Very disappointed in DU5: Sinister Woods

[CasvalRemDeikun]

Well, looking at the picture you have up, I must say that I am more likely to get this set now, probably two like I did of the very awesome Arcane Towers(which I use to make castles and whatnot) set. Most of my campaigns and encounters involve some degree of forest travel and combat, so this set would see a lot of use.

BTW, make a tundra set. It would be AWESOME!

 

[Klaus]

Sure. I'll illustrate it using a picture from a game I ran just a couple weeks ago. This is using one set of tiles and only Sinister Woods (I had just received my first set). The encounter was with spriggans and a greenvise vine within a clearing in the middle of the Witch Wood. The spriggans were "interrogating" a bound gnome-like creature tied to the fallen tree when the PCs came across the clearing. A fight ensued to free the poor unfortunate (named Pik) who as it turns out was not as powerless as the PCs first believed.

It's a nice picture. But it's still a clearing. Were this a dungeon room, it'd be an empty room with debris on the edges. I'm thinking of an encounter in the middle of the forest, like the battle at the end of Fellowship of the Ring, with roots crisscrossing the ground, trees place at your back (or to pin an opponent on), a fallen log to jump over, etc.

 

[Adso]

It's a nice picture. But it's still a clearing. Were this a dungeon room, it'd be an empty room with debris on the edges. I'm thinking of an encounter in the middle of the forest, like the battle at the end of Fellowship of the Ring, with roots crisscrossing the ground, trees place at your back (or to pin an opponent on), a fallen log to jump over, etc.

Yes, it is a clearing in the middle of the forest that I ran an encounter. It has roots crisscrossing the ground (the debris at the edge of the map, providing difficult terrain) trees placed at your back (the trees provide cover and difficult terrain if you are in them), or to pin an opponent on (the fighter using the pinning smash power) and it had a fallen log to jump over (the fallen tree that Pik was tied to).

All of those things occurred in the encounter I ran, and a whole lot more due to the control and movement provided by the spriggans and the greenvise vines. They were just accomplished using the D&D rules, the tiles, dice rolls, and the narration of the players and the DM rather than the directorial flourishes, cinematography, fight choreography, and score of a major motion picture.

I do my best with the tools I'm given.

 

[_NewbieDM_]

For what it's worth, I recently reviewed this set on my site , and took pictures of every single tile in the set.

I like it, because I combined it with the Ruins of the Wild set, which I feel is it's biggest strength.

 

[avin]

Those trees match the trees we have done with other maps. While I can see what you are saying, I don't mind them as much as you do. They're clear and their meaning easily apprehended by players.

Sure, but I still think Wizards could try something a bit more like this Paizo Map Pack:

While I love Zelda, this art direction is what I'm mostly looking for...

I'm interested on the maps that will come in Wotc series that start with the dwarf village.

PS. Do you already have a Savage Encounter's Greenvise Wine on your hands, huh?

 

[CharlesRyan]

Here are my two cents: When making wilderness tiles, specially those about "sinister woods", it'd be best to "zoom in" below the tree canopy. [. . .] It'd be good to see thick tree trunks (cover granters), slender tree trunks (those you can share a square with), those big Endor-type trees you can walk around.

I totally agree with this.

Don't get me wrong: Brush, brambles, and low trees that provide concealment and/or difficult terrain are fine, but they aren't really the defining element of a forest.

 

[Klaus]

Here's an example closer to what I'd like to see, straight out of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and was made by Jason Engle, who also makes the Dungeon Tiles:

Here you have variety in tree size, you can see the trunks of the larger trees, and the encounter can take place within the woods, not in a clearing.

 

[Oryan77]

Ohhh yeah, the above pic is good. That's what I was thinking too. The trunk of the tree is black just to indicate there is a trunk, and the branches of the tree appear almost transparent just so you know how far over they hang. That way you can move minis "under" the trees and know which squares you can move into. The way the new tiles are now makes it look like you can't move within the cluttered tree areas.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What's funny is that I see Wizards using the same philosophy with their Dungeon Tiles as they do with their miniatures... bundling products to maximize variety in the smallest amount of shelf space. Which is great for them as far as getting their product on shelves in places that do not cater strictly to D&D or gamer fans (like Barnes & Noble, Borders etc.)

What they are voluntarily giving up, however, is the "mass" market of product geared specifically towards DMs. Thus we don't see things like "box o' orcs", where it's a bundled box of 20 orcs of various types. And by the same token, we don't get "folder o' trees", where it's a mass of 8 pages of die-cut tree tiles in 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 inch squares.

They have basically allowed other companies to fill those voids that the hardcore DMs want and need filled. Miniature Singles selling stores that allow you to buy a dozen kobold Commons of the same type so you have a mass of minions at your disposal... and other print companies to mass produce poster maps, flip-maps, tiles, and counters that are more generic and more universally useful to a hardcore DM, but might not have as much of a sales punch or flair to them to an impulse shopper when seen on the spindle rack of Barnes & Noble.

But because I think many D&D players would use exclusively Wizards products if they could... they are disappointed when Wizards do not produce the products they are hoping for or want. Thus, they have to look at outside companies to find what they need, which I think quite a number of players (given their druthers) would rather not do. But it's a voluntary decision on Wizards' part to let these other companies fill the void that they themselves are not interested in filling.