Game: Stand-Ins Printable Figures – Fantasy Set #1
Publisher: Interactive Design Adventures
Series: generic
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 7th, August 2004
Reviewer’s Rating: 9/10 [ Something special ]
Total Score: 21
Average Score: 7.00
I’ve a cable modem. Phew. If you want to download Stand-Ins Printable Figures – Fantasy Set #1 then you’ll need something similar to cope with the 30MB+ file.
That’s 30MB of art; art you cut up and fold. Stand-Ins are Interactive Design Adventure’s offering to the “paper miniature” market. Interactive Design Adventures are not a late entrance to this particular niche; this particular set was published in November 2003 and since then they’ve added Modern & Superheroes set one and Sci-Fi too.
The problem I’ve had with some of the PDF products in this niche is that they’re too small. You end up with a small collection of paper models which you might use for the PCs and then struggle for everyone else. That’s not a problem here. There are 15 pages of black and white cut-outs here! That’s about 250! You’ve more than just “core D&D races” too (this isn’t a D&D product as such, but you’ll recognise certain monsters) as it has everything through cat familiars, to famous monsters and to giants.
I think these 250 or so figures are a great stock of monsters. For your money you get 60 more – and they’re in colour. Since they’re in colour they make the obvious choice for the PC paper models (if you don’t have metal ones) or for the extra plot special NPCs.
Breasts. It’s a fantasy tradition that heroic females often have large breasts and small costumes. This is continued here – and it’s especially obvious in the coloured section were you have red circles on pink. I don’t mind but the style does dictate the sort of game I’d use these with. I’d be playing Macho Women With Guns, a cheese fantasy game or even a suitably adult game.
The strength of these paper Stand-Ins is that you’ve enough. They’re cheap (just under 4c a card) and that doesn’t count the re-printing. Since we’re electronic you could even have a go at swapping bits and pieces around yourself and producing variations. It’s also extremely useful to have such a wide range of images; monsters, familiars, non-humanoids.
If you’re into PDF terrain or floor plans, certainly if you have time for PDF paper models, then you need to check out Interactive Design Adventure’s Stand-Ins. It’s a one off investment which you’ll use again and again. Then you’ll use it some more.
