My Two Printed Dungeons

Last Christmas, I was given a 3D printer as a present and began immediately building the type of gaming items I used to use Hirst Arts molds to create: terrain for wargaming and modular dungeons for roleplaying games.  When I researched the topic, going online and talking to friends, I found first one company, then a second who provided the "patterns" for making modular dungeons.

The first was Fat Dragon Games, which makes not only files for modular dungeons but also fantasy buildings, the odd sci-fi terrain pieces, and most recently a huge batch of fantasy monsters to be printed out on your printer.  In addition, the owner of the company, Tom Tullis, created a huge support network through social media and YouTube on maintaining and getting the most out of your printer, tips and tricks, painting guides, etc.  Recently FDG participated in a great Humble Bundle charity program where you could buy a significant amount of their product for a ridiculously low price, of all of which went to support US veterans.

In addition to what the company provides, there is an entire ancillary group of fans who are modifying FDG's material to make additional files, and DungeonPrint Studio, which is a design software program free online that you can use to plot out your dungeons and figure out how many tiles you need.

If I had one critique, and this is a small one, it is that Fat Dragon Games' tiles have the walls attached to the top of the floors, making a half-inch boundary around rooms, as you can see in the picture above.  Honestly not that big a deal unless you are playing with a ruleset that is particularly picky about grids, like Pathfinder.

After I had build a couple of hundred tiles from FDG, I discovered a second company, DungeonWorks, which is run by John Klingbeil, whom I knew from the old halcyon days of the Hirst Arts Forums.  

DungeonWorks also does modular dungeons and miniatures, has a robust online presence and social media-based support, but in addition their modular dungeons have separate walls and floors, and also has (in one of their expansion packs) half-high walls, which I think make for better tabletop gaming visibility.  Unlike FDG, which uses their own clips, DungeonWorks uses the OpenLock system, a generic uniform clip used by other companies and some contributors to Thingiverse.

Both companies are great and I'm not suggesting one over the other, but rather to say that for people who are looking to get into this aspect of the hobby, we are spoiled for choices of companies with great people who love the hobby and do great customer service.  And there's nothing wrong in my mind with spending the time to make enough tiles to cover four square feet with one company, then do it all over again with another.  

Here's a photo of some early work I've done, specifically from FDG:

Thanks for reading!  Comments welcome!