"Dungeon Design Question" Topic

I am about to start construction on my dungeon. I have supplies assembled and the design in mind. However I am held up over WALLS.

Some of the dungeons I've seen and played in have nice tall stone walls like the one Tango01 showed us this morning: TMP link

Others are just 2-d cardstock laying flat on the table.

I noticed in smaller rooms or rooms with lots of figures and terrain in them that my fingers feel clumsy moving the miniatures. I thought it might be the walls. So I was thinking of making the walls shorter. Tall in some areas but mostly shorter to allow easy miniature manipulation. Thoughts? I'm just not sure how this would work out. It might be too ugly and have to be scrapped in favor of taller walls.

Thanks!

Make the rooms big – and the walled of areas thick, and you have your problems solved and you can have high walls.

If you are having little cramped rooms, then have low walls and pain the tops a colour to let people know that they are impassable!

I like how this guy does his walls:
YouTube link
Not too high but they are there… and they can be cut to differentiate between bricks, caves, huge stones, etc.
His stuff is pretty simple (and cheap as can be) but it's easy to see how more could be added… get as elaborate as you'd like.

I would go to the Hirst Arts site and take a look at his dungeon designs. In general his gothic dungeons have a combination of high and low walls while the field stone and egyptian themed one just use low walls.
hirstarts.com/goth/goth.html
link
link

I made walls for a 28mm space station out of foamcore, 1 1/2" high. You can see over them but the troops look like they're inside the room because you're looking down at them.

Shorter walls, especially in narrow areas. Taller around the perimeter or in wide areas. Also, make your squares larger so you have more finger and figure pose space.

I'm about to start on Super Dungeon Explore construction. The 2D gameboard tiles have 23mm squares. Having done a careful study of the largest figures, I'll be building 3D with 35mm squares. Max. wall height 3", but shorter in a lot of areas. Shorter walls also give a more pleasing view of the figures in action, not just the tops of their heads!

At a con I saw a gut that had made some critical walls removable. They sat in place with magnets.

I actually find the idea of so many dungeons, week after week is quite dull, and breaks player's suspension of dis-belief.

So I bought a few blocks of pottery clay, cut thick slices from it, and molded them into cave floors and ceilings ( a little tedious to carve the squares into the floor sections,)
Then Bake them and use normal pottery methods to finish it.

They can be used as a cave system /lava tubes/kobold burrows/Gnoll Dens, etc. as well as crumbling/ruined castles/forts/holds.

I have seen a fair few people set off on the road of creating their own dungeon pieces. Many with Hirst arts kit and some with their own creations. I have never seen any of them actually "finnish" a setup.

I mean, some have created some large layouts etc, but many have given up after a while.

I am a big Dwarven Forge Fan. I love their terrain. Have been steadily building up my collection over time. I have precious limited free time, these days. So yes its pricy but I will save up and buy the odd set here and there as I can.

In actual game usage, I find it easy to use. See my blog!
link

I have heard some folks say, they find it hard to "look into" the DF setups to see what is going on. I personally never struggled but guess it comes down to the hight of your table and seating.

Personally I prefer 3d over 2d dungeons. I don't use my DF sets every game, as frankly that would get dull indeed, but I find they really help bring some adventures to life.

When you pack out a room with terrain etc, you do find that bases etc for figures can clash, but I just take a care when moving figures. Get the same when moving figures on a battle field when in units etc. I don't worry about it overly.

a 3d dungeon is a great thing and make the game clearer and more immersive. chases etc become a breeze to GM, you can use blip counters for possible wandering monsters ("there's a faint sound of footsteps from the room you just left!") but they work better if they are modular. I'd so something you can put together on the fly with removable walls, so if moving a large miniature becomes problematic either you use the rule "if the model doesn't fit then the monster doesn't fit" or you temporarily move the wall aside, complete the character's movement, then put back the wall.

I guess I'm an exception because I have "finished" a layout. I put the word finished in quotes because it's a very modular dungeon and I plan on adding bits and pieces in the future.

link

This is all Hirst Arts and not even all of the dungeon.

Back to the original question. I went with low (1 inch) walls because so many minis extend over the base and monsters certainly do. This way the mini will fit and will also be in the proper place on the board.

I didn't go with fancy bits but I did paint fancy floors.