Your take on tabletop scenery

This is labeled as "D&D', but is applicable to most any tabltop RPG, so fee free to chime in.

The question is, what do you like/prefer in tabletop scenery?

Alternately, what do you *NOT* like in tableop scenery?

By "scenery", I'm thinking of dungeon walls, buildings, greenery, etc.

Now many prefer the purity of a battlemat, miniatures and a marking pen. The DM can draw in walls, doors, tables, etc, and the player's can visualize from there.

I've seen some who build elaborate cityscapes or multi-level labyrinthine castles or mountain strongholds.

For some, a set of dominoes fills in for wall sections and a bag of lichen is every kind of forest. Others get detailed and painted sets of stone walls and miniature trees.

Where do your tastes run?

My preferences later.

We've always used the battlemat and wet erase markers at the table. One DM I had once ran a game where he used simple pieces of styrofoam to help make elevation. On the styrofoam he had drawn in the squares for the mat. I really thought that was neat since it made terrain feel more real. He only did it that one session though.

Now that we're using roll20, I'm trying to find more elaborate maps. Textures to make the cave look like a cave. Things like that.

If I had my druthers, I'd use legos.

I have tried cardboard walls, and found them to be a nuisance, hard to see over and to manipulate. I prefer small accessories such as pillars, trees, chests and furniture. I even have a tent and a campfire, but I use them on a mondo-mat with markers.

The miniature war-gamer in me loves 3d terrain.
Given the time & space I'd build a lot my dungeons/maps 3d. At least the cool ones.

Right now I'm building a miniature 3d "map" city for the Necropolis of Wati from the PF adventure Mummy's Mask. Think the 3d map India Jones sticks the staff in to find the Well of Souls in Raiders....
I don't really need this for anything game wise. Just handing the players a page would suffice. But it'll be cool.


My favorite way to play D&D though is theatre of the mind. Because I've found that when the minis hit the table a lot of people switch from playing D&D as a story to playing a minis wargame. Wich, despite its origins, D&D has never really been that good at doing....

I don't like walls. They're typically too easily knocked down and require too much extra attention to detail when moving minis. (Legos are the exception) I like a few simple objects to denote things of importance. A particularly large tree, the line of trees where the forest starts, treasure, maybe a set of ruins, rocks for boulders; etc... Without a way to lock larger, more complex items down to the table, very detailed and "busy" scenery just gets in the way.

I'm a huge fan of dungeon tiles. They are relatively easy to store, and easily allow us to build all sorts of locations quickly. I don't like walls, because they get in the way of moving the miniatures. But we do use miniature furniture and doors. I want my terrain to look nice, but to also be easily adaptable for any scenario.

While all those miniature dungeon sets look awesome at a convention, they are way too specific for our needs. Besides, where do you put all that stuff?

I use graph paper, pencils and pen. Cheap and effective. I’m a terrible drawer, but almost no skill is needed: I just draw the walls, the fixed objects and such. After that, I use a pen in top of the draw. Then I color with colored pencils. And it’s done! When combat begins, I note PCs and monsters with letters and number each within the grid, erasing and moving them as needed. I think the result is pretty good

I like my scenery, but many times less is more.

Several years back I was at a Con and a seller had resin-cast stone fences/walls that he was selling by weight. You picked out what you wanted, put it on the scale and that was it. I picked up a nice assortment of walss, some intact and some broke, corners and angles, and a section with a door. (Should have gotten more doors.)

They were plain resin-white, but I primed them, hit them with some black-wash (watered black paint, for those who don't know about that sort of thing), and they looked great.

Didn't see that vendor at another con, so I couldn't get more. Still, they work. They're high enough to give the impression of a building or a set of ruins, but not so tall that people can't see the miniatures.

Saw someone with similar walls at a recent show and got some more walls, different but close enough. I think the company was called Stonehouse or Stonecraft or something like that. They have good stuff, but you buy it by the pre-packaged set instead of mix-and-match by weight. Still, good stuff. (Still wish I could get more door sections.)

Years ago Wizards had some downloadable images of print-cut-and-fold buildings for free on their website. Later they started selling them as a portfolio pack in game stores. I got those and played with them, but there are a few problems. The first issue was the bulk of a cardboard building. I fixed that by re-engineering them so they'd fold flat and pop into shape when I needed them. The second problem was their size. Yeah, they're full color farm houses, inns, castle walls, woodsman's hut and so forth, but when you set up a scene half he figures are hidden from sight. Hard to work around. The third problem is that there are only so many ways you can lay out the same half-dozen buildings before they become "Been here, done this".

The local pet store carries some aquarium pieces that work well. Greek/Roman columns and ruins. Again. less is more. A few single or double stone pillars can give the impression of a temple, castle ruins or whatever far better than an actual Greek temple. Far more versatile.

I used to have some Juniper bushes in my back yard. Clippings from those made great game-scale trees. Base them and clear-coat and they stayed green for years. Still I found I didn't use them very often. Instead a simple bag of lichen does the job. I'll grab a handful and scatter it on the board. Wherever it lands, there's a bush or a tree.

I like the idea of styrofoam to build hills and landscape. If I paint it with standard latex paint, in a sand-color like the battle mat, and draw the lines on it, that would work great. They probably have some at my FLGS. I'll have to check.

I also have a pack of printed cards that make up a "Ship Pack". The glossy color cards go together to lay out deck areas for several different ships. I joined mine with "silk" first aid tape, so each ship is one fold-out set, and anchor's aweigh!.

I like outdoor sets, with at least the illusion of 3D. (In other words, show hills and valleys, but it could just be a flat image.) There are thousands of perfectly good dungeon maps already. I also like urban sets. "Fractal" is good too, because I'd like to reuse great maps.

I've stolen maps from video games because they're wonderfully hilly, have rivers, packed with buildings, etc.