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Post by onethatwas on Jan 21, 2014 4:29:12 GMT
So I'm slowly, but steadily, building up my craft portfolio, filling out with furniture, wagons, rooms, odds, ends...stuff to make a game splendiferous. But I am seeming to get snagged back on my utter lack of doorways.
Now I understand that, *technically*, you don't need them. After all, what is a door doing in a dark, dank dungeon anyway?
But in truth, at some point I have to make a few. To me, its a rather daunting task.
Part of this is door size, and variation. What should be the norm? Having entry points on my tiles sized to 2 inches wide (standard for all my tiles) means it would make sense to have 2 inch wide doors. But that seems to be off on the scale, compared to Minis that have a 1 inch wide base.
But if I scale my doors smaller, they look silly sitting in the middle of a 2 inch wide entry point.
I have already set my entry point size, and have to stick to it, or remake dozens of tiles (since I have a modular set).
So this got me really thinking (perhaps I'm overthonking it to be honest): if I built a dungeon, how would I design it? Would I use doors? Sometimes yes...other times I'd simply have an arch.
In the case of doors, why would I have them? To protect stuff on the inside, and allow access for myself and minions to pass to the outside.
Now I'm on to something! Who, or what, are my minions? Well, a variation is possible, so maybe I should create big, hulking doors for large minions, and if I need to make a portal accessible to smaller minions, double doors can be opened easier on one side by smaller minions.
Now what if I want a room only accessible to me? Well, what am I? A wizard? Hmm, a puzzle door or magic portal to my private rooms. A warlord? Let it be a large barred double door, heavy and imposing, that would take a battering ram to get through, or several strong minions if I choose to open it from the inside. Perhaps a roguisj Guildmaster? My secret chambers and passages shouldn't be so obvious, and decoy rooms should always be trapped.
So, giving this some thought, I managed to justify larger door construction projects (to fit the 2 inch entry points). HOWEVER, I am very interested in ideas on how you build your doors. And why...
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Post by adamantinedragon on Jan 21, 2014 4:36:12 GMT
In my own games I find that I rarely have my PCs in "dungeons". When I do they tend to be actual dungeons, which means the bowels of a castle or the underground areas of a city. In such areas doors seem to make sense.
In subterrainian caverns I still have doors, but they are rare and usually are there for a particular purpose, like the entry to a bandit hideout or a means to hide some treasure.
Use of magical portals is relatively common for higher level NPCs or creatures, but those are still "expensive" in my world usually requiring the sacrifice of a gem or some coins or something, so doors are used even by high level mages when the cost/benefit curve seems appropriate.
Since I mostly use Hirst Arts blocks for my terrain, I use Hirst Arts doors mostly. So that means my arches are typically also Hirst Arts arches. But not always. Just for fun I made some doors the other day out of craft sticks that look like thin popsicle sticks. They came out pretty well I think.
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dmj
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 245
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Post by dmj on Jan 21, 2014 8:56:41 GMT
Third time trying this post I'll have to break it up to one pic in each. I would make a couple double doors to fill the 2inch wide entry points but that looks very austentatious and don't think you would see that often. So for normal sized doors build part of the wall into them as filler I'll post two versions the first is card board and card stock painted.
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dmj
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 245
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Post by dmj on Jan 21, 2014 9:00:53 GMT
The door and archway here were foam carved. They aren't bad but I've thought about build a a Popsicle stick version and use foam archway over it.
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Post by earlteagrey on Jan 21, 2014 9:57:31 GMT
Third time trying this post I'll have to break it up to one pic in each. I really like your work here dmj!
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dmj
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 245
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Post by dmj on Jan 21, 2014 10:41:36 GMT
Thank you but I don't take credit for the ideas lol most of the set dressing in these are DMG or Scotty's ideas.
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Post by thedmg on Jan 21, 2014 14:34:25 GMT
I never worry too much about scale. So long as it looks right. The chairs I make have 1" square seats. It is perfect to place a mini on and they look cool, but that is a 5 foot square seat... Playability is more important than scale and so is look and feel. Not everything has to be a realistic representation. They are merely a short hand for a gaming experience.
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Post by ashrothedm on Jan 21, 2014 14:53:21 GMT
I like scale as well, and while I agree that playability is key, I would try to work to scale. For doors, my plan was to make the wooden door and frame it as dmj has. a 1" door just needs a simple 1/2" frame around it. As soon as I finish a few up, I'll post the image. There is, of course, a need for large doors. Maybe the people build to large size because they regularly do business with large races, and that's just the norm. Doors in the adventure are either set dressing or a challenge, and they get the appropriate level of attention in my sessions. Sure there are reasons for doors to be there, but can you imagine how long it would take for a group to adventure through a small house when they spend 10 minutes searching for traps at every door? Crafting doors takes some of my time, so I try to save crafted doors for something important rather than having a door crafted for every single room, even when that might make sense to have a door. Someday, maybe I'll have a stockpile of doors, but not yet!
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Post by onethatwas on Jan 21, 2014 18:15:43 GMT
I don't craft chairs generally because I dislike the necessary scale of things. I also dislike the scale of D&D in general, because while 5ft is an easy number to multiply, it makes alot of things seem really off for everything else besides easy multiplication.
other game scales have their own pros and cons, but in the end it amounts to 1 square=1 unit of measurement. The details aren't entirely important, but if it comes down to it, I think the scale of 1 yard or 1 meter to a square is much better for generally everything.
That means instead of a 10 foot wide door, you have a 6 foot wide door (or roughly 2 meters if I recall my measure comparison). Makes much more sense.
Now as for crafting doors for every entrance, I agree, thats redundant, unless the dungeon was crafted very recently. Dungeons don't need doors at every turn, but even if they are crafted, having players check every door in a dungeon makes sense...its a dungeon, players should always be on their guard.
But players who check for traps in places where traps should be logically unlikely (such as in town) are silly. And suspicious.
So I'm thinking of having 3 of each of the following:
Standard size doors Large, full frame doors Double doors Stone archway (no door)
And then have, as needed, a variety of special doors.
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Post by Sleepy Hollow Mike on Jan 22, 2014 3:14:50 GMT
I never worry too much about scale. So long as it looks right. The chairs I make have 1" square seats. It is perfect to place a mini on and they look cool, but that is a 5 foot square seat... Playability is more important than scale and so is look and feel. Not everything has to be a realistic representation. They are merely a short hand for a gaming experience. I could not have said it better! The DMG has the right of it! Everything in the Dungeaon is a "representation". When I watch DMScotty's and Dmg's videos I hear this mantra all the time! Playability is my first concern. I come from a scale modeling backround and it bothered me a great deal when everything was "out of scale" However it is a game therefore it is meant to be played with. As long as it gets its point across I am content to let my imagination do the rest. I do tho think about the overall look and feel of what Im creating.
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Post by Sleepy Hollow Mike on Jan 22, 2014 3:19:43 GMT
I don't craft chairs generally because I dislike the necessary scale of things. I also dislike the scale of D&D in general, because while 5ft is an easy number to multiply, it makes alot of things seem really off for everything else besides easy multiplication. other game scales have their own pros and cons, but in the end it amounts to 1 square=1 unit of measurement. The details aren't entirely important, but if it comes down to it, I think the scale of 1 yard or 1 meter to a square is much better for generally everything. That means instead of a 10 foot wide door, you have a 6 foot wide door (or roughly 2 meters if I recall my measure comparison). Makes much more sense. Now as for crafting doors for every entrance, I agree, thats redundant, unless the dungeon was crafted very recently. Dungeons don't need doors at every turn, but even if they are crafted, having players check every door in a dungeon makes sense...its a dungeon, players should always be on their guard. But players who check for traps in places where traps should be logically unlikely (such as in town) are silly. And suspicious. So I'm thinking of having 3 of each of the following: Standard size doors Large, full frame doors Double doors Stone archway (no door) And then have, as needed, a variety of special doors. I have in addition to those five categories of doors one more broken down doors! Especially if the dungeon has had many visitors there would be many busted down doors.
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Post by onethatwas on Jan 22, 2014 4:03:48 GMT
Quite true. Broken doors belong on that list as well, although I would have to consider how to craft it...
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