3D Printing for Board Games: Custom Inserts and Pieces

If you play board games and own a 3D printer, you are sitting on a goldmine of quality-of-life improvements that will make game night dramatically better. Custom inserts that organize every component, upgraded pieces that replace flimsy cardboard tokens, and accessories that speed up gameplay — all printable on any basic FDM printer.

I have printed inserts for about 30 games in my collection at this point, and the difference is night and day. Setup that used to take 15 minutes now takes 2 minutes. Teardown is just as fast. And every component has its own labeled slot, so nothing goes missing.

Why 3D Print Board Game Accessories?

The Setup Problem

Most board games ship with a single plastic tray (if you are lucky) or just loose baggies for hundreds of components. Setting up a complex game like Gloomhaven, Terraforming Mars, or Spirit Island can take 20-30 minutes of sorting through bags and punchboards.

A well-designed 3D printed insert organizes every component type into its own compartment. You open the box, lift out the trays, and you are ready to play. Some inserts even organize components by player, so you can hand each player their tray and start immediately.

The Quality Problem

Cardboard tokens, paper money, and thin plastic pieces feel cheap. Upgraded 3D printed pieces — chunky resource tokens, solid player markers, detailed miniatures — make the game feel premium and more immersive.

The Storage Problem

Many games have expansions that do not fit in the original box. Custom inserts can reorganize the base game and all expansions into a single box, or into a more efficient layout that saves shelf space.

Best Materials for Board Game Prints

| Material | Best For | Why | |---|---|---| | PLA | Most inserts and organizers | Rigid, easy to print, wide color options, low cost | | PETG | Pieces that get heavy handling | More impact resistant than PLA, slight flex prevents snapping | | TPU | Card holders, dice trays | Flexible, soft-touch feel, will not scratch table |

I print 90% of my board game accessories in PLA. It is rigid, prints cleanly, comes in every color imaginable, and is more than durable enough for game components that live in a box between sessions.

For pieces that get a lot of handling — player tokens, resource markers — PETG is slightly more durable and resists the kind of impact that can chip PLA edges over time.

Designing Custom Inserts

Measuring the Box

The first step is measuring the internal dimensions of your game box. You need:

• Internal length, width, and height of the box
• Height available with the lid on (the lid typically adds 5-15mm of depth)
• Dimensions of each component type (card stacks, token piles, board thicknesses)

A digital caliper makes this much faster and more accurate than a ruler.

Design Principles

1. Everything must fit with the lid flat. If the lid lifts or the box does not close, the insert fails its primary purpose. Leave 1-2mm of clearance above the tallest point.

2. Design for easy grabbing. Include finger cutouts or ramps so pieces can be easily picked up. A flat-bottomed slot requires tilting the whole tray to get small tokens out. A slot with a scalloped edge lets fingers reach in.

3. Separate by component type. Cards, tokens, dice, boards, and miniatures each get their own compartment.

4. Label slots. Embossed or debossed text on each slot ("Wood," "Stone," "Gold") eliminates guesswork during setup. Most slicers can handle text well at 0.2mm layer height.

5. Design for the expansion. If you know an expansion is coming (or you already own it), account for additional components in your insert design.

6. Use standard tolerances. For card slots, add 1-2mm width beyond the card stack width. For token slots, add 0.5-1mm beyond the token diameter. Slightly loose is better than too tight for game components.

According to The Game Crafter's design guide, standard card dimensions are 63x88mm (poker size) and 57x89mm (Euro size). Design card slots to accommodate sleeved cards if possible — many gamers sleeve their cards, which adds 2-3mm to each dimension.

Software for Insert Design

• TinkerCAD: Free, web-based, great for simple inserts. The interface is intuitive enough that non-CAD people can produce usable designs.
• Fusion 360: Free for personal use, more powerful for complex multi-tray inserts with precise fitment.
• OpenSCAD: Parametric modeling — change a few numbers and regenerate the entire insert for a different box size.
• Tabletop Insert Designer (online tools): Some web tools generate basic insert designs from box dimensions automatically.

Where to Find Ready-Made Designs

You do not have to design everything from scratch. The community has created thousands of insert designs:

Free Sources

• Printables — search "[game name] insert" for thousands of results
• Thingiverse — older but still massive library of board game inserts
• 3DSearch — search across multiple model repositories at once to find the best version

Paid Sources

• Etsy — many designers sell polished STL files for $3-10
• Cults3D — curated paid designs often higher quality than free alternatives

When searching, look for designs that specify which expansions they accommodate and whether they fit sleeved cards. Read the comments — users often report fit issues or suggest modifications.

Print Settings for Board Game Accessories

Inserts and Organizers

| Setting | Value | Why | |---|---|---| | Layer height | 0.2mm | Good balance of speed and quality for functional parts | | Walls | 2-3 | Structural integrity without wasting material | | Infill | 10-15% | Inserts do not need to be strong, just rigid | | Top/bottom layers | 3-4 | Smooth top surfaces for labeled slots | | Supports | Minimal or none | Design inserts to be printable without supports | | Material | PLA | Rigid, cheap, wide color options |

Upgraded Game Pieces

| Setting | Value | Why | |---|---|---| | Layer height | 0.12-0.16mm | Better detail for small pieces | | Walls | 3-4 | Solid feeling pieces | | Infill | 20-30% | Adds weight and durability | | Supports | As needed | Small pieces may need supports for overhangs | | Material | PLA or PETG | PETG for pieces that get heavy handling |

Popular Games with Great Insert Options

Catan

One of the most-designed-for games in the 3D printing community. Look for inserts that organize resource cards, development cards, and all tokens into separate compartments. The hex tile organizer that stores tiles in a single stack is a game-changer for setup speed.

Gloomhaven / Frosthaven

These massive games practically demand custom organizers. The box is enormous, the component count is staggering, and setup without organization takes forever. Community-designed inserts typically use a tray-per-player system plus a monster tray, scenario tray, and map tile organizer.

Wingspan

Beautiful game that benefits from resource token trays (one per player with slots for food, eggs, and bird cards) and a card feeder tray that replaces the fiddly card display.

Terraforming Mars

Resource cubes and player boards benefit enormously from 3D printed player trays with slots for each resource type. The standard cardboard player boards are notorious for pieces shifting when the table bumps.

Ticket to Ride

Train car organizers (one per player color), card holders, and score track improvements. Simple inserts that make a big difference for a game with many small plastic pieces.

The BoardGameGeek 3D printing forum is a fantastic resource for finding recommendations specific to your games.

Beyond Inserts: Other Board Game Prints

Dice Towers

A dice tower ensures fair rolls and keeps dice from scattering across the table (and onto the floor). Printed dice towers range from simple functional designs to elaborate castles and themed towers.

Print dice towers in PETG — the slight flexibility prevents the tower from cracking if knocked off the table, and PETG handles the repeated impact of dice well.

Card Holders

3D printed card holders display cards upright for easy reading without holding them in your hand. Great for games with large hands of cards, or for younger players who struggle to hold a fan of cards.

Token Trays

Small trays that sit in front of each player, holding their resources, money, or score tokens. These are simple to design and print, and they prevent the constant "whose green cube is that?" problem.

First Player Markers

Oversized, themed first player markers are fun to print and make it obvious whose turn it is. Print them in a bright, eye-catching color.

3D Terrain for RPGs

If you play D&D or other tabletop RPGs, 3D printed terrain — dungeon walls, trees, buildings, furniture — transforms flat map combat into immersive 3D environments. OpenForge on Thingiverse is a massive free library of modular dungeon tiles.

Tips for Multi-Color Prints

If you have a Bambu Lab A1 with AMS or similar multi-material setup, board game pieces look incredible in multiple colors. Player tokens in distinct team colors, resource tokens that match their type (brown for wood, grey for stone, gold for, well, gold), and labeled inserts with contrasting text color.

Even without multi-material capability, you can achieve multi-color effects by:

• Pausing the print at a specific layer and swapping filament
• Painting details by hand after printing
• Using different colored filaments for different pieces in a set

Cost Analysis

Insert for a Medium Game (Catan-sized)

• Filament: 100-200g = $2-4
• Print time: 4-8 hours
• Design time: 0 if using community designs
• Total: $2-4 in material

Compare this to commercial inserts from companies like Folded Space ($15-25) or Broken Token ($30-50). Printing your own saves significant money, especially if you have a large collection.

Full Insert System for a Large Game (Gloomhaven-sized)

• Filament: 400-800g = $8-16
• Print time: 20-40 hours
• Total: $8-16 in material

Commercial equivalents cost $50-100+.

Organizing Your Game Shelf

Once you start printing inserts, you will want to redo your entire collection. Resist the urge to do everything at once. Instead:

1. Start with the game you play most often
2. Then do the game with the worst setup time
3. Work through your collection as you play each game

This keeps the hobby enjoyable rather than turning it into a production job.

Find the Perfect Insert for Your Game

Search 3DSearch for your specific game name plus "insert" or "organizer" to find community-designed solutions across all major model repositories. The AI search understands natural language queries, so you can search for things like "Catan organizer that fits expansions" and get relevant results.

Final Thoughts

3D printing and board gaming are a perfect pairing. The practical benefits — faster setup, better organization, upgraded components — are immediately tangible every time you sit down to play. And the creative satisfaction of opening a game box to reveal perfectly organized, color-coded, labeled trays is genuinely delightful.

Start with a simple one-tray insert for your favorite game. Once you see how much better game night runs with proper organization, you will be printing inserts for everything on your shelf.