How do you manage large-scale battlemaps?

[MNblockhead]

Usually when I print out a large battlemap on a plotter printer, it is a single encounter area.

Sometimes, I've printed out much larger areas, such as an entire cave complete, but I usually print that on sheets of 8.5x11 inch paper and cut them into rooms and sections and lay sections down as the party explores.

I've seen Chris Perkins draw out a map on large sheets of gaming paper and he sticks sections of a blank paper over the rooms, removing them as the party explores. Which seems to me like it would be even more work than my printing and cutting out sections.

Now that publishers like Frog God Games is publishing huge tapestry maps of many-room dungeons, how is that going to work at play? Are the DMs who spend hundreds of dollars on giant tapestry maps covering the map with pieces of paper that can be removed to reveal new areas?

 

[Hippy]

Usually when I print out a large battlemap on a plotter printer, it is a single encounter area.

Sometimes, I've printed out much larger areas, such as an entire cave complete, but I usually print that on sheets of 8.5x11 inch paper and cut them into rooms and sections and lay sections down as the party explores.

I've seen Chris Perkins draw out a map on large sheets of gaming paper and he sticks sections of a blank paper over the rooms, removing them as the party explores. Which seems to me like it would be even more work than my printing and cutting out sections.

Now that publishers like Frog God Games is publishing huge tapestry maps of many-room dungeons, how is that going to work at play? Are the DMs who spend hundreds of dollars on giant tapestry maps covering the map with pieces of paper that can be removed to reveal new areas?

I use an HDTV and D20Pro to show the location of the rooms, hallways etc. under fog-of war and reveal as they progress; and then when the party has an encounter I switch to a premade board. I craft, so I use hirst arts, dwarven forge, and hand made pieces (ala DM Scotty style on youtube) to bring the game to a 2.5 and 3d mode. My players love it and I can reuse most if not all of my craft pieces every game, I also have a two sided vinyl dry erase battle mat that I will use from time to time for city and outdoor encounters. I just put the terrain right over the top and game on. As I just picked up a 720P projector I am also thinking about projecting up from the floor and using Neverwinter Nights do design animated ground plane effects, but this may be more time consuming than it is worth.
I don't want to put my TV flat on the game table as it is not strong enough to withstand the weight of the terrain pieces. The hirst arts stuff would break the screen in no time flat.

My recommendation for your issue (if you don't want to craft) is to look into Roll 4 Initiative Dry Erase Gaming Tiles and then you can draw them ahead of time and attach together as needed, as they are big puzzle piece boards. I use these for games outside my home, where hauling my normal terrain (described above) would be too cumbersome. You can find these on Amazon, and while they are not as durable as the Tac-Tile dry erase boards that are sadly out of production and way too expensive on e-bay (if you can even find them), they do a good job for the dollar spent.

I hope this long-winded response helps.

Good gaming!

Hippy

 

[Richards]

I have two approaches. For smaller areas, I do like the original poster: I print off as many pages of 1" grids as I need on 8.5" x 11" paper (I made an 8x10 table of 1" grids and cut off the excess along the borders) and draw each area using colored Sharpies as necessary. (Occasionally I'll use colored construction paper for water or magma areas.) Those get laid out on the table as needed, depending upon where the PCs go.

For bigger areas, I use the backs of desk calendar pages, which I grid off into 1" squares with a yardstick and then draw on them as needed with colored Sharpies. Those get rolled up, placed inside cardboard tubes from rolls of toilet paper or paper towels (with the adventure's name written on the cardboard), and stored in a dresser drawer in my gaming area/man-cave until needed.

And I also pick up the odd Paizo Flip-Mat for areas I'll likely use multiple times: forest areas, hills, rivers, etc.

Johnathan

 

[Retreater]

I draw out encounter areas on huge sheets of graph paper with 1" grids that I bought at Staples for a fraction of what a roll of Gaming Paper costs. I fold them up and keep them in piles along with combat sheets listing monster HP and pre-rolled Initiatives for each monster type.

I put out the encounter areas when they are discovered. I will freehand draw on a dry erase battle grid between encounters or for small fight areas, if necessary.

 

[MNblockhead]

[MENTION=63574]Hippy[/MENTION] Thanks for your thoughts.

I've enjoy and have done crafting. I'm a big fan of DM Scotty and his DMs Craft videos. But I just don't have the time. I would rather focus on the story, prepping combats, and actually playing.

I frequently use RealmWorks for revealing maps as they are explored and probably the best approach for me now would be to display the map from RealmWorks to a display laid flat on the table, zoomed to 1" = 5' scale.

But I've seen some publishers who sell large 28mm scale maps of entire dungeons and, while expensive, the simplicity of that is appealing. Well, at least until I start thinking about it in practice. Not very simple if I have to create a puzzle of paper cutouts to cover the rooms in away that individual rooms can be revealed.

My guess is that that most of the DMs who use these large tapestry maps are just letting the players see everything and the players just have to avoid "metagaming", which is not a very appealing style of play for me.

 

[MNblockhead]

Actually, I'm now remembering someone else on this board in another discussion a while back sharing a picture where they cover the battlemap with cotton balls. That would require a LOT of cotton balls for a large map though.

 

[Imaculata]

I print out zoomed out and zoomed in maps across multiple pieces of A4 paper. I then tape them together. Whenever the scale becomes too large, I change the scaling.

For example, for a dungeon I may create a map for each different floor, where each tile represents a 5ft by 5ft area, and fits a standard D&D miniature.
But for a large naval battle, I'll create a zoomed out map, where each tile represents hundreds or thousands of miles, and fits a miniature ship.

 

[Jhaelen]

I don't. At some point when DMing 4e I switched to use one of the plenty of D&D poster maps I have in my collection (from the D&D Miniatures Game, 'Fantastic Locations' supplements and 4e adventure modules), modifying them slightly by placing a few Dungeon Tiles on top.
The exception were wilderness encounters; for those I only used Dungeon Tiles (the wilderness set being one of the few really useful ones).

I feel that exact representations of rooms aren't really required. Having a tactically interesting battle map is much more important. My approach has the additional advantages of requiring little prep and setup time.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

When I ran face to face I drew on a flipmat what ever area was of concern at the moment and maybe some representation of the larger area as connecting line map. I am not a good drawer/cartographer. I have tried dungeon tiles and found them a pain in the ass. They only way they work for me, is, to have a small set of tiles preselected and make them work on the fly as the encounters unfold.

However, currently I play online using Fantasy Grounds and use that.