The new Pathfinder Beginner Box has generated quite a buzz. The fantastic pawns — stiff cardboard cutouts with bases that server as miniature substitutes — have players clamoring for Paizo to issue new sets of pawns.

Want to create your own do-it-yourself Beginner Box style pawns? Here’s a tutorial on how to do just that.

First, find some images you want to use for your pawns. In the example I’m using for this photo tutorial, I use images from the Pathfinder Paper Minis: Pathfinder Adventure Path #1—”Burnt Offerings”.  Those Paizo paper minis have their own method to stand them up using only paper, but they aren’t as attractive and don’t match the new slick Beginner Box pawns.

I created an Open Office Draw template. Download the RPG Hacker Pawn Template here. If you don’t have OpenOffice, you can download the software free here.

The images need to be either the Standard pawn size (28mm wide by 48mm high) or the Large pawn size (48mm wide by 63mm high). I use Gimp to take the image (which can be a screenshot or an image exported from a PDF) and resize it to one of these sizes. Make sure it is at least 200 dpi (though 300 dpi or 600 dpi will also work). Then, paste it into the OpenOffice template.

In OpenOffice, you’ll want make a second copy of the image and then right mouse click on the image and choose ‘Flip’ / ‘Horizontal’ to get a mirror image to use for the back of the pawn.

Once you have the images for the pawns set up in the template, then assemble your supplies. You’ll need:

• Fantasy Flight Plastic Stands (I bought my for about $2 for a pack of 10 here)
• Exacto Knife
• Scissors
• White 3mm Foam Sheet (I got mine at Hobby Lobby — cost $0.99 for one sheet).
• A cutting board

Optionally, you can use a corner punch (also from Hobby Lobby) if you want to use the plastic card technique.

Here’s what the Fantasy Flight stands look like. They work about the same as the black stands that come in the Beginner Box, but they are a little bit tighter I think.

Next step is to cut out the pawn images from the template you printed out. I use an Exacto knife on a hobby cutting board for this.

Now on to cutting the foam out. There are two ways you can do this. The first is to take some plastic card (feels like a credit card — I used a comic book divider from the comic store for this image) and cut out a piece to the size of the pawn and use a round edge cutter from Hobby Lobby to round the corners.

You then use this as a guide to use your Exacto knife to cut out the foam. It is floppy, but don’t worry, once you glue it it will be stiff and feel like Balsa wood.

After I first did this a few time, I then discovered that the pawns themselves make good guides for your Exacto knife, so I’ve not switched to this technique. Whether you use the plastic card or a cardboard pawn, you use it as a guide to cut both the paper and the foam.

Then glue the images to each side of the foam. I use a glue stick, but rubber cement will also work.

Make sure it lines up correctly. You can move it around a bit before the glue sets to get it aligned just right.

One issue I’ve had if I take them out of the stands a lot is that the bottom edge can fray and catch on the plastic stand. So I found a solution.

Put Scotch tape along the bottom.

Then trim it with scissors.

Lastly, insert into the Fantasy Flight Plastic Stands. Here’s the final product. These were my first batch using the plastic card technique. My new pawns using the cardboard pawns for templates look even better. I figure it costs about $0.02 per figure flat, and about $0.25 for each stand. They look pretty good next to the regular Pathfinder Beginner Box Pawns I think.

I totally understand the need to not split the Pathfinder product line by creating an entire new ‘Basic’ product line (see the intense discussion on that here).  Here is what I suggest as an alternative.

Just as there are different XP tracks in Pathfinder Society (so you can stay at 7th level for a long time if you want to), so there could be a different ‘combat complexity’ method, a sort of sanctioned house rule which is called out in future editions of the product. It would be consistent with much of the Beginner Box rules. The “Basic Combat Style” might look something like this: Continue reading

Courtesy of Michael White are homebrewed Swords & Wizardry screen inserts. The three interior panels are here:

• Screen Interior 1
• Screen Interior 2
• Screen Interior 3

Pictured in the thumbnail are these inserts used in Pinnacle’s three panel customizable screen from: http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Worlds-Customizable-Screen-S2P10002/dp/1930855591 . I have both the Hammer Dog four panel at http://www.hammerdog.com/twgs/index.html and the Savage Worlds three panel. I like both.

The Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box is scheduled for an October 26th release! Absolutely love this new box format and it’s contents! View a video of the box contents here.

Some products and features I’d like to see in the future now that we have the Beginner Box:

1. Have the entire Bestiary 1 & Bestiary 2 set of monsters available as a cardstock counters (just use existing art from Bestiary), with monsters which appear in bulk (orcs, goblins, etc.) as standalone sets so you can get lots of them. I guarantee you I and many others would buy this. Also, have a large range of character portraits (again, just use existing art, and print the cardboard counters in China). Woohoo!
2. Support running Pathfinder Society modules in ‘Basic/Beginner’ mode. This would do two things: 1) I know so many people who don’t care for extra rules like attacks of opportunity, combat maneuvers — how about just sanction running Pathfinder modules in this ‘Basic’ mode way, with the caveat that GM’s advertise this in their game announcements? And 2) It would allow GM’s to run Society modules for Levels 1-5 in ‘Beginner’ mode — so you can advertise ‘Newbie Friendly’ games which ALSO give you Pathfinder credit, yet don’t use rules like AoO, combat maneuvers, etc.I do know many of the ‘OSR’ crowd who currently won’t look at Pathfinder due to rules complexity might take a second look if in fact there was formal support for a ‘Basic’ mode as a longer-term, fully sanctioned form of play.
3. Lastly, I’d love to see the 60-odd page Player Handbook (or whatever you called it) as well as the 4 character sheet dossiers available for purchase in PDF and/or hardcopy format. This way a GM can buy the beginner box once, but run literally dozens of ‘introduce newbie players to the game’ sessions by just buying the incremental parts they need rather than having to buy another box set each time they run an intro game. What a great way to get GM’s to evangelize the system! I also think this is a whole new market — I know many teenage type players who are willing to play but not willing to read a 500 page manual. If a GM were running a Beginner Box game, the GM or players could buy Player Manuals for each player. After they mastered that part they could move on to other books.

Inspired by Ryan Macklin’s “Flash Game Design Friday” challenge, I created the following game called “Museum of the Mind’s Eye.” It uses two of Ryan’s mechanical ingredients:

• A single token that sometimes is and sometimes isn’t possessed by the player
• A countdown mechanic

I describe it as “Marvel Avengers” meets “Night at the Museum.” Here’s the game, totalling 483 words; feel free to download it and comment:

Museum of the Mind’s-Eye Game  (1 page, 483 words, a complete game by itself).

I also created an optional one page GM Adventure Tips accessory document which has some GM advice on running the game, and (more importantly) several pre-gen characters to use if you don’t want to create your own.

GM Adventure Tips (1 page)

Lastly, I added a one page GM Reference document. This is a simpler layout of the rules, plus it adds dice odds, which I find a handy feature to have at the table. In a sense, it is a one-page ‘GM Screen’.

GM Reference (1 page)

This game uses a generic ‘Haiku Story Game’ mechanic which is similar in spirit to Risus and Lady Blackbird. I hope to publish other material with this same light-weight story mechanic.

For your convenience, here’s all three documents bundled together:

Museum of the Mind’s-Eye Bundle (3 pages)

Enjoy. Let me know your thoughts.