Artefacts From my Gaming Past - Initiative Tracker and Game Board

These don't look particularly exciting, but they were an important part of my roleplaying, including the long-running D&D 4E campaign. 

Game board and Initiative Markers

The little name tiles were used to track initiative.  They are magnetic and we used a metal note board, changing the order each combat, and sometimes during combat as folk delayed and similar. 

Whilst fairly humble, this board and the tiles were present every session from Winterhaven onwards.

The surviving names are Fyodor (NPC bard, briefly run as a PC and finally retired in favour of Switch, halfling rogue), Kathra (dwarf fighter with a complicated life and death story arc), and Ozzie (multiple resurrected wizard and school founder).  The red edged tiles originally simply read Creature 1 etc.

If the initiative tracker has been around for years, then the board is even older. 

I made it from one of the fold out paper mats that came with the first D&D Miniatures Game Starter Sets back in 2003.  It's similar to the card sheet included in an early Adventurer Magazine.

I glued it to 3 mm thick card salvaged from the skip at work and covered the surface with clear sticky back plastic. It handles both dry erase and wet erase markers.

The total size is 22 inches by 34 inches and it folds down to a quarter that size. 

It saw use in the Miniatures Game as well as during my 3/3.5 edition days and well in to 4th edition. Although I was printing out floor plans - I remember one of a wizards' tower from B10 Night's Dark Shadow (an excellent adventure), designed on Dundjinni, and printed out on many sheets and with lots of ink - but for most play this board did the job, and even provided the battle ground for the siege in the first chapter of B10.

It's real strength lay in the ease of sketching out an encounter area or battle-map on the fly, which helps avoid the DM's feeling of wasted effort if the players avoid an encounter with ready made floorplans.  It's quite liberating.

As always, this artefact post is really more about the memories than any actual value of the artefacts. These remind me of the fun I've had playing role playing games over the past many years.

Do you have any gaming related stuff that you've used over many years?