Fun with Tiles

[BSF]

Hey everyone,
I'm just looking for a some pointers.

I've been having a bit of fun printing out tiles for use in my game. (Mostly SkeletonKey Wilderness tiles lately.) I am looking for a little bit in the way of accessories for my tiles though. In my upcoming game, the PCs will come across a gnoll campsite, complete with partially eaten victims. (Ick!) Are there any tilesets out there that have victims? You know, the dust covered skeleton in the mysterious dungeon. The warrior in rusty armor on the ancient battlefield. Stuff like that. Something I could print out and then drop onto almost any map as flavor?

While we are talking about tiles, what are everyone else's favorite tilesets? For free or for pay.

Thanks!

 

[Alchemist]

Can't help you with corpse tiles. We've used minis that were modified into dead bodies by cutting them off of their bases and laying them down flat with some creative bending. Or buying GW skeletons and zombies and assembling them in corpse poses.

As for favourite tiles, I'm a fan of Skeletonkey's work. I've got most of the caverns and a few of the dungeons and I really, really like them.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I'm not familiar with any tilesets with sacrificial victims, etc on them--well, other than the one creatable with Dundjinni, that is. (Well, that and the tiles you can make with screenshots from the Neverwinter Nights toolkit and a Photoshop/Paintshop Pro/etc). At that point, it seems to me like it would be a better course to break out the styrofoam and cutters and what passes for my box of unused model components and Citadel Miniatures heads, arms, etc, and make some real terrain.

As for my favorite tilesets, I've found that these days, I pretty exclusively use a few that I downloaded from the Dundjinni forums, the Heroquest (mostly Ron Shirtz's) tiles from
http://www.aginsinn.com/tiles.html
and 0-one games' tiles (free samples and pay).

Oddly, I've found that I generally use tiles for buildings and dungeons, preferring to just draw on the map for wilderness scenes other than campsites. It's not that I don't have them or haven't printed any out, it's just that any sufficiently detailed to be better than my scribblings on a mat seem to be too unique to be widely useful.

 

[reddist]

Bookmarked! Thanks for the Link, EB. I think I can certainly use some of those.

As long as we're on the subject, I am also wondering about "heavy duty" tiles. Something like thick cardstock, with a "gloss" finish on them that can withstand dry-erase markers. I kinda think I saw something like what I have in mind at GenCon in '03, but I didn't get any.

If such tiles are not already extant, who has suggestions on "working up" some downloadable tiles? Print them out, glue them to heavy card stock, then laminate them? Is there an easier way?

-Reddist

 

[Alchemist]

Bookmarked! Thanks for the Link, EB. I think I can certainly use some of those.

As long as we're on the subject, I am also wondering about "heavy duty" tiles. Something like thick cardstock, with a "gloss" finish on them that can withstand dry-erase markers. I kinda think I saw something like what I have in mind at GenCon in '03, but I didn't get any.

If such tiles are not already extant, who has suggestions on "working up" some downloadable tiles? Print them out, glue them to heavy card stock, them laminate them? Is there an easier way?

-Reddist

I've found that printing them on a heavy paper stock saves you the gluing step. But yeah, if you're looking to make them marker-proof, that's the technique.

 

[maddman75]

I'm putting together this bad boy right now. Worldworks stuff is awesome

 

[Piratecat]

Maddman, is that ship as sexy as it looks? I seethe with jealousy.

Fiery Dragon is now selling tins of Skeleton Key Games tiles. They're gorgeous and there's a lot of tiles, but I had to use both my tins in order to make the huge 90' x 90' room that I wanted. I used them this evening, and the players were mightily impressed.

 

[Macbeth]

I also have to ask: is that ship as awesome as it looks? If so, I'm gettin it. I really want to run a pirate campaign, and that would give me one more reason to do it.

 

[BSF]

I am *so* getting the Maiden. I have it on my list already. I would love to run a sea-going campaign for a while. Hey Macbeth *hint hint*.

It's OK though. I am sowing the story seeds that I hope will eventually lead there. Actually, that should be coming up tomorrow night. Yeah, I know I just said something about Gnolls. And what do Gnolls have to do with ocean-going campaigns? That is an interesting question. But it does tie together somehow. You just have to make it work with the PCs. And with a PC priest of a sea god, a shaman from a distan island, and a wanderer that happened to spend some time as a sailor, I should be able to find some sort of story seed, right?

Madmann, if you don't mind...
How much work is the Maiden to put together?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I don't know about dry erase writable tiles but what I do is print the tiles out on regular paper, glue them to cereal boxes, and cover those with clear plastic film (the stuff I have is from Kittrich corporation and is advertised for covering cookbook pages, posters, shelves, etc). I can draw on that with wet-erase markers and just clean it off laters.

So, I guess, there isn't an easier way that I know of.

Bookmarked! Thanks for the Link, EB. I think I can certainly use some of those.

As long as we're on the subject, I am also wondering about "heavy duty" tiles. Something like thick cardstock, with a "gloss" finish on them that can withstand dry-erase markers. I kinda think I saw something like what I have in mind at GenCon in '03, but I didn't get any.

If such tiles are not already extant, who has suggestions on "working up" some downloadable tiles? Print them out, glue them to heavy card stock, then laminate them? Is there an easier way?

-Reddist