How To PnP (Print and Play) The Easy Way - Takeaways From Me PnPing the Hard Way
This will be a quick primer on how to print and play (PnP) your own games. I will detail how I did my first PnP, and then go into what I would change and some small quality of life improvements. I want to start a new PnP project soon, and document/provide pictures from that process to provide a full guide but wanted to put this out there first for anyone looking to get started. I know when I first tackled this, I was gleaning information from dozen different posts on my two favorite board gaming communities: reddit and BGG (Board Game Geek). However that isn't very efficient, and efficiency is something you'll want when taking on a project like this.
So why do people PnP? PnP will grant you access to certain 18xx titles and to prototypes that are available for playtesting! So what's the catch? You will convert the extra monetary cost of 18xx titles into time. Perhaps a long time, but I'd still call it alchemy.
How to PnP the hard way (or how I did it)
Gathered Supplies - Note: I wouldn't recommend all of these items
Rotary Cutter - This will be your best friend. I needed replacement blades, I am not sure if you will.
Exacto Knife - Used for fine cuts.
Cutting Mat - I use a 12" by 18" and it never seemed to small. If you're feeling particularly opulent you could always get something bigger but I was trying to be frugal.
Fancy Paper (65lb 25% Cotton Linen Finish Business Cover Stock) - Feel free to use whatever kind you want. I really liked the texture on this one, this where I stopped being frugal. Also, use this paper for your résumé! Your interviewer will subconsciously associate the quality of the paper with your worth as a job candidate. Maybe.
Foam Board - Picked this up from the local hobby store, used for the board.
Matte Spray - I used this to add some protection to everything, it also adds a nice texture and reduces glare.
Book Binding Tape - Used to make folding board. (As an aside, this is also useful for prototyping, as you can remove this tape without damage)
Mod Podge (Glue) - Used for fixing any corners that come unglued.
Glue Spray - Used for mounting paper to the chipboard
Chipboard - I stupidly used 2.5mm thick chipboard for all tiles,trains, charters, and private companies. I probably have the thickest trains in the 18xx world so I got that going for me, which is nice. In hindsight, I should have used this for the map only.
18" Ruler - Needed for straight cuts. Not needed if you have the hand steadiness of an Olympic Biathlon Athlete.
Small Wooden Dowel Rod - I have no idea why I did this, but I hand sawed and sanded every wooden token for each company before attaching stickers. Don't do this. Apparently they are just available for purchase game component websites. Or you can just use cardstock.
Total Cost: ~$100 - $130 This doesn't even contain my cost for replacement blades, or the 110 lb card stock I eventually bought for the shares. Don't be me.
The Hard Plan
After collecting all of the materials I thought I needed, I downloaded the plans for Carthaginian's beautiful redesign of 1889 (with the designer's permission). The basic idea was this: print everything out on the fancy paper, then mount it to the chipboard using the glue spray, then use the rotary cutter and ruler to cut everything it. It worked, generally. I quickly found out this rotary cutter couldn't handle the might of the chipboard. This meant I had to do multiple runs over the same cut, making it more dangerous (fingertips are dangerously close when holding the ruler down tightly, and poor cuts on the paper are more likely to happen. Additionally, multiple replacement blades were absolutely necessary and not exactly cheap.
Big Mistakes
1) Printing A4 sized sheets onto non-A4 sized sheets. Do yourself a favor start with the correctly sized paper. Racking my memory, but in order to get around this I think I used larger than standard sized 110lb card stock, and told the printer it was A4. I was able to end up with the correct sized hexes using some workaround like that. Not a huge problem to solve, but when you're printing outside your home it's annoying to make multiple runs to store not to mention the wasted money on prints you can't use.
2) Mounting everything to the chipboard. This made the entire project take 4 times as long as it should have, if not more. In the future, only use the chipboard for board mounting. Use nice 110lb cardstock for everything else. Easily my biggest mistake. But if you like thick tokens, let's plan an 1889 session.
3) Using foamboard for the map instead of chipboard. By the time it came around to making the map, I had run out of chipboard by using it on everything that shouldn't have been made of chipboard. Not wanting to pony up $20 for more cardboard (which is kind of funny to think about now, considering how much I've spent on cardboard) I went with foamboard. The foamboard base feels cheap and less resilient, but it still works!
How to PnP the easy way
Basic Tools of the Trade
Foam Board
18" Ruler
Total Cost: ~$60 - $80
Now you can splurge on the linen paper or find some wooden tokens from a game component supply website if you want, but now we're in a more reasonable cost range. I'm sure you could get it down to under $50 by watching for sales. Also as you PnP more games, watch as your cost per unit magically goes down.
The Easy Plan
Print out everything onto the 110lb cardstock, I used a professional printer near my house. Expect to pay $0.60 - $0.80 a page. Take time while cutting using rotary cutter, ruler, and cutting mat. Buy wooden tokens, glue on station markers. Don't waste time with wooden dowel rods and hand saws. Take all cut pieces outside (except the map), spray with krylon. Get a nice base on there, let dry, flip, respray. Use glue spray to mount the the map to the foam board, paying particular attention to the edges. Once dry, use the rotary cutter to evenly cut the board into however many panels make sense (i.e. at the intersection of the pages needed to make map) and trim edges. Repeat krylon procedure mentioned previously. Use booking binding tape to make folding map. Use all the money and time I saved to buy and play games.
Considerations
I'm not sure how long this krylon matte spray will hold up to repeated plays, but it has worked well so far for me.
Depending on how well you applied the glue spray, you might have some edges come up tiles or the map. The mod podge mentioned at the beginning of the article does work great gluing these back down, but is $7 a bottle. You can probably find a cheaper substitute.
Lamination is also an option, but not one I'm familiar with. Pursue this route if you really want your game to last.