Cheap and Flexible Terrain Building

First of all, I have to thank ChattyDM as the inspiration for this article came from one of his tweets yesterday. I have been toying with the idea of building 3D terrains for role-playing instead of using a standard battle map for a long time, but I rarely play at my own house so setup is often not feasible. However, it there is a better way than using actual set pieces such as walls, trees, etc.

That’s right, you guessed it, Lego! I realize that you all probably think that I have gone insane – or more so for those who already thought that I lost my marbles long ago – but think about it for a minute. Building for a town or rooms of a dungeon can be setup at your house ahead of time, thrown in a bag, and will stay in one piece while they are being transported. These rooms or buildings can then be placed on thin Lego plates such as the town landscape tiles when you plan on playing. This also gives the flexibility to only put up rooms that the party has been to so the players do not “look ahead” at what is coming next.

Different rooms may be different heights to show tall caverns, vaulted ceilings, etc. with ease. This would also make deciding if someone has full, partial, or no cover really easy as there are solid surfaces to help you gauge this. A 2×2 grid of pegs should be about the right size for a normal battle map square (5′ in gaming terms) so the standard miniatures from most manufacturers should work with no problems.

Now if only I hadn’t sold off all of my Lego when I was in junior high school.