3D Printed Tabletop Game Pieces: Your 3D Printing Resource

Print Miniatures for Tabletop RPGs

If you’re a tabletop RPG player, the first place to start with your 3D printer is with miniatures. You’ve probably seen these amazing little 3D printed figures before on social media or on tabletop gaming websites , so you can keep them simple.

- Ticket to Ride: The game only uses a few different pieces, so you can make them easily.

 - Carcassonne: The game has some unique features, such as the castle and the follower. If you use these tokens in your game pieces, then you have to have a 3D printer that can handle printing small objects.

 - Pandemic: This is a very popular game with a lot of pieces. As long as your 3D printer can print small enough, then you should be able to make it work for you. If there are any other tabletop games that are popular in your area, then look for STL files for those as well and print out your own tokens!

If you want something more elaborate than just plain tokens, then get creative! You can make anything from dice towers to character figurines. It all depends on what types of characters and items are used in the game and how much time and effort you want to , so you can just print out the cards.

3D Printed Tokens - Character Pieces

The other great thing about 3D printed game pieces is that they can be used for more than just tokens. They also make great character pieces! Let’s look at some of the games we mentioned above as examples:

Monopoly houses, hotels, Chance/Community Chest cards and Title Deed cards – Instead of printing out regular tokens for these, why not make them into character pieces? You can even add your own details to them if you want.

Ticket to Ride trains – Just like Monopoly, these can become character pieces.

Miniatures are small, usually plastic, statuettes that represent characters in role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. Most miniatures are designed to be used with a grid tabletop such as a battle mat or war gaming table.

 If you’re new to tabletop RPGs, the best thing you can do is find a group of friends to play with. If you have no idea how you can find a group, check out Reddit for tabletop RPG groups in your area.

 These groups will most likely use miniatures in their games, so ask around and see if someone has a collection you can borrow.

If you don’t have any luck finding someone with miniatures to borrow, you’re ready to print your own! There are tons of models available for free on websites like Thingiverse and Pinshape.

Print Stand-Up Characters (Print and Play)

Print and play is a concept that you’ll come across when you’re researching 3D printed game components. It’s exactly what it sounds like: you print a model and play with it.

Since these models are simple and usually don’t require any paint or finishing, you can get them printed and start playing with them immediately.

 Stand-up characters are the classic example of a print and play model. They are usually very basic, single-color models that are just enough to represent a character in a game.

Some stand-up characters can even be folded up and put in your pocket like a deck of cards.

You’ll find print and play models for all kinds of games, including tabletop card games like Magic the Gathering and tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons.

 The best place to find print and play models is on the internet. Just do a quick search on Google or Bing.

3D Printed Board Game Tiles

Board game tiles have been around for decades. They are the small, 2D hexagon-shaped pieces used to build out the game board. Some classic board games that use tiles include Scrabble, Risk and even Settlers of Catan.

The tiles for these games are smaller than a credit card, so they are perfect candidates for a FDM 3D printer. If you are printing tiles for a board game, it’s smart to print them on cardstock paper. This will make them sturdier, so they can stand up to being moved around on your game table.

There are a lot of models for board game tiles on the internet. All you have to do is search for ‘3D Printed Board Game Tile’. Here are a few examples:

 - Scrabble Tile: This tile is from a classic Scrabble game. It’s printed on cardstock and is an excellent candidate for printing on an FDM 3D printer.

 - Risk Hex Tile: The larger hex tile for the classic Risk game is an excellent example of what to print if you’re making tiles for a Risk board.

3D Print Custom Dice and Counters

Many tabletop games use custom dice to represent different things in the game. You’ll find that the dice are usually printed on a white background with black or red pips. You can use dice for many different things in games, but still can be broken easily. If you want to make your own tokens for Catan, then print a bunch of resources.

- Ticket to Ride: You’ll need a train, the train station, and the ticket cubes.

- Arkham Horror: The game has so many different monsters that you’ll want to make sure your printer has enough filament in order to print them all out!

- Carcassonne: Because of their size and complexity, you may want to consider printing all of these as a single piece instead of as separate pieces.

- Pandemic: You’ll need diseases and viruses for this one. You could also print out some research stations if you are playing with the expansion on a larger map. Some examples include counting turns, determining direction of movement, damage, health, etc.

When printing dice, make sure to choose a material that will work with a usual game play. Most game tables are made from wood. A good place to start looking for dice models is on Thingiverse.

A quick search for ‘3D Printed Dice’ will turn up a wide variety of models.

Here are a few examples:

- Poker Dice: Poker dice are very popular in tabletop card games. You can use these in any game that uses the standard 5-card poker hand.

 - D20 Dice: D20 dice are commonly used in tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons.

3D Print Character Models For Board Games

Character models can be used in all kinds of tabletop games. They can be used as tokens, stand-up characters or even to represent a player character in the game.

Once you have your character model printed, you’ll need to paint it. You can make a miniature out of it or maybe even use it as a focal piece in a diorama and simple.

 You could even just print the resource symbols.

 - Chess: There are a lot of chess pieces, but many of them are used very rarely. The pawns and the king are the most common, so those are probably your best bet. - Carcassonne: The meeples are easy to print and easy to use for this game.

- Dominion: This game has a lot of different tokens and you’ll need something that is big enough to be seen from across the table

. - Ticket to Ride: The cards have many different colors and shapes on them, so it can be hard to tell what they are from across the table. Printing some simple tokens will help you know what you’re looking at without getting up close and personal with your opponent’s cards!

3D printed tokens also make great gifts for gamers who don’t already have their own collection of plain white boards or small wooden squares.

You can search for 3D printed character models on any 3D printing website or on any marketplace such as Thingiverse or Pinshape.

 Here are a few examples:

 - Spartan Warrior: This Spartan warrior model is a great example of what you might want to print for a tabletop game. It is small enough to be used as a token but also large enough to be used as a stand-up character.

Print Your Own Play Mat

A large game mat can really spruce up a game night. It can provide a surface where players can easily keep track of game pieces and dice. Mats are often cheaply made out of felt or even cardboard. If you have a 3D printer, you can make your own play mat for any game and can be printed quickly.

- Cards Against Humanity: The cards are small, but they have a lot of detail.

 - Gloom: The characters and cards are small, but there aren’t that many of them.

 - Zombie Dice: The dice have a lot of detail on them, but they are small and easy to print.

3D Printed Token Projects

If you want to make your own tokens with a 3D printer, then here are some projects to get you started:

 For the game Zombies!!! by Steve Jackson Games, you can download the STL files for the game pieces from Thingiverse or from Pinshape. You can also find an entire collection of STL files at Thingiverse for various games by browsing around or doing a search for “Zombies”.

If you prefer the original game pieces for Settlers of Catan instead of the 3D printed ones that were created later, then check out this project on Thingiverse.

 The best place to start is to find out what dimensions the game mat is supposed to be. After you have the dimensions, you can search for a model on any 3D printing website.

 Here are a few examples: - Chess Mat: A chess mat will usually be 36” x 36”. You can easily find models for a chess mat on any 3D printing website..

Conclusion

When you are printing game components, it’s important to remember that quality will vary based on what type of 3D printer you are using.

You’ll want to select models that are designed for your printer type and use the correct settings. If you have any questions about which models to use or how to set up your printer, reach out to the manufacturer. Also, keep in mind that many of the models you’ll find online are free.

 You can legally download these models and 3D print them as much as you want.