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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drl2" data-source="post: 7786602" data-attributes="member: 6983130">I've been making a lot of terrain and printing a lot of minis, but what ends up on my table varies according to a lot of factors.  Do I know ahead of time more or less where the players plan to go, so I can set up an important area or two ahead of time?  Can a scene be thrown together quickly on the table without breaking the flow of the gaming session, or is there a logical break time that will allow a window for me to put together something more complicated?<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Non-combat and combat-very-unlikely situations are pretty much always TotM, as are very simple combats where range & movement speed aren't going to matter much</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Chessex mat with crude sketches if I need something quick or don't have terrain for the environment.  Sometimes I'll plop some scatter pieces, furniture, chests, etc onto that for a little texture.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">For outdoor encounters, even some random ones, I have a big 4'x4' board lined with a sheet of the textured green sorta-grassy-looking paper the model train folks use, onto which I'll spread out some trees, hills, bushes, maybe some tents and a menhir or twelve - again, depending on setup time factors and whether I think the encounter warrants it</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If the characters are dungeon-delving, I'll try to use tiles to define a few of the key encounter areas, while using the chessex mat for the less interesting areas where combat might occur.  I'll also sometimes sketch a basic map of where the party has explored already onto some corner of the mat, or more likely I'll have printed a copy of the map and will cover it with pieces of black construction paper I can lift away to reveal each new area as they get to it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">... And then there are the times when I go nuts with tabletop prep <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></li> </ul>(Gah!  Can't access my site from work to link to photos stored there!  Will add them later, but they're all over the DIY category and some of the campaign updates at <a href="https://gaming.drl2.com" target="_blank">(Re)Turning (to) the Tables - Tabletop RPG Geekery Revisited</a> )</blockquote>

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