Map tile..... Map tiles..... how you frustrate me so

[MadBear]

I would love some advice when it comes to what you do/how you use dungeon tiles in your games?

I've recently gotten very very bored of the dry erase marker map, and want something a bit more engaging when I'm running my players through a dungeon.

I saw this on Kickstarter and it looks pretty amazing:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...?ref=user_menu

Pros:
- Fully 3d
- Fully modular
- can create 2 story structures

Cons:
- I'd need about 5 sets, which is really really pricey
- It'd be useless for outdoor dungeons
- Somewhat difficult to store


I've also seen some positive traction with Terra-Clips

Pros:
- Cheaper by a bit
- fully modular
- Even better 2 or more story structures
- easy to store

Cons:
- Out of print
- Still pricey
- Long setup/takedown time


Finally, I've looked into the classic Dungeon Tile Master Sets:

Pro's:
- Cheapest option by far
- Wide variety, and can expand with other sets as needed
- Easy Storage

Cons:
- By far the cheapest looking option and least immersive, which was the original point.


Maybe I'm asking too much, but what have you playgrounders found that works?

most important to me in decreasing order:

1. Cost
2. Immersiveness
3. Modular
4. 2 story able
5. easy setup
6. easy storage

[ellindsey]

I have recently started printing out OpenForge dungeon tiles on my 3D printer. Fully 3D and modular, but of course it requires that you have a 3D printer and the ability to run it for weeks to print out enough tiles for a decent map.

[Jay R]

I have a friend who loves to use his 3D accessories.

When he has the time and ability to have it all set up before the players arrive, then it's wonderful!

If he can't get it done before we arrive, or we go somewhere else during the session, then for awhile we're playing with building blocks instead of an adventuring game

[Slipperychicken]

I've been fine without dungeon tiles, though I've wondered about simply taking bits of paper cut into the right shapes and using them for things like furniture, terrain objects, and stairways.


What would really please me is some kind of red bits that I can quickly sprinkle onto the map to represent blood and gore. I always like including blood effects for immersion, but drawing blood-spatter and representing dead bodies with a marker can take a little more time than I want to.

[JAL_1138]

I dislike dungeon tiles. They seem like such a great idea, until you have to actually use them on the fly--then they become an aggravating jigsaw puzzle with no tabs and notches and often no box picture to compare to. It's much faster to just draw the map (and I can't draw worth a dang, so I'm not saying that as someone art comes easily to. I can barely draw stick figures or straight lines). Even with online play and access to huge libraries of tiles I don't need to sort by hand, I end up just wishing for a grid mat and a marker because it's so much easier and faster. Granted, my maps don't look anywhere near as good as tile maps, not by a long shot--they're the barest minimum needed to get the positioning figured out--but it works.

[lytokk]

I just use legos. After 30+ years of collecting them I can build walls stairs or whatver else I need for a session. That's if and when I'm doing something that detailed. Usually I just represent obstacles like trees, large rocks and the like. I spend enough on books, don't really need to sink more money in for dungeon design.

[MadBear]

I dislike dungeon tiles. They seem like such a great idea, until you have to actually use them on the fly--then they become an aggravating jigsaw puzzle with no tabs and notches and often no box picture to compare to. It's much faster to just draw the map (and I can't draw worth a dang, so I'm not saying that as someone art comes easily to. I can barely draw stick figures or straight lines). Even with online play and access to huge libraries of tiles I don't need to sort by hand, I end up just wishing for a grid mat and a marker because it's so much easier and faster. Granted, my maps don't look anywhere near as good as tile maps, not by a long shot--they're the barest minimum needed to get the positioning figured out--but it works.

That's 100% how I used to be, but after 15 years of using a marker, I really like the idea of having something more immersive. (especially since I run a combat/tactic heavy campaign, with very little theater of the mind)

It's also why I'm looking for solutions others have/know about.

[lytokk]

If you're looking for other methods I have heard of people using overhead projectors to shine a map down onto the gaming table, some people use LCD tvs mounted under the table for the same effect. You can't create a fully 3d image with those, but it does go a long way to get away from the map and marker.

[Rusvul]

One thing that I can highly recommend (if you haven't done so already) is buy more colors of marker. It's actually really helpful to be able to use black for stone, brown for wood, red for blood, etc. Not sure that solves your problem though.

Another thing to look into might be using Roll20. Even if your game is in person, you still might prefer the virtual tabletop, especially if you have a TV that you can connect your computer to. A tablet would probably also work fine.

The thing about map tiles is that not only can they make playing more difficult (reaching around walls or lifting up floors to move figures) and more time consuming (setting up the map), they're also pretty impossible to change the appearance of. I'm not so sure the tiles really add anything after the fifth dungeon using the same aesthetic with a different layout. But to each their own.

[MadBear]

If you're looking for other methods I have heard of people using overhead projectors to shine a map down onto the gaming table, some people use LCD tvs mounted under the table for the same effect. You can't create a fully 3d image with those, but it does go a long way to get away from the map and marker.

I actually love that idea, but my group rotates from place to place and lugging around a projector and mounting it in other homes is probably a no-go.



Man.... why can't the X5 kit for Modular dungeons kickstarter be about 100$ cheaper, then I'd be all in.

[JAL_1138]

I actually love that idea, but my group rotates from place to place and lugging around a projector and mounting it in other homes is probably a no-go.



Man.... why can't the X5 kit for Modular dungeons kickstarter be about 100$ cheaper, then I'd be all in.

Lytokk's suggestion to use Legos is pretty solid, I think.

They can be bought in (relative) bulk for (fairly) reasonable prices, and they're customizable as heck. You can use grey flat pieces for dungeon floors; greens, greys and and browns for forest terrain; blue for (*shudder*) the most dangerous substance in D&D water; there are all kinds of little doodads for effects like flames or furnishings or plants; and the Lego people that come with certain sets (castle sets particularly, if they still make them) make for decent minis, for that matter--they have most weapon types, even. You can also make Lego-compatible bases for things like Pathfinder Pawns quite easily, if you don't mind making some permanent alterations (e.g., glue the little holder-bases to a flat square piece of appropriate size for the creature).

They're a really good solution for 3D sets, albeit not quite as useful for strictly 2D mapping.

[lytokk]

The castle set they have out currently is the Nexo Knights, which is alright, but not super great. The city legos are good for trees and bushes and the like. I just wish they'd make a 3x3 thin piece. Thats about the right size for a square on my grid.

[JAL_1138]

The castle set they have out currently is the Nexo Knights, which is alright, but not super great. The city legos are good for trees and bushes and the like. I just wish they'd make a 3x3 thin piece. Thats about the right size for a square on my grid.

*looks up prices of discontinued castle sets*

*kicks self repeatedly and hard for ever opening the boxes and losing pieces*

Ok, forget what I said about reasonable prices...

[MadBear]

Ok, forget what I said about reasonable prices...

lol, I know what you mean. It says something about price inflation when I had an easier time procuring Legos when I was 5 then I do now that I'm 30.

[lytokk]

You think thats bad? All of the legos I had as a kid got mixed in with my older brother for his kids, and that got mixed in with legos his mother in law had, and now that it's mixed together I'm not allowed to bring bins of it home to have for my son, because his mother in law says that most of the legos belonged to someone she knew. Ratio is actually about 60:40 in my family's favor, with half of that 60 being mine. I'm still taking what I want from the bins from time to time. But I can't take the legos I played with as a kid home in bulk, even though my brother's legos were passed down to me due to him destroying one of my transformers as a kid. It was a G1 Ratchet.

Its expensive to replace some of this stuff. And there's not a decent castle set out right now anymore.

[Illogictree]

There's another alternative I've been looking at. Haven't tried them myself, but Fat Dragon Games has 3D papercraft dungeon tiles. They're available as PDFs and apparently have customizable layers so you can vary their appearance. You just print them up, cut them out, fold them and glue them.

Does anyone have any experience with these?

(Also... third the ;~; at current LEGO prices.)

[EccentricCircle]

I use both Dungeon Tiles and Lego quite extensively. I use the basic tiles from WOTC. they are sadly discontinued, but the series they released cover most bases, so I'm set for life).
I tend to steer clear of the more elaborate 3D systems, they look amazing as a display piece or diorama, but don't work so well in practice. This is partly becuase they take so long to set up and arrange, but also because it makes it harder for the players to see what is going on, as sections of the board may be blocked from view. They work well for wargames and skirmish games, where there are relatively few players who can move around the board in order to see what their characters should see. For an RPG where the table is surrounded by players, who spend most of their time sitting down it can be a problem.
My solution is to take a "less is more" approach. I use the flat tiles almost exclusively, but use 3D props, furniture, pedestals, and doors from time to time. I frequently use Lego for these sorts of things, and always use lego minifigs as miniatures, and to reprosent weapons, treasure, figure scale props etc.
I will occasionally set up a balcony or dais with either 3d tiles or lego, but not very often.

Anything that takes more than a minute to set up will hold up the game, and you need to be able to change things to respond to the players actions, so setting up in advance isn't really an option, unless you have a massive setpiece right at the start of a game session.

The key to using things successfully is having a solid organisation system. I have a set of draws with the larger tiles organised by theme, so that I can get to a piece quickly, and I always make sure I know which pieces I want to use in advance. I then have plastic packets with the smaller tiles (with chairs, doors, people, dungeon features) in them, so that they don't get mixed up with the larger tiles. These are clearly labeled and colour-coded for ease of access.

Then on the lego side of things I have a massive set of draws with minifig components and equipment organised into a series of trays. I don't get things from these on the fly, but rather pick out the elements i'll need in advance and store them behind my screen. At the start of the game players get to go through the draws to make their character and choose equipment, but they then get put away, so as not to take up too much space.

The only awkward thing about this is that Lego and Dungeon tiles aren't quite to scale. Lego people are much larger, so a square is closer to a metre than 5 feet. We generally ignore this in our D&D games, since so much stuff is counted in squares, but for any other game we use the modified scale.

[Firest Kathon]

If you're looking for other methods I have heard of people using overhead projectors to shine a map down onto the gaming table, some people use LCD tvs mounted under the table for the same effect. You can't create a fully 3d image with those, but it does go a long way to get away from the map and marker.

I actually love that idea, but my group rotates from place to place and lugging around a projector and mounting it in other homes is probably a no-go.

It is actually not much of an effort, I've used it successfully for games in our local gaming store. I use a small LCD beamer (Asus S1), the brightness and resolution are enough for map projection. It has a tripod mount on the bottom, so I modified a broken desk lamp by replacing the lamp part with a mounting screw. That puts the beamer at a good height to project an image roughtly the size of flip chart paper, of which I use a blank one on the table as a projection surface. If I remember I can upload a picture of my setup tonight, in case you are interested. Takes maybe 10 minutes setup time to be up and running.

For projection I connect the beamer to my laptop as a second screen and run two instances of Map Tools, one in player mode on the beamer and one in GM mode on the laptop screen.

[MadBear]

It is actually not much of an effort, I've used it successfully for games in our local gaming store. I use a small LCD beamer (Asus S1), the brightness and resolution are enough for map projection. It has a tripod mount on the bottom, so I modified a broken desk lamp by replacing the lamp part with a mounting screw. That puts the beamer at a good height to project an image roughtly the size of flip chart paper, of which I use a blank one on the table as a projection surface. If I remember I can upload a picture of my setup tonight, in case you are interested. Takes maybe 10 minutes setup time to be up and running.

For projection I connect the beamer to my laptop as a second screen and run two instances of Map Tools, one in player mode on the beamer and one in GM mode on the laptop screen.

That sounds brilliant, I'd love to see it if/when you have time.

[Stan]

I saw this on Kickstarter and it looks pretty amazing:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...?ref=user_menu

That reminds me of the megabloks Dragons sets from 10-15 years ago:
http://www.graysage.com/cg/Toys/Megabloks/Dragons/020824-001.jpg



They're compatible with Lego but there are premade walls and things that look more dungeony and the figures are more evocative. I don't how much they go for on eBey but you'd probably get more cool stuff for the same price than with the kickstarter.

[Firest Kathon]

Okay, so here is the setup:

Spoiler: In Action

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Spoiler: Detail shot of the Mount

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Spoiler: Side View

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It stands about 1m tall, and I can easily project maps of 20x30 squares in 1:1 scale, for larger maps it usually works to scale it down a bit so that the tokens still fit on it.

[GungHo]

Green army men and salt shakers are cheap as ****. Just gotta be careful when Catzilla and Pugthra decide to take their battle to Table Jima.

Otherwise, mobile projectors can fit quite well in a messenger bag nowadays if needed. At home, I just have an LCD on both walls. Visios and KBM switches are cheap.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My experience has actually been that more detailed maps/miniatures/etc can hurt immersion, unless everything is perfectly correct. If not, they add an extra layer of cognitive dissonance-- pretend this brown staircase is a crystal spiral, pretend this minotaur is a skeleton, pretend this warforged is wielding a mace instead of a sword-- that you just don't get with cruder methods. (Minotaur -> not minotaur -> skeleton, instead of "S" symbol -> skeleton).

I know they make cut-out paper castles of various sorts, perhaps you could find some appropriate settings there?

I think your best bet for "slight improvement over dry erase without costing an arm and a leg" is to get some big rolls of butcher paper and draw your important maps nicely beforehand-- I briefly did that before I got lazy, and it was always nice. You can cut up cardboard boxes to make ledges and towers, if you so desire. Requires you to be somewhat crafty, I suppose, but scads cheaper than other options here.

[mujadaddy]

@Grod: I agree about the problem of "halfway immersive" props, and the magic of rolls of paper. So lemme tell you guys what I did...

I bought a box of office-supply style T-pins:

Then I found pictures of miniatures online, printed them out about 20mm square, and put them on cardstock:

Then I used packing tape to secure each "mini" to a T-Pin.

Then I took a big (over 2' by 3' by just over 1-inch thick) piece of styrofoam from a furniture box, which had a matching-size cardboard backing, and I patiently 'sealed' it with more packing tape.

Now, we take paper and place it on the board, and we can draw at any scale we like, and we place the "T-Pin Minis" where we need them. I use different colored tacks & pins, etc., for other NPCs, foes, etc., only breaking out real miniatures when a "large" monster is needed.

One of my players has a background in architectural drafting, so she usually produces extremely detailed floorplans for us during the game as exploration occurs. She complains a little bit about her drawings having pinholes in them, but everyone is able to see where they are, where the walls are, and who else is there.

I've just started to make the T-Pin Minis double-sided, so that you can see the character from each side.

I have a smaller styrofoam board (about 18" x 24") which I could utilize for elevation if I needed it, but so far elevation lines have sufficed.

Pics of this set-up from in-game:

The Party gathers in the woods outside a stone house.


Many rounds later, the party has split to explore the house & grounds.


A lower angle, showing some of the "footprints" left by where pins had been standing.

[Grod_The_Giant]

That's a pretty classy set-up. Printed picture "miniatures" are a great cheap compromise. If you don't want to use a pin-based setup, you can stick them to coins, washers, or little ceramic tiles. I got a bag of little one-inch-square tiles that I suspect were meant for a bathroom floor from a secondhand construction supply store for about $5 and I've fallen in love; they're perfectly sized for most battle maps and they've got just enough heft to pick up easily and sit in place.

[Beleriphon]

That's a pretty classy set-up. Printed picture "miniatures" are a great cheap compromise. If you don't want to use a pin-based setup, you can stick them to coins, washers, or little ceramic tiles. I got a bag of little one-inch-square tiles that I suspect were meant for a bathroom floor from a secondhand construction supply store for about $5 and I've fallen in love; they're perfectly sized for most battle maps and they've got just enough heft to pick up easily and sit in place.

I've used craft store popsicle sticks and then stuck to a minis base.

[mujadaddy]

@Grod: Thanks! Re: Heavy Bases, good idea. One of my players sprung for a HeroForge mini of his character, but it's so light I worry about it being moved accidentally. It was of course a common problem in wargaming, but if you're trying to keep track of where people are standing, it can be quite an issue unless you're anal-retentive about taking beginning-of-combat-round snapshots. Which I am not.

I've used craft store popsicle sticks and then stuck to a minis base.

Ooo, oo: when I have an encounter where the Party will be meeting several NPCs (who it's unlikely they'll kill before some social interactions), I print out larger "head shots" and put them on cardstock and tape them to popsicle sticks and then stick them into little balls of modeling clay, so the players can look at the faces of everyone with whom they're interacting. Example of the cards:

[MadBear]

Thanks everyone for the great advice. One thing that I've learned is that sometimes asking for advice can help you make a decision that you already knew the answer too. It's a bit like flipping a coin to decide an answer. It either comes up the side you wanted, or you feel disappointed. Either way you now know the choice that you wanted all along.

Repeatedly I've seen some great cheap solutions that I'll definitely be stealing, but in the end I think I'm gonna jump in on the Modular Underground Project. As a long time war gamer, I love set pieces, and still have some good open field ones that I use from time to time. The one thing I've always lacked was good dungeon terrain, and this set seems to have that.

Sure $475 might be alot, but the fact that I can create a 3.5' square board of rooms/hallways/different levels/etc., just sounds great. It also helps that I can use it for some of my board games (zombicide, and soon Massive Darkness).

[mujadaddy]

I think I'm gonna jump in on the Modular Underground Project.

Those are definitely sweet. Good luck!