Got a big fight coming up in the local tavern or an ambush in the middle of the forest? GameMastery Maps give you full color, miniatures-scale play surfaces, rendered by some of the best cartographers in the industry, to spice up your next adventure. GameMastery Map Packs come with a host of tiles you can rearrange to fit your encounter, while GameMastery Flip-Mats show one massive scene you can draw on with virtually any marker.
Each month, GameMastery Maps give you full color, miniatures-scale play surfaces, rendered by some of the best cartographers in the industry, to spice up your next adventure. Releases will alternate between GameMastery Map Packs, which contain 18 themed full-color 5 x 8-inch map tiles you can rearrange to fit your encounter, and GameMastery Flip-Mats, which are double-sided gaming mats you can draw on with virtually any marker.
With your ongoing GameMastery Map subscription, we'll automatically send you every new Map Pack and Flip-Mat as it's released, charging your credit card automatically as we ship each volume. You only need to sign up once, and never need to worry about renewal notices or missed maps!
After we ship your subscriber copy, you'll be able to download a PDF of that map for FREE! (Note that you only get free PDFs for releases shipped as part of your subscription; you do not get free PDFs when purchasing older volumes that are not sent as subscriber copies.)
If you have other Paizo subscriptions, you can combine them to save money on shipping.
When you start an ongoing subscription, any existing preorders for products covered by your subscription are automatically cancelled (or have their quantity reduced by one if you've preordered more than one of an item).
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at
webmaster@paizo.com.
It's nice to not to have to draw every facet of an adventure.
The most useful set of maps for me is the boats and the shop fronts. Whilst having the one ship shown with the levels is great. For ship-to-ship combat especially with moving vessels, winds, realism and adding drama (as they drift apart), nothing beats being able to move the boats themselves instead of drawing outlines on your own grid. You can show the vessel moving in.
I purchase the pdf's; print off the required vessel, laminate and then cut to the shape that suits the vessel. Then with a ocean flip-mat you then have a really enjoyable encounter.
As for the Shops - it's a quality touch that the shops floor plans are identical to some of the flip maps of the city streets.
These maps are a great tool at convention play; for the speed they offer during a session and they look great in your home game as you can 'give' your players the boat they purchase.
I have been scoring these maps for years. The first one I bought was the City Square: http://paizo.com/products/btpy8ot2?GameMastery-FlipMat-City-Square
The quality on cartography has only improved. The early maps are great and useful but the illustration left much to be desired. This new map is an example of how GameMastery has stepped up their game.
Even if you don't use this as a pirate ship boarding a merchant vessel, you can use it for a PC ship throughout a campaign. Highly recommend this one.
I love flip-maps however map packs need a different format
I think the title of my review says it all. I love flip-maps, but I find most map packs would be better as a flip-map(s). As a result, the subscription would have more value if there were a lot less map packs.
For me, most map packs don't have a lot of value. There are problems with map packs: they don't store well, tiles come apart all over the table (which is a pain, I have to tape tiles together which make them harder to transport), and when I remove the (scotch) tape sometimes it removes the image from the map as well. I strongly prefer non-tiled maps.
Sometimes, multiple tiles in a map pack make sense. For example the "Mines" map pack was useful (but only if it comes with a PDF!). Map packs can also be used to provide good variation for flip-maps (for example, adding a second story to a flip-map like the "City Flip-map" is useful).
However, most map packs would be better if you either created multiple smaller flip-maps or you combined multiple map pack tiles into one big flip-map. For example, the Wizard's Tower map pack would have been much better of if you combined all the tower levels into a two-sided flip-map. (I would gladly buy the flip-map version of this map pack, even though I own the map pack!).
If you do create smaller flip-maps for map packs, I'd like to see them made with thinner material if possible, so they're easier to store and unfold. This is desirable as long as it doesn't overly damage the durability.
Like I said, I love flip-maps but I have the following general feedback about them.
In flip-maps, I want to see the interiors of buildings, I don't want to see rooftops (with the interiors in a map pack). Because you don't show the interior, there is limited value in Flip-Maps such as "Necropolis" and "City" (although City probably sells really well, because we have nothing better). If you want to make a map pack to *support* a flip-map (such as adding variant interiors or second stories), this makes sense, but I don't want to see roof tops in my flip-maps, I want details. Recent flip-maps seem to have made this change.
My players and myself have found the GameMastery Map products a fun addition to any adventure. I keep a photo log of both sides of each map for when I am writing encounters. I can draw inspiration from them. My players find the details to be very fun and help with player immersion in the game world.
I could only wish that the PDF version of the product came with a .JPG or .PNG version of the maps WITHOUT grids for easier use in Virtual Table Top use (like d20Pro or MapTools). I know that the new maps that come with the APs have many of these features. I'm hopeful that those features will be added to new GameMastery Products.
The map packs and flip maps have, for a while, been a useful addition to the busy GMs arsenal, enabling him/her to quickly construct a map without tedious drawing on a grid map. They are beautifully illustrated and are indicative of the general high quality of Paizo's mapwork.
The addition of the standard "subscribers get the pdf for free" makes these even higher value for folks like myself who mix between physical table top and virtual table top.
The previous review seems like a gripe against the shipping, not the product itself, so I personally have disregarded it.
This product doesn't get 5/5 stars due to two minor irritations with the physical product: the map packs can shift around a bit on the table, and the flip mats rise of the table due to their folded nature (which can be alleviated by bending them back in the opposite direction).
These maps are amazing! I love them so much that I thought a subscription to the map pack would make sense. I figured I could get a new map each month and catch up on the old ones as I go. Paizo offers a "sidecart" where you can place other items you purchase so that they ship with your ongoing subscription, thus saving on shipping! Great idea! So I put two maps in my sidecart, clicked "ship with earliest subscription," and waited. Then I got an email stating that my items would soon be shipping in two separate boxes. They want to charge $11 to ship 3 items! BTW, three maps will fit in a USPS priority mail envelope and ship in 2 days for $4.99. So I looked on Amazon.com and found the same maps for the "subscription discount" price ($11.04), and paid $3.99 to ship 4 of them! If Paizo can't figure out how to combine shipping, don't worry; Amazon.com has found a way to navigate the oh-so-tricky path of combining multiple orders!
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