Does Anybody Still Pimp Games?

Does anybody still pimp games, aside from painting minis? Or does it seem pointless to enhance a game that will likely only get to the table a few times before becoming another shelf toad?

I am slowly upgrading my Kingdom Death set with fancy things. It's kind of a slow build process (and I honestly have not even played it), but it's been enjoyable to build and prep the minis while not needing to worry about getting them ready as quick as possible. Next addition will probably be one of the nicer card organizers and then some custom terrain pieces.

I'm pimping:
a) Fury of Dracula with a miniature diorama
b) DreadBall with custom dugouts and coaching staff
c) Blood Bowl with custom dugout/display board

IDK, but I think one of the requirements to play Gaslands is pimpin'

I’m even pimping out my own game.

On the flip side, I’m trying to sell all of my post-apoc terrain and miniatures. Might keep them, since I clearly want too much.

I recently bought Battle for Rokugan, and I feel that the game would benefit from having custom dice bags for drawing chits. A company actually made L5R dicebags years ago, and those would be perfect, except that they cost at least $10 each, so it would cost almost as much as a second copy of Battle for Rokugan. Or I could buy cheap generic dicebags for maybe $3 each, and then try to draw the clan symbols on each bag, even though I am terrible at art. One more possibility would be paying someone to screen print the seven clan symbols on cloth, and then cutting them up and sewing them by hand into seven dice bags. All of these options seem bad given that I may not even get this game on the table more than a handful of times despite being a good game that can be played in 60 to 90 minutes.

Shellhead wrote: 1) Does anybody still pimp games, aside from painting minis?

2) Or does it seem pointless to enhance a game that will likely only get to the table a few times before becoming another shelf toad?

1) Yes.

2) If anything, pimping a game will make it less likely to be a toad. Putting some effort of embellishment in your own personal touch adds a sense of pride and accomplishment.

But I also don't go through the effort unless a game proves itself worthy either.

Some early attempts have become toads, but I've refined my taste so that such folly is less likely to occur.

But then again, my definition of game pimping has such extensive tweaks that they border on completely new designs.

Simply adding newfangled marbles to fireball island isn't enough to qualify as a game pimping, as I view it as a reflexive and compulsory deed that occurs naturally as part of it's ownership, for example.

1) Uh, not buying anything, so hard to say.

2) Pimping makes the game "mine", even when done in the simplest way. So it's always worth it.

Shellhead wrote: All of these options seem bad given that I may not even get this game on the table more than a handful of times despite being a good game that can be played in 60 to 90 minutes.

I've had good luck with inkjet iron-on transfer paper. They should hold up well enough, just make sure that you buy the correct paper since there is paper for ironing on dark fabric and paper for white/light fabric. I have a custom Devo shirt I made eight years ago and it's held up pretty well through many laundry cycles.

Is it still pimping if you just buy all the upgrades? Because if it does, I’m all in on Arkham Horror LCG. Team Covenant tokens, Arkham Nights chaos bag, coin capsules for chaos tokens and Mighty Meeples to replace the investigator cards. The coin capsules might have been the best buy. It’s so satisfying to dig around and hear the clinking.

Shellhead, there’s a woman on the Twin Cities BGG forums who’s big into making lined draw bags, I don’t know her prices, but I can find her name and username, if you’re interested.

ubarose wrote: I definitely do. Often times it's just to make the game run smoother. Like adding extra dice, draw bags or first player tokens or other markers.

This. And if I'm going to do it, often I decide it's worth going the extra mile so that the extra components to match the game, visually or thematically.

I used to be a sucker for promos too, even if it was just proxying them up to use, until I realised that 90% of them were garbage. In my defence, the earliest promo set I was exposed to was the one for King of Tokyo, which is ace.

If I love a game and play it fairly often, I will pimp it out. For instance, Kemet. I picked up players bags from BGG which fit all the armies and match the player boards. Used a colored dot for the back of the player boards to instantly identify what color armies they go with. Most importantly, IMHO, was picking up coin collecting sheets of the size that is *perfect* to fit the power tiles in. This makes laying them out almost instantaneous and lets me keep them not only organized by color but exactly in the order the player aids I printed out and laminated show them. Set-up time is now drastically reduced and player turns go quicker because they know exactly where they tile they want is located.

I do if it adds something to the game experience or it helps speeds the game up. It’s easier to do as I’m extremely picky about new games I buy (hardly any anymore). I’m more about getting experiences out of what I have than cult of the new.

Some examples:

* WWE Showdown- printed additional fan-created wrestlers from BGG to expand the roster from 6 choices to around 20ish. This was something the game needed initially.

* Star Wars: Epic Duel- Again downloaded a few new decks to expand the game for choices not initially offered.

* Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective- Downloaded all the fan created cases I could find.

* Arkham Horror - Haven’t done this yet, but I want to make a custom box to hold all expansions in it.

I failed to mention Spartacus.
I'm pimping out Spartacus. BIG TIME.
It started small enough for my annual birthday game:
- All Players had to wear a toga
- Then I bought a tshirt for the winner. A gray shirt with the text "I AM FARTACUS." It's passes ownership every year (usually).
- Then I bought Gladiator rings from eBay for everyone to wear as intended, or corded and worn as a necklace.
- Then I bought fake prop daggers from AliExpress for everyone because, you know, backstabbing.
- Then I bought little glass bowls for all houses to keep their coins. When we enter the auction phase, it's easier to grab the bowl and hide it below table top.
- Then I bought
a) a big fucking laser cut arena from IronHeart Artistans. I need to paint/assemble/paint this puzzle in the next 9 months.
b) a whole take-out box of masonite hexes from GF9. They'll become the arena floor.

Now I need to buy Romans to populate the stands. Lots and lots of 28mm Romans. If any F:ATtie has some recommendations, please send 'em to House Drewcula.

I made a sweet insert for Talisman that holds EVERYTHING. It's epic.