I was never really a fan of using miniatures when I gamed. I didn't want to load up on on minis and maps and blahblahblah, really only making exceptions for the old Marvel TSR RPG, since they included the maps, the paper figures and so on.
And then Savage Worlds happened.
Just like that, I went from entirely mapless and miniless gaming to throwing whatever I could get my hands on out onto the table. When we played Necessary Evil, we just unloaded with HeroClix minis and maps, plus the Necessary Evil Figure Flats (for the enemies, mostly). Much easier to print up a slew of Drones than to find a couple dozen identical minis, even in HeroClix.
Other games have had more...struggles. In Savage Midnight, I pulled heavily from my D&D Board Games (and other fantasy board games), and in Deadlands I caved and bought the Cardstock Cowboys, which is a decent selection that was not optimized for printing. My short-lived Star Wars game was just difficult.
I've even busted out Pathfinder Pawns in some decidedly non-Pathfinder games.
Last night, I decided I NEEDED to find a Martial Arts figure, for our Deadlands game, and so I searched around on the Internet, coming back to the Seven Wonders site, and their Paper Friends selection. Now, I had visited here before, but never utilized the resources...until I saw a thread that pointed me back to this site, specifically the Spies section, and wound up printing off two pages of Martial Artist figure flats for one of my players to use as his PC in the game. Then I printed off a Surgeon and a Gunslinger for two more NPCs, and went to their Chronicles of Gor section to print off the scariest werewolf I could find!
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. This site has 15 pages of Marvel Heroes, 20 pages of Marvel Villains, and 12 pages of Marvel Goons! And that's not even getting into the themed sets, the giant figures and so on! The depth of the selection is impressive as well. Sure, you get Captain America and Doctor Doom...but what about Kristoff Vernaard? What about Magneto's clone, Joseph? The Winter Soldier? The new, young Nova? Most of the Marvel UK characters? Gambit's ex-wife Belladonna? What about The Hood? Corvus Glaive from the recent Infinity crossover, or Banshee in his new Horseman of Death persona?
And that's just the *Marvel* selection, folks. There's DC Paper Friends, an Indy comics selection (featuring two of the biggest: Hellboy and Invincible) and Mutants & Masterminds characters.
Many of them are placed in broad genres, like Fantasy characters, fantasy creatures, Horror, Sci-Fi and so on..including four pages of Deadlands Paper Friends that supplement the Cardstock Cowboys nicely (including a Cyborg Marshal that I wish I'd had earlier in my current campaign). And if you can't find some use out of the Pulp Adventure sets, you may be doing it wrong.
Oh, and then there's the TV/Movie Paper Friends...like Firefly, Dr. Who, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes and - yowza - 11 pages of Star Wars figures.
The best part is that the site is still being updated, the owner will consider requests for Paper Friends, and he will even give out his templates if you ask. Literally the only downside is that it can be virtually impossible to sort out all of the options to find something specific you are looking for.
Finally, it is worth noting that the site specifically states that he will honor any requests from an artist who either wants their work removed, or properly accredited. It's one of those things that I'm afraid evil lawyers will someday take away from us, but in the meantime, my gaming table appreciates the variety in figures being used...
...now if I had a better method of printing maps...
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