When I was planning my Gen Con setup, I knew I wanted to pack light. Ideally, I would show up with an empty suitcase and go home fully encumbered.
Unfortunately, I also needed to GM several Daggerheart sessions. The necessities were provided for us, but really, the sky was the limit. Before the con, I found out that other GMs were planning to bring full terrain pieces, painted minis, 3d printed accessories and more.
I knew I couldn’t even come close to that with my carry-on suitcase.
So I went hard in the other direction. I was going to do it my way.
I was going to go to the grocery store.
The menu
Readers with high Instinct modifiers may have noticed something odd in my previous Gen Con posts. I mentioned having the players sculpt their PC minis using play dough, but the rest of the battlemap was also a little unusual.
That’s right: I used snacks for all of the terrain and adversaries at Gen Con.
I have used way too many different session prep methods: Lazy GM checklist, so many different templates, digital notes, mad libs, and more. That produced a wide variety of notes in different formats and artifacts for the session. However, this is the first time where my prep resulted in a grocery shopping list.
Roughly,
- Pretzel sticks: general terrain. Trees, fallen logs, walls, structural supports, etc.
- Graham crackers: other surfaces
- Animal crackers: any type of beast. A truly detail-oriented person would even sort the different shapes for different purposes
- Gummy worms: snake and eel beasts
- Full-sized Oreos and mini Oreos: a boss and their minions
- Skittles and M&Ms: actually, forget those. I’m stealing my own content if I talk about that now
My original shopping list was even longer, but my basket was full.
Setting the table
Previously, I advocated for collaborative battlemapping. A thoughtful, prepared, tactically-minded, artsy GMs might design beautiful battlemaps ahead of time. On the other hand, I justify my improvisation as “building the world together.”
Whenever we got into a fight, I first pulled out the dry erase boards and markers. I drew some rough boundaries, like the walls of a cavern. Next, I set out the pretzels and play dough again. I then invited the players to add their own terrain details.
Before I started collaborative battlemapping, I wondered if the players would metagame and setup advantageous terrain for themselves. After trying it, I’m not worried about it at all. Usually, players just like adding doodads and messing around. When players did add important tactical features, they felt rewarded for using the features in combat. That works, too.
Finally, the minis go down, and the fight starts.
Digging in
Fighting with snacks is mostly the same as fighting with inedible minis: just run the fight.
There was only one clever twist I came up with.
Normally, it’s somewhat difficult to represent conditions and damage with minis. There are some accessories that can help, like mini bases with counters built in or throwing little colored rings over minis.
However, the beauty of using snacks for minis is that they’re totally disposable. My big bad evil guy wasn’t meticulously designed, 3D-printed, then hand painted. I just stuck my hand in a bag of crackers (or whatever) and pulled something out.
So when an adversary took damage, I physically picked up the mini and broke it. I took off a cracker leg when I marked a hit point. Or when the adversary was at half health, I took the top off the Oreo.
It’s not precise, and as the GM, I still need to track exact damage separately. However, the battle map was very clear about which adversaries were hurt and how badly.
Clearing plates
Okay, okay, I have just one more clever way to use the snacks for combat.
When a player deals lethal damage to a monster in a Matt Mercer game, he will dramatically pause, and then ask:
There is no shame in copying this. As a GM, you really don’t need to be original. It works. Use it.
Unless you have snack minis.
With my snack minis, whenever a player dealt lethal damage to a monster, I would dramatically pause.
Reach under the table for the bag of fresh snack minis (because the minis on the battle map are probably gross).
Extend the bag of snacks to the player.
And ask:
“How do you want to eat this?”
The novelty wore off pretty quickly for the sessions right after lunch, but for the morning or midnight crew, I killed.
Final thoughts
I am immensely pleased with how the snack-based GM gear turned out. The novelty may wear off very quickly, but it worked great at a convention. I am certain that no player had ever seen that before, and they’re probably never going to play another game with me either. It’s the perfect gag.
On a general note, I don’t want to seem to smug about this, either. I love that TTRPGs have so much space for GMs and players to create totally different experiences within the same framework. In our room at Gen Con, we had six GMs at a time running the exact same adventure, and every player got a totally unique experience. Whether you want to admire hand-painted minis or if you’re just a little hungry, there was something for different for everyone.
About this blog
On a meta-note, it’s been awhile since I have posted. Since you’re reading this, I’m clearly not dead. Or maybe this is the haunted spirit of Kevin publishing pre-written, scheduled content… randomly months after the last post.
Nah, this topic has just been sitting in my backlog for 6 months, and after having a lot of fun writing a post on my personal blog, I got a burst of energy to post here, too.
When I started Delve With Hope, I told myself that I was only going to write for myself. I’m publishing here on the public internet because I am so excited about this game that I want to share that with the community. It just so happens that inspiration and energy isn’t on a schedule.
So yes, I’m around and doing well. I have lost touch with the broader Daggerheart community, but if you ping me, I’ll get back to you. The next post will happen when it happens.
And for more proof I’m not dead, I did show up for the Dodoborne birthday stream about a month ago (timestamp 2:48:42). Ignore my nervous energy and focus on how awesome the Dodoborne crew is.
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