Dynamic Tiles for an Everchanging World

I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons most of my life. When I was younger, our games relied heavily on imagination. We used pewter figures to represent our characters on the table top. I guess in the earlier years, these figures often represented the marching order of the party. Sometimes we arranged them in strategic positions on a hand drawn arena made from either paper or a dry erase surface. This was always enough to satisfy the player's thirst for role-playing and adventure.

As the core rules evolved, so did our games. Particularly, our use of game figures and mapping. We've always made the best of whatever resources were available. For example, one of the guys in our group has a rather impressive "Heroscape" collection. The figures are slightly larger than the official Dungeons and Dragons figures. One of the problems with his figures is that the standard 1 inch grid is just a tad too small for their larger bases, but it would cost us a lot of money to replace them just to reduce the scale by about a quarter of an inch. I have been wanting to create a unique tile system for some time now, so this size situation presented the perfect excuse to become crafty.

The official Dungeon Tiles Master Set that Wizards of the Coast puts out is rather pathetic. I mean, the packaging and materials are awesome, the image resolution is stunning, but the re-useability is absolutely horrible. It's like they have all of the best artists and packaging expertise, but lack in the game engineering department. I wonder if the people who made these tiles ever used them in an ongoing campaign before. My guess is that they laid them down on a table to see how well the D&D patented figures sat on top of them and then rushed the tiles into production. 

So what I'm bitching about is a lack of re-usability! I bought the Dungeon Tiles Master Set and still haven't found the right opportunity to use them. Why not? Well, mostly because the tiles only fit together in a couple of different ways. They simply aren't that modular. You'd be better off printing a couple of scenarios out on your printer then to try manipulating these partial scenarios into anything that resembles an arena for combat.

So, once I finally decided that I would need to develop my own tiles, I spent some time researching other people's attempts at it. There are a lot of really great works out there, but again, the artistic nature is not purely what I am after. I want a dynamic set of tiles that can be reused for many gaming sessions. I don't want to have to reserve a room in my home just to store my tiles either. Everything must fit into one tidy box that can be easily moved and stored too. I guess some of my ideas spawned from observations of other people's tiles, but most of my ideas actually came from video games.

Back in the mid-90's, I was learning how to program isometric 3D video games. While working with the maps, I learned that there's really only 16 different variations of tiles that can be used to represent two opposing types of terrain. For example, let's say you want to make Wall & Floor tile combinations. There's going to be 16 variations of tiles starting with one tile of just a plain floor (with no walls). The next 14 tiles are going to be wall segments with partial floors, then a final piece that is a solid wall (with no floor). This concept seemed to be the most versatile and because of it, video game designers have been using it for decades with great success. Why not use the same concept for a tabletop mapping system too?

I borrowed graphic tidbits from here and there, got creative with some of my own touches, but the finished tiles were unique. I saved my work and brought the print job to Staples to print on heavy card stock. The paper wasn't quite thick enough to use for floor tiles, so I glued them to square foam board cutouts. These tiles aren't meant to be perfect. They are just a prototype, but they work really great.

I knew that the only way these tiles would ever be truly modular would be if they all were equally sized squares. By using squares (not rectangles) the orientation of each tile is no longer an obstacle when configuring your playing field. The next thing I needed to figure out was how many squares wide each tile should be. I decided to make each of my tiles 3 x 3 squares. This choice didn't come easy. I had to decide what the narrowest hallway could be. That's easy... a hallway can't be any narrower than 1 square wide. Then I had to be able to construct hallways that could be 2 or 3 squares wide too. The 3 x 3 square tiles could handle these concerns, although it may feel a little tricky manipulating the tiles at first.

Next, I wanted to consider the smallest and largest rooms that I would want to see in my campaigns. The smallest rooms are easy to imagine; a 2 x 2 square area would be the absolute smallest room that I could envision. I did better than that! I actually figured out how to make a 1 x 1 closet! And as far as the largest room goes... I can make a room larger than our tabletop! The rooms can be square, rectangle, or take on many odd shapes. Everything falls together quite seamlessly. How's that for versatility?

I created an 80-tile set (printed on both sides) for a total of 160 interchangeable tiles. On one side, I printed Indoor Dungeons, on the other, Outdoor Grass & Trees. Since each tile has a basic geometric scheme, the tiles all contain the same exact scheme per tile. For example, if there's an L shaped wall on one side, then you'll find an L shaped segment of trees on the other. This makes it a lot easier to find what you're looking for, even if some of the tiles are flipped over.

Because these map tile segments all show some sort of wall or line of trees, I haven't needed to fashion wall props for our campaigns. Although, if I 'did' decide to drop in some walls, they could be easily placed atop the printed wall or tree segments on my tiles. I actually do this more for the trees, since I want to make it clear to the players that the lines of trees are not something they can walk around in. The idea here is to eliminate bulky wall pieces.

My tile system is still a work in progress, but it's added a lot of excitement to our Dungeons & Dragons games lately. With it, I am able to instantly piece together a game playing field that provides a strategic arena. My players are able to quickly and easily map out the random areas on graph paper to save for future reference too. With the use of figures and sculpted props to further enhance the 3D perspective, the tiles really come to life. (More about 3D dungeon props in my next blog)