How to Build Dungeon Tiles and Terrain: Felt Four Ways

Felt is an inexpensive and easy medium to use to create dungeon tiles and battle map terrain for a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) like Dungeons and Dragons. 

Felt comes in a variety of thicknesses, sizes, colors, and textures, and it's easily shaped into tiles and maps using a ruler, a fine tip marker or fabric chalk, some good craft scissors, a glue gun, and a plentiful batch of glue gun sticks. With the addition of a few needle-felting supplies, like felting needles, a felting pad, and wool roving or wool top coat, felt can even be used to create 3-dimensional objects or blended surface colors.

Mosaic-Style Interior Build

The mosaic-style build is a great option when duplicating a previously published map with complicated forms, like from an official Wizards of the Coast adventure that includes circular or organic spaces, like towers and caverns. The major benefits of using this building method include the ease of creating a measured replica and the end product having a usable grid and engaging texture.

At its most basic, a mosaic-style build is simply a matter of counting out and cutting enough squares to fit each room of a build. After cutting enough squares to meet the specifications of the map, they can be arranged in the pre-established pattern on a large base, leaving base-color gaps or using base-color squares for walls and doorways, depending on the map.

For example, as shown in figure 1, a mosaic build of a 4” tower room requires 12 full tiles and 4 triangles to complete the room. The outer walls can also be constructed using 1” tiles of a varying color, depending on the size indicated on the map that’s being duplicated, or a builder may want to use ¼” or ½” rectangles or squares to match previously built dungeon or terrain tiles.

Figure 1.

Measured Interior with ¼, ½, or 1-Inch Walls

Sometimes maps, especially those consisting mostly of interiors or stand-alone buildings, do not require grids in order to calculate movement. A game master might simply know that a room is 4” across and therefore know how much of a character’s movement it takes to cross the room or how far a spell can travel. Alternatively, rulers can be used to calculate distances in rooms without grids. The benefits of gridless tiles are the ease and efficiency of creating them and the “less busy” look of the finished product.

Creating rooms without grids requires, like the mosaic-type build, careful measuring and marking. If the map requires a 20’ x 40’ room, and 1” = 5’, the room itself will need to be 4” x 8” plus the additional space required to create walls. A room with ¼” walls will need to be 4 ½ by 8 ½ inches, for example. The example in figure 2 shows a 4” x 4” inch room that’s been cut at 4 ½” x 4 ½” to accommodate ¼” walls. The two doorways are 1” across.

Gridless tiles can also be used to create new and original configurations. The grey tiles with cream walls shown below are based on a 4" x 4" set, and I've added doors, stairs, larger rooms based on the 4" x 4" measurements, and a 4" x 6" tower room. 

When building multiple rooms that fit tightly together, it sometimes helps to create the build on a large base and later cut the rooms along the walls. Parts of the map can be added during a session as characters explore the space, or an uncut map can be revealed by uncovering parts of it as the character’s explore. 

Figure 2.

4" x 4" Dungeon Tiles with 1" Walls

Needle-Felting

Including needle-felted elements in a build adds both texture and dimension. A needle-felted base can be constructed by carefully measuring and marking squares onto plain craft felt and using core wool or top wool to create the grid pattern. The colors of wool roving can be blended to good effect, and with some work, 3-dimensional objects can be constructed: firepits, boulders, boxes, sacks, greenery, and other reusable elements. 

Felted grids can be used as a base battle map for outdoor spaces, as a base for stand-alone buildings, or as a gridded area within a build’s negative space, as shown in figure 3. 

Figure 3.

Hints and Tips

No matter which type of felt build a person chooses, there are some general hints and tips for the felt build

• Measure carefully before cutting. 
• Arrange pieces (walls, tiles, doors) before gluing.
• Only glue those elements that will never be removed or that need to be used elsewhere.
• Glue on a protected surface to avoid damaging a table or countertop.
• Glue carefully. Hot glue is very hot.
• Felt safely. Felting needles are very sharp.