On terrain, part 4

Yes, I'm back on the terrain bandwagon again, this time musing on something at the core of parts 2 and 3: density.

How much terrain is just right, too much and too little?

This isn't a post wherein i ramble on about the benefits of terrain, how to best interact with terrain, or the like. It's simply a rhetorical musing on how we dress the tables we game on. Primarily on the proportion of the table we cover in things that are immobile.

As I've said before, I've been gaming for far too long, and so I've seen numerous ways of deciding the terrain.

When I started, the norm was for the GM, a third party, to set up the terrain. Thus, in theory the set up was fairly impartial. Of course, finding a neutral third party could be difficult.

We moved on, through pre-set maps to a loose system of alternately placing terrain pieces until both players agreed that there was enough, before deciding deployment zones. Since then we've had such rules as at least or at most 1 or 2 "pieces" per 12" or 24" square, or of table length, through to random terrain charts, and even "anything that isn't a different terrain type is counted as terrain type (a)." Of course, we can't forget "fill one quarter of the table, then spread it out," and "dress the table to a theme," guidelines that don't cause confusion at all. It's been a weird trip.

These days i generally play at my desk, and so there's an almost endless supply of terrain. As such, if i have 2 players coming, I'll often set up a the terrain in advance, then let them decide on deployment zones. If I'm playing, i generally let my opponent set up whatever and however much terrain they want in their half of the table, then set mine in response. That being said, i can't say either is a hard and fast rule, and I'm definitely not saying either is the best way to do it.

What actually inspired this post was my thinking about density in a literal sense: At what point do a scatter of buildings become a cityscape?
How much of the table should be trees for a game set in a forest?
If there's an equal amount of trees and ruins, is the game in a village in the woods, or is it in the woods, where there's a few ruins?

...the things that keep me awake at night...

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