What gives, guys? The core modules list requirements for tiles that are out of print and cost a hundred bucks or more? (checked amazon and ebay, made calls locally) sets 2-7 are only ten bucks each, but the original Dungeon Tiles set is 100 bucks easy.
I wanted to get the tiles as to avoid the ugliness of photoshopped maps (since the modules only print one version of the map, one with all the notes tagged on them, useless for displaying to players) or drawing the maps myself (not good at drawing them, and it loses a lot of charm)
Suggestions?
Okay, so I'm not a new gamer, but I am new to RPGA and LFR. So I need the Dungeon Tiles sets in order to lay out the maps for play.
What gives, guys? The core modules list requirements for tiles that are out of print and cost a hundred bucks or more? (checked amazon and ebay, made calls locally) sets 2-7 are only ten bucks each, but the original Dungeon Tiles set is 100 bucks easy.
I wanted to get the tiles as to avoid the ugliness of photoshopped maps (since the modules only print one version of the map, one with all the notes tagged on them, useless for displaying to players) or drawing the maps myself (not good at drawing them, and it loses a lot of charm)
Suggestions?
If you have the tiles, then great - use them. If not, draw them out on a battlemap.
Alternatively, you could go through the lengths of drawing them on pads of 1-inch square graph paper, or via some other method.
Bottom line - module authors can use any Dungeon Tile sets for their maps and may continue to do so. No one expects you to always have the required tiles
I suppose it would be "polite" for authors to try and use newer sets, but the newer sets don't always match an author's vision for an encounter.
Some of us are wishing that newer sets would come out sooner... like Arcane Towers... grrr.
First of all, WotC requires us (the LFR staff and writers) to build our maps with Dungeon Tiles. The reason we were given was not so that DMs could easily build maps with them. The reason we were given was to ensure the maps did not look like there were hand-drawn by a 1st-grader (which my hand-drawn maps look like with apologies to talented 1st-graders who can out-draw me easily), with a potential benefit of making maps easily reproduced in whatever Game Table application was released in DDI. The maps I make for my own adventures, I always try to make with just one set of Tiles and make them fairly simple so as to be easily set up by DMs. However, this is not mandated, and sometimes it is necessary to make a complicated map to reproduce the vision of the writer.
Secondly, when the original adventures were created, the LFR staff was not aware that the early sets of Dungeon Tiles were going out of print. I'm sorry that some of the sets cost a lot in the secondary markets, and I would never pay that much for a set.
All that said, here is a suggestion: There is a Yahoo group that contains a free Dungeon Tiles mapper. If you search for it in the Yahoo groups list, I'm sure you can find it. You can use it to build the maps, and perhaps even print out 1-inch-scale maps.
Personally, despite owning mutiple copies of most sets of the tiles, I use erasable mats and/or 1-inch-grid graph paper to make most of my maps for games--unless the maps are very easy to create with a very few Dungeon Tiles.
I hope that helps!
Shawn
A lot of those tiles, especially the dark-colored ones, simply weren't designed to be readable except in color.
-karma
All that said, here is a suggestion: There is a Yahoo group that contains a free Dungeon Tiles mapper. If you search for it in the Yahoo groups list, I'm sure you can find it. You can use it to build the maps, and perhaps even print out 1-inch-scale maps.
Nope, it won't print out 1" scale maps. They set it up so it won't so as not to break copyright for the newer sets that have already been converted for it.
Nope, it won't print out 1" scale maps. They set it up so it won't so as not to break copyright for the newer sets that have already been converted for it.
It will if you save the map as an image and then size it yourself. Takes 30 seconds, but in saying that I prefer using the real tiles.
...and not everyone has access to an A3 colour printer.
It will if you save the map as an image and then size it yourself. Takes 30 seconds, but in saying that I prefer using the real tiles.
...and not everyone has access to an A3 colour printer.
You don't actually need a large-scale color printer, I've found (after some work). I have been playing around with some 'posterizing' software that seems to do the trick pretty well. Some printer drivers actually allow you to 'posterize' large graphics in the software without other add-ons.
Posteriza is the one I've been playing with lately. It's a little kludgy since you can't set the exact size of the final image, just the number of sheets it prints to, but I have gotten it to work pretty well for what I've needed so far.
I'd love to hear of anyone else that has found something similar (especially if it's better!). I'm printing on an HP Color Laserjet, and the driver software it came with doesn't seem to offer posterizing as a feature, so I'd also welcome any ideas for doing it directly.
-Lefty