For all its pros and cons it’s clear that the virtual tabletop is here to stay, and will remain a staple of RPGs even as we emerge from Coronapalooza and start gathering in person again.
If you’re running or playing almost any game on Roll20, Foundry VTT, Fantasy Grounds, or any of a number of other options and you’re not going full theater-of-the-mind, you’re going to need tokens. Lots of them. For your characters, for your NPCs, for your monsters. But just as with maps and minis, the vast majority of the available tokens – and many of the tools for making them – are fantasy-centric, with other genres lagging far behind in support.
Token ‘Bout My Generation
Making your own tokens is relatively simple assuming you can find or create artwork that’s similar enough to the character you want to represent at the angle you prefer the token to be viewed from. Some people prefer overhead-view token images instead of character portraits, though those can be more difficult to find images for.
If you’re a non-artist like me, Google image search will be your friend. Another potential source of artwork is the web site of your game’s publisher; sometimes they’ll provide, if not premade VTT tokens, then appropriate images that can be turned into them, such as those found in the “Adventure Counters” section of the Monkey House Games download page. (Screen-grab the images from the PDF and paste them into a paint program!)
Other sources of useful images include DeviantArt, as well as image sharing services like Pinterest (with the usual caveat that any given account at one of those sites could contain artwork for which the account holder doesn’t have permission). One page in particular that was suggested to me belongs to Storn Cook, a commission artist who shares a significant amount of his work with a lot of superheroic character portraits to be found.
Finally, there are a number of tools whose primary purpose isn’t token creation, but which can lend themselves very well to building custom character images.
Heroforge is a simple 3d character creation tool for designing miniatures and is somewhat fantasy oriented but has some modern and SF style elements available, and unlike other tools of its kind (at present) it lets you colorize your design. It can be used to piece together a 3d image that can be zoomed and rotated into position for a screenshot of a custom character that can easily be made into a token or portrait.
City of Heroes: Homecoming and Champions Online are games with free-to-play options that feature extremely flexible character design systems suitable for not just supers but many other genres as well. Screenshots from there can make excellent portrait and token images as well.
Once you’ve found or created an image, you’ll probably want to do some cropping, resizing, etc. I’ve also found when using highly detailed maps with lots of textures that most tokens are much easier to see if they’re wrapped in a decorative circle and have a relatively neutral solid background color. This work can be done in a paint program, but there are much easier ways to go about it.
A windows app called TokenTool provides a simple token editor with a variety of selectable borders built in. Similarly, web-based apps like Token Stamp 2 and VTT Token Maker/Generator provide similar functionality. For Foundry VTT users, a module called Tokenizer enables some advanced token configuration options right from the character sheet.
For those hunting for pre-made tokens but not looking to spend money, there are a few sources available, either from creators generously giving them away or as free samples from commercial creators.
- The r/VTTtokens and r/BattleTokens groups on Reddit aren’t as heavily trafficked as some of the battle-map groups, but contain lots of links to free tokens (and often to the creator’s commercial products)
- Devin’s Token Site contains multiple free token packs with SF and fantasy themes. Other packs from Devin Night are for sale there as well.
- A collection of user-created Star wars themed tokens is available from this Google Drive link.
- Some of the Patreon-based creators listed below offer free token sets – either as subsets of their monthly work or as small collections of samples.
Icons of Capitalism
Like it or not, one of the best ways to quickly (and sometimes even relatively cheaply, but sometimes not…) amass a collection of genre-appropriate tokens is to simply buy them.
The Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds stores would seem like excellent places to look for genre-appropriate tokens for any of the games supported by those platforms. They can be, but there’s a caveat to keep in mind: I haven’t been able to find any mention of ways to bulk export tokens for use outside of those applications. There seem to be some ways to grab individual images one at a time, but if keep in mind this process will likely become time consuming when working with more than a small number of tokens. So if you’re only planning on ever using the tokens on the platform where they’re purchased, or you don’t need bulk export, or you don’t mind putting in the time to do it manually, these might be good options.
For those who want to just download the image files and use them wherever you want to, DriveThruRPG is probably the best source for tokens spanning many genres and price ranges. The aforementioned Devin’s Token Site is another good source; it appears that most of the tokens there are also on DriveThru, but I prefer to buy directly from the creator when possible.
Patreon and Kickstarter
Patreon and Kickstarter projects that specialize in VTT tokens are much more scarce than for maps and minis. Even among those limited selections, those that don’t specialize in all-fantasy-all-the-time are even fewer and farther between.
As I did on the pages for maps and minis, I’ll be adding these in the comments below as I find them.
Techlanders
Creating monthly sets of SF themed VTT tokens along with some maps and map assets, depending on tier. Frequent free offerings are also available – skim through the public posts on the page to find them.