What do you use for mapping?

[skywalker]

Hello everyone, I'm a fairly new DM, and I'm running my usual group thru Keep on the Shadowfell as a back-up or change-of-pace from our normal campaign.

My problem is how to lay out the battle grid. Our normal DM has made his full range of WOTC dungeon tiles available to me, but I find laying them out to be tedious, time-consuming, a dead time that saps player interest, and once they're down, they don't stay in one place and make the combat appear as tho it is occurring on a series of catwalks over a void :smallfurious: This makes them unacceptable when I DM.

The only other way I've seen combat laid out is on a massive sheet of 1 inch grid paper, which I found to be quite a commendable solution, however, I have not been able to find a pad of paper large enough to accommodate the dungeons in KOTS, which, if I have counted properly, are 45x61 squares. I realize that, on a 1square=1inch scale, this would mean a 5x4 foot map. Has anyone ever seen paper this large, or should I just get smaller paper and divide the dungeon up, or what? It gets annoying for the players not to be able to see how things are arranged spatially, but often times if they range too far within the dungeon, I have to pick up tiles and re-center them anyway, rendering this point nearly moot.

Ideas?

[Dr Bwaa]

LEGOs.

If your group is anything like mine, you have something like infinity LEGOs at your disposal. These are perfect. Trust me. :smallbiggrin:

[RTGoodman]

I'd stick with using the 1" grid paper, but don't try to put the whole thing on one piece. Unless there's one single (or, you know, a couple of rooms and connected corridors) that's as big as you're talking, you should just be able to draw the whole thing out on about 3-5 sheets, only putting down in front of the players what they can see and what they need to conduct combats and such.

[skywalker]

I'd stick with using the 1" grid paper, but don't try to put the whole thing on one piece. Unless there's one single (or, you know, a couple of rooms and connected corridors) that's as big as you're talking, you should just be able to draw the whole thing out on about 3-5 sheets, only putting down in front of the players what they can see and what they need to conduct combats and such.

Yes, looking at the maps, only one room is very large at all. The problem is that sometimes my players will chase enemies very far thru random corridors or off the map. I hope it won't be an issue, I was just wondering if anyone had seen anything large enough to accommodate those large maps.

[Cheesegear]

Try using the Search Engine. This topic comes up every few weeks.

LEGO is always good.

[RTGoodman]

Yeah, running off down random corridors could be a problem, but overall I don't think it'll be THAT big of a deal. I think my hardest-to-map job was the Skull Gorge Bridge encounter in Red Hand of Doom. There's land on each side, a several-hundred-foot drop into a river in the middle, a giant bridge with one tower at each corner, a hobgoblin camp on one side, and not to mention a party of 4 PCs, almost a dozen hobbos and hellhounds, and a pretty angry green dragon.

I think I only ended up cutting a couple of squares on each side of the map and managed to still get everything else on it, so I figure you can even squeeze your big room on there if you need to (and even you have to shrink the room to 18 x 18 instead of 20 x 20.

If I remember KotS correctly, the biggest room is the last one, where the BBEG and his little group of minions is, right? I think I looked over that when I though I might be running KotS, and it managed to just fit on my hand-made poster-board battle mat with 1" squares or was only a square or two too long on each side.

Of course, if you're desperate, you could just buy four of Crystal Caste's medium-sized combat mats (http://www.crystalcaste.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=CC&Category_Code=CM), or maybe one of the big ones and some scraps of the others, but I don't think that's really cost-effective. (I could have sworn they made one slightly larger than the ones they have there, but apparently not.)

[valadil]

We use Chessex Battlemats (http://www.chessex.com/mats/Battlemats_Megamats.htm) with wet erase marker. If we're lazy we skimp on the marker. Sometime pipecleaners are used for area of effects. I'm not sure about the other GMs in my group, but I either improvise the map or copy it from grid paper. Sometimes for really elaborate maps we'll draw up the battlemap ahead of time. We have three or four mats going around so a well prepared GM can have all his combats ready ahead of time if need be.

[Random NPC]

- Engineering paper
- Con·tact paper (transparent decorative covering)
- Dry-Erase Markers

We are students, we use what we have laying on the desk.

[DrizztFan24]

If this is a pre-made module defintely check out MapTool. They have cartographers (sometimes employed by WotC or other such companies) that will draw the maps to dungeons during their spare time and post them....for free. You can often find random maps and rooms that you can link together, and you can find entire campaigns premade for ya.

[skywalker]

Drizzt, my issue isn't finding the maps, I'm perfectly capable of drawing them out myself, it's getting them onto the table.

The biggest encounters in KOTS actually have accompanying poster maps, it's just the combined size of the dungeon that gets me down. I never want to do dungeon tiles again :smallyuk:

Now that I actually look at prices, the 35"x48" maps are actually about the same price or cheaper than a similar-sized pad of 50 sheets of one inch grid paper... I just wonder how long those mats last, will a combat I leave paused for a week become permanent, etc. Valadil, what will happen if I need to "pause" in the middle of a combat for a week?

LEGO is not even close to an option. I game with people who are very serious about the minis accurately representing the actual encounter.

I'm now trying to decide if I will ever use more than 50 sheets, and if I can stand to wait for and pay for shipping.

[Tistur]

Now that I actually look at prices, the 35"x48" maps are actually about the same price or cheaper than a similar-sized pad of 50 sheets of one inch grid paper... I just wonder how long those mats last, will a combat I leave paused for a week become permanent, etc. Valadil, what will happen if I need to "pause" in the middle of a combat for a week?

Not Valadil, but...My GM has left the same setup on for about 2-3 weeks, I believe. I think he had to do a little bit of forceful wiping to get it off. That was a while ago, so I have trouble remembering. The Chessex maps are great, IMO.

[Jayabalard]

Try using the Search Engine. This topic comes up every few weeks.I haven't seen a topic on this in quite a while, so I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to.

[Grynning]

My DM has Tact-tiles, which are dry erase tiles with linkable edges with a grid pre-drawn on them - very handy since you can draw stuff on them then add or subtract as needed, and arrange them in various configurations.

Unfortunately, either my google-fu is weak or the company that makes them is no longer in business. It looks like they sell for hundreds of dollars on E-bay now. There is a DIY article (http://gmfoundation.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/how-to-make-your-own-tact-tiles/) though, doesn't sound too hard.

[valadil]

Not Valadil, but...My GM has left the same setup on for about 2-3 weeks, I believe. I think he had to do a little bit of forceful wiping to get it off. That was a while ago, so I have trouble remembering. The Chessex maps are great, IMO.

Am Valadil. After more than a week we do see some ghost images of previous maps. Those take a bit more scrubbing to remove. I've founds red to be the most likely to stain. I'm not sure what the other GMs use for cleaning, but I have dry erase boards at home and use the same cleaner (which is another 5-10 bucks for a bottle). I usually opt for redrawing the next week, but I also don't usually do elaborate fight scenes (or if I do I schedule them so we can finish it in one go).

That said, I've never seen anyone replace a battlemap due to excessive staining.

Oh yeah, make sure you only keep wet erase markers at the table. I have seen sharpies or dry erase markers used by accident. One of my DMs actually docks your XP if you introduce such a marker to the game area.

[Darth Mario]

We use Chessex Battlemats (http://www.chessex.com/mats/Battlemats_Megamats.htm) with wet erase marker. If we're lazy we skimp on the marker. Sometime pipecleaners are used for area of effects. I'm not sure about the other GMs in my group, but I either improvise the map or copy it from grid paper. Sometimes for really elaborate maps we'll draw up the battlemap ahead of time. We have three or four mats going around so a well prepared GM can have all his combats ready ahead of time if need be.

This.

For battlefields that will come up over and over again (such as, if you're playing a sci-fi space opera game, the PC's home ship) I'll get a giant sheet of 1" grid paper and draw the map before the session in sharpie. Otherwise, I have 2 chessex battlemats and a healthy supply of colored markers.

[Vizen]

You could always draw it to scale instead of having to make it so large. Of course, it makes it harder to actually SEE how close you are to an enemy, but you don't always need visual aid in D&D.

[Artanis]

There's one method I saw somewhere that involved hooking a computer to an overhead projector and using that to project the map onto a surface like a table (or even the floor). When the DM needed to do something the players weren't supposed to see, he asked them to turn around while he messed with it. The guy used photoshop, but could just as easily be done with something like Maptool, Gametable, or OpenRPG.

[TheThan]

i know the D20 SRD site has it, but they appear to be down. So no linky for you.
I hope its just temporary.

anyway I really like the idea of it anyway. keeps the table from getting cluttered and makes it really easy to map out extensive dungeons and other areas.

[Artanis]

I got to d20srd.org an hour or so ago, so it's still around. I couldn't find the description of the system I mentioned though (not that that's saying much, given my lack of observation skills).

[skywalker]

You could always draw it to scale instead of having to make it so large. Of course, it makes it harder to actually SEE how close you are to an enemy, but you don't always need visual aid in D&D.

This group does, I assure you. People looked at me weird when I didn't map out the tavern for a purely social encounter.

For some reason this (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tutorials/tabletopprojection/) setup is no longer linked on d20SRD.org. It's right next door, on the sister site, penpaperpixel.org.

Regardless, besides the fact that my normal gaming location doesn't even have a computer, the only projectors in my life are nailed into university rooms, or my parents' den. EDIT:Tho I have drooled over this setup many times, and one summer, I actually thought about constructing a reflector board to reflect the one in my parents' den onto a table, because there's no way in hell they'd let me take that thing out.

[Zaggab]

In the past, we have done our position and terrain mapping kind of abstractly. We still use a combat grid, but we don't mark that much on it. The GM has a copy of the map on normal squared (0,5 cm squares) to use as reference.

Next time we game, however, we are going to use a roll of adhesive book-plastic (http://shop.eurobib.com/directse/upload/Avdelningsbilder/Bild-202.jpg), where the paper that covers the sticky side is divided into squares. On the plastic side we're going to use wet-erase pens. The squares are only 2 cm, compared to 2,5 for normal battlegrid, but that difference won't matter that much. It's very cheap, and can be used for other things as well.

[valadil]

If you already have access to a projector you could ditch the minis and play the whole game on the screen. We've played on wall mounted white boards before and it works out just fine.

[skywalker]

Next time we game, however, we are going to use a roll of adhesive book-plastic (http://shop.eurobib.com/directse/upload/Avdelningsbilder/Bild-202.jpg), where the paper that covers the sticky side is divided into squares. On the plastic side we're going to use wet-erase pens. The squares are only 2 cm, compared to 2,5 for normal battlegrid, but that difference won't matter that much. It's very cheap, and can be used for other things as well.

How cheap?


If you already have access to a projector you could ditch the minis and play the whole game on the screen. We've played on wall mounted white boards before and it works out just fine.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is not an option. I guess I should be more clear: This group loves their minis. Hand-painted lovingly chosen Reaper minis. One player's favorite part of the game is painting the damned minis. When someone talks to someone else, their minis get turned to face each other. I cannot ditch the minis, altho I would absolutely love to.

[Knaight]

A big giant whiteboard, with both wet erase and dry erase markers. Use wet erase to make the grid, then dry erase over it, at the end of the session erase all of it, and you can use it for something else. It takes about ten minutes to fill a large one with the right grid the first time. You can also use permanent marker to put little short lines as things you then draw off of in a ring around it, and it takes all of one minute to draw a grid, and they don't get in the way the rest of the time.

[Artanis]

A big giant whiteboard, with both wet erase and dry erase markers. Use wet erase to make the grid, then dry erase over it, at the end of the session erase all of it, and you can use it for something else. It takes about ten minutes to fill a large one with the right grid the first time. You can also use permanent marker to put little short lines as things you then draw off of in a ring around it, and it takes all of one minute to draw a grid, and they don't get in the way the rest of the time.
Assuming he can find one that he can lay on the ground, or at the very least, turn horizontal.


...actually, the horizontal thing might work better, since they won't have to sit in the floor.

[TheThan]

I inherited a Chessex mat from a former DM (long sad story, don’t ask). So that’s what I’ve been useing.