Nivek Dnalop

The final set of dungeon tiles from Board-Craft Simulations, Village Paths appeared in 1981. Of the three, this one feels like a bit of a reach in terms of content and it doesn’t surprise me that there wasn’t a fourth box.

By 1981, the RPG scene was in the midst of a boom. Lots of folks were making generic, D&D adjacent products to capitalize on the money players were spending. That means there are tons of weird and cool things from the period to find if you dig around. Fantasy Paths is one of them.

This is a set of 28 modular tiles, printed front and back, depicting aerial views of 56 dungeon rooms. Along with those, there’re some tiles for adventurers and monsters (spot the jack-o’-bear and scorpion man from RuneQuest!), a sheet of dice replacement chits, a short adventure and an abridged version of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying to give you a system to fiddle with.

They tiles are essentially more detailed, larger versions of TSR’s Dungeon Geomorphs, (I feel like there has to be a vintage TSR equivalent to Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeon Tiles, but if there is, I can neither think of it nor find it) allowing you to plot miniature friendly dungeons on the fly.

Well, sort of miniature friendly. Because of the way the walls are drawn, they take up significant visual space. That makes them look cooler in my book, but probably makes the awkward to use in a game.

Castle Paths is the second box of dungeons tiles from Board-Craft Simulations, originally released in 1981 following their reprint of Fantasy Paths (which I covered last year). It sports the best cover art of the series, again by Lisa A. Free of Pendragon fame. 

There isn’t a whole lot to say about these other than, “I dig ‘em.” They’re part of the original boom of creative, generic supplements for RPGs (though the inclusion of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying rules at least partially ties the Paths boxes to RuneQuest). These are kind of hokey and limited in use – the 3D top-down view is pretty, but also makes the tiles feel short on space, plus they are cluttered with details that make the visually interesting but less versatile. 

The last portion of the landscapes for Hull Rupture for now! Playtest is still available here:

Hull Rupture

The game I’ve been working on with Konfa Games is available for playtest!

I’ll be posting some art that I made for it over the next few days.

Available here: