"You have no need to outrun a Dragon. You need only outrun the slowest farmer." - Tab Earber, survivor of Kystik's*

*Young Green Dragon (Deceased). Attacked the Northern Farmlands. Killed by the Heroes of Maya at his lair in the Forest.

There is this rare Mind Flayer Telepath DnD figurine resting on my desk. It was a Christmas gift from the Alex the Tard-tical two years ago, and I have used the so-tong sparingly for a few sessions since then. It was my choice for Kharisma K. Karpenter, a custom Mind Flayer Warlock, in Shell's adventure.

The thing was that I had more fun with the Flayer than the character itself. I was fiddling with it a lot, and making it do imaginary spell-casting action. Of course, it could be also due to the fact that I played a Star Warlock who was more into cowing his opponents into submission (Intimidation) than attacking them.

These plastic figurines spruce up the combat part of the game, allowing one to visualize the action going on. But most importantly, these 1-sq inch based markers allow you a visual peek at your character and maybe even show off a little of its concept or uniqueness.

You imagine playing a Warforged Crossbow Caster; imagine a Warforged holding a crossbow, maybe in light armor, softly chanting arcane recitations. You soon realize that the idea is great; and then proceed to buy a DnD figurine depicting just that.

The players will be able to identify the character instantly instead of having to look through pages of character sheets with garbled handwriting or sub-par printing. Even if they do not get what they are seeing by looking at the figurine, they would be curious enough to ask you about the peculiarity of it all.

A sample conversation between two players who spend the time to figure their characters out:

Fie: "Eh, why is your character holding an ugly two-handed phallic-looking farming tool in his hands?"

*No answer. Fie starts to repeat himself.*

Fie: "Why is your charac-"

Kat: "For your information, it's called a dickspade, okay? And Rhombert B. Fielding is a lv 9 skilled harvester of multiple grains including wheat and oats. With a feat invested in Advanced Seasonal Changes. Any more dumb questions or can we just get this adventure started?"

*awkward silence. End of conversation.*

Um, right. I have tagged a photo of several sample figurines below, including the Warforged Crossbow Caster and his friends.

(L-R) Vek Chippendale's Gay Stripper, The Warforged Crossbow Caster, Shit on Four Legs.

So go enhance your roleplaying experience with this simple addition to your game. Wizards of the Coast has minted thousands of figurines for every encounter you can possibly think of; so no excuses as these people have worked their butts off to pry the hard-earned cash off your hands.

But the figurines are worth it. Look at the countless ways you can interact with them. Shake them violently to show that they have been "bloodied". Lift them off the ground to prep for a "Daily", shouting nonsensical war cries. Lay them flat on the grid when they are prone. Smack them hard when you miss on a "1". Rotate them around when they are flanked and tell your DM that you were alert to it and thus will not grant combat advantage to the enemy for that round.

See?

It's never wrong to go plastic and get all natural with the game.



Update: On a more serious note, our group are looking to pool some cash together and buy a large number of DnD figurines to make our encounters more visually pleasing and systematic for the DM as well. Hopefully, I will get to meet the seller and see his entire collection. More on that when it happens.