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Ok, I am starting up a game, and trying to map out the starting area but the problem I am facing is how big should my buildings be? maybe I am being a wee bit to obsessive but I find I need something to establish a scale for all my further dungeons and areas
Ok, I am starting up a game, and trying to map out the starting area but the problem I am facing is how big should my buildings be? maybe I am being a wee bit to obsessive but I find I need something to establish a scale for all my further dungeons and areas
Where are the buildings? A medieval village? A renaissance city? A modern metropolis? Climate and culture has effects too.
For most generic western medieval European fantasy, barring "Wow!" places like ancient Dwarven vaults or city castles of hegemons, buildings will be on roughly the same scale as the modern world, although likely with fewer rooms.
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That would depend largely on where they were, and who owned them. Were they free farmers owning their own land in Scandinavia, or serfs in southern russia?
Generally pretty small buildings - just a few rooms for living in. Separate sleeping rooms were for the truly rich.
I generally think of indoors environmant as using a different scale than outdoors, perhaps 3' per square, in order to have rooms that one can manoeuver in.
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In other words; don't sweat it. Think about how you want the normal house to be, and stick to it so that the world feels consistent.
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Last edited by Henrix; 24th November 2008 at 11:25 PM..
Ok, I am starting up a game, and trying to map out the starting area but the problem I am facing is how big should my buildings be? maybe I am being a wee bit to obsessive but I find I need something to establish a scale for all my further dungeons and areas
What buildings are going to be there?
Which one is going to be the biggest?
Where do people live?
Where do you want the PCs to go? Of these, which do you expect the PCs to have encounters in?
And then...
How many characters in the "group"?
You need to make sure that there is enough room in your buildings for PCs to do things (or not do things if you want the variety). On the whole though, you need to have enough free space to at least give a few options.
As for dungeons, corridors 10ft. wide make the most play-sense to me, with rooms normally at least 15ft. x 20 ft.
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Herremann the Wise
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You'll be happier if you build around the adventure size, and not worry about realism. Make the rooms big enough for an exciting combat encounter if you intend combat -- and don't worry that it turns the house into a 100' by 100' McMansion. It's far, far better than stuffing a Colossal Red Dragon into a 10' x 10' room because that's a realistic size for a cave.
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Yeah, when drawing your main town map, it's probably a good bet to just say "hey, there's some buildings over here, and some more over here", define the major roads, and mark down where buildings are in relation to one another. Leave yourself as much wiggle room as possible.
You don't need to map out inns and taverns if the PCs aren't going to fight there... and if they surprise you by having a bar fight (they always do), just draw up a map on the fly that "feels right", and you'll be fine.
As for your dungeons, a few rules I keep in mind when drawing up dungeons (I learned these rules rather recently):
1) Hallways should be ten feet wide, and the same goes for doorways.
2) Any room that you expect to be the centre of attention should have multiple entranceways, so if the PCs block off one door, it doesn't turn into a "monsters in the hallway, PCs in the room" standoff (or vice versa).
3) Every room should have at least one interesting feature in it. This doesn't mean ten foot wide pits or magical statues, though - an "interesting feature" could just be a set of bunkbeds against one wall, or a bathtub set into the floor. Difficult terrain is always fun in a fight.
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The Dungeon Tiles tavern is 6x8 (with one 3x3 corner removed) for a total of 39 squares.
The Dungeon Tiles library (or whatever)is also 6x8, with 3 corners removed, for a total of 37 squares.
6x8 feels like a good size. Just be sure to make them interesting and varied if the PC's are going to fight in them. If they aren't going to fight in them. . .why worry about the map? Remember, PC's only take up 5 square feet while in combat.
Well, its for a pretty standard starting village, I just really have no clue how big medieval village homes were
I'm not sure anyone does, which is probably why you're not getting an answer to your original question. One internet site said 10 feet square for a peasants hovel. "Life in a Medieval Village" gives 10 ft x 20 ft. A google search would probably give you a floorplan for manors, churches, and castles. The stuff that survives is stone, so I think archaeologists/historians hesitate to make definitive statements on little evidence. Then again, since this is a game and not some scholarly thesis, I'd go with 10x20 on average.
AFAICT the core rules always favor "fun-bodering-on-ridiculous" over anything historical or even logical. I'm not sure the two are always mutually exclusive, but research takes effort so implying that they are exclusive is convenient.
It is worth noting what other's have: consider, for areas where you anticipate combat, that it's more fun to have some space to maneuver.
Also, DnD is not Medieval Europe. Medieval Europe (including it's regional differences) is the result of a very specific chain of history, geology, culture, religion, population density, etc. There are plenty of reasons IMO to suspect that differences in materials, cultures, existence of magic, demi-human races, and history would produce whatever results you wanted.
When I'm mapping out a town or city, my rule of thumb is one structure for every ten adults in the population. I generally assume that "town" buildings are multi-story and crowded. Typical town buildings on my maps run from 10' square hovels to larger structures perhaps 40' x 20'.
Resist the temptation to get too bogged down in detail when you're mapping a town or city. 1) The PC's are likely to frequent a handful of common locations (the inn, the city hall, the wizard's guild) and will never visit others. 2) The players can get overwhelmed with detail. 3) It's a good idea to have a lot of wiggle room because you'll want to add specific places later.
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