Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
This is more of a General question than anything 4e-specific, so I'll move it to the general forum
Laying out your dungeon - advice?
- Thread starter AZRogue
- Start date
Olaf the Stout
Legend
The majority of my D&D minis (over 1,000 of the little suckers) are stored in snap-lock bags in a couple of plastic storage containers. The minis in the various snap-lock bags are sorted into groups such as Orcs, Kobolds, Skeletons, Zombies, Underdark, Animals and Goblins.
My human, dwarf, elf, halfling and gnome minis are kept in a different storage container. Since there are a lot of these I have sorted them a little differently. The humanoids are sorted by race: Dwarves, Elves and Little People (Gnomes and Halflings). The humans are sorted into Sword & Board, Single Handed Weapon (No Shield), Two Handed Weapon, Two Weapons, Polearms, Exotic Weapons, Casters and finally Cultists.
In a third storage container (a flatter under-the-bed container) I keep all my Huge-sized minis as well as quite a few Large-sized minis.
Finally, I keep some other minis in some transparent Plano (Plano is the brand name) tackle boxes. Since they are transparent I can quickly look at them and see what minis are in each box. I have 4 tackle boxes in two different sizes. The smaller sized boxes fit my Medium-sized minis and short Large-sized minis. The larger sized boxes fit the taller Large-sized minis (although some Large-sized minis still don't fit, such as Frost Giant Jarl).
In one of the smaller sized tackle box I store the players' PC minis along with all of the minis that I expect to use in the next session or two. By keeping all the "soon to be used" minis together I find that I can find them very quickly during the session. It is just a matter of opening the box and grabbing them. Obviously this method only works if you know what monsters your group will be fighting in the upcoming sessions.
The other 3 boxes have mainly "monster" minis. These are mostly DDM Rares of various monsters like Dragons, Beholders, Efreeti, Shield Guardians and Ogre Magi. Most of them are minis that I found hard to put into a particular "category" for storage.
So there you go. My system is a little complicated, and it took quite a while to sort all the minis into various categories. However, since I have sorted them out finding the exact minis I need for a session has been a lot easier.
Olaf the Stout
My human, dwarf, elf, halfling and gnome minis are kept in a different storage container. Since there are a lot of these I have sorted them a little differently. The humanoids are sorted by race: Dwarves, Elves and Little People (Gnomes and Halflings). The humans are sorted into Sword & Board, Single Handed Weapon (No Shield), Two Handed Weapon, Two Weapons, Polearms, Exotic Weapons, Casters and finally Cultists.
In a third storage container (a flatter under-the-bed container) I keep all my Huge-sized minis as well as quite a few Large-sized minis.
Finally, I keep some other minis in some transparent Plano (Plano is the brand name) tackle boxes. Since they are transparent I can quickly look at them and see what minis are in each box. I have 4 tackle boxes in two different sizes. The smaller sized boxes fit my Medium-sized minis and short Large-sized minis. The larger sized boxes fit the taller Large-sized minis (although some Large-sized minis still don't fit, such as Frost Giant Jarl).
In one of the smaller sized tackle box I store the players' PC minis along with all of the minis that I expect to use in the next session or two. By keeping all the "soon to be used" minis together I find that I can find them very quickly during the session. It is just a matter of opening the box and grabbing them. Obviously this method only works if you know what monsters your group will be fighting in the upcoming sessions.
The other 3 boxes have mainly "monster" minis. These are mostly DDM Rares of various monsters like Dragons, Beholders, Efreeti, Shield Guardians and Ogre Magi. Most of them are minis that I found hard to put into a particular "category" for storage.
So there you go. My system is a little complicated, and it took quite a while to sort all the minis into various categories. However, since I have sorted them out finding the exact minis I need for a session has been a lot easier.
Olaf the Stout
Olaf the Stout
Legend
Double Post.
Olaf the Stout
Olaf the Stout
Olaf the Stout
Legend
I'd also like to add that I've yet to find a suitable storage solution for the Dungeon tiles. I have 2 sets each of the first 6 sets so organisation has become a real issue for me. They are currently sorted into various zip-lock bags. All similar tiles are placed together. So all 4x2 square tiles are placed together, all 8x2 tiles are placed together, all staircases are together, etc.,
This is useful to some extent but I find that the tiles slip around and end up on top of each other so you can't see what is on all of them.
I have also found that since I have so many and the organisation of them isn't that great I just end up using my flip mat most of the time. That really isn't what I want to be doing. I really need to get more organised so I can make use of a very good resource.
Olaf the Stout
This is useful to some extent but I find that the tiles slip around and end up on top of each other so you can't see what is on all of them.
I have also found that since I have so many and the organisation of them isn't that great I just end up using my flip mat most of the time. That really isn't what I want to be doing. I really need to get more organised so I can make use of a very good resource.
Olaf the Stout
blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Minis
I store my minis in big baseball card boxes and the boxes for the Icon dragons. I started by sorting my minis by faction (LG, CE, etc). I had lots of LE & CE figs, so I further split them into Medium or smaller and Large or larger. Lately I use separate ziplock bags to sort humanoids by weaponry (two-handed, TWF, casters, etc). The cards are sorted by faction then ordered by DDM point cost. Each mini has its faction and cost printed on the bottom, so it makes finding cards very easy.
Tiles
I put them all in a strong plastic bag. I stopped trying to sort them or make specific dungeons with them because it's too hassleful. Now I grab tiles randomly from the bag when I'm making stuff up on the fly, and it's wonderful. To familiarize yourself with your tiles, play a game of Make A Random Dungeon sometime. It's surprisingly fun.
I store my minis in big baseball card boxes and the boxes for the Icon dragons. I started by sorting my minis by faction (LG, CE, etc). I had lots of LE & CE figs, so I further split them into Medium or smaller and Large or larger. Lately I use separate ziplock bags to sort humanoids by weaponry (two-handed, TWF, casters, etc). The cards are sorted by faction then ordered by DDM point cost. Each mini has its faction and cost printed on the bottom, so it makes finding cards very easy.
Tiles
I put them all in a strong plastic bag. I stopped trying to sort them or make specific dungeons with them because it's too hassleful. Now I grab tiles randomly from the bag when I'm making stuff up on the fly, and it's wonderful. To familiarize yourself with your tiles, play a game of Make A Random Dungeon sometime. It's surprisingly fun.
SavageRobby
First Post
I have a ton of tiles (2x of each set, 5x times that in home made tiles), 20+ battlemaps (Paizo flipmaps and similar homemade oness), cardstock and wargaming terrain (20+ bins), and a slew of minis (7,000+ DDM) - so organization and usage has become very important to me over the last few years. And to top it off, we often don't play at my house, so I have to port what I need to a second location.
So, usually before the game session I figure out what I'm definitely going to need terrain, minis and tile-wise, and also what I might need, and then cart them downstairs or pack them up for travel.
As someone else mentioned, I'll lay out any tiles beforehand (usually the day of or evening before), and either take a digital pic, or quickly sketch out what I've done on paper. (Also previously mentioned is that the tiles are usually good approximations of the dungeons, but rarely exact matches. Don't sweat a few extra squares here and there. Its seriously no biggie.) I'll usually throw each dungeon level or encounter area into a separate ziplock baggie (the big freezer kind), so its easier to get them out during play. I try to place on an as-seen basis.
For minis, I do essentially the same thing. Figure out what I need, then bag them for ease of access. My minis are in plastic Akro Mils large storage cases, and divided by type (I have some 70+ cases, plus a few larger containers I use for extra larges and huges), so sometimes if I know I'm going to have a ton of a creature, I'll just bring the whole case instead of bagging half the contents.
For the "might" stuff, I'm a little less rigorous, and just grab an extra case of tiles, bag some extra minis, and hope I get it right. I used to carry a pair of Chessex mats with me, and I may start doing that again as well.
FWIW, I do about the same thing with terrain and battemaps and such. Layout what I need beforehand, and then put it into a temporary storage for transport. I use Container Store Underbed boxes to hold larger terrain in, and I keep an empty spare or two for transport.
For our initial session of Savage Rise of the Runelords (Paizo's Pathfinder AP), we had to take the SUV to my friends house; I had three containers of terrain, multiple minis cases, multiple smaller containers of misc terrain (fires, wagons, a well, etc) - and ended up creating a full 3D festival area in Sandpoint. It was pretty grand, almost 4' x 5' of playing area - a village square, complete with temple, tons of buildings, some 100 villagers, and a ton of goblins running around making fire.
And to top it off, we often don't play at my house, so I have to port what I need to a second location. So, usually before the game session I figure out what I'm definitely going to need terrain, minis and tile-wise, and also what I might need, and then cart them downstairs or pack them up for travel.
As someone else mentioned, I'll lay out any tiles beforehand (usually the day of or evening before), and either take a digital pic, or quickly sketch out what I've done on paper. (Also previously mentioned is that the tiles are usually good approximations of the dungeons, but rarely exact matches. Don't sweat a few extra squares here and there. Its seriously no biggie.) I'll usually throw each dungeon level or encounter area into a separate ziplock baggie (the big freezer kind), so its easier to get them out during play. I try to place on an as-seen basis.
For minis, I do essentially the same thing. Figure out what I need, then bag them for ease of access. My minis are in plastic Akro Mils large storage cases, and divided by type (I have some 70+ cases, plus a few larger containers I use for extra larges and huges), so sometimes if I know I'm going to have a ton of a creature, I'll just bring the whole case instead of bagging half the contents.
For the "might" stuff, I'm a little less rigorous, and just grab an extra case of tiles, bag some extra minis, and hope I get it right. I used to carry a pair of Chessex mats with me, and I may start doing that again as well.
FWIW, I do about the same thing with terrain and battemaps and such. Layout what I need beforehand, and then put it into a temporary storage for transport. I use Container Store Underbed boxes to hold larger terrain in, and I keep an empty spare or two for transport.
For our initial session of Savage Rise of the Runelords (Paizo's Pathfinder AP), we had to take the SUV to my friends house; I had three containers of terrain, multiple minis cases, multiple smaller containers of misc terrain (fires, wagons, a well, etc) - and ended up creating a full 3D festival area in Sandpoint. It was pretty grand, almost 4' x 5' of playing area - a village square, complete with temple, tons of buildings, some 100 villagers, and a ton of goblins running around making fire.
