One of the things that I have done a lot since I got my 3D printer is make game enhancements. There are oftentimes things that I can do to make a game smoother, easier to set up/tear down, or better organized. For Pathfinder, my group struggled a bit with location deck organization. Using the recommended setup, our group found that location decks took up a bit too much room on the table, and, inevitably, someone would need access to the deck on the opposite side of the table.

To help alleviate this problem, I designed location card holders.

This is a derivation of my normal card box design with two improvements. First, I added a second card-sized bay for the location card. I tilted it so that it was a bit more readable (to help people know what they were getting into), and gave it a bit of a lip so that it would stay put. The second thing was slots on the back of the holder for character token cards. These cards denote where characters are, and provided a nice prominent display.

The nice thing about this setup is that it was very compact – there was now significantly more room for player cards, the blessing deck, and rogue dice, which meant fewer tipped over location decks. I also ended up with an unintentional benefit in that now locations were completely movable. When someone moves to a location, they simply pull the location deck over to their position on the table and start exploring – no reaching across the table every turn to get a new card or read the effect of drawing a particular card type. We also set aside locations that are closed or not currently inhabited to increase the usable space even more.

This alone has greatly improved my gaming experience, but I think I want to additionally make a blessing deck holder. My group still has the problem of occasionally forgetting to flip the top card of the blessing deck, and I’m hoping that passing that around will help. Even if it doesn’t help directly, we’ll at least know who drew the last one. I’ll probably also add slots for the scenario and adventures for easier reference.

One thing that is notable about the Pathfinder ACG that is a first for me, is that the box insert has been (so far) quite useful. This is usually the first thing that I get rid of since very few box inserts support sleeved cards (either being too small in height, width, or depth – I’ve had some of each). While I haven’t put in all the cards yet (just the base set, the character expansion and the first adventure), I’m optimistic that there’ll be enough room.