What simple accessories I'd like for TFT...

[Shostak]

The coolest single counter I can think of is the articulated dragon. A 7+ hex dragon should be able to move half of its body one direction or the other. You can make one at home, but an official counter would be fabulous.

While wer're talking about counters, I'll opine that the skull and crossbones should be dropped from the back of the figure counters in favor of an obviously dead figure. While this admittedly drives up the number (and thus cost) of illustrations, the clarity of the battlefield is greatly aided.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Shostak

The coolest single counter I can think of is the articulated dragon. A 7+ hex dragon should be able to move half of its body one direction or the other. You can make one at home, but an official counter would be fabulous.

While wer're talking about counters, I'll opine that the skull and crossbones should be dropped from the back of the figure counters in favor of an obviously dead figure. While this admittedly drives up the number (and thus cost) of illustrations, the clarity of the battlefield is greatly aided.

Yeah, an articulated 7-hex dragon would be great.

And I also agree about the skull & crossbones. I wouldn't want to slow down counter production by requiring a dead version of the front art, but a body outline would make more sense than skull & crossbones, as figures can be unconscious or just in HTH or lying down or kneeling, and flipping them over used to work for that with blank counters, but gives the wrong message if they've got bones on them.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Yeah, an articulated 7-hex dragon would be great.

And I also agree about the skull & crossbones. I wouldn't want to slow down counter production by requiring a dead version of the front art, but a body outline would make more sense than skull & crossbones, as figures can be unconscious or just in HTH or lying down or kneeling, and flipping them over used to work for that with blank counters, but gives the wrong message if they've got bones on them.

I'm of the opposite opinion. I think that art depicting body outlines would muddy the battlefield, whereas a skull and crossbones is a very clear indication of a corpse. There are already "prone" status counters for other conditions.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I'm of the opposite opinion. I think that art depicting body outlines would muddy the battlefield, whereas a skull and crossbones is a very clear indication of a corpse.

Or the presence of pirates or poison. ;)

I can deal with the skull-and-crossbones design, but every single TFT newcomer I've played with has been utterly confused--even those with ample tabletop RPG experience; they've thought each was a literal pile of bones. I've printed up a bunch of cadaver counters from one of the Cardboard Heroes sets, which work fine, but they lack the convenience of just flipping the counter.

[ParadoxGames]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Or the presence of pirates or poison. ;)

I can deal with the skull-and-crossbones design, but every single TFT newcomer I've played with has been utterly confused--even those with ample tabletop RPG experience; they've thought each was a literal pile of bones. I've printed up a bunch of cadaver counters from one of the Cardboard Heroes sets, which work fine, but they lack the convenience of just flipping the counter.

I have a custom-made set of 2-sided "position" counters, which are placed wit a character counter to identify their current state: standing, picking up, kneeling, prone, unconscious or dead. Dead is just a plain skull iconographic. You can see the fronts of the three position counters here, below the XP counters and above "talents and spells on the character card. I keep all the $, XP, and HP counters in a poly bag with the character card, and no bookkeeping/writing & erasing is required.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/506924583132069888/556879192734564363/TFT_-_Assets_640.JPG

Also, of course, we need nuisance creature counters... this photo was taken during a game before the errata rule limiting rats to 2 per hex.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...05801738/3.png

[Skarg]

The thing about a motionless body on the ground, is that characters can almost never tell in combat which ones are actually dead, versus unconscious, faking it, asleep, etc. Showing skull & crossbones implies dead rather strongly.

Or skeletons or piles of bones... which are also pretty common literal dungeon features, so there's that kind of confusion too.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Civilians, kids, animals, carts (with or without horses/oxen) if you only want things that move as counters.

If you want everything as counters we need tents, fences, shrubberies, trees, street dressings in general, fireplaces, chimneys and roof windows, bridges, walkways, walls, climbable walls, different broken ground markers, etc. Maybe higher ground markers of some sort or slope and stairs counters.

Characters without drawn weapons, since they can depict more than one fighter/PC type. Easier for a player to relate to a more generic character and not skip it because the weapon was slightly off. You can even combine a character with the appropriate weapon counter on top.

Monster silhouettes, they don't need to have exact features, just be generally humanoid, four legged, furry, winged or slithering. If the monster or counter is too specific, you tend to make the encounter fit the counter, instead of finding a fitting counter for the encounter you had already come up with. :-)

Houses or squares (or just corners with different length of straight wall sections) that can be put down to represent anything from a barn to fenced in goat. Maybe a few doors and window markers to put on top of the wall counters.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Yeah, an articulated 7-hex dragon would be great.

And I also agree about the skull & crossbones. I wouldn't want to slow down counter production by requiring a dead version of the front art, but a body outline would make more sense than skull & crossbones, as figures can be unconscious or just in HTH or lying down or kneeling, and flipping them over used to work for that with blank counters, but gives the wrong message if they've got bones on them.

It's strange that you mention that. My last battle was four characters against a 7-hex Dragon on the Melee playmat. It was actually quite awkward to move a rigid counter of that size on the map. In the end I had to assume the dragon could have one or two hexes of its body "off map" if required to account for its flexibility.