What do you consider essential terrain pieces?

inspiration

#1

I’m wanting to compile this list for our new and who want to get into making terrain and don’t know what to make or what to start with.

For my game, I play with Dungeon Crafts UDT. So my list is biased to that.

  • Room walls
  • Open doors
  • closed doors
  • chests
  • tables
  • barrels
  • crates
  • fireplaces
  • trees
  • bushes
  • fountains
  • statues
  • cavern walls
  • cave spikes
  • cage/ jail
  • flame vents?
  • pillars
  • wardrobe
  • Altar
  • stairs
  • Gravestones
  • Sarcophagus

Revision #1
Dungeon stackers would eliminate the need for several pieces of terrain. Such as Walls, Stairs, Alters, Statutes, and anything else big, and bulky.


#2

I’d be interested in seeing pictures of what people use.


#3
  1. Pillar or trees (same function, block line of sight)

2.Hedges or small walls (offer cover or cover) can act as tall walls with an explanation that these walls are 20 feet tall.

Everything else…is bonus.


#4

I like searching for poison berries on shrubs or tossing a mattress out a window to cushion my escape out of the second story… :metal::sunglasses:

I’m a very macgyver like player.


#5

Dungeon Stackers, pretty easy to build and offers a lot options.


#6

Dungeon stackers. What is that?


#7

#8

I was actually so interested i googles it r if it after posting. Pretty darn awesome.

What thickness are those layers you think?


#9

I think it’s 1 inch styrofoam board insulation.


#10

I mainly play overland, so that affects my preferences. But like @Paxx , I find that the things I use most are

  1. Trees: limited full cover
  2. Ruined walls: extended partial cover
    Followed by
  3. Tower segments: an abrupt change in elevation to climb, jump from, and circle around.

The only other thing I often wish I had was more scatter.


#11

I Should be clear. I am defining Essential…if I am using terrain, what is the least I would want?

Pillars/trees

hedges/low walls

Would I love everything modeled out…yes…I love scatter and low wall approach…but I don’t know if I need it. Or that fully modeled is that much more important to conceptualize and immerse myself into the adventure.

That said, bad motif models, can be more distracting to me then abstract stuff.

For example, really well done Sci-fi rusted war torn terrain, cannot be a substitute for an opulent fantasy palace. Even if the floor plan is identical.


#12

I use painted up jenga tiles for walls, pillars, you name it. About 6 doors (though hardly ever use that many), a couple of stairs, and a some blobs of crates made by gluing together small woden cubes.
I have a whole host of other stuff, but those are used pretty much all the time.
I’ll post a separate topic on it in the next couple of days, as I show off my new GM-to-go-dungeon-in-a-box system with pics of it all.