Which Came First: the Minis or the Terrain?

Can we answer the age-old question of what a Dungeon Master pulls first during his prep? Likely not, but we’ve got an excellent DnD conundrum to share on this great debate (that we think actually exists).

In a previous “Hey, Hey, It’s Game Day” post, we first shared the miniatures and scatter terrain we selected for an upcoming encounter: Area 10 Shrine of Destruction (from the D&D Beyond free Acquisition’s Incorporated module).

DM Ben wasn’t sure if the group would reach this area in their next sesh, but he wanted to have some of the pieces at the ready in case he needed to drop down an improvised gameboard. That got us to thinkin’ – for the DMs out there, do you pull the minis and scatter first, or do you pull the terrain first?

Typically, we try to 3D print, paint, and pull our terrain first just because 3DRPG thinks that’s the toughest part of any encounter prep. However, there’s a counterargument to be made here: select the minis and scatter first because then you know how much play space you need to fit everything (while still having enough room for meaningful and tactics-based combat).

And then there’s nothing wrong with saying the order depends on the encounter itself and that it varies from scenario to scenario.

So, let’s take a gander at the final terrain for our pivotal Shrine of Destruction encounter. It’s apparent from the module description that this chamber needs to give off a crumbling, ruins-like vibe. For that, we turned to our trusty Milestone Heroes tiles, as they’re a match made in heaven here. Specifically, we 3D-printed a pile of tiles from their Dungeon Ruins set.

Even better, we already made a handy step-by-step Dungeon Ruins paint guide for thee so you can color up your new-found tiles anxiety-free and quickly get them on the game table. In fact, we’ve made three of them (so far), including Village Inn and Caverns.

The room’s total footprint was no biggie, as DM Ben just wanted to avoid a typical box shape while conveying how much the chamber had fallen into ruin. The real trick, though, was a focal point of the room, just above the altar: a gearwork device called an Entropy Guardian (that ultimately animates). We didn’t have one of those unique pieces just lying around the office.

With 3D printing, we can always find something, but we always balance time spent vs reusability. For example, joshuatparr had this Simple Gears plate, but the STL required assembly and seemed a bit on the delicate side.

So, instead, we found this older 3D Egyptian mythic god piece and just propped it up on a makeshift stand behind the altar to demonstrate that same sorta visual. It looks mechanical and god-ish, so objective met in our minds.

If the players trigger the Entropy Guardian, we’ll leave the mini on its perch and have another mini represent its expanding clockwork arms to attack. The oversized arcane hand holds a special place in our nostalgia-filled hearts as that was one of the very first things we printed long ago. The other is a prepainted Wizkids mini that would suffice, but we’re sticking with the large hand as we have two versions of it to represent its two attacks.

Still, problems solved and encounter officially prepped!

Until next time!