You want to play D&D or another TTRPG system in real life, with a battle mat and without using VTTs, but miniatures (also known as minis) are too expensive? Don’t worry, you can craft lots of tokens without spending too much money!

There once was a web page about crafting tokens for D&D, but now it is reachable only through the The Wayback Machine, so I’ll write my own article.

What you need

1. 1 inch tokens printed on paper (for example the Token Set provided here).
2. 1 inch punch hole (something like this).
3. coin holders (like these); alternatively you could use 1 inch magnets to add weight and adhesive epoxy stickers to protect the tops.

If you manage to find coin holders with foam washer to create thickness inside the holder (like the ones I linked), that’s great!

Crafting new tokens

“But the tokens I want are not provided in the pdf shared!”, I hear you say. Don’t fret, you can easily create your own tokens with something like GIMP and this tool.

The end result

Here’s how the tokens look like:

The costs

The coin capsules I shared cost roughly 8$, while the 1 inch punch hole costs around 9$. This means that by spending 17$ you can have something like 60 tokens without spending 50$ on minis like these. Moreover the 1 inch punch hole can be reused with other tokens or for other purposes.