teaman
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 165
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Post by teaman on Dec 23, 2014 18:15:01 GMT
Just wondering how the 2.5D NEXT is working for folks out on the actual table, where things really happen.
Here's what I found yesterday at my session:
1. I used painted Jenga blocks for dungeon walls. They worked very well. Because they are heavy, they didn't move much. Then I didn't have to worry about hiding parts of the map, or unfolding it. I did that with a paper mat at a recent gameday, and results were "Meh." They worked sorta like your dungeon walls concept.
2. I cut some cardboard blobs, flocked them and painted them green to represent trees. These worked out TERRIBLY. They curled up when glued and painted, and slid around way too much. Really, a paper map with a green marker or crayon would have been easier and better.
Those are my meager experiences. Anything you can share or come up with to help would be great. The tree blobs were a failure, so any thoughts?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2014 19:45:33 GMT
I personally love the 2.5 next and I wish I could have the time to make all my sets this way. Its really nice for modularity and storage. Considering you'll probably have modular caves, dungeons, and forests when you get further into the 2.5N crafting which will help you throw in more random dungeon crawls since you'll have a set ready to go making any possible size dungeon or cave on the fly. I have been mostly going to a wall less style. Saves me some time when I craft.
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Post by sidewaysgts on Dec 23, 2014 22:34:46 GMT
Just wondering how the 2.5D NEXT is working for folks out on the actual table, where things really happen. Here's what I found yesterday at my session: 1. I used painted Jenga blocks for dungeon walls. They worked very well. Because they are heavy, they didn't move much. Then I didn't have to worry about hiding parts of the map, or unfolding it. I did that with a paper mat at a recent gameday, and results were "Meh." They worked sorta like your dungeon walls concept. 2. I cut some cardboard blobs, flocked them and painted them green to represent trees. These worked out TERRIBLY. They curled up when glued and painted, and slid around way too much. Really, a paper map with a green marker or crayon would have been easier and better. Those are my meager experiences. Anything you can share or come up with to help would be great. The tree blobs were a failure, so any thoughts? Do you have many props filling your 2.5d next dungeon? Doors, tables, chairs, cauldrons, vats, ponds, bookshelves with littered with books and potions, etc. The more of this stuff you decorate your dungeons with, the more convincing they start to appear.
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Post by DnDPaladin on Dec 24, 2014 2:14:24 GMT
you dont need to be all that detailed though, because th emore you put in, the less time your players will have to play. as they are waiting on you to put it all down.
as for me, i've been playing 2.5D next even before DMscotty showed it, i dont know, tiles weren'T really my thing. so i guess i was in the same mood as DM scotty when he created his. i can say my stuff really pushed the games thru, making things much more real for players. we were using pencils, dices and erasers for stuff and it really made things quite weird.
the one thing that struck me is how easy it is for players not to care for whats on the table. i often see my players tackle things down, weight or not. they just dont seem to understand that you must take things from the top, not from the sides. aside from that there is nothing else thats bad. its been a real game upper to actually have those props.
the jenga blocks is quite a nice idea. but take my advice if you dont want ot get stuck on walls and the likes... i have 10, 6 inches long walls for dungeons, and 10, 3 inches long... and i dont think i have enough walls yet. really depends on how big your rooms gets.
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Post by DMScotty on Dec 24, 2014 6:22:30 GMT
I am really liking them. I do want to make more though.
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Post by thedmg on Dec 24, 2014 10:49:33 GMT
I used to do this way back in the day and converted to Genuine 2.5D Original Full Sugar Regular Flavour with a twist of DMG. The problems I had did not involve weight because the walls were made of actual stones. The issue was one of laying out the dungeon and people knocking the walls when grabbing things like dice (so grabby). I like a contrasting negative space between walls (this is a personal preference). To me it visually frames the play area. One thing I have not touched on in my tutorials are "Between Pieces". You can see some of them in the "Under the Tavern" layouts. Essentially "filler" tiles that go wherever there is a gap to add to the theme and feel of the place. Dirt, balustrades, water filled areas, darkness, etc. Part of this is because my dungeons are all compact in nature and when there is a gap I like to fill it with stuff. I also layout the entire level before we play (sometimes another level underneath for ease of transition), rather than put it down as we go (a compact dungeon works well for this). As always it comes down to your style of play and time.
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teaman
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 165
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Post by teaman on Dec 24, 2014 16:17:30 GMT
Thanks for the good thoughts folks (Keep 'em coming, of course).
I don't use a lot of extra props, but not against it by any means.
I hit the same trouble with things moving around too much when players grabbed for things too. That was the huge issue with my trees. Have to give some thoughts how to make better treelines, sorta like dungeon walls.
I may cut out a fwe 10" and 6" blocks to supplement my Jenga ones. Might help for long corridors, etc.....
One solution I saw at a gameday was to lay down a cloth tablecloth. It was not only quite domestic, it kept things from sliding too much. Though I can imagine some leaning on it and moving everything around too.
Thanks again folks, keep the discussion going.
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Post by adamantinedragon on Dec 24, 2014 16:18:18 GMT
My camaigns are a rather interesting mix of techniques, all of which work and all of which have their positives and negatives. I have laid out entire cavern complexes made of Hirst Arts cavern blocks. I've used custom constructed buildings made of Hirst blocks, foam core posterboard and styrene. I've got terrain elements that are multi-level styrene "mountains". And you've seen my riverboat. I also made some 2.5D tiles for one series of encounters in my last campaign.
Here's my take on how it all works. First of all, my players must be some of the best players ever, because no matter what I put down, from a meticulously built and painted Hirst bridge or wizard tower, to a set of cardboard tiles, they always express satisfaction and appreciation for the efforts I went to. We talk about it after the sessions and they have almost exactly the same reponse that I do, which is that while the detailed Hirst Arts approach takes longer to set up and you have to be more careful in game play to move pieces around, they love the detailed look of the Hirst dungeons and buildings. But when we use the 2.5D tiles, they also love the simplicity and ease of play.
The bottom line is that it is all good. And I think the mix of techniques actually adds some visual interest and anticipation to the game. As the group said when the GM and I put the riverboat on the table last week, "We never know WHAT to expect in these games!" That's something all by itself, I suppose.
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Post by sgtslag on Jan 12, 2015 17:30:34 GMT
A friend has a huge amount of Dwarven Forge, both Caverns and Dungeons. In his game last Friday, he ran us through a simple dungeon layout which would have been relatively easy to mock up with his DF stuff... Instead, he used a vinyl Battlemap, with dice to indicate Dragon Eggs (the object of our mission was to 'rescue' them). We were surprised he used the Battlemap, but I understood why: a vinyl Battlemap is so incredibly flexible, quick, and ridiculously easy to use...
I love full 3-D, and 2.5-D, but the vinyl Battlemap is phenomenally easy to use (I always picture the scene in my mind anyway, even with 3-D terrain -- I think all my gamer friends do). When I run AD&D sessions, I do a tremendous amount of ad-lib'ing -- I could not do that if I had to have everything for mini's to crawl over. I do more 2.5-/3-D for mini's based games, and my players are happy with that.
I played a short Battlesystem Skirmish game, Saturday, to test the rules, and To see what we needed for PC levels to have a chance against Hill Giants. We learned a lot, and we really enjoyed the full 3-D terrain, but we agreed, we did not want that in our RPG sessions, as it would be impractical for our style. To each their own. Cheers!
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Post by adamantinedragon on Jan 12, 2015 17:37:33 GMT
sgtslag, that is why I use a mix. In a typical session that I am running as a GM, I will mostly use a battlemat with some very specific tactically important terrain elements. Those are usually very quick and easy to place. My Hirst Arts pieces are mostly complete units that I plop down for a particular purpose, such as a wizard tower, a guard room, a tavern common room, etc. I have some modular dungeon elements that I use occasionally, but that is usually only for a "dungeon crawl" session and for that sort of encounter it is pretty easy and fast to lay out the maze of corridors and rooms, and then just run the encounter until it's all done. I have found that it is pretty disruptive of the game to have to construct an entire encounter out of Hirst or Dwarvenforge blocks during the game itself, so if I'm doing a significant amount of layout, I do it before the game starts and we run that encounter or set of encounters and tend to use the simple mats and terrain pieces for the rest of the day.
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Post by thedmg on Jan 19, 2015 11:44:46 GMT
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