Tiles

[ronpyatt]

I purchased some dungeon tiles. Very pretty. In the past, I've purchased poster maps, hex maps and vinyl grids for drawing out my own maps. This is different.

Someone told me today that they don't use tiles because they don't use miniatures in their games.

Is this true for your games?
How do you use your tiles?
And the most important question of all: What do you use to carry your tiles once you've punched them out of their frame?

[Webhead]

I bought the set of Star Wars tiles that WotC released, mostly out of curiousity to see their quality and how generally usable they are. I was rather pleasantly surprised.

I was initially hesitant because I don't like to use battle maps unless necessary, but I figured that it might be an easier way to handle them than to have to draw and redraw on a big, erasable battle mat.

You know what...it is. They have proven to be quite handy for whipping up a battle mat on the fly (takes less than 2 minutes or so to arrange the tiles into an interesting configuration). They are thick and very sturdy and the color and design are good quality. And the Star Wars tiles are all double-sided with different illustrations on each side for adding different elements to your map. Very nice.

The only down side with the Star Wars tiles is that they are all for "interior" locations. There are no tiles representing outdoors encounters. There are, of course, generic "gray" tiles which can be used for any kind of situation, and they work just fine in that regard. I'm hoping that a future pack will include some "exterior" type tiles.

All in all, for your money, they are a good value if you intended to use "grid-based" combat in your games.

[tesral]

I've got a bunch I just printed out. (One of the free PDFs RPG Now was giving out.) I have not used them yet but I can see the appeal of the things. I have to trim them down and attach them to some heavier stock.

I have used similar "made myself" things in the past. They are useful.

The only restriction I see is the fact that you have the tiles and well you have the tiles. If you don't have a shape you either need to make it or do without. It remains to be seen how much that effects design.

My ideal product would be something like the Dwarven Forge stuff by made of dense foam and with lower walls for better visibility. Then however, you get into storage. The other end was a set of stamps I saw for sale to spiffy up your battlemat drawings. I can't seem to find the website in my book marks. A bit of Google Fu is in order.

All in all tiles are a nice middle ground.

Are there not some on line programs to construct tiles from pre-made elements? I remember hearing about them.

Edit: Found them

[Kilrex]

I've got a bunch I just printed out. (One of the free PDFs RPG Now was giving out.) I have not used them yet but I can see the appeal of the things. I have to trim them down and attach them to some heavier stock.

I bought some of the tiles from Game Mastery I think it was. They were very nice. I used to make my own out of 3x5 and 5x8 notecards, make a loop of tape, and stick them to my grid. Now I make my own on the computer or download them, print them out, and paste to notecards.

One of my players in my last group made a triangle out of paper, drew the front of his char on one side, the back side he put a small character intro and taped the bottom to a 1x1 plastic tile. Was very cool and he ended up having to make one for each character, bought with in-game wealth.

[jade von delioch]

I download them and print them out when they are needed.

[Engar]

I just picked up a set of wilderness tiles (DnD) and a set of future tiles (Saga) after seeing a GM use them. The actual heavy stock versions you can buy (or probably make if you want) are very modular. As a battle shifts (or even splits) it is easy to pick up the first tile everyone moved off of and toss it down in the new direction. Maybe it is just my general aversion to mats at all that this is a "new" idea to me, but it works and since I will at least occassionally have to use a grid for 4e...

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Sure do. I use dungeon tiles when i can.

I'd love to have a complete set of http://www.dwarvenforge.com/store/home.php
but my income wont allow it at this time.

Thoth-Amon

[tesral]

Sure do. I use dungeon tiles when i can.

I'd love to have a complete set of http://www.dwarvenforge.com/store/home.php
but my income wont allow it at this time.

Thoth-Amon

Not to mention where would I put the things?

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Not to mention where would I put the things?

Exactly. They do take up quite a bit of space.

Thoth-Amon

[agoraderek]

i voted "no" because i dont use store bought tiles, but i do make my own, i dont know if that counts...

wow, those dwarven forge thingies are expensive...neat, though...

[cplmac]

I've heard of them, but have never seen them before. If they're all like the dwarven forge one, they are cool. Can't justify that type of an expense.

[nijineko]

i collect them when i can. very useful for online gaming, especially play-by-post. allows everyone to 'see' something of where they are, particularly when "positionally sensitive" situations occur.

[Engar]

Those dwarven forge things are neat. For me they are not practical enough to buy, but they sure look cool. If I had space and money to burn I would load up.

[Tomcat1066]

Those tiles are seriously cool. However, I doubt it would be practical for my group.

A shame too, because it would be awesome playing on something like that.

[Skunkape]

I generally use terrain, whether it be actual tiles or cardstock/plaster terrain created to replace the tiles. I feel that the use of miniatures and tiles/terrain is very important to allow everyone to use tactics if they wish during the game.

I've had players argue with me when an enemy moves and attacks using the same terrain that they had previously, but when it was pointed out to them, they had to stop arguing because they realized that I wasn't being one sided with the rules, you know, allowing the monsters to do something and not allowing the PCs to do the same. If I hadn't had the tiles right there infront of them, I would have never been able to show the player(s) that they had just done the same thing!