@@arsenelupin5424 He actually drew this character for us all to enjoy. Be amazed at this amazing quality and Be sad at the lack of watermelon-egg-potatoes.
@@jasonabernethy99 He drew the character as dumpy or frumpy so we would think he was one of us. In reality he looks like a cuter McLovin from Superbad.
When I was a new player, this exact thing happened. Me: So how many dice packs should I buy? Friend: Probably two or three... Me: Ok, how many do you have? Friend: uh. *starts counting in head* Friend: Twe- no.... Th- no..... 14 packs....... Me: Luke.... that's like 150 bucks....
After almost 2 years of playing I'm still borrowing dices from friends I play with. I need a lot of d6s as a rogue so fellow sorcerer is more than happy to toss me his - he rarely use them anyway.
Years ago I played a 20th level psion in 3.5, who had the Empower Power feat and my favorite power was Disintegrate. The base damage was 22d6 on successful attack with a failed save. Empowered and Augmented, the damage was 47d6 and I bought 48d6s so I could roll it all at once. My DM hated that one... On a successful save it was a measley 5d6, although I think the Empower bumped it to 7d6.
Web the Great . In my view players should have 2 sets of dice each. The DM could do with 4 sets. A cheaper alternative (but one that slows the game down) is for there to be a dice rolling tray and a couple of dice sets that all the players share by handing the tray and dice around as they’re needed. Saying that, I probably own at least 10 sets of polyhedrals........ collected them over decades though.
Hey! Thanks for the shoutout. Love the vids. :) For battlemats I agree that there is no clear winner. I lean toward Chessex for most situations though. The old clear furniture vinyl was a great solution when I was on a tight budget, but nowadays I'm willing to spend a bit more on my gaming. For the Chessex, I usually just get two damp rags and I'm good to go for cleaning. I don't like messing with a spray bottle and I don't like wasting paper towels.
I remember this one game where a player (half-orc) kept drinking a flask of rabbid bats blood (took it from our first kill, just to drink it) and he kept rolling nat 20s preventing him from getting poisoned. But then when he goes berserk from a cursed item, my half-elf grappled him with a nat 20 when he rolled his first nat 1 in the game! He still rolled high on the bats blood and never got poisoned
11:09 The die rolls they don't need to see... if they don't know what the roll is for then you don't have to hide it. 🤣 DM: Oooh, you looked in that urn? * Rolls a d20, then a few d6, writes in notes * Player: Uh... What's going on? * mildly concerned * DM: Huh? Oh the rolls? It's probably nothing. 😎 Player: * concern intensifies *
1 and 20 Dis/Advantage roll was hilarious. Broke me into a cold sweat till I realized _ah no, not in gameplay right now_ Also, I really appreciate how 'low tech' your game system is, I personally hate dragging a mini around, I don't like bulk in terms of supplies either. Super great video!
Dice, Mats, and everything nice. These were the ingredients to make the perfect DD game. But Puffin added another ingredient, a grandmaster! And thus the perfect DD game was born!
For my first time DM'ing, I used a scrabble board and letters for people/board. It was super helpful as I didn't have too many things for now. For minis, I went to the lego store and made some minifigures and used those. Not too expensive and is fun to make them. I also used other legos I already had.
Points at the blue die and says "advantage", points at the red die and says "disadvantage". Rolls dice, blue die gets a 1, red die gets a 20... do your players know you're playing with loaded dice?
me and my friends used to make a mini map because miniatures and mats are too expensive here in Brazil. Now here's how we did it: we made a tall base with styrofoam or stacked cardboard sheets. On top of that we put graph paper. Sometimes we covered it in transparent plastic sheet so we could draw over it with markers and erase it later. To represent characters we used colored sewing pins, each color representing a character. We put the pins the through map and inside the base. It was small and we could pass it to the players when it was their turn. It was super effective and cheap and easy to lookup and lasted for several sessions. When it got old we just made another one.
I'm glad to see your face because one of my professors sounds *EXACTLY* like you and it was pissing me off because I didn't feel I could ask them "hey are you Puffin Forest?!?" just in case I had to explain who that is and that I play DnD and because I'm awkward and would be like oh haha, sorry I asked, _guess I can just never speak to you or in this class again_
Well, you can certainly just write down your character info to a notepad, construction paper, cardstock, whatever. You could fit what is actually pertinent on a post-it note using a mechanical pencil in most cases.
@@johnjustjohn5866 I prefer using Character Sheets, but at least one of my Players prefers to use their Laptop instead. Drives me a bit up the wall, because they ONLY update their notepad version of the character, and I rarely get a copy of it. They don't cheat or nothing, but its hard to plan things when you have the wrong information and items that a Player has access too.
I think with the wet erase Chessex mat you could just use a wet rag? Works pretty well for my games. I actually prefer the wet erase mats because they will stay and not rub off with a little friction, so if people are dragging their minis around/touching the mat, or if we don't finish combat/using the mat that session I can just roll it up for next session without any real impact on what I've drawn.
I would recommend the pathfinder mats. 2 double sided mats with quite nice backgrounds (sea, grass and two kinds of paving). It's nice and compact but when unfolded is quite big. It's quality is reasonable. Well worth it's price tag that's aroun 15$ (a 10$ one also exists without the backgrounds).
You can use a spritzed towel over your mats to gently iron it on low heat. We had to do that when Chessex wrapped their megamat too tightly and it had super waves. My DM uses Windex on the the mat to make it easier. I've also found that treating the ink like clean up crumbs (doing scooping motions towards the center of the image) helps reduce the amount of paper towels used. You could also invest in a small rag for just wiping the mat. It would probably get stained, but it doesn't really matter.
There’s an arts and crafts blog that shows how to imbed a touchscreen monitor into the table so you can digitally upload and edit the tabletop map as you play. It’s pretty cool!
Seems too expensive and it doesn't seem to be worth the hassle. Sure, using a mat is certainly not as cool, but it costs much less, requires way less setup (you just draw the thing on the spot, don't need to look for the right maps on the internet or make/edit your own on a software) and it does the same thing.
Oh and just to say cheers dude I watched some of your videos and went out and re bought all the DnD books and ran my first game for 20 years to much amusement of my 20 year old players. So again cheers.
For playmat, several years ago i bought a large sheet of plexiglass from home depot. I then used painters tape to model lines on it and spraypainted with outdoor paint. Did that a second time the other way and it came out really nice. So one side is not ideal for markers as its got the paint but the other side is fantastic and easy to see the grid. Bonus is sliding printed maps or art under it and its an instant wet/dry grid on top of whatever art/material you have. It has served me really really well.
First, we had the Lazy GM. Then, we got the Angry DM. Now, the one that I've needed all this time...The Cheap DM! I can't see spending a ton of money on minis just so my players don't ever have to visualize orcs and gnolls. Great work with the large and huge tokens, too. I don't believe how many ideas I got from this short vid. Keep it up, Ben!
Your tips for tokens are very helpful! Thank you! I have a player who has nearly all the books with to much time on his hands. He always takes the books with him. I have the mat and everyone brings their own dice and a minis if they want. Otherwise we just use standard board game pieces. Since I usually play Dnd with the same people we can just bring the stuff. Edit: Also it’s kinda cool seeing people’s faces when you’re on the bus with a big tube for the mat.
Pro tip: If you ever mistake your markers and use your permanent marker by mistake, use the dryErase and draw over the permanentMarker and it will make it dry-erasable
I like using tiles instead of minis as phys-reps. Why, because you can draw on a clear varnished, white tile. You can technically draw on a mini, but you'll ruin them. A funny story about that. My friend was running a game at his house while also keeping an eye on his 3 year old son. Being a typical 3 year old, the son wanted to play with the grown ups. Which basically meant putting the minis back on the mat each time that dady took one off. Now, the group was supposed to be fighting a group of 5 vanilla goblins. But nearly every single time that we killed a goblin, & daddy took it off the mat, daddy's 3 year old son would pick up the goblin mini & put it right back on the mat. This happened so many times that daddy started loosing track of how many goblins that we fought. Being a group of dirty power gamers, us players actually encouraged this behaviour from the 3 year old. Of course we demanded XP for all 11 of the goblins that we killed that day. Man we got so much XP. Anyway, that's why I prefer using tiles to minis as phys-reps.
This took me so off guard. Kind of like suddenly hearing Hank Hill in a grocery store, only to find that it’s really Hank Hill. Great information, though. Grateful for the review of the wet erase mat.
Dude, I legit thought that your voice was a "fake" voice, like something you do only for your cartoon. I mean it isn't a bad voice, it's just really weird to hear it without the cartoon lol. Good videos though, you're one of my favorite content creators.
You should watch filmcow the guy who made liamas with hats and charlie the unicorn he does livestreams randomly now and it's weird hearing his voice too after watching those so I know what ya mean xD
For mats I use a quilting square thing. My mom and I both sew, so we use the squares to measure distance, and put on figures and items to make the scene. A cheap and creative way to make a mat. USE WHATEVER IS AT YO HOUSE.
Thank you for posting things like this! I was the person who introduced D&D to my friend group and started DM'ing so even when other people DM they mostly follow my style since it's what they've been exposed to. It's great being able to see the other things that can be used and watch your videos to see the kinds of encounters you come up with!
As a DM i have two other recommendations for battle mats that work great. 1. You can get a pad of 1" Graph paper from your local office supply store. It will be in the teacher supply section it tends to only cost about $15 - $20 for a large pad of them. You can write with marker or pen on them and your players can write on it too then after the game you can throw it out. (little wasteful) Additionally you can take one of the sheets and have it laminated at a stationary place which costs less than $10 and it will work for wet and dry erase markers. 2. I like the Roll 4 Initiative puzzle tile battle mats because they don't roll or crease and are dry erase and easier to transport imo. You do have a bit of a edge where two pieces join but they work good for pre-drawing maps and adding the pieces as the players move through the area especially with the smaller ones.
I found these tables that attach for different sizes, and are whiteboards on the top, making it easy to draw squares and shapes to represent buildings.
Very cool. I started playing in 1983 so we were stuck with the plastic die that you had to use the white crayon with to make the numbers show up. If you wanted minis you had to buy the lead melting pot, pewter ingots, and plaster to cast them yourself, but things changed rather quickly and all the stuff eventually became more available. I remember someone had a kit for making campaign buttons, small, medium, and large. For $10 we could make 100 button minis and they would last for decades. Over the last decade or so I've discovered the big bags of coloured replacement cubes and meeples for Eurogames. I like the real wood feel, but I love the convenience of being able to dump everything in a big bag at the end of the night. Anyway, good job.
This actually inspired me to get out an ancient d20 System Starter Edition I've had in a closet for almost twenty years. Still had some dice, cheapo mats and minis of different sizes in there! Dunno why I never thought of checking what's inside considering I've been playing in a few games with novice DMs that don't really have any materials yet.
I had a buddy that would use a flat screen TV with a plexiglass cover for the board. He'd then make all of his maps on roll20. Bit more of an investment, but the utility was awesome.
For a game board we used to use a clear sheet of plexiglass and a big sheet of grid paper taped to the bottom of it. We would draw on top of it with wet erase markers and we had a dedicated rag to clean it with. Worked out pretty well.
I struggle seeing how different you are than your animated character. Like don't take that in any way negativity, just so different. Love your content!
My kit also uses the NPC Codex in a zip bag - instant recognition. I use and really like the Pathfinder Terrain 2-Pack, as some others have commented about. I keep all my dice in a zip bag though, so I think it's time to upgrade to the workman's box. Great suggestion. All that I pack in the outer fold of a messenger bag with other peripherals (markers, a terrycloth rag, phone chargers, etc). In the main fold I keep a binder for character sheets and a binder for the current campaign/adventure notes, printouts, and GM resources.
Hey Puffin, just wanted to say that your videos have really gotten me into the game :) And also my husband and I searched for 2 days everywhere in our city and online for a dry erase mat with squares and couldn't find one, ended up with some weird thing from Hobby Lobby that looked...ok. THANK YOU for showing us the evergame mat! It is exactly what we were looking for! Can't wait to try it out next week :D
Everyone talking about the 20 and 1 on the big dice. But did anyone notice the OTHER 20 and 1 that were just chillin at 16:05 in the middle of the screen..? (The blue and white one)
I have been making my own mats, so here is another cheap alternative suggestion: I bought a large roll of cheap wrapping paper on clearance for less than $5, it has a 1" square grid for a cutting guide, and there are no brand logos, like some wrapping paper will have. You can use this as a disposable mat, but I have taken it further by finding a 35" square piece of pressed particle board, and I glued the wrapping paper to the board, then covered it with packing tape, being careful not to leave any gaps, and placing the tape right along the cutting lines. I now have a 35" flat, hard, square dry erase mat.
I use a big (hand-folded) transparent acetate "envelope" in which I have sandwiched a piece of thin cardboard (for sturdiness) and grid paper (back and front) all held together with folder clips at the corners. That way I can draw on both sides (flip the board when the scene changes). I can also put pre-drawn maps (terrain) inside the envelope. Dry erase board markers + a rag to erase (wet wipes are really good too).
New-ish DM here. Running large battles with my group was always pretty tedious and ate up a lot of the session, never once did I think of putting all the enemies on one initiative to help smooth out the combat. Really cool idea and I'm for sure going to utilize it for our next game.
That's exactly what I was going to say. It's also generally cheaper to mass buy baby wipes and the take a fair while to dry out which helps if you're making notes on the board like Ben does. It's what one of my groups do, I actually keep baby wipes in my gaming pocket of my bag because they also give a better clean to a dry wipe board after your finished for the day.
I dunno about DMs needing more stuff. I ran a campaign with primary characters and a half-dozen short-term characters (1-2 sessions) over a 2-3 year period using AD&D 2nd Ed. rules when I was in collage and I think the only thing we all had was character sheets, Players Manual, Monster Manual, dice, and pencils. Because my players were so, um ... creative, there was no reason to bother with a module or preplanned storyline. We just had fun in the world and found out what happened as we played it out. Yes, I had a large scale event happening in the background (think return of Takhisis in Dragonlance or the arrival of Orc in WarCraft), but the players were free to get as involved as they wanted to. Originally, they started out as "the good guys" but quickly turned into mercenaries doing their best to profit off the on going calamity while staying alive and gathering power. It was an amazing story, and we all had incredible amounts of fun.
Can you give some links to the different things you show here? Especially nice if they're amazon affiliate links so if I get anything you benefit from it.
I use that wet erase mat in my games and just keep one of those contigo water bottles close to drip a little water on the mat, or onto the towel when its time to clear it for the next area. As for the using lots of paper towels, I end up using the same one and just clearing the board only enough to draw the new lines, and after my session I'll give it a better cleaning. I'll maybe use 1 or 2 sheets of paper towels during the game, but I will say that yes way more during clean up at the end. You might like the 1 inch flatten glass marbles you can use your wet erase to write on them just like your Pogs, but have options for other things. I'll use some for different types of baddies like Z1 for zombie1 and S1 for skeleton 1 (or in one game someone randomly decided they wanted a pet goat so we just have one that says goat). I also like to use a combination of the mat at decoration pieces such as trees from Christmas village sets or creepy gates from Halloween sets that you can find around target/Walmart/Menard, or I got door minis from a local shop that I will draw a wall up to and put a door down to give it a little more depth. (Yes sounds silly, but I'd probably use doors more than every other mini I have). Just some ideas you might like. I do like your idea for the cardboard cutouts for large and huge sizing. I normally just do 4 marbles in a box, but sometimes if there are many large creatures that can be a pain to move around haha. By the way I love watching your videos, they are all wonderful!
And that's fine! I've seen a few videos from for example Matt Colville and taking20, who basically argue it's fine if you enhance the game with it. But you should never do it just becaue you don't like an outcome anyway.
Still not over the fact that you aren't a vaguely human-shaped watermelon
No he is,he just hired someone to lip sync to him,he’s just recorded his voice and made it seem like the man we see is him
Egg. Egg not watermelon
I always though it was more of an anthropomorphized potato
@@arsenelupin5424 He actually drew this character for us all to enjoy. Be amazed at this amazing quality and Be sad at the lack of watermelon-egg-potatoes.
@@jasonabernethy99 He drew the character as dumpy or frumpy so we would think he was one of us. In reality he looks like a cuter McLovin from Superbad.
Puffin Forest: *Draws himself as overweight, no glasses, brown hair*
Also Puffin Forest: "Why did nobody notice me at Gen Con?"
I dont knooooowwwwwwwwwww
*Insert abserd voice
@@HG-mj9ow I read it in he voice before I read the second part
I love it when he rolls the 20 and the 1 just quick silence at what he sees like WHAT!?!
He rolled a "critical both"
That pause after the roll was the "holy shit! wtf? look at that" moment
He also did the same at 16:03 accidental critical both again
But he didn´t seem to notice
Nat 1 Nat 20
Dm recieves stunned silence debuff
I took a picture of that.
18:53
So was that with advantage or disadvantage?
@@handlebarfox2366 yes.
Man, your animations are so life-like now.
Yeah they really are!
Thats because they are dummy
@@wizardx5138 no shit sherlock.... geez it was obviously sarcasm/a joke
Wizardx r/woosh
Wizardx yeah they are life like
That pause when he rolled a 1 and 20 at the same time. Lol.
A true God of chaos.
Critical
Twice
rolls for disadvantage gets 20 and a 1 lol
that was the moment, I upvoted :D
When I was a new player, this exact thing happened.
Me: So how many dice packs should I buy?
Friend: Probably two or three...
Me: Ok, how many do you have?
Friend: uh. *starts counting in head*
Friend: Twe- no.... Th- no..... 14 packs.......
Me: Luke.... that's like 150 bucks....
My group started with all of us sharing a set. My level ~3 the 5 of us (counting our DM) had 11 sets.
After almost 2 years of playing I'm still borrowing dices from friends I play with. I need a lot of d6s as a rogue so fellow sorcerer is more than happy to toss me his - he rarely use them anyway.
Years ago I played a 20th level psion in 3.5, who had the Empower Power feat and my favorite power was Disintegrate. The base damage was 22d6 on successful attack with a failed save. Empowered and Augmented, the damage was 47d6 and I bought 48d6s so I could roll it all at once. My DM hated that one... On a successful save it was a measley 5d6, although I think the Empower bumped it to 7d6.
Web the Great . In my view players should have 2 sets of dice each. The DM could do with 4 sets. A cheaper alternative (but one that slows the game down) is for there to be a dice rolling tray and a couple of dice sets that all the players share by handing the tray and dice around as they’re needed. Saying that, I probably own at least 10 sets of polyhedrals........ collected them over decades though.
If you buy Chessex in the packs yh, pounds o dice are like $25, they’re a gamble but a nice way to get dice
16:03 and 18:51 Wow, twice in one video, he casually rolls 2 d20 and gets a natural 1 and 20 together!
first one isn't a 1 and 20, it was a 14 and a 19 then he moved them making them 1 and 20.
Seems kinda dicey.
I'll show myself out.
Perfectly balanced.
randomnameoninternet, but it was still mostly random after he moved them. He didn't move them over and set them up to be a 1 and 20.
randomnameoninternet he just like pushed them he didn’t purposely put them that way he rolled a 1 and 20 together twice it’s just cool enjoy it
"your favorite puffin forest"?
IS THERE MORE????????
Yes darker puffins..
I think he said forest puffin
"... your favourite forest, puffin forest..."
sybil williams
Why did I read that as “your favorite lil Forrest...”
@@rewrew897 dont judge my son, hes a smol Forest.
This... is a very weird animation. Puffin's character has tons of shading all of a sudden and has a lot thinner face....
Also glasses! :D
And larger arms not sticks
l.o.l! ;)
2 extra fingers?
UmbreonDusk are you sure he did not switch to CGI?
Hey! Thanks for the shoutout. Love the vids. :)
For battlemats I agree that there is no clear winner. I lean toward Chessex for most situations though. The old clear furniture vinyl was a great solution when I was on a tight budget, but nowadays I'm willing to spend a bit more on my gaming.
For the Chessex, I usually just get two damp rags and I'm good to go for cleaning. I don't like messing with a spray bottle and I don't like wasting paper towels.
On the topic of mats, my favorite is Mercer, but a close second would be Colville, no doubt.
garumeg okaaaaaay, you got me... I just googled for d&d colville mats 😴
Mine is Lillard.
Smith?
My favorite is Colville, I hate CR. Mercer is cool af outside of D&D, but I despise what CR has done to the game overall.
I just try to explain the battlefield the best I can cuz I don’t really care for them
Holy cow, this new animation looks so real!
Agreed
David Cage nailed it =)
That moment when he rolls a 1 and a 20
Luke McI Kne i like how he just suddenly stops from the absurdity
He did it twice 16:05 the dice he moved to the lower right corner
When you roll a 20 but have disadvantage. (the worst)
The dice moved cuz his hand hit them u can see it in the lower left corner.
HALFLING LUCK
your animation is getting really good, please do a face reveal
Yeah I know it looks so real!
Excuse me this whole video is a face reveal.
R/Woosh
r/itswooooshwith4os r/foundthemobileuser
Yep I'm on mobile
*rolls 2 d20 andgets both a 1 and a 20*
Perfectly balanced as it should be...
becau--
*dice rolls a 1 and a 20*
*vietnam flashbacks*
I rolled 5 nat ones in a row, but when it comes to the history check to see from which town the coin is i get a nat 20.
@@dacomputernerd4096 I, for one, welcome our new rat overlords.
I remember this one game where a player (half-orc) kept drinking a flask of rabbid bats blood (took it from our first kill, just to drink it) and he kept rolling nat 20s preventing him from getting poisoned. But then when he goes berserk from a cursed item, my half-elf grappled him with a nat 20 when he rolled his first nat 1 in the game! He still rolled high on the bats blood and never got poisoned
Last session, 3 members of my party rolled nat 1's on a perception check.
That double take tho xD
YOU HAVE A FACE. All this time I just assumed you were a cartoon
Derryk Campbell he’s the fusion of Spock and Masako of TFS
I'm surprised it's not melon shaped.
Even as I watch this I just see his cartoon face floating infront of his actual face lol. I love this guy though!
He needs to do a face reveal.
He does? I thought this was just a better animation 😐
"I use these to roll advantage and disadvantage"
*Rolls a Nat 1 and Nat 20 at the same time*
Hit or Miss?
Guess they never crit, *huh?*
11:09 The die rolls they don't need to see... if they don't know what the roll is for then you don't have to hide it. 🤣
DM: Oooh, you looked in that urn? * Rolls a d20, then a few d6, writes in notes *
Player: Uh... What's going on? * mildly concerned *
DM: Huh? Oh the rolls? It's probably nothing. 😎
Player: * concern intensifies *
Your reaction to the natural 20 disadvantage and the natural 1 advantage is just... hilarious. XD
When is that in the vid
Thx
That pause... that... 'Did I seriously just roll...' pause. lol
Was I the only one who died laughing at the critical hit/miss with the big D20s?
@@vein.fm_hxcfemboy I guess they never miss huh
Kill me
@@vein.fm_hxcfemboy🎶 bye guys I'm jumping off a bridge ya🎶
Did you send him pause for a moment in astonishment?...
I know this will probably sound sad but I'm in my 50s and still play D&D and PF taught me some things that I never considered. Thanks PF!
Don’t say still... ofc you play
Wait... doesn't everyone in their 50's who played still play?
Randy Randerson I’m 40 and just started playing.
"Hey what's up it's you favorite Forest Puffin here"
I mean, we don't have a other Puffin ,os I guess your technically my favorite Puffin.
You don't have brown hair. You don't wear a light blue shirt. You aren't fat. WHY DID YOU LIE TO US. WE TRUSTED YOU!
Divinity D didn’t expect the haircut to be that accurate though xD
He definitely has brown hair.
Jello you’re brown hair
LETS RIOT UNTIL HE CHANGES THE HAIR COLOUR! I'm ok with the shirt colour tho, maybe it's in the wash
"I waaarned youuuu"
1 and a 20 ... wow ok.. I understand the moment of silence
1 and 20 Dis/Advantage roll was hilarious. Broke me into a cold sweat till I realized _ah no, not in gameplay right now_
Also, I really appreciate how 'low tech' your game system is, I personally hate dragging a mini around, I don't like bulk in terms of supplies either. Super great video!
The Chessex beige mat, the staple of a prepared GM.
EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
scared unprepared GM noises
Nah... I turned mine in for Loke Map books
I don't know what I expected you to look like.. but it wasn't looking like my dad.
Yeah of course he is isn't the invisible man
Not nice 😐
HAHAHA
A dungeon daddy? 😏
You must have an attractive dad then
Ever thought of selling your art on mouse pads and dice trays
Yes! I would definitely buy those
I'd buy an Abserd mousepad
Let's be honest. Abserd belongs on the inside of an ashtray.
Puffin forest tokens!
Magus Galzu I would buy that
concept: short GM screen so you can have the more involved interaction with the added advantages of a GM screen too
Is it weird that I'm trying to imagine Puffin's avatar when he talks? He just looks so different from the avatar I'm used to seeing =P
Dice, Mats, and everything nice. These were the ingredients to make the perfect DD game. But Puffin added another ingredient, a grandmaster! And thus the perfect DD game was born!
Fuckin hell dude
Please fuck off
Do you even watch the video before you comment?
How wheelchair bound are you?
@@LeGreenMoose He didn't. He commented 2 minutes after the video came out, while it is 21 minutes long. So he just watches the title and comments :/
When are u gonna do a face reveal?
Ikr,like what does he look like? Does he look exactly his avatar or he looks entirely different?
I'm betting the hair cut on his avatar is 100% accurate tho
Nah it'll probably be a lot different
@@jacobwestminster2810 r/whooosh
@@Captain-J-Amadaeus dang it
Soda cap rings as effect halos/markers... genius. I’m so taking that.
For my first time DM'ing, I used a scrabble board and letters for people/board. It was super helpful as I didn't have too many things for now. For minis, I went to the lego store and made some minifigures and used those. Not too expensive and is fun to make them. I also used other legos I already had.
Points at the blue die and says "advantage", points at the red die and says "disadvantage". Rolls dice, blue die gets a 1, red die gets a 20... do your players know you're playing with loaded dice?
me and my friends used to make a mini map because miniatures and mats are too expensive here in Brazil. Now here's how we did it: we made a tall base with styrofoam or stacked cardboard sheets. On top of that we put graph paper. Sometimes we covered it in transparent plastic sheet so we could draw over it with markers and erase it later. To represent characters we used colored sewing pins, each color representing a character. We put the pins the through map and inside the base. It was small and we could pass it to the players when it was their turn. It was super effective and cheap and easy to lookup and lasted for several sessions. When it got old we just made another one.
Smart.
Yeah like holy shit it is so fucking expensive
I like that a lot.
That's what happens when your country is garbage. Broke kid.
Excelente ideia pqp
Vou roubar
This is honestly the most helpful channel about D&D I’ve seen
I loved the "dramatic" dice, when he rolled them and got a critical success and critical failure at the same time. EPIC!
I'm glad to see your face because one of my professors sounds *EXACTLY* like you and it was pissing me off because I didn't feel I could ask them "hey are you Puffin Forest?!?" just in case I had to explain who that is and that I play DnD and because I'm awkward and would be like oh haha, sorry I asked, _guess I can just never speak to you or in this class again_
Haha, good thing indeed. One other option would've been to stalk him, but that's illegal so better not =P
This is the best post. Anytime I hear someone with a similar timber and inflection out in the wilds of the world I'm like _PUFFINFOREST?!_
Vesper Von Lichtenstein Timbre *
"The player just need the book, the pencil and the dice, then your kind of set... and MAYBE character sheet."
Well, you can certainly just write down your character info to a notepad, construction paper, cardstock, whatever. You could fit what is actually pertinent on a post-it note using a mechanical pencil in most cases.
@@Shalakor but it's better to have character sheets so the players feel more emotion as the DM rips it because they died in Tomb of Annihilation
@@johnjustjohn5866 I prefer using Character Sheets, but at least one of my Players prefers to use their Laptop instead. Drives me a bit up the wall, because they ONLY update their notepad version of the character, and I rarely get a copy of it. They don't cheat or nothing, but its hard to plan things when you have the wrong information and items that a Player has access too.
18:52 that pause/sigh at the 1 and 20 simultaneous rolls was gold.
I think with the wet erase Chessex mat you could just use a wet rag? Works pretty well for my games.
I actually prefer the wet erase mats because they will stay and not rub off with a little friction, so if people are dragging their minis around/touching the mat, or if we don't finish combat/using the mat that session I can just roll it up for next session without any real impact on what I've drawn.
1 and 20, with the dices! I know what you did space out a bit :D
Ha ha! Yeah that was a pretty funny moment.
18:50 for those who wants to go see it. Yeah... what are the odds?
@@jackielinde7568 1 in 200, 0.5%
@@coralplaysgames5883 Wouldn't it be one in 400 (20^2)?
@@jackielinde7568 he could have rolled a one or 20 on either dice, so 2/400, maybe that doesn't count though
I would recommend the pathfinder mats. 2 double sided mats with quite nice backgrounds (sea, grass and two kinds of paving). It's nice and compact but when unfolded is quite big. It's quality is reasonable. Well worth it's price tag that's aroun 15$ (a 10$ one also exists without the backgrounds).
You can use a spritzed towel over your mats to gently iron it on low heat. We had to do that when Chessex wrapped their megamat too tightly and it had super waves. My DM uses Windex on the the mat to make it easier. I've also found that treating the ink like clean up crumbs (doing scooping motions towards the center of the image) helps reduce the amount of paper towels used. You could also invest in a small rag for just wiping the mat. It would probably get stained, but it doesn't really matter.
Captain Morgan I have that black dice I do enjoy those ones a lot I laughed at the Nat fail and Nat success at the same time lol
There’s an arts and crafts blog that shows how to imbed a touchscreen monitor into the table so you can digitally upload and edit the tabletop map as you play. It’s pretty cool!
Where
Awesome! I've seen some videos on those. They're really cool!
@@puffinforest love your videos
Link?
Seems too expensive and it doesn't seem to be worth the hassle.
Sure, using a mat is certainly not as cool, but it costs much less, requires way less setup (you just draw the thing on the spot, don't need to look for the right maps on the internet or make/edit your own on a software) and it does the same thing.
I can't wait until RPG developers start sending you game accessories!
Do you hear me Devs! help this man out!
Oh and just to say cheers dude I watched some of your videos and went out and re bought all the DnD books and ran my first game for 20 years to much amusement of my 20 year old players. So again cheers.
I love that his voice is not altered from his animation at all. He's just a real dude who loves D&D
100% convinced he hired an actor to play himself and dubbed over them
surprisingly this is actually him. you can find dnd videos online with him and his friends.
100%? What kind of conspiracy theory is this?
@@stultie709 where
Its true
PUFFIN
IT'S YOUR FACE
He has a face!
The legends were true!
His hair like a forest
For playmat, several years ago i bought a large sheet of plexiglass from home depot. I then used painters tape to model lines on it and spraypainted with outdoor paint. Did that a second time the other way and it came out really nice. So one side is not ideal for markers as its got the paint but the other side is fantastic and easy to see the grid. Bonus is sliding printed maps or art under it and its an instant wet/dry grid on top of whatever art/material you have. It has served me really really well.
First, we had the Lazy GM. Then, we got the Angry DM. Now, the one that I've needed all this time...The Cheap DM!
I can't see spending a ton of money on minis just so my players don't ever have to visualize orcs and gnolls. Great work with the large and huge tokens, too. I don't believe how many ideas I got from this short vid. Keep it up, Ben!
Your tips for tokens are very helpful! Thank you! I have a player who has nearly all the books with to much time on his hands. He always takes the books with him. I have the mat and everyone brings their own dice and a minis if they want. Otherwise we just use standard board game pieces. Since I usually play Dnd with the same people we can just bring the stuff.
Edit: Also it’s kinda cool seeing people’s faces when you’re on the bus with a big tube for the mat.
Pro tip: If you ever mistake your markers and use your permanent marker by mistake, use the dryErase and draw over the permanentMarker and it will make it dry-erasable
MisterC thats what we do at school whenever we accidentally write permanent markers for the white board.
Now all i can imagine is the 9-player game i'm in now without a mat.
I like using tiles instead of minis as phys-reps. Why, because you can draw on a clear varnished, white tile. You can technically draw on a mini, but you'll ruin them.
A funny story about that. My friend was running a game at his house while also keeping an eye on his 3 year old son. Being a typical 3 year old, the son wanted to play with the grown ups. Which basically meant putting the minis back on the mat each time that dady took one off.
Now, the group was supposed to be fighting a group of 5 vanilla goblins. But nearly every single time that we killed a goblin, & daddy took it off the mat, daddy's 3 year old son would pick up the goblin mini & put it right back on the mat. This happened so many times that daddy started loosing track of how many goblins that we fought.
Being a group of dirty power gamers, us players actually encouraged this behaviour from the 3 year old. Of course we demanded XP for all 11 of the goblins that we killed that day. Man we got so much XP. Anyway, that's why I prefer using tiles to minis as phys-reps.
This took me so off guard. Kind of like suddenly hearing Hank Hill in a grocery store, only to find that it’s really Hank Hill. Great information, though. Grateful for the review of the wet erase mat.
Dude, I legit thought that your voice was a "fake" voice, like something you do only for your cartoon. I mean it isn't a bad voice, it's just really weird to hear it without the cartoon lol. Good videos though, you're one of my favorite content creators.
Reminds me of the guy who voices Kirito in SAO abridged.
You should watch filmcow the guy who made liamas with hats and charlie the unicorn he does livestreams randomly now and it's weird hearing his voice too after watching those so I know what ya mean xD
For mats I use a quilting square thing. My mom and I both sew, so we use the squares to measure distance, and put on figures and items to make the scene. A cheap and creative way to make a mat. USE WHATEVER IS AT YO HOUSE.
Thank you for posting things like this! I was the person who introduced D&D to my friend group and started DM'ing so even when other people DM they mostly follow my style since it's what they've been exposed to. It's great being able to see the other things that can be used and watch your videos to see the kinds of encounters you come up with!
Yknow what they say a dice a day keeps the masters at bay
Unless you roll a nat 1...
18:48
Where is your God now
Ique I don’t get it
As a DM i have two other recommendations for battle mats that work great.
1. You can get a pad of 1" Graph paper from your local office supply store. It will be in the teacher supply section it tends to only cost about $15 - $20 for a large pad of them. You can write with marker or pen on them and your players can write on it too then after the game you can throw it out. (little wasteful) Additionally you can take one of the sheets and have it laminated at a stationary place which costs less than $10 and it will work for wet and dry erase markers.
2. I like the Roll 4 Initiative puzzle tile battle mats because they don't roll or crease and are dry erase and easier to transport imo. You do have a bit of a edge where two pieces join but they work good for pre-drawing maps and adding the pieces as the players move through the area especially with the smaller ones.
I found these tables that attach for different sizes, and are whiteboards on the top, making it easy to draw squares and shapes to represent buildings.
YOU AREN'T BEN! He'd never say forest puffin.
Imposter
i laughed way to hard at that Nat-1 and Nat-20 at 18:51
Herpdongs same here.
Very cool. I started playing in 1983 so we were stuck with the plastic die that you had to use the white crayon with to make the numbers show up. If you wanted minis you had to buy the lead melting pot, pewter ingots, and plaster to cast them yourself, but things changed rather quickly and all the stuff eventually became more available. I remember someone had a kit for making campaign buttons, small, medium, and large. For $10 we could make 100 button minis and they would last for decades. Over the last decade or so I've discovered the big bags of coloured replacement cubes and meeples for Eurogames. I like the real wood feel, but I love the convenience of being able to dump everything in a big bag at the end of the night. Anyway, good job.
This actually inspired me to get out an ancient d20 System Starter Edition I've had in a closet for almost twenty years. Still had some dice, cheapo mats and minis of different sizes in there! Dunno why I never thought of checking what's inside considering I've been playing in a few games with novice DMs that don't really have any materials yet.
I really like these new kinds of videos :3
You should make this as a series!
Calling it something like " Puffins D&D lessons" :D
His face returns! ...I am no longer comfortable watching these on the can!
I had a buddy that would use a flat screen TV with a plexiglass cover for the board. He'd then make all of his maps on roll20. Bit more of an investment, but the utility was awesome.
For a game board we used to use a clear sheet of plexiglass and a big sheet of grid paper taped to the bottom of it. We would draw on top of it with wet erase markers and we had a dedicated rag to clean it with. Worked out pretty well.
I struggle seeing how different you are than your animated character.
Like don't take that in any way negativity, just so different.
Love your content!
This guy doesn't look like a Flumph!? How Abserd.
Heh
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
My kit also uses the NPC Codex in a zip bag - instant recognition. I use and really like the Pathfinder Terrain 2-Pack, as some others have commented about. I keep all my dice in a zip bag though, so I think it's time to upgrade to the workman's box. Great suggestion.
All that I pack in the outer fold of a messenger bag with other peripherals (markers, a terrycloth rag, phone chargers, etc). In the main fold I keep a binder for character sheets and a binder for the current campaign/adventure notes, printouts, and GM resources.
Hey Puffin, just wanted to say that your videos have really gotten me into the game :) And also my husband and I searched for 2 days everywhere in our city and online for a dry erase mat with squares and couldn't find one, ended up with some weird thing from Hobby Lobby that looked...ok. THANK YOU for showing us the evergame mat! It is exactly what we were looking for! Can't wait to try it out next week :D
Everyone talking about the 20 and 1 on the big dice. But did anyone notice the OTHER 20 and 1 that were just chillin at 16:05 in the middle of the screen..? (The blue and white one)
Your right.
I toataly mised that!
Wow 3 vids in one week
How abserd
@@BennysGamingAttic thats it im gettin me mallet
Lurpaderp 9196 Netter hope you roll a 20
@@lurpaderp4479 "but hurting someone would be doing the evils" -Abserd, at one point, probably
@@johnjustjohn5866 now i cant crap
I have been making my own mats, so here is another cheap alternative suggestion: I bought a large roll of cheap wrapping paper on clearance for less than $5, it has a 1" square grid for a cutting guide, and there are no brand logos, like some wrapping paper will have. You can use this as a disposable mat, but I have taken it further by finding a 35" square piece of pressed particle board, and I glued the wrapping paper to the board, then covered it with packing tape, being careful not to leave any gaps, and placing the tape right along the cutting lines. I now have a 35" flat, hard, square dry erase mat.
That random stop when your Advantage/Disadvantage was 1 and 20 just cracked me up so hard xD
Awesome vid, I loved it, ima new player so this helped a lot!
Me 2
Róbert Elí Árnason YOU came out 49 seconds ago ( heckin toasted)
Are you the fifth Beatle?
Yeah. Seeing Puffin with the glasses remind me of John Lennon.
Yeah, he was replaced by Ringo.
Dasher Dart Nah more kinda like George tbh
Sixth
George Martin was the fifth Beatle
I use a big (hand-folded) transparent acetate "envelope" in which I have sandwiched a piece of thin cardboard (for sturdiness) and grid paper (back and front) all held together with folder clips at the corners. That way I can draw on both sides (flip the board when the scene changes). I can also put pre-drawn maps (terrain) inside the envelope. Dry erase board markers + a rag to erase (wet wipes are really good too).
New-ish DM here. Running large battles with my group was always pretty tedious and ate up a lot of the session, never once did I think of putting all the enemies on one initiative to help smooth out the combat. Really cool idea and I'm for sure going to utilize it for our next game.
man, you should tape your playing and gming. like critical role and the guys from xp to level 3! it would be awesome!
You should check out the (now discontinued) channel "Disaster Squad". It's Ben and some other players.
@@Morkelfan ohhh nice. Gonna check it later them
4:15 actually baby wipes work well for that.
Dude you're a genius
That's exactly what I was going to say. It's also generally cheaper to mass buy baby wipes and the take a fair while to dry out which helps if you're making notes on the board like Ben does. It's what one of my groups do, I actually keep baby wipes in my gaming pocket of my bag because they also give a better clean to a dry wipe board after your finished for the day.
Baby wipes are the mcguffins of human life
I use a sponge. Don't have to throw it out after
@@LittleCazzy yes but the cashier might look at you like your a lunatic
Thoroughly enjoyed this video. Who else would pay money to have puffin forest run a game for them?!?! Whose with me!!
I dunno about DMs needing more stuff. I ran a campaign with primary characters and a half-dozen short-term characters (1-2 sessions) over a 2-3 year period using AD&D 2nd Ed. rules when I was in collage and I think the only thing we all had was character sheets, Players Manual, Monster Manual, dice, and pencils.
Because my players were so, um ... creative, there was no reason to bother with a module or preplanned storyline. We just had fun in the world and found out what happened as we played it out.
Yes, I had a large scale event happening in the background (think return of Takhisis in Dragonlance or the arrival of Orc in WarCraft), but the players were free to get as involved as they wanted to. Originally, they started out as "the good guys" but quickly turned into mercenaries doing their best to profit off the on going calamity while staying alive and gathering power. It was an amazing story, and we all had incredible amounts of fun.
Can you give some links to the different things you show here? Especially nice if they're amazon affiliate links so if I get anything you benefit from it.
agree 100% he should get more back from this community for all he puts out for us
Oh... my... what a shock. I wasn't expecting a face reveal, I guess I missed the first one. Ok, carry on...
I use that wet erase mat in my games and just keep one of those contigo water bottles close to drip a little water on the mat, or onto the towel when its time to clear it for the next area. As for the using lots of paper towels, I end up using the same one and just clearing the board only enough to draw the new lines, and after my session I'll give it a better cleaning. I'll maybe use 1 or 2 sheets of paper towels during the game, but I will say that yes way more during clean up at the end.
You might like the 1 inch flatten glass marbles you can use your wet erase to write on them just like your Pogs, but have options for other things. I'll use some for different types of baddies like Z1 for zombie1 and S1 for skeleton 1 (or in one game someone randomly decided they wanted a pet goat so we just have one that says goat).
I also like to use a combination of the mat at decoration pieces such as trees from Christmas village sets or creepy gates from Halloween sets that you can find around target/Walmart/Menard, or I got door minis from a local shop that I will draw a wall up to and put a door down to give it a little more depth. (Yes sounds silly, but I'd probably use doors more than every other mini I have).
Just some ideas you might like.
I do like your idea for the cardboard cutouts for large and huge sizing. I normally just do 4 marbles in a box, but sometimes if there are many large creatures that can be a pain to move around haha.
By the way I love watching your videos, they are all wonderful!
The pause at 18:53 when you roll the 20 and 1 made my day.
He's more beautiful than I imagined
if you don't have a gm screen you can't fudge the rolls :O
And that's fine! I've seen a few videos from for example Matt Colville and taking20, who basically argue it's fine if you enhance the game with it. But you should never do it just becaue you don't like an outcome anyway.
@@deamon6681 I know, I said this more as a joke ^^
All of your stuff is so simple and cheap and that makes it beautiful
For mats, we use chessex and a piece of 2-3 mm clear plastic from a hardware store. No creases, but it does occasionally get misaligned