The Inside Scoop on Gaming

First off, please see the two previous reviews of the MasterMaze product on this website. They are excellent and I have no desire to repeat what has already been said so well.

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_1076.html

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_0840.html

Ok, pretty awesome product eh? I agree. I love these things. The quality and detail of the pieces is amazing, right down to the skeletons and bones painted onto the edges of the floors so they appear to be buried right under the flagstones!

You would think that being a mass produced, hand-painted product that there would be a lot of variation in the quality of each piece, but not so. Each piece is top notch and very realistic.

The pieces were designed and crafted in the USA, and they are manufactured (and painted?) in China. I can only imagine how expensive they would be to make in the USA. The talent that goes into each piece is incredible.

Well, this is a playtest review so I should describe my personal experiences with them ...

I use them when I play Dungeons & Dragons. We use miniatures to help us visualize the positioning of each adventurer and monster during encounters. The MasterMaze pieces add a tremendous amount of flair to the dungeon crawls we do. However, I have noticed a few things that keep the pieces from being perfect in my view.

Don't get me wrong, I love these things. They are way cool. But, in using them for D&D combat scenes some of the pieces are too small. I am refering specifically to the room pieces that do not have a full 4 square floor for each 10'x10' (25 mm scale) section. The designer(s), in order to have the pieces fit onto a grid of 2 inch (50mm) spaces, made the room pieces with walls that take up space on adjacent floor squares.

When we game we use each square as space a miniature can stand in. And trying to fit some of our 25mm and 28mm miniatures into these "half" squares just doesn't work. So we either end up building the rooms bigger and ignoring the "half" squares, or turning the single wall pieces around and using full 4-square floor pieces with single wall pieces next to them. The whole point of these pieces is that they look so cool, but when you have dungeon floor on the outside of the rooms just doing nothing it looses some of it's coolness.

There is a solution to this "half" square problem, but it requires Dwarven Forge to cast some new sized pieces. What they would need to do is make room pieces with full 4-square floors and then make a small floor piece that is 2 squares wide and only as long the width of a wall ... about 10mm. If they built-in tabs on either side of this small floor piece it would fit perfectly into the gap left between a "full-sized" room and a passage piece. The down side to this method is that the space outside each room wall is cut down and you can't put a full size corridor just outside a room. This isn't a problem for my games since we don't usually build right outside a room. That's what the passage pieces are for ... to get you to each room.

Sorry if I confused you with that last bit. It's just a pet peeve of mine. I really like these pieces and will continue to buy more. I understand they are planning to bring out natural cavern pieces and possibly modern type pieces for Western, Modern Day, and Space games. That is just a rumor, but I hope they do.

The other very minor complaint I have is with the little "bow" ties used to link each piece together. These "bow" ties fit into small groves cut into the floor edges of each piece. Well, the problem I have is that the pieces are only held loosly together by the ties and tend to shift around when pushed or pulled a little. Enough so that the use of the ties really doesn't make a difference. We don't use them and have no real problems keeping the pieces together. we are just careful not to hit the walls. But in not using the ties which saves a few seconds in constructing each piece, we are left with tiny gaps in the floors. And on occasion our miniatures have fallen over because of the gaps. I guess my complaint is that the ties don't hold the pieces together tight enough so we don't use them and since we don't use them I'd rather see them left out all together without any gaps in the floors. But I really shouldn't complain .... these pieces are so cool!

They are costly, but worth every penny.

There are also cool portcullis and arch pieces which sell for $10 each and pilliars and stairs and secret doors and more.

There is another review and a picture of the pieces at:

http://www.b-ware.com/hive/reviews/misc/mstrmaze.htm

Happy Adventuring!

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

MasterMaze dungeon pieces
Author: n/a Category: Miniature Company/Publisher: Dwarven Forge Line: Dungeon / Fantasy games Cost: $3 to $90 Page count: n/a Playtest Review by Don Walker on 02/22/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Historical Horror Far_Future Anime Espionage Conspiracy Post-apocalypse Vampire Gothic Asian/Far_East Superhero Diceless Generic	First off, please see the two previous reviews of the MasterMaze product on this website. They are excellent and I have no desire to repeat what has already been said so well. http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_1076.html http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_0840.html Ok, pretty awesome product eh? I agree. I love these things. The quality and detail of the pieces is amazing, right down to the skeletons and bones painted onto the edges of the floors so they appear to be buried right under the flagstones! You would think that being a mass produced, hand-painted product that there would be a lot of variation in the quality of each piece, but not so. Each piece is top notch and very realistic. The pieces were designed and crafted in the USA, and they are manufactured (and painted?) in China. I can only imagine how expensive they would be to make in the USA. The talent that goes into each piece is incredible. Well, this is a playtest review so I should describe my personal experiences with them ... I use them when I play Dungeons & Dragons. We use miniatures to help us visualize the positioning of each adventurer and monster during encounters. The MasterMaze pieces add a tremendous amount of flair to the dungeon crawls we do. However, I have noticed a few things that keep the pieces from being perfect in my view. Don't get me wrong, I love these things. They are way cool. But, in using them for D&D combat scenes some of the pieces are too small. I am refering specifically to the room pieces that do not have a full 4 square floor for each 10'x10' (25 mm scale) section. The designer(s), in order to have the pieces fit onto a grid of 2 inch (50mm) spaces, made the room pieces with walls that take up space on adjacent floor squares. When we game we use each square as space a miniature can stand in. And trying to fit some of our 25mm and 28mm miniatures into these "half" squares just doesn't work. So we either end up building the rooms bigger and ignoring the "half" squares, or turning the single wall pieces around and using full 4-square floor pieces with single wall pieces next to them. The whole point of these pieces is that they look so cool, but when you have dungeon floor on the outside of the rooms just doing nothing it looses some of it's coolness. There is a solution to this "half" square problem, but it requires Dwarven Forge to cast some new sized pieces. What they would need to do is make room pieces with full 4-square floors and then make a small floor piece that is 2 squares wide and only as long the width of a wall ... about 10mm. If they built-in tabs on either side of this small floor piece it would fit perfectly into the gap left between a "full-sized" room and a passage piece. The down side to this method is that the space outside each room wall is cut down and you can't put a full size corridor just outside a room. This isn't a problem for my games since we don't usually build right outside a room. That's what the passage pieces are for ... to get you to each room. Sorry if I confused you with that last bit. It's just a pet peeve of mine. I really like these pieces and will continue to buy more. I understand they are planning to bring out natural cavern pieces and possibly modern type pieces for Western, Modern Day, and Space games. That is just a rumor, but I hope they do. The other very minor complaint I have is with the little "bow" ties used to link each piece together. These "bow" ties fit into small groves cut into the floor edges of each piece. Well, the problem I have is that the pieces are only held loosly together by the ties and tend to shift around when pushed or pulled a little. Enough so that the use of the ties really doesn't make a difference. We don't use them and have no real problems keeping the pieces together. we are just careful not to hit the walls. But in not using the ties which saves a few seconds in constructing each piece, we are left with tiny gaps in the floors. And on occasion our miniatures have fallen over because of the gaps. I guess my complaint is that the ties don't hold the pieces together tight enough so we don't use them and since we don't use them I'd rather see them left out all together without any gaps in the floors. But I really shouldn't complain .... these pieces are so cool! They are costly, but worth every penny. There are also cool portcullis and arch pieces which sell for $10 each and pilliars and stairs and secret doors and more. There is another review and a picture of the pieces at: http://www.b-ware.com/hive/reviews/misc/mstrmaze.htm Happy Adventuring! Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

MasterMaze dungeon pieces