This is the 12th of an 18 part series on How to be a DM. To start at the beginning, click here.
Interior Scenes
Showing interior scenes to your players requires a bit more work. Because characters are inside a building or structure, you have to deal with doors and windows and walls and hidden passages. Not to mention furnishings like beds and chests.
If you use a grid mat for interiors, the pace of the adventure slows down. It is too easy to miscount squares and draw a map wrong, which can impact other rooms and scenes.
I try to prepare as much as possible beforehand and use cardboard or foam board tiles that I have ready to plop down on the table. I usually still use the vinyl grid on the table as there may be interaction with the exterior, such as when a PC sneaks around the building to peek through a window.
Different Types of Interior Scenes
- Dungeons (dirt floors including caves, and tunnels)
- Castles (including other stone-floor places like libraries and government offices)
- Town buildings (wood-floor buildings like taverns, shops, private homes, and stables)
The dungeon scenes have ill -defined walls with irregular, organic shapes, so making each room as a tile works well. I craft the rooms out of cardboard and have it ready to go with any props needed at game time.
For castles and town scenes, I use rooms made of tiles that are grouped together and tacked to foam board so it can be put down as a unit. These interiors usually have rectangular walls so they are modular and can be reused. I crafted these tiles out of foam board and spent time adding details on the walls since they are reusable.
Don’t Forget to Give Descriptions
As the players move through the area, I set down additional rooms and add the miniatures and other props when they are visible to the players. Make sure you are verbally add detail to the scene while you are laying out the props. Tiles and props do not replace good descriptions, they supplement it.
Remember that you do not have to model every piece of furniture. You are trying to give flavor to the scene and provide options for the characters during combat. For example, beds can be flipped up and used for cover. Tables can be magically pushed towards an opponent. The tiles provide the framework which verbal descriptions fills in.
Interior props can be store bought or crafted. Some supplies I’ve found by raiding my children’s old toy sets.
For doors, windows, and other vertical props I print out pictures I’ve either drawn, photographed, or found online and resized at the correct scale in Word or Publisher. After printing them out, I laminate them using a technique that gives them a base so they can stand up.
Try to stay organized so that you are not making your players wait while you hunt around for everything you need in the scene.
So the scene is now set for combat and the bad guys arrive. The next story discusses how to show the charactersWho’s that hiding under there?
Bitzy the Bard
“Life is an adventure story and you are the star. Choose to play a hero!”
