Your take on tabletop scenery

[S'mon]

Doors are great, walls suck.

I love Paizo flipmats. Detailed 3D scenery can be great, but anything that blocks player view of their PC models is bad - 3D walls or large book cases, for instance. Doors and exits are well worth plonking down a 3D model for maximum clarity, players really need to know where the exits are. Other stuff like chests are ok but not necessary.

 

[JeffB]

 

[Shin Okada]

When playing D&D in my home, I usually wrap the dining table with my home-made battle grid, which is made of a sheet of paper with grid and a large vinyl sheet.


Depend on the situation, I also use flip-mats and poster maps, too.

I often put some 3d-terrains on them.

I have some amount of Dwarvenforge 3d-dungeon pieces. I also make up something by myself, usually using some card-boards and Styrofoam blocks and such.



I also use some train model trees for outdoor encounters, too.

Basically, I use whatever I have and/or easily available. I prefer things which does not take too much time to assemble. Taking tens of minutes for preparing one encounter is not a good idea when playing RPG.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My introduction to roleplaying games came by way of HeroQuest, when I was a kid, and one thing I loved about that game was all the dungeon dressing. Book cases, desks, weapons racks, etc. it really got me into the scene.

These days my selection isnt isn't what I'd like it to be, but I'm building it up. Walls, though, I have less use for. I'd kinda rather draw those. Although we recently got a table sized coffee table, that is low enough I might enjoy walls more. I don't like the obstruction of my view of the table.

 

[JonnyP71]

Scenery is just fluff and a waste of time and money. We play either entirely TotM - or using a plain white dry-wipe board with the layout roughly sketched out and our imaginations filling in the rest. No grid, nothing to measure distances, just fast estimates and an agreement that if in doubt, the DM decides.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

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

My tastes say anything DM Scotty does is awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/user/theDMsCraft

 

[Imaculata]

My introduction to roleplaying games came by way of HeroQuest, when I was a kid, and one thing I loved about that game was all the dungeon dressing. Book cases, desks, weapons racks, etc. it really got me into the scene.

Same here. I bet Hero Quest was a gateway to D&D for many people.

And those awesome props from that game are still perfect for dressing up your D&D dungeons. In fact, I use some of the dungeon iconography from Hero Quest when drawing my dungeons in Photoshop.

My tastes say anything DM Scotty does is awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/user/theDMsCraft

I love DM Scotty. He has an awesome channel with really good tips on how to easily make your own cheap, but cool looking, dungeon terrain. And another thing he does that I like, is how he makes the walls not tall. They are basically little more than raised edges around a room or tunnel. They are a mere suggestion of where the walls are, without getting in the way of seeing and moving the miniatures.

 

[Gray Lensman]

The groups (including the games I ran) I have participated in over the years have generally used a grid sheet with some 3D models in place (usually very basic). I feel that as with the rules themselves, whatever the group feels comfortable with is what works best for that group. Having said that, I once played in a dragonlance campaign where the DM had built a very cool SCALE (25mm) model of the High Clerist's Tower (complete with whole armies of Solamnic Knights and Draconians. It was fun, but it also moved REAL slow.