Effective way to draw your way in your way to the dungeon

[skypse]

Good Morning Giants!!!

I come again humble as always to ask for your infinite wisdom and knowledge. I've being DM for 3-4 months now playing with some friends that I'm trying to teach them the basics of the game so I can take them with me as a group and play with another DM. It's not like we can't start with that guy right away, but I have already failed his campaign once (and pretty early tbh) and I know we can't afford "newbie" mistakes so I'm just preping them.

That being said, I asked for advice from that guy on what campaign I should run and he told me for RotR (Rise of the Runelords). I started it, all good, we are in the middle of the first book now and my boys just finished with the glassworks and are ready for the Catacombs of the Wrath. I am trying my best to be a good DM (mainly because I am looking things through a player's perspective) and I always want to provide them with as many tools and information I can have on something.
e.g. Our wizard is rolling every single knowledge **** he can think of. I know that's what a wizard does, but due to the fact that I don't want to just answer "nothing" I have gone so far as to analyze theoretical physics to him. :D
Anyway, while in the glassworks I had some A4 papers printed out, gridded properly, and kinda "drawn" the whole map, each room on a different paper while they were investigating.
I saw that the Catacombs and Thistletop maps are much harder than the glassworks though, and I REALLY suck at drawing. I checked online in google if anyone has readied those maps himself so I can just print them, but everything is in such a small scale that I would just need to draw them all again.

When I asked my DM about it he told me that in such cases he uses Jenga bricks. (I know it sounds poor but it isn't easy for everyone to buy terrain items). Is there any FREE online tool that I can use or even better if someone of you Giants have the maps in his folio it would be REALLY helpful for me and my group.

Other than that, any kind of feedback is totally welcome.

[Nibbens]

Good Morning Giants!!!

I come again humble as always to ask for your infinite wisdom and knowledge. I've being DM for 3-4 months now playing with some friends that I'm trying to teach them the basics of the game so I can take them with me as a group and play with another DM. It's not like we can't start with that guy right away, but I have already failed his campaign once (and pretty early tbh) and I know we can't afford "newbie" mistakes so I'm just preping them.

That being said, I asked for advice from that guy on what campaign I should run and he told me for RotR (Rise of the Runelords). I started it, all good, we are in the middle of the first book now and my boys just finished with the glassworks and are ready for the Catacombs of the Wrath. I am trying my best to be a good DM (mainly because I am looking things through a player's perspective) and I always want to provide them with as many tools and information I can have on something.
e.g. Our wizard is rolling every single knowledge **** he can think of. I know that's what a wizard does, but due to the fact that I don't want to just answer "nothing" I have gone so far as to analyze theoretical physics to him. :D
Anyway, while in the glassworks I had some A4 papers printed out, gridded properly, and kinda "drawn" the whole map, each room on a different paper while they were investigating.
I saw that the Catacombs and Thistletop maps are much harder than the glassworks though, and I REALLY suck at drawing. I checked online in google if anyone has readied those maps himself so I can just print them, but everything is in such a small scale that I would just need to draw them all again.

When I asked my DM about it he told me that in such cases he uses Jenga bricks. (I know it sounds poor but it isn't easy for everyone to buy terrain items). Is there any FREE online tool that I can use or even better if someone of you Giants have the maps in his folio it would be REALLY helpful for me and my group.

Other than that, any kind of feedback is totally welcome.

I don't know of any free items, but I'm running the same game, and I've been using a drawn grid just fine. It doesn't have to be perfect, just some quick lines and description to help your PC's identify what those lines are and you should be fine.

If you're having problems with larger areas have you tried taping the A4 papers together and drawing the entire dungeon instead of room by room?

[Elkad]

I make a terrible freehand small-scale map on plain paper for the players as they go. Inaccuracy IS a goal. If they hit two sides of the dungeon at different times, the connecting cross-corridor (when they find it) probably won't meet in the middle like it should. Rooms aren't to scale. Slopes aren't noted. It's supposed to be a rough guide, not a tool to allow them to figure things like "hmm, there is an extra 10ft of space here, lets search this wall for secret doors.

Or are you talking about maps for actual combat?

[Wolfepuppy]

That's a great idea. Your right, the map of the while dungeon shouldn't be terribly accurate unless they have profession map maker. Combat maps however need to be accurate.

[skypse]

If it was a general map like the map of the town of Sandpoint for example I wouldn't have any problem. Or even the whole Varisia. But in the specific campaign Catacombs of Wrath and Thistletop are used as dungeons and as a result they include combat moments so they have to be accurate. I thought of having a general map for the whole dungeon, and if they enter a room that there is a fight in it I should have just the specific room drawn. However I can't force my PCs to stay in that room so if they chose to take the fight outside for more maneuverability I will be screwed. Instead of gambling with "what they might do" I prefer having every inch of the map drawn while I give them generic description of their surroundings.

[Wolfepuppy]

What you need is a big sheet of 1 inch grid paper and then get out laminated so you can draw as you go

[Diachronos]

One group I'm in used a small (maybe 2' x 3-4') whiteboard with a "grid" of dots so that they could just quickly map out rooms as the party entered. It takes a while to get the board's dot grid accurately drawn out, but it was pretty effective; the only reason we stopped using it was because the number of players at the table made it too cluttered for the board to be effective between sheets, drinks, and other things.

[Psyren]

I thought this thread would be about a party abusing Marvelous Pigments to bypass traps :smallbiggrin:

Kidding aside, my groups use playmats and dry-erase markers. The group as a whole can chip in to get more of these and we support the FLGS by doing so. Yeah, drawing sucks for me too, but if you're drawing on a grid it's not that bad because you're basically drawing one line at a time.



e.g. Our wizard is rolling every single knowledge **** he can think of. I know that's what a wizard does, but due to the fact that I don't want to just answer "nothing" I have gone so far as to analyze theoretical physics to him. :D

What word was censored there? :smallconfused:

Also, it's good that you want to always tell your player something helpful, but if he is bogging down play by rolling a whole bunch of knowledge checks, don't be afraid to tell him "that isn't relevant for this situation," or even to use a "close enough" result, like giving him the "history" answer for a "noblity and royalty" check.

[skypse]

I thought this thread would be about a party abusing Marvelous Pigments to bypass traps :smallbiggrin:

Nop.. I really have a problem :P



Kidding aside, my groups use playmats and dry-erase markers. The group as a whole can chip in to get more of these and we support the FLGS by doing so. Yeah, drawing sucks for me too, but if you're drawing on a grid it's not that bad because you're basically drawing one line at a time.
Up till now I've been using the board from a board game (Stratego 4) that has small tiles and it is pretty effective but the thing is that the dungeon is a little too big to fit in there.



What word was censored there? :smallconfused:
s h 1 t :P



@Wolfepuppy I may be able to order one of these from a local print store.

[Elkad]

Our battle board started as a 24"x36" dry erase board, with rooms free-handed on (and no grid, so you had to measure ranges).

Then posterboard with hand drawn lines, and peel-n-stick laminate over it.

Now we have a 4'x8' sheet of white paneling, grid drawn on it, and a 4'x8' sheet of thin lexan/plexi over it.
If you turn the paneling over, it has 1" hexes on the other side (plotter paper run, glued down)

[skypse]

So after all we did play on Saturday. I mostly described the surroundings and I used the Stratego 4 map with some Jenga tiles for the walls for the big combat. It wasn't as flashy as I wanted it to be, but the group seemed to have a good time and to understand the room that the fight took place in so everything went well. Thank you all for your help and contribution.

By the way, I found this online tool which can be proven pretty handy in such situations, considering you have the time to create your map. You can either save it there or download and print a PDF/JPG file of it and I am trying to learn how to use it efficiently. If anyone is interested, it is an online free application in this website:


http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/

P.S. I don't know the forum rules about posting 3rd party links. I apologize if I crossed any of them. I put the link inside CODE wraps just to be sure.

[IslandDog]

This might be a bit late, but for my group we just bought a whiteboard and drew a grid with a sharpie (permanent marker). Then we just draw each room we get into as we go with a dry erase marker. When we leave the room, we erase the board, but the permanent marker remains so the grid is ready to be used for the next room. But yeah, ours are pretty rough too!

[Lightlawbliss]

My Main group is lazy, we use roll20.net when we meet in person. It's especially useful When I DM since I have this unexplainable love of big (my biggest is a 15 mile by 20 mile map on a .5 in = 25 ft grid) maps.

[skypse]

@LightLawBliss

You use an online tool when you get all together? I got confused :D

[Lightlawbliss]

@LightLawBliss

You use an online tool when you get all together? I got confused :D

yes, we sit in something approximating a circle with our laptops and use the online tool as our table top. (we have no actual table where we meet so that was part of the choice)

[Mirakk]

What I like to do for general maps players can use because they received it from an NPC etc, is get a notebook of grid paper from the local art supplies store. One notebook has been enough for this purpose for ages. For cities etc, I just scale the map so that each square is actually 10 or 20 feet instead of 5, and go from there. This also helps me do my combat maps for the city if a fight breaks out in a given area, because I know what it should look like, and the scale for it. I just need to place random objects etc.

For the actual combat map, I used to use the dry or wet erase mats, but I found that it's actually a lot better to go to Office Max and buy the huge pad of grid paper that's like 3'x3' and has like 50 sheets for $25. This allows me to map out areas that they may find themselves returning to, and keep them "on file" for later use. Whereas if you use the wet erase mat, you end up having to re-draw that crap every time. Works great.