Building a Better Dungeon

[joe5mc]

Okay, I don't know that my dungeon is better than any other, but it's mine, so I love it.  After a lot of thought, I decided to go old school and to build it out of plaster using Hirst Arts molds. It's slow, but the results are really attractive, and I'm having fun, which is the point. Here's what I've got so far...

[PhilB]

Looks good! I like the short walls. I use Dwarven Forge tiles, and frankly those high walls often get in the way, especially with the slightly oversized figures that are made these days.

You might consider adding a wee bit of moss and the occasional puddle, and perhaps a couple piles of rubble, just to break up the grey stone look.

[Freddy]

Looks cool, I like it!

Looks good! I like the short walls. I use Dwarven Forge tiles, and frankly those high walls often get in the way, especially with the slightly oversized figures that are made these days.

Yes, also short walls always come with an option to add a higher wall section with some interesting detail.

[snitcythedog]

Very nicely done.  I recognize all of those molds.  You made a wise decision not building the doorways into the walls.  Much more modular that way. 

[Frugalmax]

Looking good! I'm also making some more 3D tiles, though using a thick foam-core with cork on one side. It certainly doesn't have the heft of plaster tiles, but they look decent and they're quick to make. Can't say I'm not envious of the sturdier stuff, though! Thanks for sharing!

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Very nice.

[joe5mc]

I should probably get a better background, but here's a quick shot on my Dungeon progress. It's slow, but satisfying work!

[PhilB]

Still lookin' good!
Now you just need about ten times more tiles...

[zemjw]

Still lookin' good!
Now you just need about ten times more tiles...

It does indeed, but the 10x more tiles is what's always brought me to a screeching halt I spent weeks, and a lot of filament, printing out some Fat Dragon spaceship tiles, only to discover I just about had enough for a room and a corridor

[Frugalmax]

The tiles continue to look great- inspiring stuff, thanks for posting!

Still lookin' good!
Now you just need about ten times more tiles...

It does indeed, but the 10x more tiles is what's always brought me to a screeching halt I spent weeks, and a lot of filament, printing out some Fat Dragon spaceship tiles, only to discover I just about had enough for a room and a corridor

As an aside- one of the best dungeon crawl games I ever played in only used the square room tiles from Warhammer Quest, not paying attention to what the art was, just using them interchangeably as square rooms. The only tiles on the table at one time were tile that the players were on and any adjacent ones they could see into. Originally the idea with the game was that it would give the players a sense of being in a maze (which worked, I think), so they would have to keep track of what rooms had what doors going where and so forth. (As an aside to the aside- this approach was inspired by the labyrinth in the library of the novel "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Ecco, which if I recall was based on hexagonal rooms, but square ones worked just as well for us!). One thing that came out of that game was the realization that although seeing a big dungeon splayed out before you is always awesome, if you just use a few tiles at a time you keep the playing area manageable, and you don't actually need to make or own that many tiles at all (not that this has kept me from making more tiles than I need; I just like to make stuff). 
This is kind of the "miniatures game" approach to Professor Dungeon Master's "Ultimate Dungeon Terrain" (video here: )
- It's less theater of the mind than the Ultimate Dungeon Terrain, but more contained than the sprawling dungeon.  Anyway, just a thought in case the scale of a dungeon project is intimidating!

[joe5mc]

Yeah, my idea is that I'll let the players 'map' the dungeon and we can just pull up tiles that aren't being used at the time, but by having a few corridors, it gives a place to put wandering monsters that aren't right in in the PCs face!

[snitcythedog]

It's slow, but satisfying work!

If you are looking to speed the process up a bit, Hirst allows people to make their own molds of his bricks as long as neither the molds or the bricks from the molds are offered for resale.  Conversely I could lend you molds 70 and 74.  I can't help with the floor tiles as yours are the 1 inch grid.  My mold is the same design for the 1.5 inch grid.  All my hirst molds have been sat unused in a bin since I  immigrated ten years ago. 

[Tom Dulski]

 Oh that Ultimate Dungeon Terrain idea is really good!

[SgtSlag]

I love that you went pretty much 2D in your design.  Full 3D is fun, but the walls block LOS for many players and DM's.

I went down a similar rabbit hole, using 2D PDF tiles:  I bought the color PDF's for dungeons, caverns, and some traps, too.  I love them.  I printed them on regular paper, cut them out, and I applied them to the glue side of peel-n-stick vinyl floor tiles.  I found, at the time, several years ago, floor tiles on sale for $0.39/square foot tile.  I did not care what pattern they had, as that side would be down.

I quickly learned that I never seemed to have enough of the correct pieces I needed for making up my dungeon layouts!  I always needed more hallway lengths, more rooms/modular room pieces, corners, etc.  It was very frustrating.  I also discovered that when I stack my vinyl tile pieces, they get really heavy, really fast...  I made enough to cover most of my Ping Pong gaming table:


They look great, and only the upright doors block LOS.  I love 2D terrain.  I really need to use it more in my games.  I spent a sum of money, and loads of time, making these tiles.  I also covered each one with translucent vinyl shelf liner, to make them scuff/water resistant.  They're fun to use in a game, but I don't run dungeon crawls all that often anymore...


If you are having fun with your project, that is all that matters.  Enjoy!

There are more photos, more information, available on my blog page on this topic.  Cheers!

[zemjw]

I went down a similar rabbit hole, using 2D PDF tiles:  I bought the color PDF's for dungeons, caverns, and some traps, too.  I love them.  I printed them on regular paper, cut them out, and I applied them to the glue side of peel-n-stick vinyl floor tiles.  I found, at the time, several years ago, floor tiles on sale for $0.39/square foot tile.  I did not care what pattern they had, as that side would be down.

I like that idea. I glued mine to mountboard, which was fine, but the bond seems to have weakened over the years and they're almost at the peeling stage. I'm just about to throw some vinyl floor tiles out (I had great plans for them at some point, I guess), but they may just have earned a reprieve.