So I have been running Savage Tide for about two months now, and my party of six has finally stumbled into Krakens Cove, and had their first run in with the Savage Creatures.
A recurring problem at our game sessions seems to be mapping out any rooms for exploration or combat. We normally use a large girded map that we can draw on with markers, but we find usually stopping to draw out room’s breaks the flow of the game. Drawing out entire sections of dungeons ahead of time doesn’t seem to be that great of an idea. Looking ahead in the adventure path: places like Farshore or other locations on the Isle of Dread are much, much larger then our 40x30 mat.
I suppose the short story to this question is what do you use to map out your Dungeons or what do you use for combat? I’m looking for suggests to help improve our group. Non-online suggests please, as we actually met and play at a table with D&D Minis.
Thank you all in advance.
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I suppose the short story to this question is what do you use to map out your Dungeons or what do you use for combat? I’m looking for suggests to help improve our group. Non-online suggests please, as we actually met and play at a table with D&D Minis.
What I do is when there is a PDF supplement available, I will print that out, and then I will cut the printout up by room and hand the players the room they are in. as they look at it and dissect it I will draw a very rough sketch of just the walls on the flip mat. This way they players can help me draw the room if there is a long writeup that I am reading to them about said room.
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Get everyone to chip in 5$, and you can get 100 sheets of this easel pad paper
it's pre-ruled to 1" squares, is large enough for most areas (27" x 34") means 135' x 170' in 5'=1" segments.
but the better part is that you can premake the maps for particular rooms or areas, and just lay them out when they're needed.
For example: In kraken's cove, you could make one map with the bay, the bridge, the flaming boats, and the beach. put 2 exits on the map, but don't show them whats out there.
then, you can color the maps as you like (I use sharpies to outline different areas...blue for water, green for interior walls, etc)
this way, you don't have to draw and wipe away, draw and wipe away, and if for some reason the party goes BACK to a particular location, well, you just happen to have that map kicking around.
other than that, don't get caught up with mapping out each and every little detail and area they pass through.
if they're wandering through dark tunnels, but not being attacked, there's no reason to map them out, unless you think there might be a random encounter or ambush/trap coming up.
or you want them paranoid.
otherwise, when they're just being regular people, use narrative voice, describe the terrain, but don't bother drawing it out.
trust me, this will help immensely with the later adventures.
also, if your group, like mine, gets a hold of more ships (or makes their own), you can draw them out and put them on some cardstock (just glue that 1" paper right to the cardstock, trim to fit, good to go) and have accurate, durable templates for your ship-movement and combat
-the hamster
Well, it is kinda drawing out sections of your dungeons ahead of time, but my method is to use transparency sheets and appropriate markers. It does take a bit of prep time to accomplish, but the sheets can be carried in a folder and laid out as the PCs progress. You do get the problem of the walls of entire rooms being revealed previous to light being there, but it is a minor inconvienience.
As far as Farshore and other large locations, consider scaling each square to 10'x10'(instead of 5'x5') for tactical movement. Any combats beyond what is usually translated to a "it's over there a ways" and/or "it's within 'long' range for your spells".
A couple of suggestions. We are also in Kraken's Cove and usually the DM draws the whole map on the (dry-erase) gridmap, while everyone else waits.
First, count the w x l for the rooms ahead of time. I keep this right on my map with a sticky note. I do not have to count '60 feet' during game time (especially when the map is 10' square and the grid is 5' { hmmm... ok six squares no. wait. 12...})
Second, as the DM describe the room, but let one of the players actually do the drawing.
Third, only grid the rooms that need to be. The rest of the map, including which doors lead where and compass rose, are drawn by the players for their records (enjoyment?), so why duplicate it? Since we have several different color pens, I can do three or four rooms before needing to clean the board. Though there is occasionally some confusion {no the blue line is a wall, the red line the lava pit from two rooms ago.} This week I actually traced the map for them, but I think one of my players actually enjoys this and I might have stolen it from him.
My last suggestion is to check this thread. I am surprised (jealous) by how many people use projectors.
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well, posted earlier, so it may show up eventually
or it was eaten
in short, premake the maps on sheets of large, 1" ruled graph paper
(available @ staples/officemax/etc in big, 50-sheet easel pads for like 25-30$ for 2. ie, 100 sheets for 30$ or so.)
get everyone to chip in a couple of bucks, and you should be set.
then, just lay them out as you need them.
need a ship, pull it out, all set to go.
need the next room in kraken's cove, pull it out, ready to go.
just gotta place minis and you're set.
basically, moves the time spent drawing and counting from IN-game to Pre-Game.
-the hamster
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Get everyone to chip in 5$, and you can get 100 sheets of this easel pad paper
it's pre-ruled to 1" squares, is large enough for most areas (27" x 34") means 135' x 170' in 5'=1" segments.
but the better part is that you can premake the maps for particular rooms or areas, and just lay them out when they're needed.
I second this. One of the players in my group has some of this stuff and it is great.
Well, one thing you can do is to capture each room from the PDF with Snapshot Tool, paste it into Word or similar program, and then resize it so that it has the right scale. Then you can print out the rooms as dungeon tiles.
Personally I use flip mats, I don't think it takes that long to draw the general outline of the room. If it's a really complicated room I draw that room in advance, since I have several flip mats.
My brother picked up a nice dry-erase board (like for schools) from Office Max. It was around $20-25, but has seen use in both his and my games consistently. It's a little clunky to carry places, but since we play at my house, it's all good. It even had small, but noticeable dots to delineate one inch by one inch measurements, perfect for minis. It even came with an eraser with red and black dry erase markers. (My bro may have bought that and didn't tell me, but I could be wrong.)
I've picked up a set of four dry-erase markers (black, red, blue, and green), and, of course, black gets used so much, I have to buy some new ones today!
I've tried dungeon tiles. They're mighty cool if you're making your own dungeon (so much so, that I've designed dungeons with them specifically in mind), but in cavernous environments, or even rooms with round edges, they just don't cut it--unless you cut it, i.e. the tiles, but that's a waste.
I'd recommend going to a store, like OfficeMax, and asking them to show you the dry erase boards they have, and tell them what you need from it (1 inch x 1 inch markings, resistant to Mountain Dew/Arizona iced tea spills, resilient, will see frequent use, etc). Happy hunting, and enjoy the game!
I have access to a printer with a 24" wide roll of paper. I print the maps on that, scale 23mm = 5 feet. Its an expensive but gloriously beautiful playing surface. And the ink for such a professional printer
I can also print out beautiful maps of the sea route, the Isle of Dread and so on and mount them on my walls.
It's worth every penny a friend paid for it. :D
I have access to a printer with a 24" wide roll of paper. I print the maps on that, scale 23mm = 5 feet. Its an expensive but gloriously beautiful playing surface. And the ink for such a professional printer
I can also print out beautiful maps of the sea route, the Isle of Dread and so on and mount them on my walls.
It's worth every penny a friend paid for it. :D
Bastard
Well, it is kinda drawing out sections of your dungeons ahead of time, but my method is to use transparency sheets and appropriate markers. It does take a bit of prep time to accomplish, but the sheets can be carried in a folder and laid out as the PCs progress. You do get the problem of the walls of entire rooms being revealed previous to light being there, but it is a minor inconvienience.
As far as Farshore and other large locations, consider scaling each square to 10'x10'(instead of 5'x5') for tactical movement. Any combats beyond what is usually translated to a "it's over there a ways" and/or "it's within 'long' range for your spells".
Wow, transparency sheets are a great idea - why didn't I think of that before? That way all you have to do is use one large mega-mat or battle-mat and overlay the transparencies room-by-room as the PCs explore. If they want to turn back, no problem.
hmm, we are simply using six battle 36"x 36" battlemaps , plus some pre-drawn tiles in the same scale for "flavour rooms". Works fine for us.
I've two things to say:
1) when I started playing D&D again, mid-3.5 (I'm an old schooler come back), all I had were hex battlemaps, and I discovered that D&D on a hex map works very well with only a few tweaks. these days this is how i am playing, with my 2 scarred and stained 25 year old hexgrid battlemaps. BTW, after a few decades of stains, a chessex battlemap really starts to look cool.
2) a metal blackboard (the green kind) tabletop with a sharpie drawn grid is VERY attractive, and there's something about the dark green and chalk-drawn terrain that really gets me, plus the guy who made it used model train trees with magnets on the bottom which gave them a weebles-wobble sort of hold.
yeah, a blackboard is a pretty nice thing to use, but actually a bit cumbersome to position on thetable and even more so to stow away
* takes a look if the significant other is around* ...
amateur interior decorators (aka "women" ) seem to hate them and frown on having them around....
Two words; chalk dust.
True and true.
Two circumstances made these non-problems. The first was that he had his own MAN ROOM for gaming, and that the table was made FOR GAMING from a castaway blackboard and about 40 dollars of lumber. The other circumstance was that his wife bought him a dustbuster--but hey dungeons have dust, don't they? He even had an exhaust fan to remove smoke from the room because the group was half smokers half non.
It was quite the room. In fact, while I am here in China, most of my metal figures are still sitting on his shelves back in Canada.
I really dig that printer Carl.
hmm, we simply used a wet sponge clean the board back at university...