"Building interior floor plans" Topic

Some of you may know, I am into detailed building interiors. 15mm and 28mm horror, even TSATF

A dilemna that has troubled me for years is making interiors with a grid floorplan, for games like Zombie Plague, Stars Wars, anything that requires a grid floor.

You know what I mean. Detailed interiors are easy when it's say, TSATF, guys are in the building, melee against attackers with very general movement (in that case, they are "In", "Out" "Fighting their way in", doesn't matter about grids.)

But with grids, it's not as simple as 2 D maps. Walls, no matter how thin, impede on floorplans.

I'm thinking 1" grids for a 15mm building, and 1.25" grids for a 28mm.

Have great floorplans, but in 15mm, 3/4" can be tricky, with 1" high walls, a 1 grid wide hallway makes it impossible to even grab the damn figure.

Same in 28mm with 1" grids.

What do you think?

Have you considered 2.5D walls? Corridor terrain where the walls are half height. So in 15mm with a 20mm (3/4 inch) grid the walls are 1/2 inch tall instead of 1 inch.

You also might want to ask this question in the DunegeonCrawl board in the Fantasy section.

Yes. But for a really detailed, interior of say a haunted house, with fixtures and furniture, it won't suffice.

Removable walls? So you can lift the wall, move your mini, then put the wall back.

Or use a small stick to push the minis around from above.

I have been toying with the same problem as well and figured I would just have to make the hall/corridor 2 inches wide (50mm) then compensate for the walls so the base would have to be 50mm plus the walls, then I could get my fat little fingers in and move the figures.

For a corridor, I'd go with one wall being full height, and the opposite wall being very low (to represent a wall being there.) This allows minis with their arms/claws spread out to reasonably fit into the corridor, while still having the visual appeal of a wall behind them. When I made my own 3-D 15mm & 28mm Space Hulk sets, I did the same thing (except just left out the walls opposite to the full height ones, as the minis would never fit into such a constricted space.) That's about the best trade-off you can hope for while keeping the floor square size reasonable.

They have some.

link

Ever consider just useing a tape measure?
I don't mean a big Stanley Powerlock, just a small cloth or plastic one like they sell in a fabric store. (Sometimes at the dollar store too)

Free yourself from the grid.

I don't know what tsatf means.

John T

TSATF: The Sword and The Flame, colonial rules.

I expect it comes back to two issues

1) ground scale and miniature scale are not the same.

2) our fingers are huge in terms of either scale (imagine a creature in your own dimensions trying to be used in the game, now imagine that creature trying to slip a pair of fingers into a hallway or room – instant issue.)

Also functionally, what effect does all the lamps. wooden tables, cloth couches have on the actual conflict/game play mechanics? Despite Hollywood those primarily are concealment, not "hard cover" the minute you introduce gunpowder weapons.

The whole diorama aspect comes into conflict with real world physics and suspension of disbelief when you try to play. Sadly, compromise becomes necessary.

The modules I write with terrain included often have "simple 3D" walls. Basically a front wall and back wall you print and fold in half. Here's what one of the building rooms from Monster of the Week Club looks like …

The modules I write with terrain included often have "simple 3D" walls. Basically a front wall and back wall you print and fold in half. Here's what one of the building rooms from Monster of the Week Club looks like …

Neat! Where can I find these modules?

My publisher page at Wargame Vault. Quite a few of them have them (though some only have, like, one stock building to be repeated) and I think I did a decent job on the descriptions indicating which have simple 3D terrain.

Smaller bases, wider hallways and corridors, and perhaps, plastic tweezers.

Don't know who make the latter, but I have seen them in the past.

It seems that perhaps computer game might be the best mode to play a game with that detail.

Like making maps it is most often what you leave out or generalize that is the key design issue.

Somebody straighten out John Treadway! Doesn't know what TSATF is? Really? Blasphemy! :)

Elotheipi, LOL! I have those paper bookcases and tables! Got them from some RPGnow download.

And no, no tape measure. Works fine for TSATF and such, but Zombie Plague and others are GRID based for interiors.

OK, went with 1.5 and 1 inch grids for 28 and 15mm.

It works.

Thanks guys

LOL Mako11 so it's a wargame and "Operation" mixed together. :)

Somebody straighten out John Treadway! Doesn't know what TSATF is? Really? Blasphemy! :)

I have trouble just keeping up with the plethora of acronyms and the way they swap: I once read a thread for twenty minutes before I worked out that WotR meant War of the Roses and not War of the Ring…

I fall foul myself – no one's perfect – but it does make it hard to follow for a no-nuffin' like me! ;)

John T

I have those paper bookcases and tables!

If you have those specific ones, you got them from this …

… and you also have the walls to make the rooms

Nope elotheipi, I got the bookcases from another set, about 2008.

Well, you should cough up the two bucks and get this set too! Plus the walls and doors. The rooms are set up to be modular … you can make a bunch of them then set them next to each other to make larger multi-room mansions, which is part of what the OP was getting at, right?