this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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Honestly, this is more OG than most people realize. You're doing it right.
Coins, and even dice work in a pinch too.
I only have like 10 minis and the party I DM for is 5 people, so I use a lot of random stuff as minis. I'm slowly building a collection, but it's expensive lol
In many cases you don't need mini at all, it's rpg not a miniature game.
No mini nor battlemap gives more freedom to everyone (at the price of less tactical depth), and if you need a view on the situation, a whiteboard with a sketch + cross/letter does can bring you pretty far
As a totally cheap-ass DM, my recommendation is to find some printable DnD tokens that you like and glue them to things like bottle-caps, or small round bits of wood (like chunks off of a dowel from the hardware store). There are a bunch around. If you want to splurge, take the bits you want somewhere you can pay for a quality color printout.
Personally, I'm a fan of these generic tokens by "Acquitt". They're useful for every encounter: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FV7egJC87nsVUTybGs5E3DwvRihmz6KduUfniSJk6Fec.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D57f11a74865814f31c7236adb1555a43529ca355
I glued these to some sculpey discs of the same color. I also used transparent binder sleeves for HP tracker sheets, so I could use dry-erase marker. Lastly, my battle map was a large (but cheap) poster frame with 1" grid paper inside^1^. This let me use those dry-erase markers to draw terrain.
1. For more thrift, some wrapping paper brands print a barely visible 1" grid on the backside. Some quality time with a ruler and pen can turn that into something useful.
You can also do Lego minifigs if you don't mind paying shipping. They're super cheap from places like Bricklink and you can get a lot of different designs pretty easy.