, 1 west, door north, nothing south. Enemies are entering from windows on the left from the east. Really, I don't get why power of the mind is not enough
Moved away from D&D this year to other systems like Morg Borg and Dragonbane. Honestly, I'm not going back. I also own a 3dprinter, so I am not paying crazy amount for models and terrain
Tunnels & Trolls is a really good D&D Alternative IMO, in large part because it uses d6es, which you can get literally ANYWHERE. I mean, seriously, worse to worst, you can raid your kids' old Board Games that they never play with anymore. lol
"It's gone up quite a bit since uh... since uh..." ... since wizards of the coast bought them? Yeah, I can remember when the hobby was reasonably priced, too. =/
I'm a bit scared of the people who were going "Or you can just play in the theatre of the mind" in the comments of the original video because they are clearly operating on some different astral plane than mere humans, and can communicate via group telepathy.
@@DanyTheMe Exaclty... it was always as simple as asking the DM, where is the monster located in relation to me? Where is the closest creature? Am I in range? Communication is always the key, and the fact that everybody has different mental images is one of the things that makes the game great.
I'm a bit scare of people that don't have the imagination to to picture the scene nor the communication skills to talk with the DM and members of their party.
I mean it is a spectrum of games that make up roleplaying but I don't understand why a person that uses a virtual dice app(WTF?) would even be watching your real board crafting video challenge?🙄 Really the most accessible game you can make is the best game for getting more players involved, if you try to find only "masters of mind theater" you'll likely being playing alone lol. My cousin got me this elaborate Aliens game set that doesn't look cheap, you can spend a small fortune on the hobby so sad to hear about the over-monetization. I've never been that deep into D&D but I know there was a lot more DIY in the past, makes me wonder just how much paint app work China is pumping out for so many, many, many figure products made now. Gentrification is a good term to use.😉
Your video literally got me into d&d, now im painting minis, kitbashing, building terrain, and have 2 active campaigns going on!!
That's the spirit my fella 🗿🤙
This is a friendly reminder that the ENTIRE ruleset for Patherfinder, both first and second edition, are totally free on-line. Not just only four classes. I'm not sure about the new Critical Role system.
Big name companies are never satisfied with _some_ of the money, they want _all_ of the money. All of the time.
Thanks for the video.
Patherfinder...I'm going to assume you're talking about "Pathfinder," and if so, you must really think everyone will believe anything you say, because that is total bullshit.
The entirety of 5e is also online. What’s your point
@@NoNameBoi9987 he actually means it legally, the entire game SRD is usually on the Archive of Nethys website, still updating to the remaster. The thing is that it includes absolutely everything, from every single book and supplement, as opposed to a regular SRD which only have a fraction of the rules legally available for free, usually without what the supplements offer.
@@NoNameBoi9987 They weren't saying to play pathfinder over D&D, they meant that TTRPGs are intended for accessibility. This video is all about that so it makes sense that comments reflect that, too. If the comment was a dig at anything, it is at big name companies that try to profit from a hobby that can be narrowed down to pencil, paper, and a set of dice.
D&D for free is nice. Washable markers to draw the map on a window or a varnished table. (Of course none of these are free unless you have a garden and some level frontier living) Food stamps for a few snacks or leftovers from the week's meals or potluck. The cardboard from last sessions pop or other beverages to make new scenery with the window markers. Small painted stones representing characters. A small indoor window garden for a forest scene. A painted q-tip box as a building. I'm currently working the free budget, so I'm still making up the materials as I go.
To the creator: Thank you so much for the reassuring validation.
Why does that sound so very appealing?
As an indie TTRPG designer, I really appreciate these kind of videos. The indie scene in general is exploding with games designed for accessibility, and for GMs on a budget. TTRPGs are a movement more than a product. Harkening back to the days of gathering around a campfire and telling stories. DIY is the way.
"TTRPGs are a movement, not a product."
There are so many things wrong with that statement, I don't know where to start.
@@mattpace1026 considering that’s not what I said, don’t
@@nathancarmen1685 I'm sorry, do you not read your comments as you're writing them? There's really not much difference, but I wouldn't expect you to admit that, since you're clearly trying to deflect with nonsense. I mean, come on, saying "I don't" in response makes no sense.
@@mattpace1026 I never said “I don’t” you know you could just copy and paste what I actually said right? If your whole argument hinges on misquoting me, you’re not worth talking to.
I used to play d&d 2nd edition and all we had was our character sheets we had no figurines or nothing just dice and a pencil. it was great.
no one is taking your childhood from you brother lol
Been there. Ran a killer game while driving. Shotgun rolled My dice.
Im going to get into d&d when i get a job (im 16 and nobodies hiring me) and im going all out on d&d. Ive made a amazon list of stuff ill get (funny tid bit the name of the amazon list is “nerdy shit” 😂) and so far everything has totalled up to $300
Edit: i may have been slightly off about the price.. only a little bit tho its just $1,144.82 😬 what ever tho it will all be bought once i get a job 💪
@@Spoiledmilk3507 you the type that will never get into it cause you think you need all that, i just wrote a adventure and it was free. it is my first one and it took 3 days.
@@Spoiledmilk3507 also i bet you haven't even tried to get a job at taco bell, they will grab you up and not let you leave until you already worked the closing shift lol
The thing about the "Theater of the Mind" is that even if everyone hears the same description, they're all going to be imagining something different. Ask 100 people to name a creature that is as tall as a house, has tough leathery hide, two enormous teeth, and ears as big as radar dishes, and you'll get 100 different names. Sure, some might actually call it an elephant (what I was describing), but everyone's imaginations will work differently. Having a map with figures for placement will at least keep everyone on the same page as to where everything is.
Haha I thought of an ogre until you said it was an elephant
@@fruitynyanko7316 Exactly.
I was definitely thinking a big dorky looking dragon haha. But yeah I agree. And I have ADHD, so its already hard for me to keep all of these things in my head, especially when it's as rapid-fire as D&D can be sometimes. Having physical representation of the players, enemies, scenery, etc. helps me a lot because I can focus on more important stuff while the visual stuff's always there for me to reference quickly.
@@jeremyanimatespoorly9573 Glad I'm not alone. A map is absolutely essential for TRPGs. I cannot even list the number of arguments it's stopped before they began, especially since one of the players in my group literally tried to argue that straight ahead could also mean diagonal.
@@whiterabbit75 I used to think maps were essential but this isn't necessarily the case for all games. I've switched to Barbarians Of Lemuria in the past year and thought for sure I'd still need maps, minis and tokens but no, it runs fantastically purely on Theatre Of The Mind. Granted, I tend to give my players a solid visual of the creatures encountered (often even just an illustration out of the book) so there's no risk of them thinking a venator is anything other than a small raptor-like creature.
Again, I tip my hat off to you for ways for me to possibly get into DnD without necissarily breaking the bank.(Especially given alot of the bogus buisness practices that Hasbro and WOTC have been pulling recently.)
DnD is the onlu ttrpg on the market that requires you to buy 3 books and 90% of their content is about combat, rather than actual... Well... Roleplaying. Forcing you to invest in more products like maps and minis.
If you just want to play DnD without hassle and wrestling with Hasbro, try reading about OSR.
They are already talking about a $60+ price tag on the 2024 books that are getting released after September '24.
I'm probably not going to waste my chump change on that. I went back to AD&D 2nd Edition, and my friends and I are having a blast with an original Dragonlance Campaign setting from the 1990's.
Thanks for the video, and the Update!
My local comic book shop sells common Heroclix singles for $1 each. Lots of 'em are easily adaptable to D&D. Just tear off the Heroclix base and repaint 'em (with dollar store paints).
My dollar store also had cheap 1-foot x 1-foot wall tiles that just happened to have a 1-inch grid made out of plastic tiles. That was a great score.
Love your concept. As a DM from 1979, I have played with as little as Green Army Men and cereal cardboard dungeon tiles. What ever works to get you to be able to play is great. Spend on goodies as you are able, not because you must.
Great ideas for handling "required" rolls being failed, like adjusting the circumstances, grades of success/failure instead of a flat pass-fail, etc.! I jotted some notes down, thanks. 🙂
I actually found polyhedral dice at Dollarama :D 3 sets of dice with little pouches! I think for 4 CAD$.
Dude when we were kids we couldn't even afford the books. We just made our own stuff up.
I see nothing wrong with that.
And I bet you had a blast!?
There is so much free and cheap stuff for D&D, look what they put in creative commons if your sticking w 5e. The OSR and it old school clones of D&D can be very affordable (Basic Fantasy is one)
Clear Contact paper can be used if you cant get it laminated
While DnD does need a map, a thing that sets it apart from many rpgs (dnd's insistence on measuring in feet makes it nessecary to know exactly where everyone is), even that map is itself an abstraction. That abstraction can go back pretty far - a pencil sketch on some 1' graph paper and paper tokens with a crude sketch and/or a name is enough - and emotional investment in the characters and their situation will do a lot for you
You can play just fine without maps or grids of any kind, it's okay to prefer those things, but they are 100% not necessary
@@DanyTheMe It requires a lot of shifts in who has agency if you remove the ability to know how far things are from each other. Any ability that mentions feet goes from "you do X" to "you can do X if the GM agrees youre close enough". Which isnt untennable, but is a very different dynamic than spells are meant to be. There's a reason every other edition didnt have "(optional)" next to saying you need some maps and minis, and 5e didn't change the concepts that made it required
@@Luna_Everywhere depends on how you play it.
I always just let my players say where they are relative to the enemy at the start of combat and allow them to move during their turn (within reason) without penalizing them for it.
But the players always know where they are since they can always ask about the room, the enemies location, and move around as they wish.
It can be less restrictive in some cases, with a grid you can be like 1ft short of hitting an enemy whereas in narrated combat that won't happen unless your dm is a dick (in which case that's a problem with the dm, not the game format)
@@DanyTheMe regardless of the way you choose to run it, it does hold that ultimately the scene goes from displayed cleanly on a map of some kind (which, usually, are abstracted to 5-foot-increments, which is fine since 99% of the things in dnd are measured in multiples of 5 feet, except jumping for some reason) to kept largely in your head, even if youre very good and consistent at explaining it. And when you need to be absolutely sure who is and isnt within the 20-foot radius of that fireball, that's a pretty big shift
@@Luna_Everywhere yeah it's different, I'm just saying that maps and grids aren't required to play.
You might prefer them and that's fine, I'm just saying they're not necessary.
("Hey dm, if I cast fireball would it hit the paladin? "
"Yeah, he hit the bad guy with his sword just now so he's definitely within range")
ThankYou for tht dollar store video. You were very creative, and have given me a spark of hope. I am gonna try with my nieces and nephews...and see if I can stir their imaginations. Thanx again for the inspiration.
I really liked the foam dice. Do you have a video on "how to do sieges"? 9:38
I like maps even for games without minis, players always knowing where they are saves a lot of time on descriptions and confusion and I also think it helps players be creative
You dig so much out of every game. Very insightful. Thanks!
The 4th Edition DM guide had two pages with a dungeon floor image that you could photocopy, tape together, and have laminated.
I love that you held onto your DM screen.
I Can safely say that a lot of the games I have, most people didn't know that there was an RPG for that type of setting. One that I'm looking forward to getting in print Is Mothership, Which is a hard SF game in the vein of 2001 and Alien. It has a massive zine community. And now to explain that term. When the term first got used, It was a portmanteau of fan magazine or fanzine. An old example is how we got World of Darkness to begin with, as that is how White Wolf started out. Now a zine is anything from a trifold/bifold pamphlet in size to under 100 pages.
I've only watched a few of your videos, but I've watched both of these Dollar Store D&D videos multiple times. For some reason I can't get enough.
I seldom play dungeons and dragons anymore, I switched to palladium system because they stopped with 2e and just added new rift worlds , rift being an offshoot of palladium that goes beyond the mideval aspect of the original. D&D just kept changing the rules. After years of theater of the mind we are going to start tactical games with the minis because we think its easier for players to visualize distances in combat. I am the dm and glad for all the you tubes giving advice on the subject. Thank you for your videos.
I'm currently in a campaign where we are level 7 and started playing in February (currently late july as of posting this) and all we had is some dice and character sheets and im surprising my DM with a portable DM kit with a everything you need and i did it on a very tight budget and the first video was a HUGE help
I saw your dollar store video sometime ago, and watched it again recently. nice to know there was this quick little update idea. What your encounter reminded me of, was when I played in an Adventurer's League game that took place in the jungle of Chult, where there was, in fact, a zombie-barfing dinosaur baddie. Pretty sure that module was Tomb of Annihilation. I started playing DND when 3.5e was already out for a while, and I remember the DMG having a crapload of free terrain / dungeon printables in the back of the book. I printed a whole bunch on heavy cardstock, and while they nevewr got used, I remember being grsteful they were a thing casue I had no idea where to get started. So if you newer players can find copies of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e DMG, that's also an option.
Just subbed cause you're awesome. Literally just discovered you through D&D and thought the dollar store video was very informative and helpful. Thank you.
That's a cute Ina acrylic stand you got there.
One of my favorite indie ttrpgs is Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCCRPG).
In the game I was recently in, we became murder nobles.
That video was excellent, I'm glad you made it just to highlight various tricks of the trade to help make RPGs more accessible. In fact, I would argue the worst and most expensive part of playing DnD is actually DnD itself. Yes, I'm aware you can use the free starter rules or SRD or whatever, but come on, man. You can tell they deliberately gave you the bare minimum to count as letting you play the game for free, to the point where I think they designed the default SRD subclasses to be as boring and mediocre as possible to encourage players to get tired of those and buy the big book to get the cool shit.
There's tons of RPGs out there that give you their FULL RULES for free. Just off the top of my head, Pathfinder 2e does it, Fate does it, there are systems called Risus and Freeform Universal that are basically pamphlet sized free PDFs, GURPS Lite is free, there's a ton of free OSR games made to emulate old school DnD which in a lot of ways makes the game way simpler and easier to just sit down with some beer and pretzels and hang out with your friends (I like Basic Fantasy and For Gold and Glory). I've been working on a whole notepad list of every free RPG I can find, and the list is huge if you just know where to look. Some of these are fantasy-specific, but a bunch of them are generic so you can run any genre you want, and even the fantasy ones can be hacked to be a genre you find more appealing. The potential is literally infinite and you save so much money that can be put back into the stuff you care about rather than funding Hasbro's attempt to turn DnD into a trendy little app you have on your phone.
if it makes you feel any better, i think your dnd set up was quite charming and easy for me to get a sense of whats going on. and i think ide rather make my character out of lego minifig parts instead of paying over 50 bucks for a little plastic statue that i might not be able to use for very long if ever
whats so interesting is that like.... gaming magazines in the 70s would literally include grid maps and paper minis IN THE MAGAZINE!! it doesnt need to be crazy,... i mean jeez, i played in college with the white boards in the university rooms we booked out at night and drew our maps badly as we went, and board games just give you printed cardboard tokens on printed cardboard playmats.... there are SO many ways to visualise space and there's no reason that ANY tabletop game should be that expensive to play. if you want to, go for it, but theres a lot of beauty in simplicity.
We use pdfs of the rules online but its really my intention to minimize screens at the table. My group and I play to have something screenless to do.
Although I haven't played in about 10 years, I used to play quite regularly from the mid-eighties until my youngest was born in the late 2000s and I've actually NEVER used miniatures to play D&D, so it is definitely not required to have full map layouts and it does not detract from the fun in the slightest. We DID always map out the dungeons ourselves as we explored and had that in the middle of the table as we played.
A great follow up video. Like you said, I was a bit bummed out when they said D&D was "under-monitized" and felt as they were trying to suck more blood out of us (WoD Ref). But I did appreciate your methods and ideas. I'll be hitting the dollar store tomorrow before the game.
i play dnd at a club in my highschool and we just use dry erase boards with grids on them for our map so the dm can draw out the situations rocks for the figures and dnd beyond for our character sheets
1:00 Where did you find _those_ dice?!
They came in my press bag at PaxU
I LOVED your original video. It gave me a lot of inspiration and encouragement that staying in this hobby does not have to become an excessive expense. I prefer Pathfinder 1E and Starfinder over anything D&D has done since 3.5. I love your discussion on murder hobos and how to correct that. Thank you for the video!
Purchasing terrain also pushes your cost up, my early gaming experience was almost entirely just drawing on the board what we saw. I fondly remember purchasing my first vinyl mat (squares on the front, hexes on the back for BattleTech), and having this huge mat opened up so many doors for huge combats. When we did terrain, a lot of it was cardboard because it was so cheap and easy to paint w/ craft paint.
3:25 - So you don't expect people to have a phone for an app, but you expect them to have tables and chairs? These days a smart phone is almost ubiquitous. There are people in Africa, living in huts with dirt floors and no electricity that have smart phones. I don't think it is an unreasonable expectation to think that a player or DM would have a smart phone.
Will you be at Gen Con this year? Hope to see you there and meet you.
When I GM Pathfinder, I don't even use minis, I use pennies marked with dollar-store dry erase pens. It's not pretty, I'll be honest, but it's functional.
The "theater of the mind" comment made me chuckle, just because a lot of this takes me back to when I first started playing AD&D -- back when it was TSR and 2nd edition was a few months away. Not only did we not have the money... these accessory things just didn't exist. I knew a _few_ people with Ral Partha miniatures, but not very many. So our old-school games were almost entirely theatre-of-the-mind, because we had to! The newer rulesets, though, admittedly, definitely are designed around grid-based tactical settings. Honestly not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. :D
I have to disagree. I been playing since 1980. You could buy lead minis even back then. A wet erase map was available since 1981 (found my old one last quarter). But I do/did live in either military town, or big town. Even the Dragon magazine had ads for various accessories.
@@RottenRogerDM They may have existed, but they were not readily available in my backwater hometown, I was lucky to find the books in bookstores, "game stores" didn't exist. Mail order was expensive and when you were working off the pennies from your allowance, you didn't risk your money on things you couldn't see or really read about. So yeah, it just wasn't a thing. I knew one adult who played D&D who had some miniatures, but we kids didn't have that kind of disposable income, so we were lucky to have the dice & books, and we were happy.
I was just at Target a bit ago doing Christmas shopping and I found some dnd stuff to look at. The cheapest thing was like a $14 comic book. Then there was a randomized roll table for hundreds of situations for well over $30 as well as other books and a continuation of the phandelvar area not the secondary, even a pop up book. It was crazy
Trying to make a free rpg would be such a great idea!! That would have some really interesting results and be super helpful for a lot of people. I know I would really appreciate it 😁
Basic fantasy is a free RPG. Fully fleshed out old school clone.
1" grid made of popsicle sticks- (tic-tac-toe) hold it over the figs & voila the shadow creates a grid + a ruler = grid map
I can t find the weird dices, i need them! :D
The folks from Tephra came to our game store something like 10 years ago, and ran demos. Seemed like a really cool game/system! And it was D12, if I remember correctly.
1" hole punch (the fold-able kind for portability might run you closer to $15, cheaper are
Your comment about not having your players roll and potentially fail on something they need to move the plot took me back to the first campaign I ever DM’d. I had this idea that in the first room, there would be vases. In one case there would be a key for the only other door they could see. Naturally, as I had hoped, they started smashing vases. One player decided they wanted to keep one…. The one that had the key. They kept failing the check that should have let them hear the metal key jangling in the clay pot… other people failed the check to hear the key. They argued over the pot. I had already described all the pots as having the same basic design, heavy, but of no real value. They still kept the pot. The other players found the secret door that lead to a different, dead end, room that I added for lore and flavor text. We ran out of time before they ever opened the door….. they never got to see the rest of the one-off I was in charge of. They didn’t get to hit the first encounter that was supposed to happen once they opened the door.
Years later, that has become my lesson on what I could have done. I could have lied about the roll to move the plot. I could have said the key was in a different one they hadn’t smashed yet. I could have said they noticed a glint of something in the shards of a different one. I could have said they were too loud when they were arguing and just had the baddies open the door to investigate, roll for initiative. 🤦🏻♀️
I still laugh at myself about this. 😅 Thanks for reading.
At dollar tree you can get Minnie note books for players can use them for thier Character sheets and to document the game play as it happens.
I hate the term "gentrification" for what is happening to dnd and rpgs in general because it's not a correct term. Dnd had higher dollar items before and there’s people who had built dedicated rooms for role-playing over the years. It's because rpg went mainstream as well as the perfect timing of the pandemic that blown rpg sales out of the water.
It's pretty much a bubble in the market and everyone is trying to get in on it.
As for books, I got 5th ed on sale for 25usd each. It's another option for people to look for used book stores that might have rpgs on the shelves.
As for the mainstream argument is that I remember only seeing basic D6 sold in 6 packs at the dollar store for dice and now there's full sets for most games. 3d printing is a great way to get models and you don't have to get the printer. Usually a ton of libraries, community tech workshops, or even schools that are willing to print stuff out.
Now for helping out with getting new players into the hobby, make a community group that can help new players as well as new gms get play time in as well as maybe start a revolving book giveaway. While not everyone has the money to pitch in so it would be voluntary but it is possible to get more people involved with less money than what people think that it would take.
I got my copy of Index Card RPG master edition for like 8 bucks because I waited for it to go on sale on DTRPG, and that's before I knew about all the free systems out there. Other than that, I've bought a few dice sets, markers, colored pencils and a patently unreasonable number of index cards. I did also splurge on some binder clips to serve as bases for minis, but I could have also used tape and pennies.
This is the direction I want the hobby to go in. Make your own stuff, make your own rules, and make it freaking rad as hell without throwing your money at some scummy corporation.
I think using the tube the paper came in to make a reel infrint of the dm to display landscape or show giant monsters to big for the board
Cut the tube into 2 pieces about a foot long and you have a cheap rolling background
I’ve seen alot of the more spicy stuff about what dnd and hasbro have been doing but this is the first video i’ve seen about their financial failures which has been very interesting
1000%, glad somebody is saying it. for some reason, a pack of those generic green army men is like $4 for a 50 pack but dnd mini's are easily 10x (if not 20x) that price. it's literally plastic. hand painted and artisan mini's are one thing, but the generic grey plastic molds shouldn't be that expensive.
Some Wrapping paper has a one inch grid on the back than just get a clear dry erase sheet over it. Badabing!
I think a good toy lime to go over would be the new kamen rider geats toys. The buckles really work visually and help to grant more combinations the more buckles you got
i really like your stance agains gentrification. I use index cards and a cheap water color set to paint monster cards and one set of dice is enough.
I liked the dollar store DnD video. Some of your solutions were very creative. If you need miniatures of something specific, you can always find pictures on the web, and size them on your computer before printing out on paper. If you leave a tab on the bottom, you can fold that over and glue it to a penny. Pennies make great bases.
time for pathfinder!
I just make my dungeon tiles out of those little cardstock pages they put with magazines and if the players don't like it, they can buy their own damn tiles.
My DM screen is created by the cardstock in the copier paper boxes.
I use 28mm table top fantasy figures for DND. 24 minis for like $35. Some companies 60 minis for $45.
I love this❤
As both a player and dm we mostly didn't do any of the landscaping and miniatures. Just dice and maps, either hand drawn or from a world campaign already published. I have been playing since 1rst edition and was not impressed by 5th edition and since Hasbro took over the system has been even less impressive. I like the idea of using dollar store items for creating 3d experience though
The first time I tried GMing a TTRPG game it really discoraged me, but this makes me want to try again.
Who pays MSRP for the Player's Handbook? It is under $19.00 on Amazon.
a fellow takodachi 💜
If you want more resources for free, check your local library. Some libraries have dnd books that you can reference and make copies of.
I’ve only played D&D eye of the beholder for the GBA .
Have you played the game go fight pow ?
The book prices are crazy. I got the first edition books from the Sears Xmas catalogs in the early 80s for about $12 each...
Fun random fact, the Dark Sun boxed set back in the day was sold for just about what they made it for... a dollar less.
There is a reason TSR doesn't exist anymore.
Yes, Hasbro is greedy. But there's an alternative that's worse.
I started playing GURPS with nothing but 10 inherited lead miniatures (yes, lead!!!) some shit photocopied sheets and one Core Rulebook. This went on for more than 7 years, until we started working and bought our stuff.
I honestly thought the video was great, shows you don’t need all the fancy stuff just to play the game. My DM usually just uses paper tokens for monsters, small toys and the like. I myself have an assortment of these mini figures Minecraft uses to release as collectibles that work pretty well as character minis.
Everything gotten so expensive, might as well make up your own game and rules, and just get the dice. I have a group, we have like an American History RPG, we will mostly re enact the Revolutionary War, Civil War and World War II. We make the sessions fit in with the History and what happen, as much as possible. We have fun doing it.
Nice hat makes me think of dream finder . Or Disney Dan . The only table top role playing games I played was a little ninjas and super spies and the filsinger wrestling card and dice games .
Part of the problem with backgrounds is what you mention. The modules and adventures never used backgrounds.
Rats I wlll be at con on the 24th.
How about a link to the original video. Thanks.
I really always played D&D with just the power of the mind, the combat tactics were never important for me and the other players, luckily. Like who cares, most rooms are squared and most often the enemies are going to be in front of you or around you, do you REALLY need the visualization? I don't think the tactics are that deep or important, honestly, even playing regularly with many other groups, very rarely mattered
In the example you made I really don't understand why it's important to have miniatures for that.
4 walls, 2 windows east, 1 west, door north, nothing south. Enemies are entering from windows on the left from the east. Really, I don't get why power of the mind is not enough
Moved away from D&D this year to other systems like Morg Borg and Dragonbane. Honestly, I'm not going back. I also own a 3dprinter, so I am not paying crazy amount for models and terrain
Late to video did you ever switch to pathfinder just curious
I found it easier to just make my own little rpg to play with my friends, it has enough rules to get the job done and nothing else✨✨✨
Tunnels & Trolls is a really good D&D Alternative IMO, in large part because it uses d6es, which you can get literally ANYWHERE. I mean, seriously, worse to worst, you can raid your kids' old Board Games that they never play with anymore. lol
Plus, they have LOTS of Solo-Play Modules, in case you can't find a Group to play with.
Easter? So the evil rabbit from Monty Python was a possibility 😂
Dollar Store Blender. izzat a "Hunter: The Parenting Reference" i smell?
DON'T EVER ASK ME WHAT A KUEI-JIN IS!!
THE MARGINS ON A $1 PHONE WOULD BE $99 IN THE RED, YOU OIL BARREL!
Could do it with a budget limit
Excuse me, Kohdok. If your READ the investor reports, you would find that they're actually UNDER-monetizing dungeons and dragons
/s
Pencils, paper, imagination and dice are all that's needed to play.
"It's gone up quite a bit since uh... since uh..."
... since wizards of the coast bought them? Yeah, I can remember when the hobby was reasonably priced, too. =/
WoD is amazing if not because it has one of the best webshows based off of the game (Hunter The Parenting)
The blender joke showed u are a man of taste….
What does half of what you're talking about have anything to do with "Dollar Store D&D?
I'm a bit scared of the people who were going "Or you can just play in the theatre of the mind" in the comments of the original video because they are clearly operating on some different astral plane than mere humans, and can communicate via group telepathy.
You just use regular communication and approximate distances instead of measuring them
@@DanyTheMe Exaclty... it was always as simple as asking the DM, where is the monster located in relation to me? Where is the closest creature? Am I in range? Communication is always the key, and the fact that everybody has different mental images is one of the things that makes the game great.
I'm a bit scare of people that don't have the imagination to to picture the scene nor the communication skills to talk with the DM and members of their party.
@@ChrisThomas-xq1ft yeah I've always found it less limiting and time restrictive than maps and grids
Don't forget the 20% mark up on new books coming. 😂
Hasbro/WOTC: Lets out GW, GW.
Nah combat is way more fun in mind theater, you can do some crazy stuff.
I see we have a takodachi
That's an odd comment about phones... it's almost like you're deliberately ignoring the fact that pretty much everyone already owns a smartphone
"Do YoU gUyS NoT hAvE pHoNeS?!"
I mean it is a spectrum of games that make up roleplaying but I don't understand why a person that uses a virtual dice app(WTF?) would even be watching your real board crafting video challenge?🙄
Really the most accessible game you can make is the best game for getting more players involved, if you try to find only "masters of mind theater" you'll likely being playing alone lol.
My cousin got me this elaborate Aliens game set that doesn't look cheap, you can spend a small fortune on the hobby so sad to hear about the over-monetization. I've never been that deep into D&D but I know there was a lot more DIY in the past, makes me wonder just how much paint app work China is pumping out for so many, many, many figure products made now. Gentrification is a good term to use.😉
ah yes dnd micro trans actions, if i want the mechanic i will make it my self or just look it up online for the high price of free
Why do I care if dnd charges a bunch for stuff? I’m not going to buy them. If they can make money to make more stuff I’m happy for them.
At my dollar store they sell phones😭