We all dream of true immersion in Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, or the tabletop RPG of our choice. In service of this goal, a Dungeon Master plans out elaborate dungeon layouts, tracks details like when guards change shifts, and designs traps meant to test even the cleverest adventurer's skills. Then, when it's game time, the DM grabs a dry-erase marker and... draws some crappy lines. That's what I do, anyway. No matter the time I spend on a battlefield's design, the final product will always be squares for rooms and squiggles for bushes. Castle! is a Kickstarter product that, with imagination, lets DMs build more immersive battle maps.
Many tabletop fans will recognize the idea of high-quality, modular tabletop terrain from Dwarven Forge. Castle! aims to occupy a similar space in the tabletop Kickstarter world, but with one big difference. The things you build with Castle! will be able to stack, forming actual castles with multiple floors or labyrinths that can continue deeper and deeper without the need to pause in between floors. How much building material you get depends on your Kickstarter pledge level. We won't lie – these things can get costly. To actually create an elaborate fixture, you'll need to pledge about $250 minimum. But with some imagination, you can do a lot with the lower pledge levels.
What Castle! Is Supposed To Do
As the name implies, the pieces included in Castle! are meant to build medieval-style buildings. Everything has a painted finish that makes it look like stone. Floors can come in stone or wood, but either way, most things you build will take on the appearance of an artificial construction. The detail on the pieces is outstanding. They're sturdy and well worth the price. They all snap together with a series of two-sided pegs, with square floor sections that are full of holes like waffles. It sometimes feels like a finer version of LEGOs.
TheGamer was lent a prototype version of the Watchtower, the $149 pledge reward. Here is what the default tower configuration looks like, with my unpainted Dragonborn surveying his kingdom. Little does he know that he has a guest...
The blue floor is the "waffle" I spoke of earlier. Though in the retail version it will come with more floor tiles to actually disguise the inner workings. These tiles will also be 5" x 5" squares so as to accommodate the standard D&D measurements.
Use Your Imagination
An exciting campaign will not just visit castles, however. Memorable adventures will delve into deep caverns, trek through harsh forests, and visit whatever bizarre locations that DMs dream up. Which makes me circle back to a defining feature of Castle! The pieces always look like grey stone walls. If you fund the Kickstarter, you could ask the creators to send you unpainted pieces instead. Then you could paint them to match your vision better. But they'll still be stone. So is Castle! useful for more than just castles? Yes! But you have to get creative with it.
When the creators sent me the sample, my party was in the middle of a quest that took place inside a giant tree. It was pretty much the opposite of what Castle! is made for. However, I decided to reimagine the pieces to form the knots and "walls" of the tree's insides. My goal was to create encounters that played with the idea of height and hidden holes. This is one such battlefield I made by incorporating these. It uses the most basic pieces of Castle!, and again, I would've totally covered it in wooden floor tiles if I had the retail version.
This is where Castle! showed its true strength. I had a few concepts for battlefields, depending on where in the giant tree my party decided to go. They ended up skirting the other fights and found the boss, ruining my plans as players do. If they did explore more, however, I could have easily snapped those pieces off the blue and yellow waffles and put new ones on. All in about the same time it takes me to draw my crappy lines and squiggles.
There was also an unforeseen aspect to using Castle! By inspiring me to be more creative, it inspired my adventurers to be more creative. Our rogue immediately made for that elevated piece so she could snipe from up high. She ended up dropkicking a demon on the way up. You can see the paladin on the bottom half, where he decided to investigate that covered area. That triggered the arrival of a swarm of demon bugs. It was a fun battle all around, thanks in part to Castle! giving us more to work with.
Things To Work On
It is worth noting that The Castle Foundry, Castle!'s creators, warned me of some known issues when they sent the sample. They actually Kickstarted Castle! a few years ago, but pulled the plug mid-campaign because of manufacturer issues. Part of the reason they began another Kickstarter is because they now have a manufacturer that is delivering pieces that match their ideal. The sample I played with, however, was using the old parts.
The biggest issue was the pegs that connect everything. The samples had been worn by time and didn't hold as advertised. This was especially frustrating when I tried to go off-book, like with my tree map. That said, the creators assured me that the pegs are a relic of Castle!'s original run. The new pegs are supposed to be much stronger and grip a lot better. The floors, too, will be given better tighter grooves so as to hold pegs better.
The other potential barrier for many DMs will be price. I never did get to try making a tiered labyrinth. The $149 set I demoed didn't give me enough pieces to go big. Castle! is an investment for serious DMs. You know who you are. If DIY tricks like making paper tokens is your thing, then Castle! is probably not for you. But if you've got the cash, and the creative drive, Castle! can up your game. It's better than drawing boxes on grid paper for the millionth time, anyway.
Castle! is running its Kickstarter campaign until November 7th. It's 90% funded as of this writing. Check it out here.