Paper Miniatures: The Plan is to Improvise

After becoming infatuated with the idea of using lego minifigs as miniatures, I was discouraged by their prices and availability. I then decided to design some paper minis in a lego minifig artstyle. After spending too much time looking for some already made and making nearly 10 different versions of goblins, orcs, bugbears, and minotaurs, I had had enough. I decided I would "just be normal" and find more realistic images on the web to incorporate into paper miniatures.

And there I was again. I can never find images/miniatures for everything I want that look the way I want. And creating them myself is such a hurdle/burden. I went back to the idea of creating lego minifig style art for paper minis again. It is a simple style not much more elaborate than stick-figures but they add enough color and flavor to satisfy my tastes. As I set out resolved to make scores of lego styled paper minis I decided to build myself a really nice template.

Then it hit me. Just print out a sheet of paper with a bunch of the templates on it and doodle in the details at the gaming table. Here is that template:

Download the "original size" pic, load it in MSPaint, and print at 100% scale. You'll get 20 one-inch figures on one piece of paper. Note, these are designed to be folded along the right side instead of the top. There are 5 figures (front/back) per row. Once you cut them out and fold them, wrap a piece of scotch tape around them to keep them folded. Then you can slip them over my "improvised paper pawns" or paper paper-mini stands. Here's the video for making those:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nPuvC2MWHs

Before you fold them and tape them, flesh them out. Doodle on them. Use pens, pencils, crayons, markers, etc. to customize the blank mini into a lego style portrait. Here's a couple of quick, improvised minis I made with only a blue pen, black pen, and a green highlighter on hand:

I think this will be easy, quick, and fun to do at the table on-the-fly. I think players will enjoy making minis for their PCs at the table as well. In fact, if the players encounter a party of orcs the task of creating the minis for those orcs can be delegated to the players. This would surely result in a variety of very interesting and distinctive orcs! Fun! Fun! Fun!

Update: I broke out my colored pencils and made a Kobold and a Bear!

Crap! I forgot the Kobold's tail! No problem. I'll just ink/pencil it in!

Diagonal Movement on Squares

In role-playing games, you often have miniatures or figures on a grid of squares. These figures are allowed to move so many squares in a turn. A problem arises when moving diagonally on a square grid. If you allow the same number of squares to be moved diagonally (NW, NE, SE, SW) as you do orthogonally (N, E, S, W), the figure can move a greater distance diagonally than orthogonally.

One of the oldest methods for preventing this was to say that each diagonal movement counted as 2 moves. I'll call this the "1/2 method". Of course, this drastically short-changes you on the distance you can move diagonally compared to the amount of distance you could travel if you did away with the grid and just measured the distance with a ruler or measuring tape. I'll call this the "measure method".

Another method was developed to minimize the difference between diagonal movement on grid and the "off-grid" measuring method. This method involved multiplying your normal maximum allowed moves (MA) in the orthogonal directions by 2. Each square you move in an orthogonal direction costs 2 moves. Each square you move in a diagonal direction costs 3 moves. I call this the "2/3 method". It is a nice method that prevents you from travelling farther diagonally than you would be able to travel in an orthogonal direction and it much more accurate than the "1/2 method". Of course, the most accurate method is "measured method" but the "2/3 method" is very close.

A close approximation to the "2/3 method" is what I call the "1-2 counting method". In this method, you don't multiply or change you MA. Instead, each square of movement in an orthogonal direction costs 1 movement unit (MU). When moving diagonally, the first square costs 1 MU but the second square costs 2 MU. The square after that costs 1 MU. The next costs 2 MU. Repeat. This is a very simple and easy to use method. Nothing wrong with it. Of course, some people may prefer to reverse the counting (i.e. 2 MU, 1 MU, 2MU, 1MU, etc.). That's fine too.

However, I decided to see if a "3/4 method" was acceptable. In this method, I multiply my MA by 3. Squares in the orthogonal directions costs 3 MU. Squares in the diagonal directions costs 4 MU. In general, this method results with a character being able to move one more square in the diagonal direction than "2/3 method". I liked this as I knew (through mathematics and geometry) that the "2/3 method" was and underestimate of the "measured method". I also knew that the "3/4 method" was an overestimate of the "measured method". Upon a closer look at the mathematics, I found that both methods were almost equally "off" from "measure method". My preference is to slightly overestimate the "measured method" than to slightly underestimate it.

Next, I decided to see if I could come up with a counting method like the "1-2 counting method" that would closely approximate the "3/4 method". I could! I call it the "1-1-2 counting method". Basically, all squares in a diagonal direction cost 1 MU except every third square. It costs 2 MU.

Below is a graph of that shows the results of the "2/3 method" (red/pink dots), the "3/4 method" (green squares), and the "measured method" (orange arcs).

UPDATE: I decided to "just be normal" and use the 2/3 method" for movement. The counting methods can lead to exploits (or errors) that grant too much or too little movement. The 1-2 counting method is great for weapon reach/range though.