My players are all engineers and they tend to map abstractly. Their usually look like logic trees or something are so cryptic usually only the guy who drew the map can decipher it later.

Speaking of players mapping last session Dave Kenzer was running the game. My wife decided to take it upon herself to map the dungeon.

Dave pauses at one point as says, 'Does your character have cartography as a skill?"

The wife gives him a confused look. "No."

Dave grabs her map and tears it up.

I think he was just having a bit of fun with her but his explanation was the dungeon was so complex with twists/turns that the map would be useless.

Quote from: Windjammer;367153But .... but... it's bloody expensive! Even a good auction on British Ebay will have me shell out 70 pounds for just the most basic set...

In other news though, the latest release of WotC Dungeon Tiles ("Harrowing Halls" - Amazon is your friend) comes with 3D terrain which you 'construct' by putting the carton pieces together. See here:



It's a brilliant product idea, since people like myself have long yearned for an affordable alternative to Dwarvenforge. And let's face it, those tiles are damn cheap!

very nice.

For my 50th b-day last summer someone gave me several boxes of home-made Dwarven-Forge sets that were as good as the real thing.

He bought the molds online and makes them in his garage with some sort of dental foam. I've been meaning to get the details from him so I can make some myself.

About Dungeon Tiles:



Dwarven Forge:



I honestly think both types of props are cool. They're just different in feel, demands and purposes, IMO. For instance, you can just wing it with the tiles as you go, even when you use them in 3D (which I did quite a bunch of times). You can't just wing it with Dwarven Forge (unless you already have a freakishly organized collection, for instance with preset pieces on 1'x1' wooden platforms that you place as you go like a lego on a giant table - I know of guys playing like this) - you have to be organized, know the area covered by the game session before it occurs, set up the table in advance, cover the areas with cloth and uncover them as the PCs explore, etc. The eye candy power is multiplied uberfold, obviously, and it's much cooler for players able to actually immerse themselves in their character while manipulating miniatures on the 3D model (yes, these are not automatically paradoxical aims).

Quote from: winkingbishop;367150Speaking of LEGO, I've always wanted to do this:

http://gunth.com/brickquest/

Unfortunately, not enough LEGO.  And my niece is getting pretty close to the age where she'll probably get to play with them.

I'm definitely looking at using LEGO as the bridge for my kids to roleplaying games.

For awhile now my players have used the flowchart method of mapping.  Instead of precisely mapping out the dimensions of a dungeon they just use circles and boxes with lines connecting them and liberal usage of notation to keep track of where they're going.

Quote from: Benoist;367180

Are the characters in the dice cases invisible?

Seanchai

Quote from: MonkeyWrench;367188For awhile now my players have used the flowchart method of mapping.  Instead of precisely mapping out the dimensions of a dungeon they just use circles and boxes with lines connecting them and liberal usage of notation to keep track of where they're going.

Oh yes. Kinda like this:



This is a diagram showing the areas of the dungeon in my second Arcana Evolved campaign that were explored, i.e. actual Dwarven Forge set-ups, as well as areas which have not been explored, the circles on the diagram, with the various access points and connections between all these areas (note the plugs of published modules, like the Demon God's Fane of Malhavoc Press and the Whispering Vault from Paizo).

Quote from: Seanchai;367194Are the characters in the dice cases invisible?

Seanchai

They were trapped in gigantic jars of amiotic fluids, actually.

Quote from: Benoist;367198They were trapped in gigantic jars of amiotic fluids, actually.

I hate when that shit happens to me.  

I wish I had a picture to share (the "figure" is stashed away somewhere) but one of the strangest props I've presented on battlemap was an ooze.  A very special ooze.  As an aside, I once mentioned to my brother during our childhood that I wished I had a miniature for oozes and jellies (because Play-Doh is only funny for so long).  You know what he did for me?  He got a large base and melted down a plastic Space Marine with a blowtorch.  After he had a good puddle of scorched plastic he added some "moss" texture.  The thing is awesome.  The process probably causes cancer in closed quarters.  If I find it during my next move, I'll snap a pic to share.

Oh, and to get back on topic:  I remember once upon time doing my players a favor for complex dungeons.  I believe the dungeon is question was Ruins of the Undermountain.  I photocopied sections and snipped them up as they explored.  That was pretty generous of me at the time.  Like I mentioned earlier, we usually went with the "Zork" method - those ended up looking a lot like Benoist's hand-drawn above.

Quote from: winkingbishop;367202I wish I had a picture to share (the "figure" is stashed away somewhere) but one of the strangest props I've presented on battlemap was an ooze.  A very special ooze.  As an aside, I once mentioned to my brother during our childhood that I wished I had a miniature for oozes and jellies (because Play-Doh is only funny for so long).  You know what he did for me?  He got a large base and melted down a plastic Space Marine with a blowtorch.  After he had a good puddle of scorched plastic he added some "moss" texture.  The thing is awesome.  The process probably causes cancer in closed quarters.  If I find it during my next move, I'll snap a pic to share.

Dude, that's awesome. I'd love to see the results. I've actually been pondering the subject of home-made ooze figures for some time, but never actually took the next step towards actual experiments. So color me interested, at the very least.

Quote from: winkingbishop;367202The process probably causes cancer in closed quarters.

:jaw-dropping:

Or two-headed, flipper-armed children.

Quote from: The Shaman;367214:jaw-dropping:

Or two-headed, flipper-armed children.

Cancerous Jelly. 5 HD Ooze. On contact, save vs. Polymorph. On a failed saving throw, see Gamma World's Random Mutations table for more detail.

Quote from: Benoist;367212Dude, that's awesome. I'd love to see the results. I've actually been pondering the subject of home-made ooze figures for some time, but never actually took the next step towards actual experiments. So color me interested, at the very least.

No promises in the near future Benoist, but I'll definitely search the probable spots pretty soon.  If I find it, you'll get a pic.

Quote from: Benoist;367197Oh yes. Kinda like this:

Something like that, yeah.  Ours are much more sloppy and haphazard though.

Quote from: MonkeyWrench;367188For awhile now my players have used the flowchart method of mapping.  Instead of precisely mapping out the dimensions of a dungeon they just use circles and boxes with lines connecting them and liberal usage of notation to keep track of where they're going.

This is what I do as a player (and what I encourage my players to do when I'm GM) -- it's quick and easy and it gets the job done sufficiently for the vast majority of situations. The irony of graph-paper mapping is that if the dungeon is simple enough in layout that the average player can draw a graph-paper map of it accurately (e.g. a bunch of straight corridors leading between square and rectangular rooms) then it's almost certainly simple enough that you don't actually need that level of detail, and vice versa -- if the layout of the level is so crowded and complex that it's really going to make a difference on the players' map if the corridor is curved or slanted at exactly the correct angle, then it's almost certain that the players aren't going to be able to draw it accurately based on the GM's verbal descriptions (at least not without slowing the game down to a mind-numbing crawl for all the other players).