Theo Dudek, Ultimate Game Master

Lately I have been spending a lot of money on miniatures and landscape for my D&D games. I know that some people would say it’s unnecessary, and certainly I like boardless and rules-light RPGs too, but there is something appealing about creating an entire *space* for use in role-playing games. When I see incredible layouts for Warhammer — or even model trains — I always think, “If only someone ran a roleplaying game using that setting!” A few train bum and railway yard worker figures could add greatly to the illusion of interactivity. On the other hand, the problem with train settings and many other dioramas is that the ground is not always flat (like in, say, Final Fantasy Tactics, so it is difficult to place miniatures on it without them falling.

One of my other big problems is what to do with plants. I like to create a realistic-looking world, and plantlife is a major part of this if you have a lot of outdoor scenes in your games. But typical diorama trees are not very useful in games, because (1) they aren’t made in discrete units than can be taken apart and put back together, except for the poorly made ones and (2) they are often made of scratchy, crumbly pieces of foam and wire which are a pain to have at the gaming table. For this reason I have sought out a variety of plant figures for tactical tabletop roleplaying games. I could make my own, but first let’s look at what’s on the market already.

Although WotC has not released any decent terrain, Games Workshop has produced a variety of interesting plantlife molds. Look at that great jungle, excuse me, I mean rainforest! You can practically smell the potent mixture of lush greenery and rotting vegetation. Unfortunately all the Games Workshop plant pieces are fairly expensive.

At a local toy store a year ago I discovered the Schleich line of animal and plant figures. They are all very high-quality; unfortunately, they are 2x or 3x out of scale compared to D&D, so a baby crocodile becomes a Huge or Gargantuan crocodile, a housecat becomes a Large tiger, etc. Still, their African line includes some very nice-looking trees, such as an acacia (pictured) and baobab, which could serve as the towering canopy of a giant forest. The mopane bush, when placed next to a standard-sized D&D figure, makes a very nice tree, although the base covers a few too many squares and the branches hang a little too low.

I am generally not very impressed by the terrain in Heroscape, which has the opposite problem of model train layouts: it just looks too clunky and modular. But their Ticalla Jungle set looked so incredible, I just had to get it! ^^ Using an Exacto knife, I was able to cut away the edges of the base so that they fit in 1″x1″ squares instead of the hexagonal squares normally used in Heroscape.

I have to confess I have a weakness for jungle settings, so that is where most of my searching has gone. But I think modular terrain adds a great deal to a D&D game and I’ve been enjoying collecting a lot of plants. Soon I will explore methods of making your own plant minis in such a way that they can be easily transported to roleplaying games, unpacked and used. In the meantime, let the earth bring forth grass! And vegepygmies!