Ok, before anyone gets excited, the title is tongue-in-cheek. You see I have been using Dungeon magazine adventures pretty much exclusively for the past year or so (AoW, Madgods Key, STAP). I love the adventures and the fact that it allows me to run games even though I have a full time job and kids (which include soccer, Cub Scouts and all the other things kids do). Paizo has allowed me to not have to choose between family and gaming. That said when I was running my own games before I got into using Dungeon magazine, I was almost exclusively using Dwarven Forge with miniatures. What I find now is that I mostly use Tact-tiles with miniatures. Why the change? Well is seems that most dungeon maps make a lot of passages and rooms in increments divisable by 5 not 10 (you know 15 x 15 rooms instead of 10 x 10 or 20 x 20). Sure I have some of the Advanced Builder set and even a couple of the Narrow Passages set, but it became too much work to figure out maps to use it much anymore. Has anyone else run into this? Does the divisable by 5 more realistic historically or does it help to keep maps to a magazine friendly size? Just curious as to what others think.
Sheesh. I just wish I had the money for the Dwarven Forge sets. I ended up going with the cheaper (in all senses of the word) Mageknight 3-D Dungeon. Ugh. Good thing I have my trusty battlemats!
It's probably because most rooms we're used to are pretty small-- bedrooms are often 10x10, a big living room is 15x15. If you're carving a room out of rock, you're probably going to err on the side of smaller, unless your excavation spell does 10 cu. foot chunks at a time...
Creative Director
|
Dwarven Forge is an excellent product. However, it's also limiting in design. When building a dungeon map, I design it to how I think that dungeon needs to be; shoehorning in areas that work well iwth Dwarven Forge just isn't my style. And juding from the map turnovers we get from other authors, it's not a lot of people's style.
Personally, I prefer tactiles or battlemats for D&D. Dwarven Forge looks nicer, but it also gets in the way and obscures the action when you're viewing the dungeon from an angle, say, from a seat at a table. It also doesn't accomidate dense tangles of miniatures that well. I think the best time to use Dwarven Forge is for the big, climactic battle at the end of the adventure, so it'll just look all the better. For dungeon exploration and minor mook battles, it's just too fancy.
I suppose if the game table were lower it wouldn't be a problem... but then you'd have clumsy gamers (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!) tripping and falling into the dungeon every other session.
Oh, yes... how can I even begin to count the times a player has tried to squeeze past the table, bumped a leg, and sent an unexpected earthquake through the dungeon....
Those of you do use Dwarven Forge (or have tried to) for a regular game, what do you do? Do you have a big tub of Dwarven Forge pieces? Do you use them throughout or only once in a while? Do you have any success stories to share?
I have book selves that I keep my Dwarven Forge on so that it's easy to see the pieces I need. A lot of the time I will set up large portions of the dungeon ahead of time. I usually don't worry about my players seeing it per se, especially since it's on another table they where the player sit. I have even used a video camera hooked up to a TV next to the players, so they on the screen they can only see what their characters can see.
|
They're high-priced, specialized Legos. :-)
I wish Lego would make a few different sets of blocks that were textured to look like stone, brick, wood paneling, and produce them for the gaming crowd. I would buy a ton of them and not have to use so much Hirst Arts stuff. I bet they could do it for a reasonable price too.
FH
|
Chief Technical Officer
|
So out of eight rooms, seven are difficult to impossible to build with DF. Even G2 has to be carfully planned to fit in as little else can be. And so it goes on with the rest of the map.
Honestly, though, how many adventures actually require that you use accurate maps during play? I know if I were using Dwarven Forge, I'd be quite content with getting the gesture of the rooms "mostly" right. Your players sure aren't going to know that that you're off by five or fifteen feet here and there.
-Vic.
.
Honestly, though, how many adventures actually require that you use accurate maps during play?
My thoughts exactly.
I have 12 sets of DF and I love using them, but I have never been successful at recreating a published map using them. I do managed to layout a map a couple times a year and design a scenario around it. That can be quite labor intensive, but also makes for a very fun game.
But for regular games it is the Battlemat that sees use, not my DF sets. I imagine it will always be that way.