DIY Tokens

I seem to recall someone here made tokens for their copy of Silver Tower. I think it was Shellhead?

I ask because I'm thinking of making some tokens for D&D, for common monsters.

Yeah, it was me. There are various websites out there selling blank wooden tokens as "wooden nickels," and I was buying them in sufficient bulk that they were costing me about $0.05 each, at least for the 1" tokens. Then I created sheets of scanned art for use on the tokens, and printing them off on high quality copy paper or even photo paper. I punched them out with craft store hole punch that cost like $8, then glued the pictures onto the tokens with a craft glue called Modge Podge. I ended up making more than 1,100 tokens for my D&D Ptolus campaign, which ran bi-weekly for four years. I can't imagine painting 1,100 miniatures unless that was my paid full-time job.

For Silver Tower, I found scans of the various heroes and monsters online, or scanned them right out of the rulebook. My one regret is that I used some 2" tokens for the boss monsters and a couple of special monsters, because those tokens were a little too large for the Silver Tower map grid. When I get around to doing those tokens over, I will probably go with 1.25" tokens or even 1.5" tokens.

Thank you. That's exactly what I was looking for. I have been using a combination of D&D Adventure System minis and Talisman characters. I'd like something a little more transportable.

On my copy of Mall of Horror, the stickers are coming off their wooden disks. What is a good glue to use? I was thinking super glue?

Mod Podge is out because I don't want to cover the glossy stickers with a film.

I wanted to ask the professionals before I make a mistake. Thank you.

Well, the best bet for me would be a permanent spray glue. Otherwise careful application of of pva/wood glue is ok. Super glued could be an issue. If it's the thin one it could seep into the disks, if it's a thick one, not ideal for sticking papers.

Not sure why Mod Podge is an issue if you use it below the stickers?

Good points about the super glue.
I will probably use wood glue then because;
a) Spray glue makes me nervous
b) Mod podge seems too watery to me

Thanks for the advice.
Ben

If you lay the circles out you can spray the whole lot of them with 3M Super 77 and then affix the paper or cardstock circles. THIN COATS.

I’ve made hundreds of these for prototyping and only one ever failed.

Thanks everyone.
I went the wood glue route. I painted it on the sticker backs with a small brush while my daughter made...something...out of glitter glue and we listened to the Moana soundtrack. A pretty good way to spend a rainy afternoon with a cold.

3M Super 77 might work for the tokens, but I don't recommend it for paper on paper application. It curls at the edges and starts to peel if exposed to humidity. And the fumes are so bad that you should only use it outside on a non-windy day. One time, I had just finished spraying some 3M Super 77 to mount some paper on posterboard, when my girlfriend called me to meet her at the gas station because she forgot her purse. I was so buzzed from the fumes that I clipped a sign post in the gas station parking area.

One supposed drawback of Mod Podge is that it can gradually give an attached surface a slight amber tone. This has not yet happened to tokens that I made five years ago, so maybe this was a problem that was eventually solved by the manufacturer.