Map Readability Tricks.


GM Discussion

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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I've noticed that a lot of time people have trouble reading the maps that come in the modules and flip mats. So I thought I'd share some tips and tricks I have come up with that seem to help.

Sadly, most of these only work if you port everything into a grapics editor and then reprint. I use GIMP, which lets me scale everything, slice it into printable pages.

The first problem is that if there is a wood grain floor, the grid lines get lost in the noise leaving it confusing where squares line up.

solution I use the Filter:Render:Pattern:Grid tool to put down a grid in a contrast color (often a light blue or green.) If you keep it one pixel wide it is not too obtrusive, but easily delineates squares.

The second is that stair entrances and exits seem sometimes ambiguous.

solutionFor stairs going down I lay down a pair of transparent black shaded gradient that is thin at the top of the stairs, darker and wider at the bottom of the stairs, so that the sides of the stairs appear to vanish into darkness. For stairs going up I lay in a transparent white gradient, such that the top of the stairs looks lighter.

Boat and tower maps Paizo often prints the tops of towers or the raised sections of deck, showing the floor below them. Several times I have seen this lead to people adding a whole extra floor to the building or deck to the ship.

solutionSo when I run these, I only print out the raised sections with the stair or ladder attached, and make sure the stair or ladder also shows up on the level below. Then at game time I stack them on top of the level they are attached to and use the ladder / stair to line them up. Once the party starts exploring the rooms inside the tower or raised deck, I can slide them to one side, and people can see that room as well, giving me fog of war as well for free.

What tricks have other people come up with?

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