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So, I've complained in places about this from time to time, but I wanted to make a forum post about it.
What's with all of these scenarios with maps that are hellish to draw, use weird sizes, abnormally large, etc? From the lovely twisted hedge we had in Tide of Twilight, and now in Portal of the Sacred Rune there is another pain map (though not as much of a pain as Tide). But diagonal rooms? I realize sometimes maps add a lot to an adventure, but somewhere along the way,I wish writers would think of GMs who are not good with map drawing.
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So, I've complained in places about this from time to time, but I wanted to make a forum post about it.
What's with all of these scenarios with maps that are hellish to draw, use weird sizes, abnormally large, etc? From the lovely twisted hedge we had in Tide of Twilight, and now in Portal of the Sacred Rune there is another pain map (though not as much of a pain as Tide). But diagonal rooms? I realize sometimes maps add a lot to an adventure, but somewhere along the way,I wish writers would think of GMs who are not good with map drawing.
I'm right there with you. I also hate how these sorts of maps commonly make it unclear what squares are passable and/or able to be occupied.
For example, there was one door drawn as a diagonal across 1.5 squares. The con manager simply blew the map up so we could play on an enlarged version of the acual map, which was AWESOME. However, it still required several DM calls on the properties of the 1.5 square across diagonal door.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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My favorite scenarios (when it comes to maps and ease of use for said maps) are the ones that utilize a flip-mat or map pack for every encounter. Scenarios like the City of Strangers series or part 1 of Shades of Ice are a godsend to GMs who need to prepare on the fly.
My second favorite scenarios, map-wise, are those that are easily used with D&D Dungeon Tiles. Nice, straight rooms and halls, with clean dimensions that I can easily grab tiles for. Part 2 of Shades of Ice is a good example of this, or the recent Free RPG Day module Dawn of the Scarlet Sun.
I'm currently prepping Storming the Diamond Gate, and while I am loving the top level of the scenario (flip map that moves into a location that is a perfect fit for D&D Tiles), that bottom level is going to give me fits. The only solution that will make me happy is going to be making 3D terrain, which is going to cost me a weekend and a huge debt owed to my wife...
So, yeah, I can join in on the pet-peeve issues.
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Venture-Captain, Arizona—Tucson
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The odd grid angle that can make the Echoes of the Overwatched map a pain to draw is an artifact from when...
While this was challenging to the player characters, the editors observed that this severely angled tower could be very confusing for players. To my frustration, subsequent play experience proved the editor very right: They had to change that aspect of the tower.
Unfortunately, I had already submitted the maps by that point. The cartographer did a great job, but the odd angle of the grid remained.
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I don't mind unique or unusual maps, actually I love them. Since I pre-draw everything, it's not a big deal.
If it were technically too hard to predraw, I would just print the map in b/w (and tape the sheets of paper together).
The biggest pain to draw so far was Delirium's Tangle, so I printed it and it looked great.
The 10'x10' maps are different, for tactics the map will depend, but I'll probably also have a print out of the overview map and hide/unhide sections of the map.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4
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On an related side note..
On a recent non-PFS Pathfinder project I had to draw a map of a building, based upon a representation of a larger overhead map that showed the building on a diagonal.
This was about a month ago, and I got thinking "fans are going to hate me for giving them a building on diagonal squares".. but I really needed/wanted it to look like the higher perspective overhead map.
So after some thinking I just took that arrow pointing north and cocked it 45 degrees to the right, and voila! The building is "on an angle" but no diagonal squares.
:D
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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On an related side note..
On a recent non-PFS Pathfinder project I had to draw a map of a building, based upon a representation of a larger overhead map that showed the building on a diagonal.
This was about a month ago, and I got thinking "fans are going to hate me for giving them a building on diagonal squares".. but I really needed/wanted it to look like the higher perspective overhead map.
So after some thinking I just took that arrow pointing north and cocked it 45 degrees to the right, and voila! The building is "on an angle" but no diagonal squares.
:D
And that, Jim, is why we love you :D
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Venture-Captain, Arizona—Tucson
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I have uploaded some revised maps on the Cartographer's Guild site. Echoes of the Overwatched GMs will recognize them:
When running this adventure, I keep a cardboard jig cut out to match the needed curves. With it, i can draw the maps much more quickly.
I love getting scenarios that have a wicked hard to draw map that has no Flip-Mat available but could be EASILY printed with Adobe Reader (print to tiles)...
...if they didn't show ALL the secret doors and encounters on the map when they put it in there!
How hard would it be to have a "here's the map the players see" and THEN the "here's the map the GM sees!" so you could print it?!
</soapbox>
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I love getting scenarios that have a wicked hard to draw map that has no Flip-Mat available but could be EASILY printed with Adobe Reader (print to tiles)...
...if they didn't show ALL the secret doors and encounters on the map when they put it in there!
How hard would it be to have a "here's the map the players see" and THEN the "here's the map the GM sees!" so you could print it?!
</soapbox>
This. I use flip-mats when they exist, as they're obviously better. When they don't exist, I often print out the maps, and photoshop to the best of my limited abilities the secret doors, traps, etc. A player version would be much, much better.
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Mixed feelings on the flip-mats.
Yes, they're convenient, if you have them, which my players do. Yay.
But, when the players recognize the map, it breaks verisimilitude.
"Oh, the warehouse."
And speaking of said warehouse, there's a module that uses the warehouse as a base for a potential enemy. The plot pushes for that fight to be elsewhere, but if you fight there (quite likely), you can hardly fit the enemies onto the map.
That's right, the map can hardly fit the monsters that need to be in it, not to mention they use reach weapons and are trying to flank.
And then the players enter, using most every available square.
It's a death trap for the baddies, who can hardly maneuver.
I can't help but feel that if the author hadn't chosen a flip-mat, they would have designed a better encounter space.
So while I vote for flip-mat usage, I vote against using them 'just because they exist'.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4
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So while I vote for flip-mat usage, I vote against using them 'just because they exist'.
This is NOT meant to be a counter against your statement. That is, I am NOT saying that your opinion is wrong or unjustified..
As an author perspective, it might be helpful to share that we get a specific map allowance for PFS scenarios. Unless otherwise told by Mark we get a single full page map, or two half-pages maps, and quarter sized maps are not allowed. And despite my caveat, I don't think we ever get permission to actually go past that. Its a financial and budgetary consideration.
What a Flip-mat or similar Paizo Map product does is allow us to legally exceed that allowance on maps. That is, they don't count against our limit.
That allows us to have encounters in different scenes and locales within a single scenario.
Not all scenarios actually require a lot of radically different locales, but it's an excellent ace-in-the-hole in our design toolkit if the story requires it.
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You know as a living campaign player I really have to say this.
Don't worry so much about getting the stupid map right. We don't really even need it to be anything more then vaguely in the general area.
If there isn't actually something in the encounter terrain wise, you probably don't have to do more then just box out the area we're going to fight in about right and call it good.
If it's some kind of exploration adventure, leave it up to the players to map it out and just relax and focus on having fun.
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With the PFS idea that GMs making anything more than fluff changes equals cheating, it somehow doesn't surprise me people are opposed to GMs not exactly replicating maps.
It also doesn't at all surprise me that GMs balk are replicating onerous maps. It already takes a good deal of time to prep a PFS mod without having to spend extra time making maps that don't fall on grid lines.
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Don't worry so much about getting the stupid map right. We don't really even need it to be anything more then vaguely in the general area.
If there isn't actually something in the encounter terrain wise, you probably don't have to do more then just box out the area we're going to fight in about right and call it good.
If it's some kind of exploration adventure, leave it up to the players to map it out and just relax and focus on having fun.
As a cartophile, I also have to take umbrage at this comment! I almost always have custom, full-colour maps for all the scenarios that I run. I often make 3D terrain, and my players really appreciate the work that I put into it. It definitely doesn't take the fun out of the game.
That being said, everyone has fun differently, and if what you're doing works for you, great!
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As a cartophile, I also have to take umbrage at this comment! I almost always have custom, full-colour maps for all the scenarios that I run. I often make 3D terrain, and my players really appreciate the work that I put into it. It definitely doesn't take the fun out of the game.
I'm not trying to disparage people who take time and effort to make the game interesting or different, I'm trying to disparage the people who spend 20 minutes of a game's time trying to make a circular room needlessly perfect, or erase a map because they made it 5 feet too small, or who use up 2 wet erase markers filling in trees or some other insignificant thing like that. I'm pretty sure I'd hate your 3D terrain if you were crafting it on the spot during the game, but you probably wouldn't do something like that.
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As a cartophile, I also have to take umbrage at this comment! I almost always have custom, full-colour maps for all the scenarios that I run. I often make 3D terrain, and my players really appreciate the work that I put into it. It definitely doesn't take the fun out of the game.That being said, everyone has fun differently, and if what you're doing works for you, great!
Having experienced some of Myron's 3D Terrain (Diamond Gate at PaizoCon), I can attest to how much it adds to the game. It's not something every GM (or even many GM's) can do, but for those who can, it makes for an amazing experience.
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If a building is on the diagional that's fine (for me) as long as it's centered with the squares i.e matching corners .. when it's cutting 3/4s or 1/8 of a square .. that's when you hear the bunny start cursing as she's trying to figure out how to draw that kind of crap and still make the map look decent.
I'm ok with flipmaps .. yes, the players know them .. but they are easy to haul around and are nice and very well detailed. It's said that a lot of the custom maps lose their detail when drawn out, a lot of the custom maps have some AWESOME detail work to them with shading and things added in that just don't translate well to a drawn format... that would be my only pet peeve is that we haven't convinced Paizo of the need to provide pdfs that could be printed to scale of the customer maps... give me those and you'll see a bunny wriggle with excitement
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Sometimes a situation requires an unusual map to get the feel of the scene. The map for Delirium's Tangle comes to mind, it's weird, but I love it.
Not all nutty/ bizarre maps in PFS are justified, but there are definitely some situations where they improve the game.
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As a cartophile, I also have to take umbrage at this comment! I almost always have custom, full-colour maps for all the scenarios that I run. I often make 3D terrain, and my players really appreciate the work that I put into it. It definitely doesn't take the fun out of the game.I'm not trying to disparage people who take time and effort to make the game interesting or different, I'm trying to disparage the people who spend 20 minutes of a game's time trying to make a circular room needlessly perfect, or erase a map because they made it 5 feet too small, or who use up 2 wet erase markers filling in trees or some other insignificant thing like that. I'm pretty sure I'd hate your 3D terrain if you were crafting it on the spot during the game, but you probably wouldn't do something like that.
Sorry if I misinterpreted your original post. What I was trying to say is that I've recognized that I'm OCD enough to want everything just right, and in order to do so, I prefer to make all my maps, etc before the game starts.
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I agree. The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment was alot more clear and organized than Echoes.I cannot stress on how much I agree with this statement.[Sarcasm]
My vote for worse map ever...Echoes of the Overwatched.
Yeah, but all those rounded corners were annoying to draw. :) Awesome scenario though!
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The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment was alot more clear and organized than Echoes.More specifically, the map in The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment was a lot easier to draw than the map in Tide of Twilight, which was my other adventure. One of the pieces of feedback I took to heart from Tide of Twilight was "Briar Henge is too big/hard to draw." So I worked to made it easier on GMs with The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment.
The henge was a bit tricksy, but I used a roll of Gaming Paper to draw it out ahead of running it at a local convention. And loaned the map to another GM running it later that day, to save him some time too.
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The odd grid angle that can make the Echoes of the Overwatched map a pain to draw is an artifact from when... ** spoiler omitted **
Thanks for the explanation James!
I love the adventure, but like others here, was frustrated with the map (and I LIKE drawing maps). I'm glad to hear there is a reasonable explanation for why it ended up that way.I forgive you. :-)
I will keep the link you provided for future reference. The world needs more angel wings (I like them buffalo style myself).
Have Fun!
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From the lovely twisted hedge we had in Tide of Twilight, and now in Portal of the Sacred Rune there is another pain map (though not as much of a pain as Tide).
I don't mind drawing complex maps if it makes the combat interesting. The Portal of the Sacred Rune map is a perfect example. I ran it a couple of weeks ago, and it was awesome!
Another map that can take a while to draw, but is fun to play with in game, is the next to last area in Fury of the Fiend.
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With the PFS idea that GMs making anything more than fluff changes equals cheating, it somehow doesn't surprise me people are opposed to GMs not exactly replicating maps.
It also doesn't at all surprise me that GMs balk are replicating onerous maps. It already takes a good deal of time to prep a PFS mod without having to spend extra time making maps that don't fall on grid lines.
Sigh, I know I'm late to this discussion, but I die a bit inside whenever I hear the word 'cheater' applied in this context. I can't think of a more silly and misplaced word for that is actually happening compared to what the word actually means.
The word 'cheater' should never have been applied as it was and shouldn't be applied across recent threads as I've seen it. The weight of that word thrown around wrongly has been more damaging to this community than whatever actual 'cheating' has happened. In addition, using it in contexts like this diminishes it when actual, real cheating occurs.
I proudly run RAI rather than RAW and sometimes I will not create perfect recreations of maps. I'll do the best I can, but to truly understand this community, we must understand that different GMs will excel at different facets of GMing: some might excel at RP, others at tactical combat, others at XY&Z...by the same token, some might not be good mappers or amazing with detail. They are still our community GMs and they don't need to be labeled as 'cheaters' for playing to their strengths.
I think PFS will be much stronger when we celebrate and support both RAW and RAI and understand that GMs and players do not always fall in one category and cannot be forced into one category.
-Pain