Difficulties using the dungeon tiles from Wizards of the Coast

[alleynbard]

I have seen a number of people state they have trouble using the dungeon tiles produced by Wizards and I would like to hear what issues people are having.

I know some state it is difficult to re-create dungeons from adventures, most often room sizes simply do not match up.

I know I had this problem at first. And then I started to pre-plan my encounters using black foamcore, sticky tack (like the stuff you use to hang posters), and some dark material like black paper. I use the black paper as masking so my rooms are the correct size. I let my players know that the masking indicates a wall and not a "hidden area". Once I no longer had to search through hordes of tiles the process became so much easier.

Now, I admit, I have a ton of tiles so that makes this sort of thing easy. But I wonder of a similar solution can be reached for those who have fewer tiles?

What other problems are you having with the tiles and do you think these issues could be fixed with either advice or changes in how the tiles are produced?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Varying the tile sizes a bit more would be a good start. Most of my problems is that larger rooms or odd shaped rooms take a lot of tiles to replicate. Even with 2 sets of each of the first 6 sets I still can't replicate any of the dungeons in the first 4 chapters in the Shackled City AP.

Olaf the Stout

 

[alleynbard]

Varying the tile sizes a bit more would be a good start. Most of my problems is that larger rooms or odd shaped rooms take a lot of tiles to replicate. Even with 2 sets of each of the first 6 sets I still can't replicate any of the dungeons in the first 4 chapters in the Shackled City AP.

Olaf the Stout

I had to buy three sets of a few of them to really get what I needed. I had wished I had purchased a double set of Halls of the Giant Kings. A number of the layouts in Dungeon Delve requires two copies of that set. I admit, that generally makes the sets less appealing if you need to purchase multiples of the same set to do anything effective.

What I would like to see are some more "dressings". I want more tiles with beds, tables, desks, etc. And not part of a larger time, but on the smaller tiles so I can place them where I need them.

Round rooms, odd shaped rooms, and more effective angled halls are also high on my list.

As it stands, I do supplement my tiles with some from other companies.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Definitely agree with the dungeon dressings. If I remember correctly, there was a thread here a while ago where Scott Rouse asked people what sorts of things people would like to see in future Dungeon Tile sets. Dungeon dressings was very high on most people's lists.

Olaf the Stout

 

[doctorhook]

Personally, I wouldn't buy a set of Dungeon Tiles that was made mostly of smaller (1x1 or 1x2, or even 2x2) tiles, because I find those to be the most difficult ones to use on the fly. As it stands, I already stopped purchasing WotC's Dungeon Tiles (despite that I find them to be a quality product) because I have so much difficulty using them effectively at the table.

FWIW, I know this seems unlikely at the current moment, given PDFgate, but I think I'd actually have a lot more use for a digital set of WotC's Dungeon Tiles. This way, I could arrange them as I like on the computer, and then simply print out my dungeon, room by room.

 

[Mark]

02-25-09_grymvald_group - a set on Flickr


I've used foamboard and electrical tape to build small dungeons, as shown on that flickr gallery. I had that built for several weeks as the group worked through it and it did not damage the tiles at all. I transported them in an art portfolio I picked up on sale at Blicks. Worked great!

 

[jgerman]

Difficulties? I find them terribly unwieldy, limiting, and overall a pain in the ass to use

The only time I use them now is for running something that explicitly uses them (like Dungeon Delve). I'm not thrilled about that but it's acceptable for short delve like adventures.

I use them two ways now:

Digital Method
-----------------
Scan them in, do some post-production to make them look less crappy, then build the map in Gimp with the scanned in images. Then I pull the resulting map into MapTool. It's not as nice as other methods but it works for delves.

Non-digital Method
----------------------
If I have to go without a VTT for a session I've found that most of the difficulties with them can be avoided by making color photocopies of the ones I need cutting them out and gluing/taping them down onto black construction paper. This solves a lot of issues: I don't need multiple sets, they lay completely flat, it's fast to create the map and fast to pull it out.

Since they lay flat storage is a breeze, and they are permanent maps for that delve. Throw them into a folder with a page for each encounter and maybe some pregen characters and you have a night's entertainment whenever.

Both methods allow me to "package" up a quick one shot, or mini-adventure to easily pull off of the shelf and use. Obviously this isn't limited to using Dungeon Tiles, I do the same thing with other mapping methods. However, working through Dungeon Delve and creating these "adventure" packs has already proven useful.

 

[Siran Dunmorgan]

The greatest difficulty in room geometries that I've encountered is that mos people designing dungeons "by hand", such as the Wizards of the Coast adventures, use odd room widths, mostly so that standard doors are centered on the room walls.

On the other hand, most modular dungeon tile sets—not just the ones from Wizards of the Coast, several others as well—use even tile widths so that more tiles will "match up": this is an important consideration for modularity.

There are good historical reasons for this, such as the original 10'-wide corridor used in dungeon mapping, and because single-square corridors tend to reduce tactical options.

However, the symmetry of having odd-numbered room and corridor widths is an aesthetic difficult for many designers to discard.

When facing such an issue, I tend to err on the side of tactical advantage, bringing up the widths of corridors and widening doors to 10' rather than 5.

For example, in running the first-level lair scenario from Open Grave, I used, for the underground crypt, a single 8×8 tile for the 'floor', with a 4×4 tile having pillars at the corners centered on the larger tile to represent the pillars of the original map. Adding a 1×2 sarcophagus completed the layout in the spirit of the original, but with only slightly different geometry.

The key is to try to understand the function of any given design element. In this case, it seemed that the purpose of the primary features of the room, the pillars, sarcophagus, and stairs, were intended to provide blocks to movement and to sight lines, allowing the players to take up advantageous positions adjacent to pillars, or to use them to be able to get 'around' the ghouls and skeletons, and for the skeleton archers to take advantage of them for cover.

Using a larger room with a similar pillar arrangement produced the same set of effects, but that was constructible with Wizards of the Coast's Dungeon Tiles.

Again, the idea is not to replicate the environment in every detail, but in those details that make up the salient tactical 'texture' of the encounter.

—Siran Dunmorgan

 

[jgsugden]

#1: If you buy enough to have options, you have too many to easily organize.

#2: They slide around on most tables unless you use felt, a shelf liner, or other material to prevent them from moving.

#3: They tend to be too small to offer the movement freedom that the 4E rules suggest a DM utilize. Many of the tiles, especially older ones, clog up combat in 4E.

#4: They are EXPENSIVE. The cost of 1 Chessex Battlemat + Appropriate Pens is cheaper than 4 sets of tiles. However, the Chessex Battlemat is much more versatile and durable - and few people will be completely satisfies with 4 sets of tiles. Heck, I know a guy that owns 24 sets (which cost him ~$200 - which is CHEAP for those products).

I own 4 sets of tiles and kept them by my side when playing D&D for nearly a year before I realized they were not something I found useful.

My advice to new DMs:

* First thing to buy is a Chesses Battlemat and appropriate pens. You can have a lot of fun with only this to provide settings.

* Second thing to buy is a pad of grid easle paper to make maps that will be reused a few times, such as the town near a dungeon, or a dungeon setting the PCs will need to come back to a few times.

* If you have a setting that will be used a lot (such as the PC's favorite ship, a tavern in a bad part of town, the PC's stronghold, etc...) consider buying a high quality map for that special location. I also like buying a few wilderness maps of this quality, as you can start in different areas of the large wilderness maps and get different experiences.

* For dungeon features/decorations, I think the following are all fine:
-- Draw them.
-- Buy a few cheap dungeon dressing items (Mage Knight Artifacts. some DDM, Doll Houe furniture, etc...)
-- Make your own dressing tiles with a web broswer, Microsfot paint, a color printer and a little cardstcock from Staples.

 

[zoroaster100]

The main difficulty I've had is in the lack of variety of sizes for different basic floor tiles. It would be nice to get some 3" by 5", 2" by 3", etc.