Can dinosaurs and dragons live together in harmony at your game table? With a little creativity, Ben thinks there’s no bones about it.

Let’s start by unearthing some possible homebrewed plot lines. Maybe dinosaurs actually pre-date elf, dwarf and man…so much so that there has been an outcropping of strange bone discoveries in outlying areas of your character’s home city. A paranoid king then sends your party out to collect them all before more pop up and a panic ensues. Or, how about a crazy old wizard accidentally discovers some prehistoric bones and becomes obsessed with bringing these creatures back to life to do his own bidding?

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It’s time to officially acknowledge GaleForce Nine as top booth pick of Gen Con 2010. They have a slew of 4E gaming products coming to a game table near you. It was a real treat to see them all in person at the Con. This week we turn our eyes toward their super handy effect markers (including fire, ice and smoke).

These multi-use effect walls give the DM a bundle of game options. Use them as a:

• wall of ice effect from a Wizard’s spell.
• timed spell standing effect or immovable obstacle.
• fire effect in a burning building.
• blocked/diluted line of sight (with smoke plumes).
• triggered trap.

You can place them on the game board as single square pieces or as a row of three. The pieces assemble and re-assemble with ease so they fit nicely into any DM’s travel kit.

Again, Ben really wants to give props to GaleForce Nine for embracing 4E and releasing so many new innovative products. Our readers can expect to see many more reviews from this creative company over the next year. It’s like they’ve truly re-invented themselves – a wonderful sight to see, especially when other companies out there seem so slow to react 4E.

Questions to Ponder: How do you show game effects on your board? Did you create any fun house rules to go with them? Does the fire effect dominate in your game or have you found ways to give ice and smoke a chance?

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OK – he’s not going to lie to you…Ben has been dying to use that Lord of the Rings’ play-on-words headline for some time now. Still, can you ever have enough door variety in your D&D terrain life? With that obvious answer, here’s installment number 2 in this gripping series.

Ben loves to mix up the entry and exit points in his dungeons. Big or small, wide or tall, it simply doesn’t matter. He relishes the game group’s reaction and tactics based on the mere appearance of the barrier in front of them. With that said, here’s our latest batch of door goodness.

We’ve utilized the portcullis from Dwarven Forge (from Wicked Editions Set I) – a must-own). Our homebrewed jail cell doors work great for your typical prison area but could also serve as slick gates.

We crafted an imposing door to serve as our entry way into the second Horned Hold tower inside Thunderspire Labyrinth. A small door served as a special getaway inside the Duerger Trading Post cave.

Ben mustered a broken door for Brugg’s Halfmoon Inn assault. And he even made a partially clawed door in a recent Friday Night Strike Dungeon Delve.

Seem like overkill? Too much? Nah – remember, variety is the spice of life.

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Stop Ben if you’ve heard this classic exchange: “Blast 5 goes like this, right? No, no – that’s a burst. Wait, stop and pass me the PHB.” For some illogical-Spock-like reason, we just get those two darn terms mixed up. Hence, our desire to make some handy home-brewed blast and burst templates.

Of course you can look up the descriptions (pg. 272) but that’s such a game momentum killer. Better to have a few handy templates to place over the game board.

There are a few options out there. Ben snagged some 4th Edition Blast Templates from Dragonfire Lasercrafts but using them felt like a twisted math experiment gone awry. Paizo had some GameMastery Spell Templates for 3.5 but unfortunately they just don’t translate into 4E.

Our latest home brew D&D experiment involved some plexiglass (found in the windows section of any Home Depot) and some fancy line-drawin’. The stickers were a classy touch.

This RPG game group doesn’t need the templates as much as we used to just because of sheer practice. In our minds, we’ve classified a “burst” as a grenade-effect and a “blast” as simply coming out from your body. Still, these templates are great for the new player to learn the ropes.

Sure, they could use some helpful identifying labels and a quick spray (to protect against scratches) but all in all, we’re just trying to open our minds up to bigger and better things. And it’s those incredible possibilities that keeps us going.

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Ben believes a kill on the battle map needs to be celebrated and properly noted. Sure, you could just tip your mini over and crudely call it a dead body but where’s the proper bliss and recognition in that? You own that square – now show it!

Dragonfire Laser Crafts makes the perfect corpse marker. Their death symbol is part of their RPTiles series and more specifically, comes in their Crypt Tiles set. Ben got sneaky though and was able to purchase an extra clump of singles out of their “bit box” by visiting their booth at GenCon earlier this year.

To mix it up, we also use the coffin marker (also part of the Crypt Tile set) to symbolize the bigger kills on the board. After all, those bosses or especially pesky monsters earned the right to have a fancier tombstone.

The Dragonfire corpse tile also allows for easy stacking of multiple bodies. This function is key as our game group’s house rule says two or more bodies in the same space makes it difficult terrain.

Great stuff, fellow gamers…and remember, it’s the little accessory touches that ultimately set your game board apart from the others

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Forget the endless pile of dragon hoard treasure…what every RPG’er truly wants is simply more time to game. In order to maximize those precious hours, Ben uses pre-cut game boards to stage each of his dungeon room encounters. The results will simply amaze you.

All the credit goes to game group member Bobby Hurley (who plays Magnum and Red Dawn in our weekly podcast). He’s the innovator on this crafty idea. Here’s how it works:

The boards can be purchased at Home Depot and are 1/8” in thickness. Hurley cuts them to different square shapes to accommodate Hirst Arts floor tiles (typically 3 by 3 increments). As an added touch, he also spray paints them a dark green to ensure they blend into the game table background. He’s even cut 1 3/4″ tall PVC pipe and camouflaged those when we need to demonstrate dungeon levels.

Prior to game time, Ben stages each room on individual boards and keeps them under wraps. He then lays down the pieces with ease in real time as the adventures move forth. By pre-building the rooms, Ben avoids those pesky 15-minute-plus setup delays.

Pretty soon you will get really creative and experiment with traps, more traps, trap doors, and pits. It’s all pure genius and easy to do. Give it a try and see just how much extra time it saves you in your next game.

How good are Hirst Arts rubber molds? They are so good that they made our inaugural post (a homage of sorts). Ben has cast the magic white powder countless times to build amazing modular dungeons…most notably for our 4E campaigns including Keep on the Shadowfell and now Thunderspire Labyrinth.

One mold that has gotten particular creative attention is the Cavern Accessory Mold #85. It’s got boxes, buckets, barrels, bridges, crates, chests, campfires, coin stacks, crystal balls, caldrons, grain sacks, jewels, flames, levers, lion’s head, pedestals, and stone doors. Too much? Nah – where would your rooms be without the finer details?

Even better, with so many painting combinations, touch-up (such as weathering and blood spattering) and assembly options, it really feels like the mold that keeps on giving and giving and giving.

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Few events crack the suspense barrier like a party opening a new-found dungeon door. The group braces for battle and assumes the worst. You can cut the tension with a bastard sword.

And just like that…the moment disappears. Ben equates this adrenaline rush to that brief moment of silence by the crowd when baseball player delivers his pitch to the plate.

With so much excitement at stake, finding and using the right door is critical. Ben ensures a full arsenal of doors is always at the ready. Is the door steel, stone or wood? What types of markings are on the door (writings or pictures)? What is unique about the door (lion’s head, scorch marks, dried blood)?

Luckily the crew over at Hirst Arts has given us the tools to do it right. Ben utilizes essentially three different molds: Cavern Accessory Mold #85, Cavern Floor Accessories #282, Water Cavern Wall Mold #81. After that, it’s just how fancy and creative one can get with his paint jobs.

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If your D&D miniatures are marching on an outdoor map, the chances are extraordinarily high that you will see some boulder clusters on or near the path. What lurks behind those rock piles is of course a different Blog entry entirely.

Woodland Scenics wrote the book on rock molds. They have a slew of options. Ben’s favorite is the boulder mold or C1232 Boulders 5×7 Mold to be exact. This rock collection mold spits out a ton different pieces. And if you want to get fancy on your paint job, snag a toothbrush (but not your wifey’s) and drop a little blood spatter here and there.

The mold does have a few sticky spots to deal with when popping the final rocks out but sometimes you just have to bear down. So while rocks may seem silly, sometimes it’s the smaller elements on a game mat really help bring the whole encounter together.

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Ben finally got a first-hand go of the Wizards of the Coast Dungeon tile accessory line. Gabe-age’s dawned the DM hat and took the gang through our very first Dungeon Delve encounter. He utilized The Halls of the Giant Kings Dungeon Tiles to set the scene.

Each pack contains six double-sided sheets of illustrated, die-cut terrain tiles printed on heavy cardstock. Gabe-age taped them down to his laminated game board to help prevent slide-age. Once done, the scotch tape came off with surprising ease.

The tile art is top notch, the durability way above par, and the variety abundant (10 different sets and counting). And while Ben’s terrain preference is to always go 3-D, these D&D Dungeon Tiles are your best choice when the budget is tight and the storage space is low

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