We think in general it's a good idea to have one set that you have a ton of tiles for, with lots of flexibility, and then a bunch of smaller sets where you can build a few rooms with some differing flair. It seems counterintuitive, but cut-stone is designed to actually be a little boring, which makes it a perfect set for the large set. It's easy to add flair to the dungeon with a few interesting tiles, or scatter terrain, but your basic set will serve you better if it is more of a plain pallet you can use to build a bunch of different things. The more distinctive it is, the harder it is to use for different game situations. Once you have selected the base set you intend to use, then you can extend it with various tiles, and other, smaller sets to add visual interest, or to make particular areas of your map vary for game reasons.

There is no need to stick to OpenForge for all your tiles. The bases we produce can work with basically any other project's tiles. You just need to cut off 6mm from the base of any other tile system, something that most slicers can do, but can also easily be done in blender with a cube and a boolean difference. Select a connection system, and go with that universally. We love doing openlock + magnetic. Magnets make life way easier when you are quickly building a map at the table. Openlock makes it much easier to build rooms ahead of time that you don't have to worry about getting knocked apart. The combination is great. You'll also want to choose a square size, which is a bit more complicated. OpenForge internal tiles and dwarven forge are based on 25mm squares. Printable Scenery, Dragonlock and Hirstarts are based on 1" squares. To make the 25mm tiles the 1" scale, scale them up to 101.6%. To do the reverse, scale 1" tiles down to 98.4%. however, the OpenForge bases are already the right size. DO NOT SCALE THEM, as it will break the openlock connectors. We have not started altering the file names, but in the future, the file names will contain the square basis so that it's super easy from the outset to understand what scale things are in.

All of our set suggestions below are based on the preference for Magnets + OpenLOCK. You can always swap in what base you prefer. Some people prefer to use our plain bases that have no texture on them so that all the tiles line up perfectly. Some people prefer the bases to carry the texture of the tile all the way through. The bases have a broad variety including magnet, openlock, magnetic + openlock, openlock triplex, plain, and any other base you want to imagine.

Materials and Tools

Materials

Filament

I use and am super happy with Foxsmart Natural PLA. Their filament has good quality control, and it's cheap at $16/roll and flat rate shipping of (IIRC) $5 regardless of order size. I generally use clear, because I find it easier to tell if I got good coverage with my primer, because I can hold it up to a light and see if there are gaps in the coverage. Black and White both also work, though with black, you will need to be careful that your primer fully coverd it, because the filament is glossy. Turns out, glossy shadows don't look good.

Primer

I use Krylon Fusion Black Camo paint. This stuff is amazing, SUPER flat, goes on in thin, even coats. Hell, I use it to prime my miniatures these days. I find it at my local Ace Hardware for about $5 a can. Tabletop Minions has a video covering all the reasons I love this paint.

If you can't find the krylon fusion paints, before I used it, I was reasonably happy with Rustoleum Painter's Touch Flat Black, which you can get at places like Lowes or Home Depot. (Despite what amazon says, it's about $4 a can)

Glue

For superglue, I have two different recommendations. Loktite Ultragel Control is super easy to use, but a bit pricy. Also you end up needing to use pliars to crank the top as the glue gets used up to actually use all that you are sold. I love this stuff when I need more control for like tight spots and such.

Price wise, Gorilla Super Glue Gel is much cheaper per ounce, and I use it for the bulk of my gluing these days. ($4.84 for 15 grams vs $3.89 for 4 grams)

Magnets

There are two types of magnets regularly used in OpenForge. 5mm spherical magnets, and 3/16" dia. x 1/16" thick cylinders.

I get the 3/16" dia. x 1/16" thick magnets from K&J and my spheres from Dealxtreme. With Dealxtreme, the shipping time is long, and which color of magnet is cheapest changes a lot, so keep an eye on the site, and order early before you run out.

Paint

For the most part, I use Americana Craft Paint for my terrain. Here's their color chart. There isn't anything super special about my choice here, you can find usable paints with any of the craft lines. Use the color chart I linked to look at other paint lines to get paints that are close.

Black, White
Zinc, Neutral Grey and Slate Grey for stone.
Raw Umber, Raw Sienna and Honey Brown for wood.
Hauser Light Green, Hauser Medium Green and Hauser Dark Green for moss/lichen.
Ultrablue Deep, True Blue and Ocean Blue for water.
Gloss varnish for things like water, metal, etc.
Various metallics from a variety of craft paint lines for metals.

Water

When I want to do water in something like a fountain, I use Woodland Scenics Water Effects.

Tools

3d Printer (of course)

If you can afford a little more in cost, I suggest the Prusa i3 MK2 at $699.99. It gets great reviews, isn't super expensive, and makes really top quality prints.

If you want something cheaper, a lot of people seem to be really happy with the Monoprice Maker Select at $299.99.

Hobby knife

You'll want an xacto knife. I prefer one with rubber sides. You'll also want a self healing mat and plenty of blades (a sharp knife is counterintuitively safer then a dull one). Don't be stupid with these, cut away from yourself. I know, I've had 3 bad cuts in the past few years, one of which that did permanent nerve damage to my left pointer finger. Be careful!

Pin Vice

I use the pin vice all the time. Basically it's a mini drill that you turn with your hands that has very tiny bits. For anything that I print that uses filament as a joint or a rivet, having a drill that's a little larger then a 1.75mm piece of filament is super useful, but I find a ton of other uses for it in both 3d printing, and for miniatures. This isn't critical equipment, but it's really pretty useful to have.

Here's a reasonably cheap one and one that has a ton of bits. A variety of bits is really worth it. In fact, I really did actually order the second one from amazon while writing this. Seriously.

Flush Cutters

Here's a cheap set from amazon. Cheap snips generally are softer, so their blade is more easily destroyed. So long as you only use this on plastic, you can go as cheap as you want.

Lighter

I use a standard bic lighter. Best way to get rid of stringing if you have any. Also super useful for making rivets out of filament.

Spray Paint Booth

Because I'm making a ton of tiles, I built a simple spray paint booth. What I did was go get some flat cardboard (from say an amazon box), and a plastic crate (like this one). Get rid of the lid, add the cardboard on the bottom, and bam, instant spray booth.

Drill Press

Printing isn't always clean. In many cases, magnet holes will end up with stringing, gunk or other bits of plastic in them. I use a benchtop drill press with a 15/64" or 6mm drill bit. This is not strictly necessary, it's totally aa nice to have. You don't need anything nice, you can just the cheap-o model from Harbor Freight. I find a ton of use for my drill press, unrelated to OpenForge. If you have the space, I recommend one. If not, you can still do this with any drill, it's just easier with a drill press.

Basic Set

To create a basic set, you will want a selection that lets you build a few small rooms, or a larger, more complex room. To that end, we suggest you start off with the following:

Requires 1-2 1 kg rolls of filament and 376 Magnets. You will also need some cyanoacrylate glue (superglue).

14 2x2 walls
8 2x2 corners
12 2x2 floors
2 4x4 floors
4 2x2 doors
2 4x2 wide doors
2 2x2 windows

For flexibility, and to maximize the chances of producing usable parts we suggest using construction kit versions of tiles wherever possible.

Cut-Stone

376 Magnets

Walls
- Walls as one piece
- Wall Floors & Wall Backs as a construction kit
- 14x cut_stone_floor.2x2.internal.ckit
- 14x cut_stone_wall.2x.internal.standard.ckit
Corners
- Corners as one piece
- Corner Floors & Corner Backs as a constuction kit
Floors
Doors
- Arched Doors or Wood Frame Doors (consider doing a full set of both)
- Wall Floors & Wall Backs as a construction kit. Wall backs contains every variety of cut-stone backs for the construction kit.
- 4x (arched) cut_stone_door.2xW.internal.standard.ckit
- 4x (wood frame) cut_stone_door_square.stone_floor.2xW.internal.standard.ckit + door_lintel_1, 2 or 3
- 4x cut_stone_floor.2x2.internal.ckit
- 4x 2x2 square base in the connector style you prefer
Arched Windows or Square Windows (consider doing a full set of both)

Cut-Stone Half-Height

Windows and Doors don't make much sense at half-height. If your goal is to create a set that lets you easily see the miniatures, we suggest printing the half-height set and then printing full height doors and windows above.

Walls
Corners
Floors (Same as Cut-Stone floors above)

Tudor

376 Magnets

Rough Stone

Rough stone is a varation of ruined stone, where the pieces are complete. If you print rough stone, we suggest also printing the full range of ruined variations, as the two work really well together to make partially intact buildings or rooms.

400 Magnets

Walls
- 14 of ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.full.stl
- If you want half-height, instead ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.half.stl
- 2 each of broken_stone_floor.wall.ckit.2x2.a - broken_stone_floor.wall.ckit.2x2.i
Corners
- 8 ruined_wall.corner.ckit.2x.full.stl or 8 of ruined_wall.corner.ckit.2x.half.stl if you want half height
- 8 of broken_stone_floor.corner.ckit.2x2.a - broken_stone_floor.corner.ckit.2x2.i
Floors
- 2x each of 2x2.a - 2x2.i (18 total, but gives a lot of variation)
- 2x of 4x4
Wood Framed Doors
- 4x of ruined_door_square.ckit.2x.full-full
- 4x of ruined_floor.door.ckit.2x2.stl
- 4x of door_lintel_1, 2 or 3
- 4x of tudor_square_door
- 2x of ruined_door_square.ckit.4x.full-fullx
- 2x of ruined_floor.door.ckit.4x2.stl
- 2x of door_lintel_1.double, 2 or 3
- 4x of tudor_square_door_double
Square Windows
- 2x ruined_wall.window.ckit.2x.full
- Use 2 of the floors printed for the walls that were left over

Ruined Stone

Ruined stone is a varation of rough stone, where the pieces are not entirely complete. If you print rough stone, we suggest also printing the full range of ruined variations, as the two work really well together to make partially intact buildings or rooms.

532 Magnets

Walls
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.full-half.stl
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.full-low.stl
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.half-full.stl
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.half.stl
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.half-low.stl
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.low-full.stl
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.low-half.stl
- 2x ruined_wall.wall.ckit.2x.low.stl
- 2x each of broken_stone_floor.wall.ckit.2x2.a - broken_stone_floor.wall.ckit.2x2.i
Corners
- There are 27 variations of corner height, pick 8 that are uneven
- 8 of broken_stone_floor.corner.ckit.2x2.a - broken_stone_floor.corner.ckit.2x2.i
Floors
- 2x each of 2x2.a - 2x2.i (18 total, but gives a lot of variation)
- 2x of 4x4
Wood Framed Doors
- 4x of ruined_door_square.ckit.2x.full-half, full-low, half-full, half-half, half-low, low-full, low-half, low-low
- 4x of ruined_floor.door.ckit.2x2.stl
- 2x of ruined_door_square.ckit.4x.full-half, full-low, half-full, half-half, half-low, low-full, low-half, low-low
- 2x of ruined_floor.door.ckit.4x2.stl
Square Windows
- Any 2 of ruined_wall.window.ckit.2x.full-half, half and half-full
- Use 2 of the floors printed for the walls that were left over
Shattered Floors
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.side.a
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.side.a.mirrored
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.side.b
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.side.b.mirrored
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.corner.convex
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.corner.convex.mirrored
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.corner.concave
- 2x shattered_stone_floor.2x2.corner.concave.mirrored

README.md

OpenForge Sets

Introduction