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Post by algardunraven on Oct 29, 2014 0:52:19 GMT
Hello all, It's been a while since I've posted anything on the forums, but owning your own business sometimes cuts into DM time (I know, I know, I should get my priorities straight).
I am contemplating building a small city or town to have my group have encounters in. I've only ever made a roadside town with about 6 paper buildings and a road running through the middle of it (I have posted pics of it on here somewhere). The party is about to find out that it has been pretty much burned to the ground, so they have to have somewhere else to go, and I would like some input on where to start and suggestions on what to use for the buildings and so forth.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe AJ had a cool city set up, I believe with paper craft buildings. Has anyone used other materials and if so, are there advantages to using other kinds of materials. The party still has to get through the cemetery and Mausoleum I recently finished (pics coming soon on another thread), so I have some time to work on it. Any help would be appreciated.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2014 2:10:29 GMT
A.J. has all sorts of cool stuff. My thoughts. Foam core and printed building fronts. Essentially make small boxes fitted with preprinted building façades. Quick and easy, well once you get the first one printed the correct size.
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Post by beetlewing on Oct 29, 2014 20:08:04 GMT
In the spirit of 2.5d you could simply make a bunch of rooftops. Add a layer of corrugation for each "floor" of the building - so a 3 story building would have 3 layers of cardboard, topped with shingles. If you didn't permanently attach the layers, you could reconfigure buildings to be whatever height you needed for that encounter.
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j
Cardboard Collector
Posts: 25
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Post by j on Oct 30, 2014 0:39:51 GMT
I've been making small towns out of monopoly houses I get from thrift stores. Then pull out generic 2.5d floorplan buildings if they go into a specific building of interest. If a building or 2 got burned, I'd probably just paint it burned-out on the monopoly house or pull it off to represent a building foundation. Once they find/go into an important house, I poke a pin flag near it so they can remember where it is (like provisioner). This map is the town of Phandalin for the D&D 5E starter box.
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Post by SpielMeisterKev! on Oct 30, 2014 1:05:00 GMT
Howdy, small towns out of monopoly houses WTF? EXALT BUTTON!!! FTW! Kev!
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Post by DnDPaladin on Oct 30, 2014 4:53:19 GMT
Exalted, that map is just awesome.
as for me, i make regular tiles. i use them either for housing with modular walls that i put inside if need be. or for rooms in a house. i like the idea of rooftops though, but what i do if i want to put something atop the house. i simply ditch the walls, use kabab skews on corners with a bit of hot glue to make sure the above floor doesn'T go down the skews and voila, multiple floor houses. i'll show you what i mean when i get pictures of my 5 story high guard tower.
i also saw someone using shoe boxes to make housing. and i thought that idea was pretty neat !
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Post by SteamTitan on Oct 30, 2014 20:44:13 GMT
Soooo have then encountered the burned down town yet? if not... why not light the paper on fire than put out when its mostly gone and actually have a burned down town?
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Post by wickedsurfer on Nov 3, 2014 14:37:59 GMT
That map is brilliant!!!! Exalted. I agree with papercraft to help fill out the background and surrounding areas of an encounter. and just use 2.5d to detail the exact encounter area. It will help the players feel like they are in a busy city but keep the table from becoming a huge unplayable diorama. Combining that and the map from j would be an excellent way to conserve space on the table and still keep things straight if a chase across town breaks out.
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sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
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Post by sotf on Nov 8, 2014 3:01:35 GMT
If you can find them, the older WotC site used to have a good set of printable, papercraft buildings for a city that were rather easy to assemble and worked well.
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Post by DnDPaladin on Nov 8, 2014 20:41:52 GMT
there is a book of cardboard tiles wizard pushed out for those interested in trying to get ideas of what they should print out...
it was called DU2 - Street of Shadows. it has sewers, city street levels and even have people tile to make crowds in a pinch. not saying copy it, but i do use those books from wizards to give me ideas of what i can do. they are great starter if you barely starts.
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Post by generalketchup57 on Sept 26, 2015 14:34:07 GMT
I've been making small towns out of monopoly houses I get from thrift stores. Then pull out generic 2.5d floorplan buildings if they go into a specific building of interest. If a building or 2 got burned, I'd probably just paint it burned-out on the monopoly house or pull it off to represent a building foundation. Once they find/go into an important house, I poke a pin flag near it so they can remember where it is (like provisioner). This map is the town of Phandalin for the D&D 5E starter box. Brilliant & space saving! EXALTED! RPG drivethru has a lot of nice printable houses, but I use 3D Christmas Village buildings I get from Good Will and repaint them to look medieval (have to cover a lot of bows, ribbons, snow, etc). I like the 3D action they allow, but storage is a problem:(
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Post by grinningskull on Sept 26, 2015 15:18:44 GMT
I've been building a collection of links on my webby for free papercraft stuff, theres loads of cool fantasy buildings in amonst them if you search around the links, best of all they are all free to download: Grinning Skull ResourcesHope that helps. Also, that monopoly houses map is fantastic,it'd work great for micro gaming! Top marks J!!
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Post by AnarchyDice on Sept 27, 2015 13:56:33 GMT
I don't usually 2.5d up any of my towns until and unless the players get into a fight. When that happens, I pull out some of those old cardstock Wizards of the Coast cardstock tiles plus my home-made dungeon dressing.
For my 'overmap' I either do theater of the mind or I've lately started using Inkwell's village and town dice (with the accompanying printed pdf's).
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Sept 28, 2015 5:34:55 GMT
One of my players has a bunch of Fat Dragon Games models built. We just use those.
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