Sorry, no tickets, no ride. The Forgotten Rails is in the business of making gold, so no one gets to ride for free (not even those cute babies). Pay the one gold piece ticket price or get to steppin’, pal! Revolutionizing transportation in and around Waterdeep is an insanely expensive endeavor. Omin Dran wants simple ticket stations in far-out urban areas to improve brand exposure and grant easier access for “the commonfolk.”

3DRPGers might recall that The Forgotten Rails already has an automated Construct ticket booth, but it’s costly, quite complex, and time-consuming to produce. These booths are typically found at major transport hubs, where they are continuously monitored and are getting all the kinks worked out by The Fixers. Besides, Waterdeep’s youth loves to mess with them.

In the meantime, Omin Dran decided to make some quaint, low-cost kiosks where he could pay a mere 3 sp a day to a living ticket taker. And for that newly needed DnD scatter terrain, we looked to good ol’, reliable Terrain Essentials from Cast n Play. We adore this marvelous monthly terrain series, and it just makes our day when a new set is announced.

Their talented group of sculptors created this charming Ticket Office as part of their quaint Red Magic Spa Set. This STL contains elements that DM Ben is rather comfortable painting, so he tackled this TTRPG scatter over the weekend.

This DnD piece fits like a glove on a Dwarven Forge Battle Board, surrounded by some of their slick Wilderness terrain. Besides, painting mushrooms is always darn fun. Here are the steps and paints we used:

• Prime Flat Black | Slapchop Base.
• Sign P1: GSW Skeleton Brown + FAN Dark Wash.
• Sign P2: FAN Imperial Navy + WAR Electric Blue edging.
• Tree: ASP Dark Wood + Vallejo Ochre Brown drybrush.
• Mushrooms P1: ASP Blood Red + FAN Red Wash.
• Mushrooms P2: FAN Pure Red edging & FAN Matt White
• Plants: ASP Forest Sprite + FAN Emerald Forest edging.
• Ground: ASP Desolate Brown.
• Rocks: ASP Gravelord Grey + white drybrush.

Nothing to it, right?! We just had to go over those mushroom dimples with white numerous times to get them to ultimately pop.

As always, Terrain Essentials always keeps a 3D print’s playability top of mind, and this new-found DnD scatter is no different. The adorbs mushroom roof is removable, and there’s just enough room inside to hold a ticket master miniature. And now we need to find a fun mini to fill that role!

For our other featured 3D print, we’re showing off something that, at first glance, may prompt the reaction, “What’s the big deal?” We’re talking about these huge chains by Custom Miniature Maker. These are from their Chain Barricades and Tank Traps set. Once again, it pays to be on their weekly e-newsletter, as this was a free download.

DM Ben wants to use these oversized trains as a Hovertrain security and safety measure. These mighty machines are by no means a perfected technology, and they’re known to drift a bit when stationary for extended periods. Plus, these chains look frickin’ epic when placed on one of Aether Studios’ mighty engines.

We just love how these STLs turned out here. Nothing crazy on the paint steps, either.

• Prime Flat Black | Slapchop Base.
• Layer FAN Gun Metal.
• FAN Grimdark Shadow Wash.
• Drybrush FAN Heavy Metal.
• Dab FAN Grim Rust.

The Armypainter metallics from their wicked good Warpaints Fanatic Wargamers Paint Set are some of our absolute favorites.

You can also use these chains to hold large monsters in place, secure a legendary treasure item in place, or even secure a particular part of a castle or dungeon. You have so many use-case possibilities for this slick scatter terrain.

Until next time!

The post Train Tuesday Part 125: No One Rides for Free appeared first on 3DRPG.

As longtime readers know, we’re running the same core DnD campaign here with the 3DRPG Studios team and also with our fam at home. The office crew got a big head start, and this was the only way DM Ben could commit to running two ongoing games a month. However, what does a Dungeon Master always need more than anything? Yep, you guessed it – time.

With additional crafting hours on our side, we’ve made a couple of fun improvements to better immerse the home players in this wild homebrewed storyline. We’ll share those tweaks as we outline what’s in store for our adventurers this Saturday.

First, let’s open with a brief recap from the last session. The party completed their five-day trek deep into The High Forest to finally locate the witch’s cabin in the woods. The showdown hasn’t quite started, but things are definitely gonna come to a boil this week.

The last previously completed encounters included:

• Stone Cold Trouble
• Witch Way Did She Go?
• Rat Swarm Wandering Monsters
• Watching Our Every Move

Once again, DM Ben proved that players simply can’t resist cheese, no matter how obvious the danger is. We added a wild monster to the pit, which quickly raised everyone’s blood pressure. Darn fun times, though!

So, here’s the dice plan for this weekend!

• More warning signs of what lies ahead! (new)
• Venus Print Traps
• Arrow Barrage (new)
• The Scarecrow Knows
• An escapee reaches the party
• Meet the Night Hag (see below)

DM Ben was itching to try out this slick Mystery Wilderness gridded rubber mat we got off Temu. The quality is exceptional, and it just screamed “tucked away in the forest” to us! Sadly, the prices jumped considerably, so we doubt we’ll grab another one anytime soon.

DM Ben is going to use a little Wizard of Oz inspiration to let the players know they are getting extremely close to cornering the Night Hag on her own turf by seeing a plume of steady smoke rising in the distance. What they might not fully realize is that the witch has been watching their every move nearly the whole way and is basically daring them to fall into her well-planned ambush.

For the subtle smoke, we have these old plastic markers (from Pelor knows who) that we grabbed at Gen Con like 20 years ago. DM Ben will place it on a taller flight stand and describe it to the group. Surprisingly, we didn’t have any smoke effects already 3D-printed, but we might try one of these.

Again, with the benefit of more prep time, DM Ben also wanted to tease what a dangerous situation the party is walking into here. Yes, they’ve already found one adventuring party turned to stone farther back in their journey, but a second sign certainly wouldn’t hurt. DM Ben fully admits he adores teasing what’s ahead (almost to a fault), cause clues are good ol’ fashioned fun.

So now two different groups of adventurers have turned to stone?! That can’t be good. One instance could have come directly from an earlier, direct Night Hag tangle, but the other instance could be from the underground Bulette nest that the group will find once they’re deeper in the caverns below the cabin!

Another intense tripwire DM Ben wanted to add is a huge volley of arrows that the party will trigger upon reaching the edge of Nigh Hag’s cabin. This surprise attack harkens back to all those old medieval movies where you just see this almost wall of arrows blocking the sun and raining down on the opposing side. First, the group will find fallen adventure with half a dozen bolts stuck in him. We’ll be using a corpse from STL Miniatures’ Injured Villagers Set. The poor soul will even have popped a healing potion, but passed before it could reach his lips.

And for the arrow-firing mechanism itself, we’re going to use this awesome crossbow scatter piece by Dwarven Forge. DM Ben will just explain that the 15 strategically placed crossbows are pointed upward. This DnD scatter piece is from their Wildlands Pole Accessory Pack. Each player will get +2 partial cover if they’re directly behind a tree, but each bolt will be a +5 attack with 1d6+2 piercing damage. The group’s faces as DM rolls 15 d20s at once will be priceless.

From there, it’s time to meet that “innocent old lady” in the woods, and thankfully, all those encounters are already nicely prepped. Here’s the planned sequence of events…

• Cabin Exterior
• Main Interior Room
• Thorny Situation
• The Key Challenge
• Suspended Cage
• Backyard
• Basement | Boxed In | Trapped Door

DM Ben wrote pretty solid prep notes for this portion when he originally ran it with the 3DRPG office crew, so some might find that write-up helpful. Gonna be a great weekend of gaming, y’all.

Until next time!

The post Hey, Hey, It’s Game Day (Apr 2026, Home Edition) appeared first on 3DRPG.

So how did we get here? Welp, the 3DRPG Studios team came to the conclusion that there simply isn’t enough time in the day to 3D print and, more importantly, paint, everything we produce. We had to make a conscious design to draw a line in the sand and formulate a better plan of attack. Hence, we decided to tackle all the different DnD game environments and categories like so:

• Caverns: 3D Print and Dwarven Forge.
• Dungeons: Dwarven Forge.
• Village: 3D Print.
• Egyptian: 3D Print.
• Hovertrain: 3D Print.
• Miniatures: 3D Print.
• Scatter Terrain 3D Print.

We even went heavy on Dungeon Ruins 3D prints initially, but it was getting overwhelming, and our initial paint jobs just weren’t matching up the way we wanted. Still, the huge takeaway is we were all over the place and lacked focus! Since we righted the ship, we’re really cooking with gas these days!

Enter Dwarven Forge and their 2025 Dungeons Reforged Kickstarter! A stunning amount of brilliant dungeon pieces remastered and magnetized for avid collectors and new hobbyists looking to break into the space! A lot of their terrain had been out of print for ages and was extremely hard to acquire. DM Ben was ecstatic to see this new offering and went all in on his pledge. It was going to be a huge relief to use pre-painted Dungeon pieces and just have our 3D printers spit out complementary terrain. Plus, this gives us more time to focus on everything else! Win-win.

Once pledged, it just became a waiting game for everything to arrive on our doorstep. The campaign went live in October 2024, and by early January 2025, all our boxes arrived safe and sound. Amazing timing, given the crazy amount of logistics involved. It was a joyous day in the DM Ben household when the packages arrived! While this TTRPG windfall was amazing, it also created two new minor conundrums, but we were determined to solve ’em!

The first issue we had to mitigate was efficient storage. Thankfully, the Dwarven Forge Discord is an amazing communal place filled with gamers from around the globe who truly want to help others succeed in this space. A very kind user (“Bender”) initially suggested these really slick A4 storage containers by WestonBoxes. Alas, those beauties aren’t available at an affordable price here in the States. We found one online distributor, but sadly, their website turned out to be a fraud. Thankfully, our bank refunded everything without any trouble.

We refused to give up and did a tremendous amount of online searches to find something similiar. Thankfully, DM Ben’s girlfriend is an expert Amazon shopper, and she found these amazing IRIS USA Board Game Storage Craft Organizer Boxes. From an affordability standpoint, you can get a pack of six for about $35-ish. The dimensions are darn close to those WestonBoxes at 12.25″L x 13.04″W x 3.15″H. We try to pack ’em nice and tight whenever possible, but even looser pieces fit just fine in a case. For example, we put all the traps in a single tray without issue.

Everything from our shipment arrival-day pic above fits in about 15-ish of these slick storage containers. They also stack on top of each other perfectly and don’t buckle under the weight! We just keep the heaviest ones near the bottom. DM Ben is also going to put some clear labels like “floors,” “LEDs,” “Walls,” and so forth to ensure he grabs a box quickly as he builds out new dangerous dungeons. We’re just over the moon with these containers and can’t recommend them enough!

As good as Dwarven Forge is, our 3D Printers still had a lot to contribute to the terrain environment. Their products can still be tough to acquire outside of Kickstarters, and it’s a higher price point (but you often get what you pay for in this hobby). Painting your 3D prints to match Dwarven Forge is no easy task. The classic Prime Flat Black and apply a Slapchop base isn’t ideal here.

There are two core reasons for the paint trickiness here. First, Dwarven Forge pieces are produced with tremendous detail and texture, while 3D prints often have much smoother surfaces. Their Dwarvenite material takes paint extremely well. The other critical area here is that initial base coat. You definitely want to use the Pokorny Paints and start with the darker Dungeon Gray. This starting layer gets you as close as possible to the unpainted factory pieces.

One of the new releases that came with the Dungeons Reforged release was a new paint color: Dungeon Dry Brush. Previously, you had to combine Cavern Dry Brush with School Bus, which was always a little cringeworthy, since we don’t enjoy mixing paints. It can be tough to match things between paint sessions, so this new bottle was a welcome addition to their paint line!

So, let’s talk paint steps here!

• Basecoat with Pokorny Dungeon Gray.
• Apply Earth Stone to random bricks.
• Drybrush Pokorny Dungeon Drybrush (new).
• Drybrush a couple of spots with Pkorny Moss Green (optional).

Nothing crazy, right?! Welp, as good as all the Dwarven Forge painting tutorials are, they don’t exactly fall in line for 3D prints. No worries – Dwarven Forge Discord to the rescue!

Previously, following those paint steps above got us close, but not enough to be immensely satisfying. And it turned out, the paints weren’t the problem. It was more so how we were applying that Dungeon Cavern Dry Brush step. Kind souls like Nikko the Vogon Bard Poet and cb9756 gave us a eukera moment. Again, the typical texture of 3D prints means you can just use a feather-duster dry-brush motion on that last lighter color step. Instead, the key is to apply that last core color with a dabbing motion or, even better, with sponges.

Now, as cbw9756 perfectly stated, “No one can prepare you for sponges. It’s trial by fire…” And boy, was he right! No matter how much paint you think you have on your sponge, it’s probably still too much. Our first attempt on this Cast n Play arch was overdone, even though DM Ben thought he had barely any paint on that sponge. Too much paint means your 3D print gets blotchy quickly. So, he just went back and did a black dry-brush dab on it to break up that color. For his very first attempt, he was pretty satisfied.

DM Ben put the other gargoyle fountain test piece against a factory-painted Dwarven Forge wallpiece, and again, we like what we see here! We might be putting too high expectations on getting that really subtle brick accent color perfect, but we definitely feel like we’re in a satisfactory zone. With some practice, DM Ben thinks future 3D print coloring attempts will only improve (thanks to a great community of Dwarven Forge enthusiasts)!

Until next time!

The post Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Paint Me a Match! appeared first on 3DRPG.

Surprisingly, we were able to play a DnD home game in December, and boy howdy, did we have a great time! And we’re defying the evil scheduling Gods again by playing in early January. Crazy, right?!

Before we get to today’s Dungeon Master prep post, let’s do a quick update on our beloved mascot of 3DRPG Studios, the adorable Winnie Lou Who. This beyond-cute Cavapoo pup is actually DM Ben’s new dog, as he sadly lost his 13-year-old pup in November. Both our family and our office DnD players love pups and her new arrival, so she’ll certainly be spoiled rotten. She came home on 12-13-25, just in time for Christmas. Winnie Lou is the best, but snakes alive, she requires a ton of constant attention.

Before we recap our last sesh and explain what DM Ben has prepped for this Saturday, we have a new gamer group development to cover. Since we have many younger adult gamers in our home game, we added another player to make future scheduling a bit easier. Hence, we added another Fighter to the party.

The current party makeup is like so:

• Amara Shadir, Elf Warlock/Genie
• Grace, Human Wizard
• Iris Xiphium, Half-Elf Rogue/Soulknife
• Rhogar, Dragonborn Cleric
• Maeve Amidala, Elf Fighter
• Beldroth Zopyros, Human Fighter

Maeve and Beldroth will basically swap in and out of the, depending on who can play in any given month.

With all those updates out of the way, let’s talk about what these adventurers accomplished last sesh. Our typically hyper-focused group moved a bit slower this last time, but still completed some important missions.

• Shopped and then purchased a horse and cart to travel to The High Forest.
• Had another Terry the Troll Bridge Crossing (without incident).
• Survived an Axe Beak stampede!
• Realized the Night Hag has her eye on them.

We had less time than usual, but the group made solid progress nonetheless.

The players’ core mission remains the same here. Find out why so many children from Waterdeep have gone missing and learn the fate of the original rescue party that went deep into The High Forest to find them.

• Venus Print Traps
• Stone Cold Trouble
• Witch Way Did She Go?
• The End is Near
• The Scarecrow Knows
• Wandering Monsters: #5, Rat Swarm
• Wandering Monsters: #16, Harpies 

That’s a sizable list to burn through in a single Saturday, so DM Ben feels pretty good about having enought DnD game content to pull from…alas, RPGers are never predictable.

Until next time!

The post Hey, Hey, It’s Game Day (Jan 2026, Home Edition) appeared first on 3DRPG.

Playing for just the second time in just five months has been a huge bummer, but DM Ben has a secret weapon to get all our young adult kiddos back to the game table on a more regular basis in 2026.

Sadly, we had to make the dreadful decision to put our beloved dog, Sandy Paws, down right before Thanksgiving. She was a beloved member of our family and the office mascot for nearly 13 years. We were so blessed to have her in our lives. We had already been planning to add another pup in December.

Meet our newest team member – Miss Winnie Lou Who. The pic above is Winnie, just a few weeks old. She comes home this weekend! Nothing brings folks to a game table like new puppies, right?!

If there’s one thing DM Ben never has to worry about with our home DnD campaign, it’s a slow pace. Do you think it’s true that younger players go at a faster game pace than older players? Well, it sure does seem to be the case for us.

In our last session, the home team knocked out the following encounters!

• Picked up the Blacksmith’s son rescue mission.
• Met the “Pumpkins that ain’t pumpkins” farmer.
• Captured some Wooly Mangalitza pigs for the Kinda Sorta Portal quest.
• Traveled back over Terry’s Troll Bridge.
• And even fulfilled all their Waterdeep shopping needs.

DM Ben has to be laser-focused in his prep and usually survives each session with just one encounter left in the tank!

So, what’s next? Welp, it’s time for our fearless adventurers to solve the mystery of Waterdeep’s missing persons. This larger homebrewed scenario is directly linked to the missing boy of local blacksmith Krufer Promentory, but the group has learned he’s not the only one! Their only lead is a spooky old woman held up deep in The High Forest, and she’s hard to pin down. A large search party was sent in to find her, and none returned.

Thankfully, we have a marvelous Wyrmwood game table at the house, so DM Ben was able to utilize his Dwarven Forge Wilderness terrain to build an elaborate forest map that will house numerous encounters, summarized below.

First things, first. The players will be exiting Waterdeep and will once again be required to pay Terry the Troll’s toll to cross. They’ve crossed this single city entry and exit point a couple of times now, so there won’t be a need to drop down an elaborate gameboard this time. Still, they have to pay the “fee,” or there’ll be heavy consequences.

Even getting to The High Forest will require as much as three days’ travel, depending on their mode of travel. You might recall a recent post where we explained how obsessed we are with 3D-printing wonderful wagons of all kinds. So the group can do any of the following:

• Walk it | longest but free.
• Get a few mounts | 5 gp a day | 20 gp deposit.
• Get a horse and cart | 8-10 gp a day (if driver is needed) | 30 gp deposit.
• Hop a ride | skill check and let the dice decide.

The mode of travel is so important. It costs money, affects travel speed, potential routes, ability to stealth, etc.

The agreed-upon mode of travel will dictate how many wandering monster rolls there will be. DM Ben will assume at least three rolls, and the percentile chance again depends on how they get there. We’ll naturally utilize our own free d20 Wilderness Trek Table. DM Ben rolls ahead of time so he doesn’t have to dig for the appropriate minis in the event they do encounter something.

And here’s what he rolled off the table:

• #5, Rat Swarm
• #16, Harpies 
• #4, Stampede

The default chance of a travel or long rest interruption is either 20% on percentile dice. That benchmark can go up or down depending on their speed, stealth checks, climate (on our weather dice), on-road vs. off-road, and so on.

There will also be planned homebrewed scenarios as the players get closer to the Night Hag’s HQ.

• I Scry a Witch
• Venus Print Traps
• Stone Cold Trouble
• Witch Way Did She Go?
• The End is Near
• The Scarecrow Knows

There’s a rhyme and reason to every one of these upcoming encounters. The scrying stone tips off the players that the old woman is watching. The attacking plants show off her powerful magic. The discovered stone statues indicate the first rescue party was stopped dead in its tracks. A second trap trigger conveys that the group is very close. The crazy old man is a final dire warning. And the Scarecrow introduces our next fun NPC.

Once the party gets through all these encounters, they’ll have their first chance at capturing their own Bastion and assigning their Kinda Sorta Portal to their new home base!

Until next time!

The post Hey, Hey, It’s Game Day (Dec 2025, Home Edition) appeared first on 3DRPG.

Let’s start with what we know. The 3DRPG Studios adventurers have successfully explored the caverns below the Night Hag’s cabin in the woods and fully claimed it as their new Bastion. At the end of the last session, they successfully defeated the Rock Mimics guarding her Alchemy Room. Their next move is to travel back to Waterdeep to continue their journey to fortune and fame, but it won’t be a walk in the park to get back to the capital city!

Last time they left off, the players had just successfully cleared the Alchemy Room. It will yield several treasures, including a piece of the mysterious Corederite mineral. They’ll probably start off by attempting to harvest the now deceased Rock Mimics using the fab Nord Games’ Foraging, Harvesting & Natural Discovery 5e supplement book. DM Ben will also allow the party’s Wizard to snatch up the Alchemy Room materials (via an Alchemy Kit card) so he can set up a lab of his own in a more secure location. But, where do we go from here?!

First off, we have a freshly prepped encounter from just the other day that requires the party to carefully retrace their cavernous steps and avoid rustling the water inhabitants throughout the natural passages back to the surface. DM Ben has a hunch they’re about to waterwalk into a heap of trouble.

The party will have to traverse back through the shallow-watered cavern tunnels from which they came. This will be a group skill challenge focusing on two key aspects of their previous exploration. Part one involves remembering exactly how to get back, as they’re deep below ground, and all the different underground passages get confusing in a hurry. The group made no callouts on their way in, so it’s time to potentially suffer the consequences.

This navigational challenge will be a DC 15 skill check with any of the following skills: Investigation, Perception, or Survival. All it takes is just one failure to attract some unwelcomed scaly company. Anyone wearing armor takes the roll at disadvantage. This time, the water will be a bit deeper, which will reduce everyone’s speed by half, and all the players’ attack rolls will be at disadvantage. We’ll be using the Zombie Fish 5e DnD monster stats here, but with some small stat tweaks: AC 13, HP 40, +6 to hit (one bite, one tail attack).

After successfully getting back to the surface, now what? Welp, we start by clearing off the office conference room table, yet being smart about packing those rooms up, so we can re-run those Cabin Cavern Crawl scenarios in our home game. Since our adventurers have a lot of traveling to do, our base “layer” on the table will be forest-themed in nature (pun intended).

Some Dungeon Masters thrive when they see a clean slate, but DM Ben gets a little apprehensive, and sadly, he freezes up a tad. One way he counters this unproductive vibe is to start slow-writing out our next Game Day DnD blog post and just start dropping ideas “down on paper.” Selfishly, DM Ben really leans on our lil’ ol’ DnD blog to keep him focused and producing a great game month in and month out.

Once they cross that shallow water choke point, our exhausted explorers are in the clear and finally can take a long rest. The next morning will bring several incomplete tasks, including:

• Return young Adrik to Krufer Promentory | collect reward.
• Return young Shamus to Ewan McHook | offers to build them something.
• Return the mysterious human girl, Deliilah, | Lord Gallobax DuGalle
• Meet Omin Dran to collect Night Hag monetary reward (600 gp per character).
• Get the Fellowship of the Golden Mongoose franchise quest.
• Pick up the first Forgotten Rails Hovertrain escort mission to Phandalin. | Shady Tree Sabotage
• Encounter an underderess lizardfolk alchemist named Thetsis on their way to the hideout | P1, P2.
• Do one random encounter roll on the module’s Traveling to Phandalin table.
• Begin the Tresendor Manor Dungeon Crawl.

First things first, they have to get to actually travel back through The High Forest to the capital city of Waterdeep.

Consequently, DM Ben has crafted several DnD one-shot encounters to ensure their three-day travel is filled with excitement and new curiosities.

• Spot Jack Shaw in new garb, continually searching for his Soul Bag.
• The Forgotten Rails: Encounter 1 – In the Zone.
• Day 1 Travel: Wandering Monster Roll 1
• Day 2 Travel: Wandering Monster Roll 2
• Day 3 Travel: Wandering Monster Roll 3
• Recross the Troll Bridge | Monster Battle in Progress

That’s a solid list of encounters for three days’ worth of travel, but that list depends mightily on how the players roll for wandering monsters.

A player suggested DM Ben revise his Wilderness Trek Wandering Monster d20 Table roll rules. Initially, we had everyone at the table roll a d6, and if any player got a six, that meant a Wandering Monster encounter. Instead, we’re going to try a single percentile roll with a range of 10-30% based on the situational parameters at the time of their rest. For example, on the first day of travel, the party will be 10 to 20% as they haven’t had a chance to make their presence known, but by day three, they’ll probably be “pretty loud,” and a 30-50% chance makes more sense.

DM Ben likes to pre-roll the results on the table in case the party triggers a wandering monster on their rolls during actual gameplay. This way, he doesn’t have to pack up every single possibility and lug all that extra stuff to the office. So, the three he rolled were: #8 Mercenaries, #17 Side Guide, and #18 Leapin’ Lizzards.

So, if the group somehow avoids all their Wandering Monster rolls, they will still do our very first Forgotten Rails official encounter and re-cross the Troll Bridge (by giving Terry a helping hand against a nasty monster).  All of these encounters are in a woodland setting, so we grabbed a couple of Dwarven Forge’s Forest Patchy Ground Battleboards. Also, by including a few of their forest edging pieces, this lush wilderness playspace area gets a little more depth.

Lastly, to keep each encounter on this natural playspace unique, DM Ben will swap out a variety of outdoor scatter terrain. This helps with fresh combat tactics and decreases the amount of time for gameboard scene changes. Plus, how can we not give some of our favorite 3D prints some extra lovin’?

And there you have it! We’re all prepped for nearly all these encounters. It will be rather interesting to see how far the players get tonight.

Until next time!

The post Hey, Hey, It’s Game Day (Sept 2025) appeared first on 3DRPG.

Let’s start with a quick office campaign recap: our party of six adventurers just completed exploring the mysterious underground caverns below the old Night Hag’s hideout (and now their first Bastion). Part of their exploration required crossing a shallow stream with water levels sometimes as high as their thighs. Turns out those cavernous waterways are filled with all sorts of unfriendly inhabitants, and if anyone stumps too loudly through their turf, that hasty movement can rile the river’s residents.

So, DM Ben made a fun wet one-shot and used some 3D-printed Quips as the angry tenants. The challenge was that each player had to make a Dex saving throw (DC 12). On a failed save, the adventurer stirred up the water enough to usher in a school of angry nippers. Creature swarms can be especially challenging for a party due to their immunities to effects like stun and their resistances to specific types of damage. We hope you get a chance to run this one in your own game – satisfaction guaranteed!

Knowing the players had to cross these very same waters again in order to get back to their aboveground cabin in The High Forest, we wanted to do this encounter again, but change out the monsters so our players would be surprised. Predicatability in a DnD game is a death sentence in terms of overall session fun. So, we spotted this awesome free Bago, Bago monster 3D print by the mighty Schlossbauer and rushed it to our resin printer. We even included a handy, simple paint guide.

So, DM Ben used some extra vacation and utilized a recent four-day weekend to rustle up some more of these whipper snappers. Our paint steps remained relatively the same, except we decided to try some alternate colors for the heads & tails.

• Alternate Head/Tail 1: GSW Green Shark Skin.
• Alternate Head/Tail 2: Citadel Contrast Aethermatic Blue (our fav).
• Alternate Head/Tail 3: Citadel Contrast Gore-Grunta Fur.
• Alternate Head/Tail 4: Citadel Contrast Nighthaunt Gloom.
• Edging: ASP Battleship Grey.
• Eyeballs: ASP Blood Red.
• Bones: Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde.
• Teeth: P3 Menoth White Highlight.
• Stand: ASP Tidal Wave.
• All: AKI Wet Effect.

We especially liked the brownish Gore-Gunta Fur color because it had that ugly Brown Rockfish vibe. The Nighthaunt Gloom was nearly the same as the Green Shark Skin color, so that choice is a “push.” The lighter Aethermatic Blue turned out to be our favorite color here!

We’re using Milestone Heroes’ water cavern terrain for our slippery hallways and such, but when a big throw-down fight is going to occur within one of those areas, we need a zoomed-in terrain board for better minis movement and combat tactics. Thankfully, Dwarven Forge makes these setups especially easy.

We started with two of their Mountain Lake Terrain Trays. Our pics could never do these game aids justice as they’re just beautiful to look at, and they’re magnetized, so our Dwarven Forge Cavern Terrain sticks to ’em. Sadly, we didn’t realize we had zero cavern edging terrain, so we had to improvise with the pieces we had. However, one makes do in a pinch, right?

The key, though, is that DM Ben wanted to convey that it’s very easy to get lost during an initial cavern exploration. He’ll require the party to pass a tough group Survival check (DC 18), as they did nothing to mark their path on the way in. Most likely, they’ll end up taking the long way back and consequently, come across a larger and deeper underground stream with even nastier inhabitants than those Quippers. Movement here will also be reduced to half, as the water here is higher/up to their waists, and water visibility will be murky. Anyone wearing armor or using a shield will even have their attacks at disadvantage.

Schlossbauer calls this 3D-printed DnD miniature a “Bago, Bago” but of course, there’s not a specific WotC monster going by that name. So, DM Ben decided to basically use most of the 5e Merrow monster skin here with a couple of tweaks: AC 15, HP 45, Bite (+6, 1d8+4), and a Frenzied Tail (+6, 2d4+4) covering a 2×2 d20 square area. There will be up to five of these meanies in all. The challenge rating here will be on the medium scale, but they’ve taken a bit of a beating traveling down here, and they’re not the greatest when it comes to rest management.

Pretty fun, right?! DM Ben keeps his players guessing with a new aquatic foe and visually enticing gameboard, while subtly reminding them to improve their exploration tactics.

Until next time!

The post Take a Walk on the Wetter Side appeared first on 3DRPG.

Our last Dungeon room is an office, and at the time, served as the last inhabitant’s temporary command center. We need two scatter terrain pieces to set the mood: a cluttered desk and a single bed. These are 3D print staples, but we’re only going to pull one STL and rely on a pre-painted fan favorite company to deliver the other.

Let’s start with that work desk. Any monthly Patreon or Kickstarter release is going to include tables, desks, and barrels. We’re inundated with them. To be fair, creators don’t know what a hobbyist has and doesn’t have or where they are in their journey. Still, we had an abundance of choices.

This marvelous desk is by our buds over at Milestone Heroes and is from their Scatter Pack 15 set. We love the all-in-one combination this 3D print offers.

Some insanely small details here, so Resident Painter Kimmy Utah was called into service to paint this desk combo up for us. DM Ben’s 54-year-old eyes and Wisconsin sausage fingers couldn’t cope here.

The completed piece beautifully highlights its charming details, such as the rug, scrolls, inkwell, and book, among others. A true sign of an A+ print is how it springs to life when properly painted.

The second scatter terrain piece we needed for this DnD Dungeon room was a single-person bed. Not big enough to hold a mini, but more so to convey that someone worked and slept in here 24/7 to get a job done. For that piece, we searched our library and grabbed this nostalgic bed by Dwarven Forge. It’s from their original Dungeon Dressing pack and is a true classic.

Area 12 of Tresendar Manor is entitled: The Office. Its description reads as follows. “A bed and a desk are the only furnishings in this surprisingly clean room. The bed is made with linen sheets and a fluffy pillow. Atop the desk are an ink pot and a quill pen.”

No preset monsters or traps here. This one is all about information as the players will rifle through the desk and papers to unveil a new clue (in a cool way), so it’s the perfect way to progress the campaign storyline.

And just like that, two very simple pieces of scatter terrain completely immerse your players into the scene. We love it when a Dungeon Crawl comes together.

Until next time!

The post Take a Load Off appeared first on 3DRPG.

Longtime readers might remember fabled Terry the Troll from our post back in February 2024. He’s continuously stood on guard for thee at the infamous bridge that connects Waterdeep to The High Forest (otherwise, you have to take a very long way around).

Locals love the guy, and his combats are legendary. He loves collecting meaningless things and has a poor memory. To cross, players simply need to give him something with a double letter, like a bOOt, kiSS, shEEp, etc.

The original Troll Bridge gameboard featured a nifty bridge we downloaded off Thingiverse. The players loved the setup, and the roleplaying to get by our faithful Troll guardian was an absolute hoot as they finally pieced together the clues on how to cross. Good times!

This time, DM Ben wanted to feature a mightier, more memorable core bridge piece. Every time he’s in PetSmart (because dogs are awesome), he always takes a gander at all their aquarium terrain. They primarily carry a brand called TopFin. So, one time, he saw an insane oversized log bridge that was part of a big discounted sale. He immediately snatched it up! You have to act fast because these sorta pieces come and go. Amazon is also another good source to search for this kind of scatter terrain btw.

The legend goes that Terry the Troll took down a mighty tree after a once-in-a-lifetime flood cut off access to Waterdeep (from the forest). He even saved several Waterdeep citizens during that crazy storm. Oh, that Terry.

That core bridge piece has all these different levels to it – a feature that Dungeon Masters salivate over. Giving players advantage, disadvantage, cover, and new opportunities to use their skills like athletics and acrobatics always makes for better gameplay!

Our new bridge piece also had this nifty overhang piece where Terry keeps his mysterious chest (which, unbeknownst to the players, simply holds all his toll knick-knacks). DM Ben loves teaser gameboard features that become irresistible to players, ultimately encouraging them to investigate.

The other side of the Terry’s bridge is just as cool! Of course, there’s an exit point, but the party is still pretty high off the ground (say 100 feet-ish). So, we printed up this rope later by Custom Miniature Maker and used that for a nerve-wracking descent (DC 12 Athletics check).

The rushing waters eventually receded, but his access bridge remained, and it’s still the most efficient way to cross over from Waterdeep. We had these ancient rubber-ish river tiles from a previous GenCon and were delighted to dust them off and use them in our TTRPG home game! We forgot we even had ’em! We used a murky swamp pond under the original bridge, but this rushing river terrain is so much better!

Additionally, we aimed to more clearly convey that the bridge itself is the only way to pass. The dangerous waters also have dense, sharp thickets standing at the ready to shred any adventurer who tries to move through them. We recently acquired these cool thorn wall scatter pieces by Dwarven Forge that paired nicely with these other elf barricade pieces from a Galladoria Games Kickstarter. Together they sell the natural impassable wall.

We also added a few more violent scatter terrain pieces to demonstrate to the adventurers what happens if a person refuses to pay Terry’s toll. We keep a box of misfit prints and such, and then from time to time, recycle those broken bits to make new pieces, such as the one in the pic above.

Lastly, DM Ben wanted to add a longer approach to the bridge itself, so he built out a pathway leading up to it. He grabbed a super handy road map from Loke Battlemats’ Long Road RPG Toolbox. Sprinkle on a few trees and boulders, and that snazy grid play surface instantly comes to life.

Our next challenge is to add a couple of encounters to this gameboard. On the first go-around, the players were a bit bummed that we didn’t have any actual combat on the bridge itself so we’re currently pondering a few one-shot encounters to add in here: one for the road leading up to the bridge and one on the bridge itself. We’ll share those with you next week, but we have some ideas in the hopper!

There you have it, though! A new and improved gameboard featuring various memorable sections that are sure to fully immerse players at your gaming table. Much better, don’t you think?

Until next time!

The post Troll Bridge Reno appeared first on 3DRPG.

As longtime readers know, we’re playing a single campaign but with two different game groups. Our 3DRPG Studios office crew is leading the way, but our family home game gets a little extra TLC for going second. It’s not often that the gold medal goes to second place, and we’ll show you why in today’s DnD blog post.

So here at 3DRPG, DM Ben’s office is a thing of beauty. He has a splendidly large conference room table in it, which is ideal for a post-work game day sesh. So, when the group was traveling through the High Forest to confront the Night Hag and capture its first Bastion, DM Ben had ample space for a dynamic woodland setup.

The goal was to create a gameboard that simulated a challenging woodland journey through a series of mini encounters fraught with peril. If you have some solid, lengthy tablespace, you’re in great shape to do something similar in your DnD campaign!

Setting up this same sort of nature vibe on our marvelous Wyrmwood gaming table at home had three advantages the second time around: (1) the table is a little shorter, but it’s wider, (2) there are two game setup areas – the tabletop and the space underneath it. (3) DM Ben can revise content that didn’t work as planned the first time around (and that’s what we’re going to focus on today).

Our featured DnD terrain will be the stunning Wildlands pieces from their Gamefound Kickstarter. These sets will form our base, but then we’ve already made a slew of home-brewed DnD encounters and a random d20 Wilderness Trek Wandering Monster Table to boot! Even better, we get to sprinkle in all our amazing completed 3D prints, too!

Here’s what we came up with for Take II of the home players’ first extended wilderness journey. We tried to build out distinct zones that DM Ben can place the party miniatures, depending on the encounter at hand. So, don’t think of it like one single scenario (although it certainly could be played like that). Instead, this gameboard is designed to immerse the group and make them feel as though they’re embarking on a long, perilous journey through a dense and treacherous forest.

So, let’s zoom in on a few areas here and give you examples of what we mean, starting with the gameboard’s entry point. The players will be utilizing a crude map from Oman Dran that details the approximate location of the Night Hag’s spooky house of horrors in the woods.

The players will be on a main road before their map points to a semi-hidden path that must be traversed to zero in on her cabin. DM Ben will place their miniatures on a narrow path containing a nasty spike trap (Investigation or Perception DC 12).

The traveling time from Waterdeep to their end destination is a minimum of three days’ travel. Hence, once the players go off the road and detect or disarm the trap, he will have each player in the party roll a d6. If any of them roll a six, then he will roll on our random Wandering Monster table and have it take place in the spot where the trap was located.

Side note: DM Ben will use small pieces of black cloth to cover unused areas of the map and create a sort of fog of war initially until they explore more areas of the map. Seeing the entire gameboard in one shot can overwhelm the senses a bit.

As we mentioned and shared previously on 3DRPG, this isn’t just about wandering monster rolls. We have a series of home-brewed encounters included in their travels. We’ll pick a particular section of the table to place the encounter and drop down the one-shot pieces accordingly.

• Oh the Scarecrow Knows
• Stone Cold Trouble
• I Scry a Witch
• Witch Way Did She Go?
• The End is Near

DM Ben even has a few more content ideas up his sleeve, including dropping more hints about the new Forgotten Rails Hovertrain tech revolution that’s about to overtake Waterdeep.

So, now here’s a new look at our gameboard, but with some handy dungeon master labels to indicate where certain events are likely to take place (including wandering monsters and preplanned homebrewed scenarios).

See how flexible our setup is now? Additionally, the most challenging TTRPG prep work is already complete. Now, DM Ben can focus on ensuring the specific encounter pieces are within arm’s reach by start time.

Also, see how inspiring this DnD setup is? After a long day at the office, sometimes DM Ben grabs an ice-cold beverage and has a seat at the table with his DM notebook in hand. A new narrative or encounter will suddenly pop into his head because he can see things so clearly in front of him. He might think of a new trap, skill challenge, another NPC meetup, a fun new combat, and on and on and on.

Some of you may be wondering what specific sets we used to create this table setup, so here is our DF master list. It’s worth noting that we didn’t utilize every single item from this list, but we selected pieces from pretty much each set.

• Bestial Lair Dressing
• Cave Mouth Pack
• Cliff Tree & Faerie Glade Packs
• Escarpments – Advanced Builder
• Forest Floors – Open Ground
• Forest Floors – Small & Trails Packs
• Modular Trees Bundle
• Mountain Starter Set
• Plaguestone Glen of Mutant Plants Bundle
• Teardrop Inserts Pack & Ambush Dressing Pack
• Swamp Banks – Basic Builder & Winding River Packs
• Swamp Banks Islands, Rivers, & Swells Packs
• Swamps Skirmish Dressing

Also, if your hobby budget doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room right now or you’re a slow-roll Dwarven Forge collector like us, you can always print insanely good complimentary wilderness tiles from Milestone Heroes and Aether Studios and then simply use Dwarven Forge’s robust paint guides to match them up.

Pretty darn fun, right?! We’re looking to showing off some Dwarven Forge terrain-inspired DnD one-shot and companion 3D prints in follow-up posts!

Until next time!

The post Forge Ahead appeared first on 3DRPG.