D&D 5E Against the Giants / Yawning Portal in 3D Glory !!

[Oofta]

I'm not quite sure how to respond to this. It put's my feeble attempts at terrain to shame.

I'm jealous and impressed at the same time.

So I'll just give it ... S.L.O.W. C.L.A.P.

 

[shoak1]

I'm not quite sure how to respond to this. It put's my feeble attempts at terrain to shame.

I'm jealous and impressed at the same time.

So I'll just give it ... S.L.O.W. C.L.A.P.

Yesssss!!!! The slow clap award, fine praise indeed !

 

[Charles Rampant]

Interesting. Much of their stuff was dungeon walls/floors/props and in addition to their city stuff gave incredible access to the miniatures world at an affordable cost. For the cost of the three core books of D and D you could buy about 3 sets of terraclips, enough to make a village and dungeon that you could build however you like to suit your layout. Compared to the $20-$50 charged by miniature terrain companies for a single house, it was a steal. Given the millions of miniature figures gobbled up by D and D enthusiasts, it seems it would have been a natural fit.

Maybe they just didn't market their product well? Or maybe it was the whole sandbox vs linear path thing - if you play in a sandbox you don't want to put the game on hold for half an hour while the DM puts together a village or dungeon.

A bit of both, I think. Their wargame - Malifaux - takes place in a city in another plane, with wizards, demons, gremlins, and catholic priests all squabbling over it. It explicitly had a very punk vibe; in crude D&D terms, it happily mixes Steampunk, Planescape, Dark Sun and Ravenloft into the same city. Weird medievalesque dungeons apparently fitted that. They ideally wanted the players of their game to go for this terrain; if you think about a tournament, they'd use 10-40 tables of this stuff, at 3 feet square a pop. But it was a nightmare to store pre-assembled, and took forever to set up, in comparison to just popping down a bunch of buildings on tables along with other 'scatter terrain', which is the term for stuff like lampposts, trees, bins, etc.

For D&D, I'd never draw on this. I'd never be able to store it in my flat, and as you observe, for a more sandboxy approach - where the players are free to just leave the dungeon and seek out a new adventure at any time - I'd be wary of wasting the time and money required to set it up. Printing out battlemaps is about as far as I'd normally go.

Out of interest, have you tried tackling the more esoteric layouts you get in adventures? You did a great job of handling the Great Rift, which I'd have thought would be a nightmare; but things like WPM seem like they'd be chronically difficult to replicate with accuracy.

 

[shoak1]

A bit of both, I think. Their wargame - Malifaux - takes place in a city in another plane, with wizards, demons, gremlins, and catholic priests all squabbling over it. It explicitly had a very punk vibe; in crude D&D terms, it happily mixes Steampunk, Planescape, Dark Sun and Ravenloft into the same city. Weird medievalesque dungeons apparently fitted that. They ideally wanted the players of their game to go for this terrain; if you think about a tournament, they'd use 10-40 tables of this stuff, at 3 feet square a pop. But it was a nightmare to store pre-assembled, and took forever to set up, in comparison to just popping down a bunch of buildings on tables along with other 'scatter terrain', which is the term for stuff like lampposts, trees, bins, etc.

For D&D, I'd never draw on this. I'd never be able to store it in my flat, and as you observe, for a more sandboxy approach - where the players are free to just leave the dungeon and seek out a new adventure at any time - I'd be wary of wasting the time and money required to set it up. Printing out battlemaps is about as far as I'd normally go.

Out of interest, have you tried tackling the more esoteric layouts you get in adventures? You did a great job of handling the Great Rift, which I'd have thought would be a nightmare; but things like WPM seem like they'd be chronically difficult to replicate with accuracy.

In my Ravenloft build I used blue gelatin to represent the flooded area of the dungeon lol - a huge mess, but epic

 

[Charles Rampant]

Interesting. Have you come across the use of clear resin for water effects? It's used a lot to make fancy wargaming tables, and looks incredible when done well. You paint the bottom of the depression, and add appropriate stuff like skeletons and piers and suchlike first, before pouring this stuff over and letting it set. You can even add drops of paint to it, to get it looking slightly green for a marsh, etc.


Sent from my iPad using EN World

 

[Satyrn]

I'm not quite sure how to respond to this. It put's my feeble attempts at terrain to shame.

I'm jealous and impressed at the same time.

So I'll just give it ... S.L.O.W. C.L.A.P.

Indeed. It isn't even the terraclips. I'm impressed most by his foam cavern walls.

Anyway, I recently picked up some dry-erase tiles that I can draw the map onto in advance, or during the game. I I tend them to replace what I already do with paper and marker - but these have the benefit of not blowing away in a breeze!

I haven't actually had a chance to use them yet, but I've got the drow outpost from OotA drawn onto a few of them so that I'm ready to go at a moment's notice when it's my turn to DM.

 

[shoak1]

Indeed. It isn't even the terraclips. I'm impressed most by his foam cavern walls.

Anyway, I recently picked up some dry-erase tiles that I can draw the map onto in advance, or during the game. I I tend them to replace what I already do with paper and marker - but these have the benefit of not blowing away in a breeze!

I haven't actually had a chance to use them yet, but I've got the drow outpost from OotA drawn onto a few of them so that I'm ready to go at a moment's notice when it's my turn to DM.

The cavern walls were handcut (or just irregularly split apart for nice effect) out of styrofoam blocks then spraypainted with the grey spackle paint. I made about 150 of them of varying sizes. For the rift. I then printed out ice scapes on color printer and pinned them to the top of the blocks to give that ice wall effect. I resized the maps of the dungeon to giant size and printed them out on color printer as floors. I used christmas snow and smashed styrofoam for the snow in the rift as well.

The most time consuming thing was handcarving the various stairs descending into the rift.

 

[Luz]

[MENTION=54380]shoak1[/MENTION]: these are stunning! Very, very nicely done! I'm not sure which one I like best, all of them are excellent but the azer dwarf images on the pillars of the fire giant hall are an outstanding touch.

This takes me back. I did similar projects during our Age of Worms campaign where I constructed 3D styrofoam models of the gladiator arena, the ziggurat and the Wormcrawl Fissure, it was a lot of fun. I also reccommend the clear resin for pools of water, when done properly it can achieve some very cool effects. I also own five sets of terraclips and find them really versatile. In the last few years I've moved to an overhead projector for our tabletop displays - we are currently playing Hall of the Fire Giant King as well, having completed G1 and G2 prior. The hi res maps from Mike Schley are amazing and the ease of conducting real-time exploration without revealing too much of the map is a really nice benefit, but nothing beats those 3D model set pieces! I may have to surprise my players soon.

 

[shoak1]

[MENTION=54380]shoak1[/MENTION]: these are stunning! Very, very nicely done! I'm not sure which one I like best, all of them are excellent but the azer dwarf images on the pillars of the fire giant hall are an outstanding touch.

This takes me back. I did similar projects during our Age of Worms campaign where I constructed 3D styrofoam models of the gladiator arena, the ziggurat and the Wormcrawl Fissure, it was a lot of fun. I also reccommend the clear resin for pools of water, when done properly it can achieve some very cool effects. I also own five sets of terraclips and find them really versatile. In the last few years I've moved to an overhead projector for our tabletop displays - we are currently playing Hall of the Fire Giant King as well, having completed G1 and G2 prior. The hi res maps from Mike Schley are amazing and the ease of conducting real-time exploration without revealing too much of the map is a really nice benefit, but nothing beats those 3D model set pieces! I may have to surprise my players soon.

Thanks for noticing my pillar images, my players didn't I also have "paintings" on the walls. I use and reuse "paintings." I just go online, find an image I like, resize it down to tiny proportions, and print it on my color printer. Then I save them in a little case for use down the line in other builds.

 

[shoak1]

Interesting. Have you come across the use of clear resin for water effects? It's used a lot to make fancy wargaming tables, and looks incredible when done well. You paint the bottom of the depression, and add appropriate stuff like skeletons and piers and suchlike first, before pouring this stuff over and letting it set. You can even add drops of paint to it, to get it looking slightly green for a marsh, etc.

The only problem is it is not moldable and reformable right? I need clear playdo lol