Frequently Asked Questions
What's D&D?
What's a counter?
What's better, counters or miniatures?
Where's the artwork from?
What's the Die Roller's Top 50?
What's D&D?
D&D, or Dungeons & Dragons, was the world's first roleplaying game, created by Gary Gygax
and Dave Arneson in 1973. Players assume the roles of imaginary characters, while a referee
called the Dungeon Master describes the world and events around the players' characters.
What's a counter?
Originally, a counter was anything that kept track of a count for a game, hence the name. In
modern gaming jargon, a counter is a game piece that represents something other than what it is.
In Monopoly, for example, the famous top hat, dog, shoe, etc. are counters, as well as the houses
and hotels. Dice, spinners, and other such game tools that don't represent anything else,
however, are not counters. A counter can be a die, a coin, or a bit of paper. In D&D, they're
used primarily in combat and other critical situations to mark the location of each imaginary
character in relation to the others. Counters became especially vital with the third edition of
the D&D rules, and one third-party company, Fiery Dragon
Games, produces counters with their own full-color illustrations for use with D&D.
Alternatively, some gamers use 3-D lead or plastic miniatures for this purpose.
What's better, counters or miniatures?
Most gamers would agree that the 3-D realism that miniatures bring to D&D beats 2-D
counters hands down. However, they can get quite expensive, and some miniatures require
painstaking preparation before use. The worst thing is, no matter how many you buy, you never
seem to have all the ones you need at any given moment. In the end, you almost always end up
substituting the missing miniatures. The same goes for store-bought counters. With the
counters on this site, the idea is that you can print as many as you need, and there are even
instructions for making your own custom counters with
Adobe Photoshop.
Where's the artwork from?
Almost all the artwork used on this site is straight from the
Dungeons & Dragons website, with some pictures from the
website of Paizo Publishing, which produces the official D&D magazines,
DUNGEON and DRAGON. Since this site exists for the
sole purpose of promoting their products, they hopefully won't mind. In this way the images are
about as "official" as you can get. Most of the animal clipart is available free for
distribution at www.top100-websites.com.
What's the Die Roller's Top 50?
Effie Rover's RPG Gateway, a great RPG resource site,
tracks its most popular sites this way. If you found D&D Counters useful, please make your
voice heard. Thanks!
Dungeons & Dragons is a registered trademark of Wizards of the
Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc.
