In search of the perfect token

General GTG General Discussion
1

We played a ton of SotM this weekend, which was fantastic.  I don't usually get to play that many back-to-back games, so this was a chance to really see what aspects of our game experience I thought I could improve on.  And the one that stood out to me was the tokens.

We usually use little plastic nuggets to indicate effects on cards (deals additional damage, reduce the next damage, etc.)  They're small, colorful, are 3D so are hard to overlook when you're scanning the table for effects, and so work pretty well.  But other than the red ones (damage) and green ones (preventing damage), the colors don't really line up with most of the effects in the game ("that card has a purple nugget on it.  What did that mean again...?"), so they're not perfect.

We could use the new tokens that came with the Expanded Edition, but those don't really do it for me for various reasons.  That got me thinking, what do I think would be a more perfect solution, and could I make it myself.  Here are the criteria I came up with:

1) They should be small to aid in portability, and also to not obscure the cards they're sitting on too much.

2) They should be 3D, in that they should stand up off of the cards so that they're easy to see.

3) There should be a relatively small number of token types so that you don't have to dig through a pile of the ones you don't want to find the one you do want.  Because I want a small number of types to be able to be used for any situation you'd need a token, that means that each type needs to straddle a fine line between generic and specific.

4) Each type should be immediately recognizable, different from each other, and require no reading, so that a quick scan of the table will show you what's going on.

With those criteria as my guide, I sat down at Photoshop to see what I could come up with.  The result is on my SotM page (www.spiffworld.com/sotm) if anyone else thinks they might want to try them out.  It's a one-page PDF that has tokens you can cut out and fold into little pyramids.  There are ten token types, which match effects I had in mind when I made them, but people can use them however they like.  They are:

1) Green shield (reduce damage to this target)

2) Blue shield (reduce the next damage to this target)

3) "S" (this card has a start-of-turn effect)

4) "E" (this card has an end-of-turn effect)

5) Explosion (increase damage dealt by this card)

6) Cog (kind of generic, maybe I'll use it to indicate when a card deals reduced damage, or when there's some other change in game mechanics, like if all damage is fire)

7) Exclamation point (a generic "don't forget something on this card" marker)

8) A backward-pointing arrow (indicates a reactive effect, like one that happens when something else happens.  My wife forgets those all the time)

9) A "not" symbol (indicates when a card or player can't do something, like can't deal damage or can't draw cards)

10) Skull (indicates nemesis, to help you remember to apply the damage bonuses).

I'm not prepared to say that this is the most perfectest solution for me yet, since I've just thrown them together, but I think it's a step in the right direction, so I thought I'd share them here.  Let me know if you have any feedback.

2

 I agree on some fronts.  I like the stuff that came with the EE, but I'm used to my own system, so I just use that.

 

I use d10s to keep track of hp.  This is the biggie for me.   While I appreciate >G trying to give us some nice HP trackers, counting up the 10s and 1s each time to see how much HP something has is a hassle, so dice make it much simpler.

 

 

The rest you could probably use >G tokens for.   But Personally, I just grabbed some army men from the RISK game that is gathering dust on my shelf.   I use only 3 counters, it definitely works for about 99% of the situations that come up.

 

1.  Red:  Target is dealing increased damage (+1 per red army man.   Dealing +3 damage?  You have 3 army men).

2.  Blue:  Target taking -1 damage.   

3.  Grey:  Target dealing -1 damage.  

 

So if you're Legacy say fighting Voss, you can easily look at your character card, see that you have 2 red guys, a grey guy and a blue guy.   You play Thokk,  deal 3+2-1=4 damage.   Take reduced damage by 1.  simple.    Yes it doesnt cover a lot of environment affects,  you just have to remember those.  I find it easier to do that than to get a bunch of extra tokens.

3

Yep, I hear you.  It's all a matter of where you tolerances lie.  Some people may prefer to keep it all in their heads, and others may need reminders for just about everything.

I've already decided that if nothing else, my tokens are too small.  I'm going to redo them to be slightly bigger.

4

Thanks for creating these, Spiff. I'm looking forward to seeing the enlarged versions.

I use the Enhanced Edition's indicators whenever they're appropriate, but there are times when a couple sets of matched indicators would be good, like numbers or letters. Effects like Fanatic's Divine Sacrifice need a counter at the affected end (in this case, the targets of Divine Sacrifice, which can be up to three targets) and another at the source end (in this case, Fanatic). Right now, I use generic glass beads for things like this. (Lots of those left over from playing Magic...)

5

This is an aside since it does not meet your needs but I insist... the perfect token is dry beans *.

As a person of Mexican heritage, I always have tons of dry beans around. But anyone can buy a "9 bean soup mix" for $2 to get a variety of counters for your games...

One of my systems is called the "bean counter" system since it uses "easy" resource management in the shape of beans... it lets you keep track of a lot of things very easily without pen and paper.

 

 

*   While cooked beans are delicious and nutricious, they have a tendency to stain your games and smell like horribly when they spoil. Only use dry beans for gaming.

6

Further reflection is causing me to lean towards thinking that I don't need to include as many "S" and "E" start/end-of-turn tokens as I have.  I had originally intended to put one on every card on the table that has a start- or end-of-turn effect, but I'm thinking that's overkill.  The only time you really need to be reminded of a start- or end-of-turn effect is when it's on one of your hero cards (we forget to fire off Unity's Platform Bot all the time, as well as things like Bunker's or Tempest's start-of-turn effects), since that's a bit of an unusual occurrence.  It's a pretty standard thing to comb through all of the environment or villain cards to look for start- or end-of-turn effects on their turns, and a reminder token may not be all that helpful in those cases.

7

Completely agree, Spiff.

And Iugaru, beans work great - pretty much like glass beads - but, as Spiff pointed out, we have to remember what we were using them to indicate, which isn't quite as effective… :wink:

8

I like the idea of Start and End of turn counters. I think I might also like a Whenever counter to remind me of effects that are triggered by something happening to some other card, like Stealth Bot/Smoke Bombs being able to redirect damage or Spite's PL626 drug causing a discard whenever a hero uses a power.

9

I've updated the file.  In the 1.0 version, the tokens were about 1/4-inch square, now they're about 1/2-inch square, which makes a big difference.  They're much easier to assemble now (my fat fingers had a hard time with the ultra-tiny version), and they stand out better when placed on cards.

The larger token size means that there are less tokens on the print-out page, but that's not a bad thing.  If you find you need more of a certain kind of token, you can always print a second sheet, but don't see myself needing more than one sheet in my games, given the proportion of tokens I've put on the page (heavy on the green shields and red explosions).  I've also reduced the number of nemesis skull tokens to just three -- do we really need to put a reminder token on each and every Ennead mini-boss to remember they all hate Ra?

In addition to these tokens, I've been kicking around an idea for a more perfect way to track target hp, better than the disk counters and maybe even better than dice.  Unfortunately for that idea, WoW pandas are coming out tomorrow, which may suck up a considerable amount of my free time instead. :)

www.spiffworld.com/sotm