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Post by spexrays on Mar 15, 2017 23:51:30 GMT
Hello, Firstly and foremost I am glad to be writing this post although I am not sure if I am in the right place but I do have a few questions about crafting. I have been watching DMScotty and Wyloch for a few months and I want to try and get myself into the craft game - I believe that to be the right expression. I haven't had much experience at crafting but I hope my knowledge of Graphic Design will help in the creative aspect, and I have a few ideas floating around in my head on projects that I want to work on. But there are a few things that I am curious about. As someone who is more of a fan of watching Tabletop instead of playing (that comes from having no friends into the same things and living in quite an isolated town away from anywhere that it would happen) So my questions are: What is the standard size scale for Minatures? I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that it was 28mm. Is there much of a community around Post-apocalypse Tabletop? most of my creative interests revolve around things like Fallout and Metro, those kinds of Games and that kind of style - but I also enjoy the typical DnD Fantasy kind of thing. Does the Grid System work for a new crafter or would it be easier to start without grids? That's pretty much it. It seemed easier for me to ask for help than struggling to find the answers on here. Thanks for reading and I look forward to crafting with everyone in the future.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2017 3:21:01 GMT
1. 28mm scale is the most common for tabletop role playing games, though you can also find 18mm, 15mm and even 10mm scale, the advantage of the smaller scale minis and terrain is the economy of materials, also the ease of storage.
2. There are certainly a good number of post apocalypse games around, so there must be plenty of facebook groups and so forth, just have to put your google search skills to good use.
3. I would personally advise anyone to go with gridless, since it encourages more fluid, organic movement, and the use of terrain in a more theatrical manner. Depends also on the gaming system you are using, which may be mechanically dependent on a grid, but there are ways to add grid to the game without having it etched all over your craftwork.
Thanks for asking, and welcome to the forum!
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Post by adamantinedragon on Mar 16, 2017 3:49:44 GMT
1. There really is no "standard size" for miniatures. The "supposed" standard was 1/72 scale for most of my gaming career, until about a decade ago when size creep pushed that (roughly 25mm) up to 27, then 28, then 30... Some of my "standard size" minis I get these days tower over my older minis like giants. I use my old elves as halflings most of the time now.
2. I'm not really into post-apocalyptic, but from what I hear, there's a huge variety of games available.
3. Grid vs no-grid is one of those things that some people get all worked up over. Frankly, I don't care one way or the other. Grids are better for some things, and no-grid is better for other things. But you can do anything you want either way. So do what is comfortable. I've got a bunch of terrain that is gridded, and a bunch that is gridless. I use them interchangeably in the same games without any issues. Every now and then on gridless, there's a bit of negotiation over specific positions, and every now and then with a grid, there's a bit of negotiation over which squares are, or are not, in range, or in an area of effect. It's all good.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 16, 2017 4:11:43 GMT
For a modern setting, a grid tends to be a very good thing when planning construction. It also tends to blend in far more easily.
For example, buildings fitting on a grid works well if you use the same grid for sidewalks as the interior, it lets you lay things out more easily.
With interiors, other than carpets, modern flooring does tend to have a visible pattern to them.
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guppy
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Post by guppy on Mar 16, 2017 6:21:09 GMT
In regards to size, the minis used to be 25mm ( roughly 1 inch ), somewhere along the line somebody decided to use a 1 inch grid where 1 inch = 5 feet ( 1/60 scale ). This of course meant that your figures now stood a less than heroic 1.5m tall - thus enter the "heroic scale" miniatures of 28mm ( 1.68m ) & 30mm ( 1.8m ) which is a bit closer to the modern day norm ( though personally I'd be a 33mm minature ). These sligthly larger figures also allows for the sculptor to work in more detail.
As for grid or nongrid - if your players enjoy grid based then do it with a grid, if not the dont. I personally like the look better without but, both I and my players enjoy the added tactical element that grids offers - not to mention the speed up ( it's alot easier planning your actions out of turn by counting squares rather than having to measure every wich way to make sure you can heal party member X with out badguy Y being able to reach you in the same turn )
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Post by spexrays on Mar 16, 2017 11:17:53 GMT
Thank you for all replying so quickly! Well, enough time for me to sleep and wake up to read the replies anyway. I'm gonna start by gathering some materials and make a gridded peice and one without just to see what I prefer, It's gonna be an interesting adventure, but nothing like a summer project eh?
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Post by Wyloch on Mar 16, 2017 12:32:20 GMT
I actually play gridless, but on gridded tiles. Because I just like the way they look.
For your first project, highly recommend DM Scotty's original 2.5D tiles, from the beginning of his channel. Simple cardboard walls. Knock out a set in two hours, get your confidence up.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 16, 2017 17:17:45 GMT
I actually play gridless, but on gridded tiles. Because I just like the way they look. For your first project, highly recommend DM Scotty's original 2.5D tiles, from the beginning of his channel. Simple cardboard walls. Knock out a set in two hours, get your confidence up. Yeah, either go with those or, if you have a bit more cash, buy some 2.5" square wood pieces and use a pyrography stylus. Either way, just make sure you have a place to store the stuff you make before you begin or you'll end up regretting it in the long run...
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Post by DnDPaladin on Mar 16, 2017 17:21:39 GMT
thats just the thing, most of the interior tiles you will be doing will have a grid on it because thats how floors were made. mostly. your players may just start counting tiles instead of playing gridless... i know mine does when i pull out the dungeon tiles. so i'd say dont go grid, but ready to draw them anyway !
the scale entirely depends on your wantings for realism. if you want realism, then follow the 28mm sizes and just go for it. but be aware that minis wont be able to sit on chairs for exemple. now if you go for working with. you might just throw away that 28mm scale and just design things as they look because you might want that chair to fit. then you might realise that chairs and tables are pretty much the same height. so really its all about how much of realism you want. because in the crafting game you can't have playable and realism together. they kinda are oppositite here.
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Post by spexrays on Mar 16, 2017 17:23:30 GMT
I actually play gridless, but on gridded tiles. Because I just like the way they look. For your first project, highly recommend DM Scotty's original 2.5D tiles, from the beginning of his channel. Simple cardboard walls. Knock out a set in two hours, get your confidence up. Kinda just gonna nerd out for a while because Wyloch replied... AAH!! That seems like the best idea for now, I've just been sketching at the moment, I'll sort out some cardboard and see what I can rustle up. I am probably going to be working in a post-apocalyptic style so this could be interesting. Time to put on some Gary Moore and get to work
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Post by spexrays on Mar 16, 2017 17:37:04 GMT
thats just the thing, most of the interior tiles you will be doing will have a grid on it because thats how floors were made. mostly. your players may just start counting tiles instead of playing gridless... i know mine does when i pull out the dungeon tiles. so i'd say dont go grid, but ready to draw them anyway ! the scale entirely depends on your wantings for realism. if you want realism, then follow the 28mm sizes and just go for it. but be aware that minis wont be able to sit on chairs for exemple. now if you go for working with. you might just throw away that 28mm scale and just design things as they look because you might want that chair to fit. then you might realise that chairs and tables are pretty much the same height. so really its all about how much of realism you want. because in the crafting game you can't have playable and realism together. they kinda are oppositite here. I feel like finding that sweetspot of realism and playable is something I may never experience. If I use one of the aformentioned scales, that 1inch = 5foot then that could lead to some interesting builds, well in my head anyway. Especially when it comes to going for the outdoors of a post apocalyptic scenario - the interior is something that I'm going to find a bit more difficult, but I'm sure I'll get there - Looking forward to sharing my adventure with everyone
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Post by adamantinedragon on Mar 18, 2017 3:31:27 GMT
Heh, I always sort of chuckle about "realism" in a game where people point their fingers and things go "boom!"
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Post by adamantinedragon on Mar 18, 2017 16:16:12 GMT
Re: Chairs, tables and other furniture...
I went through a period in my gaming where I was pretty focused on realism. Including spending some painstaking time making realistically sized chairs.
Then I realized they were a pain in the butt to play with. It didn't take long before all those chairs ended up stuck in my box, and hauled out only when I was doing something for display, but not game play, purposes. Other furniture had similar destinies. In small rooms tables were more trouble than they were worth.
I did play around with some flat tokens to represent that sort of thing, but eventually just decided that it was faster and easier to just draw the tables and chairs on the board with whiteboard markers.
Playability and visual appeal are sometimes directly at odds with each other.
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Post by lordmorbius on Mar 19, 2017 12:29:53 GMT
Re: Chairs, tables and other furniture... I went through a period in my gaming where I was pretty focused on realism. Including spending some painstaking time making realistically sized chairs. Then I realized they were a pain in the butt to play with. It didn't take long before all those chairs ended up stuck in my box, and hauled out only when I was doing something for display, but not game play, purposes. Other furniture had similar destinies. In small rooms tables were more trouble than they were worth. I think I see your problem. "In small rooms..." you need think BIG, EPIC, HEROIC. Rooms should be huge, spacious and have an echo when a character speaks. If you make your rooms bigger, chairs and tables fit in just fine...and your complaint becomes one of your gaming table being too small to hold all the big tiles and your gaming room not being big enough. Overall, it ends up being the same, but it depends on what you want the problem to be
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Post by lordmorbius on Mar 19, 2017 12:34:13 GMT
Heh, I always sort of chuckle about "realism" in a game where people point their fingers and things go "boom!" Agreed. I've seen folks work out forty pages of "house rules" about how each and every weapon works (cutting damage, blunt force damage, puncture wounds...how chain mail protects from cutting but not blunt trauma...because they want every game aspect to be "realistic"... ...in a game with magic that works and dragons that breathe fire.
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Post by onethatwas on Mar 19, 2017 18:05:20 GMT
A good compromise for scale (regarding realism/appropriate scale) is to change the 1 inch=5 feet standard to 1 inch=3 feet instead.
Or 1 inch=1 yard or 1 meter
(I fully understand they are not equal approximations, but they are closer)
This tends to fix problems with furniture sizes and having rooms be outrageously spacious. It does mean that if you DO want a spacious room you need to make it larger, but for most normal sized rooms it tends to fit well.
...I mean ultimately it doesn't matter too much. 1 inch=1 unit of movement. That is REALLY the only thing that matters here. Whether it is 5 ft or 3 ft or 10 ft is kinda a detail that has no major impact on gameplay. For purposes of size scale, using a grid helps, but you can eyeball it to fit your tastes.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 19, 2017 18:58:35 GMT
A good compromise for scale (regarding realism/appropriate scale) is to change the 1 inch=5 feet standard to 1 inch=3 feet instead. Or 1 inch=1 yard or 1 meter (I fully understand they are not equal approximations, but they are closer) This tends to fix problems with furniture sizes and having rooms be outrageously spacious. It does mean that if you DO want a spacious room you need to make it larger, but for most normal sized rooms it tends to fit well. ...I mean ultimately it doesn't matter too much. 1 inch=1 unit of movement. That is REALLY the only thing that matters here. Whether it is 5 ft or 3 ft or 10 ft is kinda a detail that has no major impact on gameplay. For purposes of size scale, using a grid helps, but you can eyeball it to fit your tastes. With D&D the 5' grid kind of has other reasons unless you want to mess with ranges and movement of everything to it. For example, the 5' free step 3/3.5 and mechanics such as the skirmish ability...
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Post by DnDPaladin on Mar 19, 2017 19:57:40 GMT
OneThatWas, how the hell do you make 1 inch = 3 foot a thing in your miniatures when the round base is still 1 inch and that your chairs will still be needing 1 inch seats ? in the end to make this thing happens, you make the rooms bigger and thus ends up being on the same problem that lordmorbius said.
when it comes to scaling the only real thing you can do is to make the rooms bigger by reducing the ratio like OneThatWas said. but again your players will then need to give you more space at your table.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 19, 2017 21:12:18 GMT
For chairs and such, one easy solution for making them work is to essentially go with a more 2.5D type thing. Skip making the legs of the chairs, the back can be a little bit taller than normal, and you'd only see the top of the seat anyway. Tables tend to work looking normally as is.
Having a few benches and chairs for other situations if you want to for the looks with things that would use them such as if players start piling furniture up against a door as a barricade.
Also, when setting a room up, just use the essentials for the room, a desk might be in place but not the cabinets and shelves for a smaller room a party might move through unless they're specifically important. For something like the tilescapes stuff, you can move them off the sides of the tile when the players are doing things there
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Post by onethatwas on Mar 20, 2017 5:36:13 GMT
1 inch=5 ft is a major problem in furniture DnDpaladin.
Measure the chairs in your home. I guarantee the seat is not 5 ft. Heck, it isn't even 3 ft. But 3 ft is much more palatable.
Now yes it is an imperfect scale. No scale fits perfectly while balancing playable functionality.
However, to address sotf's concern, the 1 inch=3 ft issue regarding rules is not a major problem. Essentially the D&D rules state that 1 inch gridded spaces are equal to <1 unit of spatial measurement. > They inserted the term "5 ft" into that field. But the unit of spatial measurement could be LITERALLY anything.
For instance, a med sized creature can move 6 spaces. 6 units of spatial measurement. Is it 30 ft or is it 18 ft? Does it matter?
To sticklers, perhaps. But it is just a convenient measuring device. You can just as easily put anything in the spatial measurement, plug it into every instance, and play...no real harm done.
Now if you WANT to make it hard on yourself, sure...a player can cast a spell with a 30 ft range and they would measure 10 gridded spaces, not 6. No big deal. It doesn't hurt play here either.
5 ft step becomes 3 ft step (which is more plausible anyway)...spells can be converted using the new measurement or they can keep their old measurements...
This isn't as much of a headache it seems.worst case scenario, wing it.
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