Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: "Forest Starter Set" [RPG]

 

After years of publishing the Map Pack line of single-sided rectangular cards, Paizo moved to the Flip-Tiles concept.  Each of the 42 cards in a starter set is double-sided to provide many more options, and because they’re square, they fit together much easier than the old format.  They’re also numbered, which is really handy for Pathfinder Society scenarios to indicate which cards are needed in an encounter. The cards continue to be full-colour, gridded, and marker safe.  The starter sets also include a set of six tabbed dividers, which I guess is for helping to organise the cards if expansion packs are added later (I keep mine in their original boxes). 

The first of the Flip-Tiles I’ve used is the Forest Starter Set.  They’re okay, but I’m not really a big fan, and my reason might sound a bit strange at first: there’s not enough forest.  A forest isn’t 100% trees, of course, and I wouldn’t have minded some realistically-random clearings and patches of underbrush, but instead the vast majority of cards feature clear, man-made trails with trees on either side.  Only a handful of cards are pristine, deep forest.  This really limits the usefulness for me, as often when PCs are headed off into the wilderness, they’re not following paths already laid out ahead of them.  I want them to feel far from civilisation and on their own.

The set contains a few specialty cards: a cool dungeon entrance, a ritualistic ring of stones, a crossroads, and (oddly) a single six-square long river. 

Overall, I think this should have been labelled a “Forest Trails” set—perhaps I’m being pedantic, but these starter sets are $ 35 USD, and I want to be able to see the forest for the trees.