PDA

View Full Version : PbP tactical mapping: How do you do it?



annulus
2015-05-10, 06:35 PM
A dungeoncrawl. A fight in a bar. A city district to explore. If I want to map these things and more for a PbP game on these forums, what options are available?

I'm considering using ASCII, a la roguelikes, but that feels too low-effort on my part. Photoshopping things onto a grid is another possibility, but that's the opposite problem, in general: too much trouble bringing together the artistic resources. Roll20 might be fine but I don't want to force players to move onto another website. Any recommendations?

Gavran
2015-05-10, 07:18 PM
I'm a fan of Google Docs (Drawings). I had more examples handy in the past but I misplaced them.

Here's one though. (https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1UxOU6r9iv6ihbpNLUVGXKaa8iz58m9kKulNk9FwQHWA/edit?authkey=CPjiwKoF&authkey=CPjiwKoF) (stolen from Surrealistik's guide to DMing 4E PbP)

Anyone you want can simply click and drag their tokens around, create boxes for zones and such. For me, strikes the right mix between ease of use and functionality.

TurboGhast
2015-05-10, 08:41 PM
If you do use ASCII, use a monospaced font e.g. Courier New.
Not in monospaced font:
..A.
.m..
mB.m
In monospaced font:

..A.
.m..
mB.m


This prevents issues with ambiguity on exactness.

annulus
2015-05-10, 09:32 PM
I'm a fan of Google Docs (Drawings). I had more examples handy in the past but I misplaced them.

Here's one though. (https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1UxOU6r9iv6ihbpNLUVGXKaa8iz58m9kKulNk9FwQHWA/edit?authkey=CPjiwKoF&authkey=CPjiwKoF) (stolen from Surrealistik's guide to DMing 4E PbP)

Anyone you want can simply click and drag their tokens around, create boxes for zones and such. For me, strikes the right mix between ease of use and functionality.

Google Docs seems like a solid option. Thanks for the rec; I'll look into it.


If you do use ASCII, use a monospaced font e.g. Courier New.
Not in monospaced font:
..A.
.m..
mB.m
In monospaced font:

..A.
.m..
mB.m


This prevents issues with ambiguity on exactness.

Was planning on using the CODE environment, to delineate regular text from ASCII battle maps.

Maglubiyet
2015-05-10, 10:38 PM
Was planning on using the CODE environment, to delineate regular text from ASCII battle maps.

Ugh, and that's low effort for you?

Angelmaker
2015-05-11, 07:47 AM
Roll20.net

Its free and you can create a campaign and just leave it there. Players can log in at their own time and check the map. You could even just let them take their turn in there. Complete with dice rolls i think. All actions, chats, rolls are logged, so you can check it retroactively. Even if you just want it for the map. The map and its grid feature are FANTASTIC.

Edit: sorry, i didn't fully read your post, because i jsut woke up. I know of no better way than using roll20.net . Maybe you could just use roll20 yourself and copy/paste the map from there with a screenshot? This should work.