NewbieDM Tutorial – Counters, Tokens, or Pogs
Welcome to what is by far the most popular post on NewbieDM. More than 5000 (!) of you have made your own tokens for use in your games, and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to help DM’s out there run a better D&D game. I invite you to take a look around the site, there’s tons of good stuff here for DM’s, both new and old alike. I’m also proud and honored that NewbieDM was selected as one of Wired Magazine’s Top 5 Greatest RPG Blogs, and again, I invite you to take a look around the rest of the posts on the site. Happy Gaming!
I’m going to make my first attempt at making a tutorial here, and try to show you how I make my D&D tokens. It’s not as simple as cutting out little papers or cardstock, I like to make them durable and permanent.
Presenting…. NewbieDM’s Kick Ass Token Makin’ Tutorial!!!
Okay, this tutorial assumes a few things…
- That you own a copy of, and have some experience using Photoshop. If not download Gimp, an open source equivalent.
- That you also own a copy of the TokenTool software, a free token making utility.
- That you have 1″ metal washers. A bag of 8 costs $1.00 at Home Depot.
- That you own a 1″ hole punch. They are available at craft stores, or here.
- That you have an Elmer’s Glue Extra Strength Glue Stick. I bought it at Office Depot.
If you plan to use Gimp, try to follow along. I don’t know Gimp at all, I’ve never used it. Also, if you do use Photoshop, keep in mind that I am not an expert on it. I know just enough to do what I have to do and that’s it. I may be doing something that you know can be done differently and faster, then by all means do it.
Okay, the tutorial then.
Open Tokentool and drag a picture unto it. I find pictures on the web, or on pdf’s. The higher the resolution, the better. I searched for a hi-res picture of Gandalf on Google.
Make your width and height 256, and select a frame/border for the token. Once you do that, you can adjust the zoom level and in the upper right corner, you’ll see what the final token looks like.
Open photoshop, and grab the token image on the top right of Tokentool, and drag it unto photshop, where it will open as a .png file called .token.drag. Then go ahead and create a new CMYK document. From what I understand CMYK will match what color is on the screen to the paper better than RGB. Right, sounds like Chinese, I know. Anyways, I print on 8×11 photopaper, so that’s the size I pick, “Letter”.
It is very important that your resolution matches the size of the token height/width you picked in Tokentool. If you picked 256 then your photoshop resolution has to match. I usually go with 200, don’t ask me why… As long as the resolution on Tokentool matches the resolution of Photoshop, you’ll be fine.
Once your new document is created, go ahead and drag the .token.drag. file unto it. You’ll see that it keeps its 1″ size, and I’m assuming you have the ruler visible in photoshop. If not, go to View>Rulers to make it visible. Position the token on the document at about 1″ off the top and the left margin, to allow for printing margins. And now, we will duplicate it, so the token has two sides, as we’ll make the flip side of the token it’s “bloodied” equivalent. Duplicating it is easy:
Hold down the ALT key, as you grab it with the select tool, and drag it to the side. You’ll actually create and drag a duplicate. It’s that simple. That duplicate will become layer 2 on your document. Position it where you want it.
So now that you have two versions of Gandalf there, we need to bloody him up. I flip the tokens at the table when a PC or monster is bloodied. Here is a full size .png of the blood file. Save it, and open it in Photoshop.
Okay, so now you’ve got the document with the 2 Gandalf’s, the blood, and the original token.drag. of Gandalf all open. You can go ahead and close token.drag. No need to save it either.
Go ahead and grab the blood, and drag it over the second Gandalf over to the main document. Photoshop will create a new layer, and have it highlighted on the layers box. The blood should be a little larger than the token, so we have to adjust the size. (A note on this: You don’t really need to adjust the size of the blood if you don’t want to, when you punch the token out with the 1″ hole punch it won’t really make a difference. I resize it in order to keep the blood nicely within the frame I selected in Tokentool.) Go to EDIT>TRANSFORM>SCALE and there it will let you adjust the blood size. Hit the select tool and it will ask you to confirm the transformation.
Okay, now the blood seems to be a little too dark, and Gandalf is barely visible. Let’s make the blood more transparent. Right click Layer 3, the blood layer, and go to “Blending Options.” Once that window open up, find the slider that says “Fill Opacity” and drag it to about 60. That should look better. See this image below:
See the difference? Next, let’s go ahead and label Gandalf by name. With minis, it is hard to keep track of what mini is what, and a fight with 10 enemies can get confusing for a DM trying to keep track of what mini represents what guy on the battle map. Not with tokens though. Just add text and numbers, and it’s very simple to run fast paced combat. Goblin 1, Goblin 2, etc…
Okay, click on the text tool, and write ”Gandalf” over on the left token. Find a font that’s easy to read, as these tokens are only 1″. If you want, you can curve the text to match the curve of the token. When you type, a T with a curve button will be available on the top bar of photoshop. That allows you to select a curve for your text. You select the text, click that “T” button and pick a type of slant or curve. Position and size the text so it fits over your token.
Then just like we did earlier with Gandalf, grab it with the select tool while holding ALT, and duplicate it as we drag it over to bloody Gandalf. Notice the text is a different color in the second pic, and it has an outline? You can select your text color while you have the text tool active, and the outline is called a stroke. You would right click your text on the “layers” window and pick Blending Options, just like we did for the blood transparency. Pick the checkbox at the bottom that says “Stroke”, and select a color. It defaults to red, I usually do white text with black stroke. Pick a stroke width, I usually go with 1.
Now, you’re not going to waste an entire paper on two tokens, so repeat the steps above and fill the paper with monsters, labeling them as you go. Keep track of your layers, as they can get confusing. Rename them in the layer window as you work and merge down layers you have finished. It’s very easy for the blood layer to sometimes end up over the text layer, and you don’t want that, you want the text always on top.
This thing with the layers can be the most confusing part. If you are not too familiar with photoshop go and find a basic tutorial to help you with layers.
You like my Homer Simpson handwriting? So does my wife. Okay, so you now have a document full of tokens… Let’s get them to the game table! Print them out at the highest quality your printer allows, using the best paper. I use glossy photo paper. It simply looks the best.
Once it prints out, check it out. You should have a 1″ pair of Gandalf tokens. Now it’s time to use your supplies. Use your 1″ hole punch to punch these suckers out, using the window on the punch to align them perfectly. You may need to cut them into strips from the printout, so they can fit in the hole punch.
Next, apply your glue directly unto the metal washer and stick and stick Gandalf on there. Then just flip him over and apply more glue, and stick the bloody Gandalf on the other side, and there’s your token!
If you decide to use these, you’ll see that it leads to faster game play. Everyone knows who’s who at the table, monsters have numbers to make running them simpler, and players can custom design their own look. I gave my friend elf ears in photoshop and he uses his own picture.
One last thing. When I first started making these, I made the mistake of making minions like this as well. Minions never get bloody though, so I was wasting time and ink. What I do with minions is diferent. I print them out on cardstock, and stick them on 1″ round wooden disks. Michael’s Craft store has a bag of 52 alphabet circles for $2. They also come with an adhesive built in. Just peel the backing and stick your monster. They work perfectly for minions, since it’s possible to have so many of them at the table. They are a lot lighter than metal washers as well…
Well, that’s it. Wow, that was long… If there is anything you don’t understand, leave me a message and I’ll try to help you out. This is my first tutorial and my writing may not be the best…
Let me know if you make the tokens. I’d love to hear about it, and thanks for reading!
Stumble It!
Metal washers is a good idea. I was using coins as backing, and I ran out pretty quickly. I finally discovered mini poker chips, which are slightly less substantial than washers, but also cheaper.
Nice article.
I’ll probably try this when I go to the US for christmas.
Since I don’t think I can get the same supplies here (damn metric system!), I would have to buy the materials with me home, so I’d like to get enough the first time. Hence, I was wondering if it wouldn’t be possible to use the alphabet circles for all the tokens? (or the other way around, but the alphabet circles seem cheaper).
@swordgleam – are poker chips exactly 1″?
@Harnish – thanks!
@neubert – you can use the circles fine… i like the strength of washers…
this is friggen brilliant. TYVM!
I agree. Wonderful article with a wonderful product in the end. Anything that makes combat smoother is a plus in my book. Thanks!
#1 Scale – wouldn’t it be best to scale the image in Tokentool instead of the GIMP.
#2 Bloodied – It looks to me that you’re making things hard for yourself, wrt the “blooded” state. One option would be using different outlines in the Tokentool program. Another easy way would be to adjust the colors of the image to get a red tint. Either way would require a lot less tweaking of the image.
#3 Cost – except for mass, wouldn’t it be cheaper to always use the wooden tolkens instead of the washers?
@Jonathan: let me see what you come up with!
@Czar: Thanks! I’ve been following your gametable posts, and I’m looking for a weeknight online game btw…
@zelgar:
1. You have to scale the new document in photoshop that you are dragging the tokentool token into, so that it retains its 1″ measurement.
2. You are right about the bloodied… I just know how to do it so quickly, I like the way they look… personal preference, i just thibnk they look cool for my particular game, but you are right…
3. Yes, the wooden tokens are way cheaper. I like washers for their weight & durability, but the wood is indeed cheaper. 52 for $2 at michaels can’t be beat!
Buying washers in the bag is too expensive. Buy a box of them at Ace Hardware, it won’t be a whole lot more per unit than the wooden circles, and I bet you can buy a larger bulk of fender washers than you can the wooden circles!
Also, if you want to print them in color without having water-based inks that will run you should consider just laying them out in 3×5″ sheets and getting them printed at your local Walgreens or CVS. It’s really cheap and the glossy photo paper holds up extremely well.
walgreens is not a bad idea, save on ink….
3×5 or 4×6?
Whichever’s cheapest! At 1×1 for a token, you’ll get 15 or 24 respectively, so just just work out the per-token cost with each size.
[...] Dicas para fazer seus próprios tokens; [...]
Links - Mega Meme | Rolando 20 said this on December 8, 2008 at 5:54 am
Great idea. I started searching for the hole puncher. Where did you get yours?
Great idea. I started searching for the hole puncher. Where did you get yours?
YOu can get it at Michael’s crafts store, they are a chain, so they may have some where you live.
If not, http://www.aleatools.com sells them.
This is a great idea. We have done something similar but with more expensive wood discs (they hold up better than the alphabet ones – washers are a great alternative though). You can get larger wood discs as well.
Rather than printing on glossy photo paper, I print on cardstock and laminate the pictures myself with clear packing tape (carefully apply the tape to both sides of the paper and cut around your counter) so that they are thicker, durable and somewhat water resistant. Then we use peel and stick removable tabs (found in the scrapbooking section of the craft store) to stick the laminated images to the wooden discs so we can reuse the wooden discs; thus, we don’t have to make counters for everything to keep forever and save some money (and they store smaller completely flat).
[...] Tutorial – Printing Battle Maps to a 1″ Scale So you’ve made yourself some kick ass tokens, but now you want to make yourself some kick ass maps to use them with. Well, you’ve come [...]
Helpful hints for anyone using GIMP, I’m using thie technique without even the Tokenizer software. Here’s what I’ve been doing:
1. Find a suitable image on the web. Especially useful is perusing Wizard’s mini gallery for the exact creature you want.
2. Copy the image to your clipboard (in Firefox, it’s just right-click – Copy Image)
3. In GIMP, File – Acquire – Paste as New.
4. Select the circle selector tool, and do the following:
a. Check off “Fixed” aspect ratio
b. Set the aspect ratio to 1:1 (the default)
c. Switch the “Size” boxes from px. to in.
5. Drag a 1″ x 1″ circle by watching the Size boxes, then drag it to an appropriate location.
6. I usually resize the image to give me space at the top for the caption:
a. Image – Canvas Size, and iIncrease width & height
b. Click the “Center” button then the “Resize” button
c. Image – Flatten Image to fill in the background
7. Once your circle is where you want it:
a. Image – Crop to Selection
b. Select – Invert
c. Select the eraser and erase away
This gives you a perfect 1″ x 1″ round token image, which you can paste into a new image. Just make sure your new image has the same resolution as the original; for example, if you use the “US Letter (300 ppi)” template you’ll probably need to resize your image to 72ppi.
Also, to make curved text is a bit tricky, but basically:
Use the Path tool to drop a starting and ending path point. Then, still on the path tool, click and drag the middle of the path up to make a curve. Switch to the Text tool and type whatever text you want, then click the “Text Along Path” button on the tool window. This makes a *new path* that is the outline of your text, so you’ll need to make a new layer, pick Selection – From Path, then Edit – Fill with BG Color to get words. Once you do this you can delete your Text layer and two paths.
[...] battle if you’d like. The part that I loved the most though, was that if you happen to use tokens made with metal washers, these things are great. They fit perfectly on the magnet, and being metal, well, obviously that [...]
On GIMP, how do you paste so that you can get multiple images in a single print? I can only print one token per page, and MS Paint isn’t printing them to their 1-inch scale.
[...] at RPG Centric, to ”Fun with D&D 4e Action Points” by the Chatty DM, and “NewbieDM Tutorial: Counters, Tokens, and Pogs” by yours truly. The cover of the book screams SteamPunk!! [...]
[...] off. Thankfully, all that was left was making some mini’s for the PCs and baddies. I took the advice of The Newbie DM and printed out the pictures and adhered them to 1″ washers. A 30 pack at Lowes ran me less [...]
By Decree of The Czar.. » The moons have aligned! Wifey agrees to play DnD! said this on April 1, 2009 at 12:58 pm
You can buy round 1″ labels instead of buying a hole punch. http://www.labelsbythesheet.com/ has 1″ white glossy labels for less than $1.00 a sheet. They also have sizes up to 4″. I use these to make my counters.
Seguaro:
I bought these, but I can’t get the template to line up properly when I print using the 2″ ones… have you had a problem?
[...] Oh… they are perfect for use with the tokens from my tutorial! [...]
Great writeup! this is exactly what i have been looking for!
Just a quick question though, what do you do about larger creatures?
Lowe’s sells 2″ washers, and Alea Tools, or Michael’s Craft stores sells a 2″ hole punch!
As for larger than that… well… I don’t know….
http://www.woodnshop.com/default.htm
If you go to “Craft Parts” then look for “disc” at the bottom are 1/8″ thick x 3″, 4″, or 5″ diam wooden circles.
They’re not badly priced per unit, it’s shipping runs a little spendy, but since there is less demand for huge, colossal, and gargantuan creatures in general, buying 20 – 25 of each would probably set you up for quite a while, and only run you around $30 – 40$ including shipping.
Alternatively, most towns have at least one woodworking shop. If you find a smaller, privately owned, shop and asked really nicely, I’m sure most of them have large-size hole bits for their drills, and would take the five minutes it would take to punch out some wooden circles for you…as long as you provided the wood for them. I haven’t had the need yet to put a huge monster on the board (just went to Lowes last week to set up for large creatures), but when I do, I’m going to head to the Saturday Market and talk to some of the wood-workers there.
[...] tokens were made using my tutorial. Lets see how it goes. What do you all [...]
[...] A tutorial that teaches you how to create your own tokens or pogs. [...]
[...] to be trying next is supplementing my existing minis collection with self-made tokens, based on a blog post by NewbieDM. I’ve already picked up the appropriate supplies. Coming soon: the results of my [...]
Monsters… the quest for a better token « Nefzonia said this on May 22, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Thanks for the idea, I love the token’s I’ve made so far. I also took your advice of buying the small dollar tubes and they’re perfect for these tokens.
Only problem is that the group I’m with at home have tokens so I only get to test the bonus tokens. But, when I go back to school I’ll get to test them out as my primary markers. Thanks again for this tutorial and happy gaming.
[...] newbiedm made a tutorial, which I’m sure all of you have seen, awhile ago for creating “durable and permanent” character/monster tokens. It gave a [...]
[...] [...]
Anonymous said this on July 12, 2009 at 6:47 am
I find with the washers, I can remove the pog easily and redo them just by soaking in some hot water for 5-10 min. Grabbed a pack of 30 at Lowes for $1.77 ..also, they sell 2″ washers for around $0.21 each for those Large creatures.
Czar, I bought the Lowe’s 2″ washers. Alea Tools sells a hole punch for that size as well for about 13 bucks.
[...] a minis collection, I got sick of carrying them around. So now I just make my own minis using this tutorial. You lose the fancy 3D-ness but gain customizability. I use the Alea Tools magnet circles instead [...]
Accessory My 4e DMing setup - EN World D&D / RPG News said this on August 18, 2009 at 1:50 pm
[...] like making your own monster tokens, there's a great tutorial on making them on the NewbieDM blog: NewbieDM Tutorial – Counters, Tokens, or Pogs __________________ Law's Game Style: Storyteller 83%, Tactician 75%, Specialist 67%, Method Actor [...]
4E Miniatures Buying Advice - Page 2 - EN World D&D / RPG News said this on August 25, 2009 at 8:42 pm
[...] [...]
Die deutsche Antwort auf Savage World? -Seite 25 - Blutschwerter said this on September 10, 2009 at 3:37 pm
great, great tutorial!
i have a question regarding TokenTool… is there a way to make the “ring” transparent, or invisible? Since the tokens are already small (1″), i want to get as much of the image on it as possible, and the ring (which does look great btw) does rob me of some of the image.
thanks!
one more question: how do i create a Large token; one that takes up 4 squares. would i make the H and W 800? i want to make some Dragons and Hill Giant tokesn.