Cheap Board Game Supplies: 6 DIY Hacks

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Welcome back to the chaos! Let’s look past the board games themselves for a moment and talk about what else matters: the setup! The internet is full of overpriced, flashy board game supplies. But a true Chaos Hero proves their worth not by the size of their wallet, but by their ingenuity!

Today, I’m going to show you some secret tricks to upgrade your game nights with minimal investment, for pennies, or even for free! I won’t lie to you, I’m not reinventing the wheel here, but I am going to show you some seriously practical hacks.

1. Upcycled Token Holders

This is my most sacred recycling ritual! Forget about expensive, designer token holders. The ultimate solution is sitting right in your fridge. Washed, clear plastic pudding cups, the small compartments of sushi trays, or those flat, cylindrical boxes from holiday mini-chocolates are absolutely perfect! They are transparent, so you can see what’s inside, and they are essentially free. (Assuming you actually buy the food inside them, of course.)

For instance, the rectangular clear plastic I use came straight from a well-known supermarket chain right to my gaming table—it literally used to hold sushi, while the smaller ones held pudding. People at the board game club are always asking where we got them.

They even have a little spout, making it super easy to pour out the tiny components.

But if you don’t want to bother with all that DIY, you can grab some great cheap token holders right here.

2. Tablecloth (Instead of a Playmat)

A fancy neoprene playmat can easily cost you an arm and a leg. My alternative? A thick, purple, elastic velvet tablecloth, which you’ve probably seen in almost all of my reviews. It serves the exact same purpose: dice don’t bounce off it wildly, and picking up cards is an absolute dream. Yes, it slips and slides sometimes, but sewing an elastic band around the bottom fixes that instantly. Yes, it collects lint like a kindergartener collects ladybugs. But! In return, it looks magical, it never creases no matter how you fold it, and there are no distracting patterns on it.

Of course, you can choose any color; purple is just my personal perversion. And let’s be honest, it is vastly cheaper than a similarly sized playmat. You can even make a great fitted cover for a round table by threading an elastic band through the hem!

3. Mood Lighting

We usually love to play when it’s already dark outside—plus, that’s often the only time we have. I completely despise sterile, overhead chandelier lighting! It completely kills the mystique of the games, but somehow, you still need to see what’s in front of you.

The solution? A simple, flexible gooseneck desk lamp placed at the edge of the table, angled to illuminate the center. This way, we only light up the game board, while the rest of the room is draped in a pleasant semi-darkness. You might ask: But can you see the game properly? Yes, because the light source is quite close. And it is just so, so atmospheric…

There are also clip-on versions that attach to the edge of the table, which work perfectly and are often already lying around someone’s house. Turn off the chandelier, put a thematic ambience video on the TV, and boom—you are instantly in a pirate tavern!

4. The Mighty Dice Tray

You know that feeling when, during a highly dramatic dice roll, the die decides to go on a world tour and lands under the sofa? A dice tray puts an end to that nonsense! You don’t need to think of expensive, hand-crafted leather miracles.

On popular online marketplaces, for about the price of two coffees, you can find snap-together, foldable trays that do the job perfectly: they muffle the sound of the roll and keep unruly dice in check. Sure, you can live without them, but why would you?

I mean, custom 3D dice towers look super cool, that’s for sure, but they are too bulky, you have to store them somewhere, and they are usually loud as hell. A dice tray is much easier to pass around the table anyway. You can check out similar board game supplies right here:

5. The Foldaway Gaming Table

Are you tired of sweeping breadcrumbs off the kitchen table and the constant packing and unpacking? The answer is a simple folding table. Ours is set up in the living room; this is our dedicated sanctuary. No more crumbs, no more “please pack up the game, we want to eat lunch.” And when the chaos is over, we just fold it up, and it easily slips right next to the wardrobe.

6. 3D Printed Accessories

Okay, this one is a bit tougher, but if you or a friend owns a 3D printer, the possibilities are endless. I’ll just mention the two we use most frequently.

• Card Holders: You can print multi-tiered card holders using free models online. For instance, in a game like 6 Nimmt!, where you start with 10 cards in your hand, having one of these is an absolute lifesaver! (Fun fact: the cards you see resting in the card holder in the picture actually belong to the Pirate Tales board game!)