DM Tool: Scrabble Tiles for your Minis & Battlemats
Of all the board games I could raid for props and DM tools, Scrabble tops my list, especially for D&D 4E. Enhance battlemats, track minis, and make combat easier with those crazy, square lettered tiles.
Use Scrabble Tiles for the Monsters
Wizards of the Coast uses letter identification in its modules for monsters. For example, a Hobgoblin Torturer would be designated (T) in its stat block and on the battlemat for initial placement. Goblin Sharpshooters = (S), Goblin Warriors = (W), and so on. You can do the same for your homebrew encounters.
Scrabble tiles make a natural fit as pre-labelled minis. Next combat, place your S, T, and W tiles down and use them as monster minis. Clear and simple.
To further distinguish monsters during combat, place a poker chip or coloured tile beneath the Scrabble tile. For example, if you have four Goblin Sharpshooters fighting the PCs, one would be S tile + green chip, one would be S tile + blue chip, etc. This makes tracking damage, status, and initiative easy. Green S is dazed? No problem to note that now.
Use Scrabble Tiles for Cool Terrain
So, you’ve got a fancy printed battlemat or a gnarly one sketched out for your combat encounter. Enhance these further with Scrabble tiles. Design special terrain with special effects that will make combat more dangerous, dramatic, and exciting. Use tiles to mark these special squares on your battlemat. Use letter codes to track what each type of terrain does.
For example, you beef up your combat encounter design with three additional terrain types: unexpectedly deep puddles (P), a wasp nest (N), and razor thistles (R).
You Can Turn Tiles Face Down
The designers of Scrabble were incredibly cunning. They only put the letters on one side of the tiles! Diabolical.
Use this to your advantage by placing some tiles face down to increase the mystery and drama of combat.
For example, you might locate all visible monsters on the battlemat with tiles, but the ones far away are placed face down until the PCs get a better look through Perception checks or by getting closer.
Same with hazards. Leave hazards as a surprise. The players will know there’s something interesting in a square with a tile on it, but they’ll need to investigate to learn more.
If you make sure some tiles are beneficial during combat, then PCs will be motivated to investigate the terrain during battle – more opportunities for meaningful tactics and options.
Example beneficial tiles might be dropped treasure, hazards the PCs can use against their foes, and clues (that get scooped up before the enemy can grab and destroy them).
Buy Used Sets
An obvious tip, but keep an eye out for used Scrabble games. Build up your collection of tiles. They have more uses as DM tools and for minis and battlemats than what I’ve listed here.
If you have tiles set aside just for RPGs, then you can paint or mark them as you please, giving you more use possibilities, including puzzles, coinage, clues, status markers, condition tracking, and more.
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January 17th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Great idea!
I use a chess set in much the same way, with Black Pawns playing the part of Minions and the other monsters selected from the Rooks, Bishops, Knights, King and Queen. Each player chooses one of the white pieces for their character.
We found that a magnetic travel chess set works best – they cost very little, the pieces don’t shift when the dice are rolled, and play can pause mid-game.
January 18th, 2009 at 3:46 am
I use a chess set the same way. I hadn’t thought of the magnetic ones. I use a large rollup chessboard. Dry erase markers work on it. The players like the large woden pieces.
January 18th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Good idea. I actually bought a few bags of the 3/4″ square wood blocks, and a bag of blank wood tiles, from Michaels when I started DM’ing again last summer. I write on them in pencil what each represents, and put them on the map. If there are multiples of a monster they get labeled Skirmisher1, Skirmisher2, etc.
When all the sides have been written on, I just erase the pencil and re-use them.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Good idea. I own a bunch of stands for SJG’s Cardboard Heroes, which I’ve numbered with a Sharpie. I’ve sometimes also printed my own paper miniatures as well to use with them.
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January 18th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Johnn, your post fired up a neuron that must have been slacking off (as it had nothing to do at the time) and gave me an idea. It might not work and would need to be tried out, but here goes: cut out some generic dungeon tile shapes using thick cardboard. Then get a piece of clingwrap (not sure what it would be called but I’m sure you would have it in your neck of the woods) and use it to cover the battlemap, trimming as necessary. You should then be able to use whiteboard or permanent markers on the clingwrap and then throw the markings away. If it works, the idea could easily be extended to ‘real’ battlemaps. Much cheaper than lamination!
January 18th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
@greywulf: Good call on the chess set. Complete with alignments. Nice.
@PrecociousApprentice: It never occurred to me that my magnetic board would also be friendly to dry erase. Must check!
@Mark: I was at Toys ‘R Us the other day looking at a 200 pc. bucket of wooden blocks. Never thought that a craft store might have similar but cheaper. Thanks for the tip.
@Bonemaster: Another good tip. A Google leads me to this link: http://www.sjgames.com/heroes/
What set(s) come with the stands?
@Mike: Neat idea. Are you talking about the static cling plastic wrap? Man, that stuff defies me. As soon as it’s off the roll it’s curled onto itself, or grabbed something else. I think it might be my arch enemy from a previous life.
Cool idea though. When I go shopping at Michaels for wooden blocks I’ll see if they have thin pieces of plastic that I could just lay on top of the cardboard arrangement each time rather than engage my arch nemesis in another battle. I’m thinking something like overhead projector type stuff.
Thanks everyone for dropping by and commenting!
January 20th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Nice ideas. Thanks!
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January 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 am
I really like this because, as you point out, Wizards already abbreviates everything by a single letter. I might be digging out my Scrabble board before our next game.
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January 28th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
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