Fenzer,
I think part of why it works so well for us is that we have been playing now with the same crew for going on four years, and we all know where everything goes and how to work together to put a scene together quickly. Plus, we don't try, in most cases, to follow a pre-defined map. What I mean is, here is how we work:
The DM decides a particular scene might call for combat, or a chase, or in some other way decides that getting out the minis might be a good idea. Every now and then, we set up a scene and then don't even need it, which is good, because that way the players do not get any warning that combat is about to start just because we set up a scene.
When the DM calls for a scene, he gives a one-line description of what he wants. Usually, something like, "We need a couple of city blocks" or "We need a park". Then we all just start grabbing terrain. If you look closely in the third picture at the top of this thread, you can see a couple of our shelves. The top left of that image shows the "buildings" bookcases. The top center (under the computer monitor) shows the shelves for the custom terrain tiles or card-stock pieces, which includes everything from dirt tiles to ocean tiles to grass, snow, etc. On the right, you can see one of several mini shelves where the miniatures are organized. What you can not see are the shelves devoted to vehicles, the other shelves devoted to minis, and the various other boxes of terrain pieces (like trees, street signs, light poles, furniture, debris, etc.) scattered about the room.
So, everyone just starts grabbing bits and putting them into place on the table, based on what they think looks interesting. For instance, in the city block scene, we may just all put up some buildings and cars. But someone may decide to put in a little playground in one corner, or someone else may put up a used car lot in another corner. These additions may not affect the scene at all, or later they might be critical, such as in case they need to steal a car or an enemy runs over to the playground to take a kid hostage. Now, these parts of the scene were never necessarily intended by the DM, but they can sometimes add a great bit of drama or action to a scene. And even with a scene like the ones you see above, they probably only took something like 3 to 5 minutes to put together, tops.
The key to this is that, in most cases, we do not try to match a specific map, such as one we found online or drew up for a particular adventure or pulled off of
www.mapquest.com . But on occasion, we
do need to match a particular scene. Such as in Medallions Episode I, we needed to set up the library, the science center, the construction scene, etc. and we wanted them to match up to their real-world counterparts as much as possible. When that happens, sometimes the DM pulls up a printout of the map from mapquest or whatever other source, and we lay that down on the table and then everyone sets to work from that. Or, sometimes if the scene is familiar enough to everyone, we all just work from memory. In these cases, it can take up to 10 minutes to really craft a scene, but also, in these cases, this usually indicates a very dramatic combat is about to start, and we want everything just right anyway.
I'll try to remind ledded next session to take some pics of the shelves we have to show how everything is organized (like just a pic of the shelves of cars), and just to show off how many vehicles, minis, and buildings we actually have. (Jeez, I forgot all about the planes, the star wars stuff, and the boats...Heck i haven't even
seen the boats in a while...)
Also, I should point out, in the four years we have been doing this, my contribution to mini painting consists of about half of a single hobgoblin archer, and my contribution to terrain consists of two small cardboard huts, although I do take some credit for working up good ideas with ledded and working him into a terrain-building frenzy when we need something new.
The miniatures are all painted up by ledded, pierce, and fludogg. The Hirst Arts are all (lovingly and painstakingly) done by fludogg and pierce. Almost all of the terrain, vehicles, and assorted other bits like trees are done by ledded. His unhealthy obsession with terrain is our blessing.
Old Drew Id
