Post by erf_beto on Feb 8, 2010 10:41:41 GMT -5
Hello everyone.
There are many things I've been contemplating about tiles in DP that I'd like to share and ask. Maybe this will feel like a long random ranting when I'm done, but that's what the internetz are for, right?
Right now, there are two options for tiles in the download section: white border or black border. I've often wondered "why?". I mean, why do we need borders at all? I know it separates rooms from corridors but then it also separates everything to a point where you need doors to be placed everywhere.
I'm not saying I don't like them and they should be removed from the game - I actually think they are cute. But (for example) Wizards of the Coast sells D&D tiles without borders and they can be used in any fashion to produce rooms and corridors of any size imaginable. So I'm thinking, why not do that for DP?
Take a look at these:
See the upper right room? That's a composition of a couple of different tiles.
Another aproach would be the Advanced Heroquest tiles: rooms have borders (walls), but corridors don't, so you can place several of them together to make unevenly shaped areas, but still have defined room sizes.
See what I mean here:
This is good to remove the "double wall" effect you have when you put halls and rooms with borders side by side, but in the end, I don't think DP would benefit that much from this.
Yet another possibility is the gameboard, a very big "blank" tile used as a board, that should fill you whole play area, where you place smaller tiles for the rooms and corridors, maybe with different colors or with defined walls. The main board can be used as part of the dungeon. Worldworks company seems to use these for their paper model sets. I like this approach, because it makes this possible:
By the way, check out this amazing page:
www.hq-cooperation.de/galerie/hq_modular/hqm_e.html
Pretty neat, huh? It also makes me want to build DP as that modular board, with rooms in one color and corridors in another. Add a gameboard with another color underneath... yummy!
And speaking of colors, is it possible to get the files and maybe a small tutorial to build new tiles? You know, with the same dungeon floor 'texture' wich I love so much. I doesn't look very polite to steal the image from the pdfs.
I actually want to help come up with this stuff, but another request of mine is for outdoor tiles. Woodland, grass, forests, cavern or desert floors... but in DP cartoony style.
I'm just not sure about how to handle the grid. Am I the only one who thinks plain overlays of a 1 inch grid is too artificial? Anyone have a better suggestion?
There doesn't need to be "rooms" and "corridors", only 2 or more A4 sheets of texture on a grid, for special quest encounters. Add some dressing on separate tiles (like a river, or a tree, or a boulder) and I'm happy.
Speaking of dressing, I've been designing a couple of dungeon dressing items, like bookcases, statues and firewalls. I'm thinking of doing some of them like the chests and doors (i.e. standing), while some like the fountain and the magic circles, only separated from the room tile.
But I remember an earlier version of DP had some 3d elements, like raised plataforms and fountain/sarcophagus paper models. They were very simple in design (so were the tiles back then), but I thought the idea behind them was fantastic. In the latest graphics revision they were abbandoned, it seems...
But why? Is it because mounting them is troublesome or people don't like paper models at all? I find the later impossible! What happened? Couldn't paper models for dungeon dressing become available for those who want them?
...
Well, I said this would be long... sorry ;D
Thanks for your patience!
So, in short:
1) why borders?
2) can the files for the tiles be shared?
3) outdoor tiles ideas? grid or no grid?
4) 3d dungeon decor: in or out?
Cheers,
Beto
There are many things I've been contemplating about tiles in DP that I'd like to share and ask. Maybe this will feel like a long random ranting when I'm done, but that's what the internetz are for, right?
Right now, there are two options for tiles in the download section: white border or black border. I've often wondered "why?". I mean, why do we need borders at all? I know it separates rooms from corridors but then it also separates everything to a point where you need doors to be placed everywhere.
I'm not saying I don't like them and they should be removed from the game - I actually think they are cute. But (for example) Wizards of the Coast sells D&D tiles without borders and they can be used in any fashion to produce rooms and corridors of any size imaginable. So I'm thinking, why not do that for DP?
Take a look at these:
See the upper right room? That's a composition of a couple of different tiles.
Another aproach would be the Advanced Heroquest tiles: rooms have borders (walls), but corridors don't, so you can place several of them together to make unevenly shaped areas, but still have defined room sizes.
See what I mean here:
This is good to remove the "double wall" effect you have when you put halls and rooms with borders side by side, but in the end, I don't think DP would benefit that much from this.
Yet another possibility is the gameboard, a very big "blank" tile used as a board, that should fill you whole play area, where you place smaller tiles for the rooms and corridors, maybe with different colors or with defined walls. The main board can be used as part of the dungeon. Worldworks company seems to use these for their paper model sets. I like this approach, because it makes this possible:
By the way, check out this amazing page:
www.hq-cooperation.de/galerie/hq_modular/hqm_e.html
Pretty neat, huh? It also makes me want to build DP as that modular board, with rooms in one color and corridors in another. Add a gameboard with another color underneath... yummy!
And speaking of colors, is it possible to get the files and maybe a small tutorial to build new tiles? You know, with the same dungeon floor 'texture' wich I love so much. I doesn't look very polite to steal the image from the pdfs.
I actually want to help come up with this stuff, but another request of mine is for outdoor tiles. Woodland, grass, forests, cavern or desert floors... but in DP cartoony style.
I'm just not sure about how to handle the grid. Am I the only one who thinks plain overlays of a 1 inch grid is too artificial? Anyone have a better suggestion?
There doesn't need to be "rooms" and "corridors", only 2 or more A4 sheets of texture on a grid, for special quest encounters. Add some dressing on separate tiles (like a river, or a tree, or a boulder) and I'm happy.
Speaking of dressing, I've been designing a couple of dungeon dressing items, like bookcases, statues and firewalls. I'm thinking of doing some of them like the chests and doors (i.e. standing), while some like the fountain and the magic circles, only separated from the room tile.
But I remember an earlier version of DP had some 3d elements, like raised plataforms and fountain/sarcophagus paper models. They were very simple in design (so were the tiles back then), but I thought the idea behind them was fantastic. In the latest graphics revision they were abbandoned, it seems...
But why? Is it because mounting them is troublesome or people don't like paper models at all? I find the later impossible! What happened? Couldn't paper models for dungeon dressing become available for those who want them?
...
Well, I said this would be long... sorry ;D
Thanks for your patience!
So, in short:
1) why borders?
2) can the files for the tiles be shared?
3) outdoor tiles ideas? grid or no grid?
4) 3d dungeon decor: in or out?
Cheers,
Beto