GM Light is an actual product now, rather than an idea in my head! I suppose I need to explain what it is and where it originated, well I have been a player of fantasy role playing games since I was at university in the 1980s initially as a player but very soon after, a GM. I have run many campaigns over the years and one thing that struck me was the sheer quantity of papers and paraphernalia that a GM ends up carrying to a game session. This is my attempt to reduce the amount of stuff you have to tote. Also you can bet if you roll a random encounter you won’t have the exact figure for the monster.
GM light is my solution. I have sourced 310 tokens of all the typical monsters and bad guys to allow a phys. rep. of the monster to be placed down. The numbers of the tokens lend themselves to creating a random encounter for most encounters. Rather than have a fold out battle mat which has issues with the creases and laying flat I have created two sided dry wipe tiles.
Because I wanted to cover as many role playing game systems as possible, I came up with the idea of the flavour pack. The full GM travel set comprises the GM Light core set and a flavour pack.
The flavour pack will have all the extras that are specific to a game system like monster stat cards, a combat tracker, a GM screen and a spell template. This way generic monsters from myth, folklore and popular fiction can be reused with the flavour pack for each game system.
Possible flavour packs include :
- DnD 5th Edition
- Pathfinder 2nd Edition
- DnD 3.5
- Pathfinder
- Chivalry and Sorcery
- Runequest
- Basic Fantasy RPG
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4E
- King Arthur Pendragon
- Middle Earth Role Playing
- GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System)
The GM travel kit will provide most of the reference material and game mechanics required to run a fantasy role playing game in a handy pack, significantly reducing the amount of materials required to run a session.
The small boards are very handy for quick maps and small detail areas individually, and can be pushed together to make much bigger areas as required.
Just received my GM Light…and I love it. It’s well designed, well made, robust – and most of all – feels unusually generous in included content. When you have pushed out all the tokens (who doesn’t love doing that?) they pack into the spaces provided in a satisfyingly flush package, held firmly by the springy give in the moulded tray. Top stuff niche-tec. Cant wait for the flavour packs.
Of the suggestions in your list I would echo:
DnD 5th Edition
Pathfinder 2nd Edition
Runequest
Basic Fantasy RPG
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4E
Middle Earth Role Playing
GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System)
But I would add SciFi starship and character tokens for the likes of Traveller & Starfinder
Osprey Games Skirmish tokens for:
A Billion Suns (with Craft, contract cards & measuring devices)
Burrows & Badgers (Animal Warbands & Terrain) (decent anthropomorphic PCs are surprisingly hard to find in cardstock)
Gaslands (cars etc)
For Parents & Kids:
Bunnies & Burrows (Animal tokens, Character Sheets, Equipment & Item Cards)
Hero Kids (Hero & Monster tokens, Character Boards, special item cards)
Wardlings (Character and Familiar tokens, Character sheets, Spell & Item cards)
Many thanks for putting this product together. I can finally add the potential for RPG/Skirmish games to all my friend get-togethers and holidays with the kids.
Could you give us a list of where the tokens go
The location where a GM wants to store tokens is at users discretion. But the tokens can be grouped as in the pack insert.
I’ve added a copy of the pack insert to the product gallery.
Just received my GM light, very pleased with it as its total the sort of thing I’ve been looking to find for years. The cost of actual minis is so prohibitive now and a bit of a lottery. So this sort of product fills a HUGE hole for us long time gamers who still remember when lead was a thing LOL. I will be putting it to good use terrifying my group with giant spiders.
Might i make a suggestion that a limited CTHULU collection would be great as they are the hardest creatures etc. to find anywhere.
Cheers
Hi Simon thanks for your kind comments. I’m so glad you like it, I miss having lead figures too (even now I’ve boxes of them unpainted) but the GMLight coins is my solution to all that weight and bulk. I think the metal coin tokens should wear well for true long term Gamers and besides Silver and Gold Pieces !. I’ve already discussed COC counters with the artist and I’m working towards them but they will probably only be in Anodised Aluminium because of the MOQ needed to get a print run done at a reasonable sale price. Also we should be offering monster card packs by Xmas for the rectangular hole in the GMLight case. Keep watching the website for more ….
Just got the gm light, and I love it. I even got a bag of golden tokens as a gift!
The only thing I think could be improved is maybe a handle on the case/ and lil tabs to make it easier to pull out some of the tokens like u have for the big monster tokens
Thanks for the feed back. I will make inquiries about a handle, The suggestion of including some ribbons to put in the token trays under the tokens is has been made : like you see on some battery tabs and so that pulling the ribbon would then eject the tokens ! I’m not sure how tidy that would look in practice. I hope the GMLight serves you well
I’ve just ordered after realising i left it too late to pick this up off amazon. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. Can’t wait for it to arrive and will report back once I’ve had chance to use it.
Hi Richard, Thanks for the order, We always try to go the extra mile with orders direct from our website. Your order will be shipped first thing in the morning.
and we will include a set of GMLightBB01 :- Golden anodised Aluminium Tokens which include a few monsters not in the base set. We will offer this perk to anyone else buying direct from our website in November !
I wanted to leave a review after having chance to try out my kit with my players. Overall it’s been a fantastic experience. The art for the tokens is overall really good and has allowed me to reuse some tokens to represent different monsters including homebrew. The case is of a decent quality and holds the tokens really well and the dice and marker are a nice touch.
Although I’ve not used the gridded boards they appear to be of good enough quality to allow me to quickly throw together a map in times of need. I like that I have them in case my group decide to venture somewhere I haven’t planned for.
As someone who isn’t ready for the financial or time investment for miniatures, the main draw was the monster tokens and they work fantastically for my home game. Knowing I can pack this up and throw it in my bag when travelling is a big plus.
My only feedback is the monster tokens could have their names on the back to make it easier to find what I need. I like that I can flip them over to represent dead enemies but it would be helpful to be able to read the names on the back of the token quickly to find what I need. Other than that this is a fantastic product I will happily recommend
I’ve just ordered this and am looking forward to receiving it. First time playing DnD since the early 80s and I am looking forward to introducing my 2 girls to it via Basic/Expert and Old School Essentials. Little bit of feedback – the GM Kit was really hard to find on Amazon, even though I knew broadly what it was. The coins can be found searching specifically for GMLight [but not for eg “dungeons and dragons tokens”] but not the kit. The coins at least led me to Niche-tec which led me here where I ordered so you get the full spend. Maybe just needs a review of meta tagging or whatever options Amazon gives you. Second thing is I really think you are on to something with the tokens. There are tons of people offering token art on the likes of Etsy, but no-one offering actual tokens other than WoTC with their plastic and clings. I’ll be back for the metal ones if the girls enjoy it and I’ll be interested to see where you might go with these in terms of additional monsters/characters [I’d love to see OSE fleshed out] or maybe a distinct dungeon furniture and wilderness set.
My order just arrived and I’m very pleased with it, the quality is even better than I had expected, awesome case, dice etc, I’m most looking forward to using the battle grids and tokens.
My only critique is that the tokens do not have names on them, so once removed from their sheets it’s difficult to tell what is what, especially as many of these creatures are new to me, coupled with the top down perspective. Names and category on the back would have been very helpful.
I also purchased the pack of cards and DM screen, both are also very good.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for any revisions you may make and new products too, great stuff!
Cheers!