Sunday, March 6, 2011

My GM Kits - Dungeon Tiles and Monster Token Storage.

014725R - Stanley® Professional Organizer & 014708R - Stanley® Deep Professional Organizer
I learned long ago that when you run a game of Dungeons and Dragons or even my favorite Star Wars Saga Edition you have to go prepared. I got inspired to show how I finally transport and store my own tiles by a twitter in an answer to a question on this very topic. This is my Game (Thadeousc Have Box Will Travel post) I had looked around just before this past Christmas after getting the second Essentials tiles set and having just ran a D&D session. Yet again I was bringing more and more things with me to the game and I was getting more disorganized than I liked.

I poked and prodded the interwebs and I had seen someone else use something similar to this on ENWorld (Tile storeage solution), but I did a Bing search today and found even more solutions. NewbieDM (Tiles and Mini's Solution) is interesting, I use the ziplock bags for my mini Star Wars Mini's since at one point I was moving them a lot, more on that later. Another site that has info on tile storage, Mike Shea from Sly Flourish has a video and does a similar storage like NewbieDM when it comes to the tiles.

Edit (9/26/2011) I just found out that a site I visit a lot had this same solution, Icosahedrophilia I do not know how I missed it but here it is for completest sake.

When I run my games I bring all kinds of goodness with me and I wanted it to be smart for me. These are three Stanley boxes I picked up at Meijer but you can also find them at Home Depot as well. Stanley® Deep Professional Organizer. and Stanley® Professional Organizer  (I linked off the official Stanley Tools website because both stores do not carry these items online).

I have drawn a lot of ooh's and aah's from the kids (and some parents) at the store (Fair Game) where I now run (used to play) D&D Encounters. Let's take a look inside.



My DM Kit
This one contains all of my "essentials" all the books, fate cards, pens and pencils Alea Tools magnetic markers with deck protectors. An old SWAG Rook deck box and my PC mini's and my dice bag.

Stanley® Deep Professional Organizer
Dungeon Tiles
This is one of the dungeon tile holders. This is only a portion of my collection as I learned to get 2 over every set recently sometimes more.
The compartments are removable. What I like about this is that I do not need to bring my entire collection with me. I can build my encounters during prep and then store them in the available containers and tote them with me. Do I actually do that? (Hearty DM laugh) Alas no I don't I am a glutton for self punishment and bring everything with me.
 here I swapped out a larger one in the top right for two smaller ones.
Monster Tokens
Here are my token sets from the Monster Vault and Dungeon Masters Essentials kit's.

Stanley® Professional Organizer
I like this one a lot. I found one in purple colors over at Walmart that is a bit smaller that I might buy to store my Gamma World tokens in. I have not seen this case at Home Depot only at Meijer for a cost of $12.99







Outside of this I usually have a backpack or a laptop bag that I tote the regular books I might need like the Adventure Tools 1 and 2 or the monster manuals. Extra character sheets, my character folder and maps. Along with that I have my portable hard drive and various USB Flashdrives containing all PDF versions of the groups characters, various pieces of artwork I have used for inspiration and then music that I have listened to during that day's planning.

5 comments:

  1. I'm super envious of your traveling setup. Right now I am using a large plastic box. Fine for keeping things out of the way at home, but I might end up running a few games at one of my player's house. Part of the reason I am hesitating is simply the chore of dragging everything over there. This looks like a nice solution to that.

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  2. @Geek Ken - Thanks! I have been a traveling DM for years now. It was easy when all I needed to do was tote around a few books but with the advent of Star Wars Saga Edition and the Mini's game a whole new era hit.

    I need to stay mobile. Gencon taught me how to be move my game stuff around efficiently.

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  3. I really like the look of these organizers. I have a cheaper Plano box that works for the monster tokens for medium creatures but hadn't found a good solution for large or huge creatures. Looking at those three bin sizes, do large creature tokens fit in the middle-sized bins? Do you know if it's possible to buy more of the bins (if I wanted to pull out all of the smellest bins and put in more of the middle size)?
    Also, these are available on Amazon for about $16 each with free shipping available.

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  4. @Andrew yes they are available to ordering separately. I did some digging on the Stanley Tools website and found this URL http://www.stanleytoolparts.com/stpror.html

    You would want the Shallow Large holder. if you want I can add a picture of that particular holder with the large tokens in it.

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  5. Cool. Thanks for the answer, Frank! Don't worry about another photo.

    ReplyDelete

About Me

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I was Regional Coordinator for the Great Lakes Region for D&D Adventurers League. I work for Best Buy as a Merchandising Specialist were I set merchandising standards for the store I work for. I enjoys playing games (PC, Console, Board Games, RPGs and Miniature Skirmish Games), reading, watching movies and listening to music.