|
Hi everyone. I'm fairly new to PFS and especially new to GM'ing. I managed to successfully GM a core run of "the Confirmation," at the con in South Dakota but only because another experienced GM was kind enough to draw the map for me.
I'm an awful artist, (I know most people claim they're bad, but let me put it this way, I got a C in my fifth grade art class.) But GM'ing the game was really a lot of fun. So I'm looking for scenarios that either have super simplistic maps to draw or a way to get Premade maps for certain scenarios.
Anyone interested in helping out an aspiring GM?
|
Also, check on PFSPrep.com - they can't have the scenario maps up there, but when people create original versions they post them to the site. I've done a few. Just print, cut and tape and viola - instant map!
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
You have three main routes:
* Buy lots of flip-mats and map packs (expensive, and doesn't cover all maps)
* Extract the images from the PDF with something like pdfimages, scale them to the correct DPI, use PosteRazor to create a PDF of printable pages, then print and tape together.
* Draw them out, using some tricks of the trade to make them look better. My art skills are non-existent, but my maps are good enough to play on, if a little plain.
Do you have a generic flip mat? Drawing straight lines on a lined piece of paper that already has straight lines is doable so long as you have a functioning of eye, at least one arm and two fingers (on said arm, not somewhere else). And requires no art skills. Just a pen and a flip map.
Sarcasm aside do you perhaps mean area maps, not combat maps?
For the un-savy mapmaker a generic and/or old version of photoshop or illustrator will let you make ghastly but effective maps in no time, bucket, straight lines and primary colours can do amazing things, just ask the maker of Order of the stick.
You can also go minds eye if your players are amenable to it; particularly if you RP more than you do combats. However, I'd do the end fights and complex events w/ either a map or draw the area out. White board, ftw.
|
I've had a lot of luck ripping images from the PDFs and taking them to my local Kinko's. It's usually like $4 for a flipmat-sized printout in black and white, and then I'll do some shading with colored pencils.
(doesn't work so well for dark maps, like the decks of ships, for some reason)
OfficeMax has a bargain 50-sheet Grid Easelpad for something like $25. Pages measure 27"×34". At 50¢ a map, essentially, it's the best deal I've found, and if you just focus on drawing the important bits you'll do fine.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
There is a list up on the forum of which scenarios call for which maps.
Here it is, updated through 6-23.
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
|
I have a passable drawing skill, but I am a weird kind of lazy in my prep. So I lift the images from the PDF (just selecting them in acrobat reader works for most of them), touching it up and scaling it in photoshop (I have an ancient copy) and then using posterazor to have the map made in individual A4s.
Print them at the office.
Cut, lots of tape, and *poof* magic! Full color map with no drawing needed :D
Contributor
|
Living in a college town, we have a place called Mr. Copy that will do a 12x18 on matte cardstock for $3 each (if you get at least 4 at a time, even if each one is different). I'll usually pull the images from the scenario, put them through a super quick tweak in paint.NET (resize for 1 inch squares, then brightness down, contrast up, render: sharpen x5 to x10), and stick them on a flash drive.
Alternatively, the campus library has a map plotter that can do larger things (I think 72x36 is the max - I did a 48x32 for Book 6 of Skull & Shackles and that ran me ~$10). I don't know if all campus libraries would have plotters, but if you have college students in your lodge, it's a possibility at least!
Sometimes I'll print 8x11s on my own printer (more tweaking so as not to kill my color cartridge for a single scenario heh) by cropping to 8x11 sections (and then making sure to make the canvas 8.5x11 so the printer won't try to change the scale or anything).
Hope that helps!
PS - Michael, I still <3 you so much for that link/list!
|
|
There is a list up on the forum of which scenarios call for which maps.Here it is, updated through 6-23.
I'm not sure the costs on printing everything, but the scenarios include a Paizo Flip Mat when developed for this very reason. They are writable with dry-erase ink too. I pick up random ones here and there, but this list will help you choose.
With practice I got so I don't use these anymore, but I made a couple of standardized templates. Using the inside of a Dr Pepper box I just measured out a square, octagon, semi-circle & a ship. I keep these in the same folder as my spell templates (from Dragon Magazine) and a CD for circles. I use them as a straight edges.
Two other things which help. First, use different color inks. You can designate one color as hard lines (walls) and others as soft (furniture, slopes, doors, water, etc.) It makes it look like you put more effort into it than the same drawing with one color.
Second, when you prep the scenario make a note of the width and length of a room. I found I drew better when I felt less rushed, so knowing the basic outline of a room helped.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
|
For irregular stuff like forests, printing is far superior to drawing, because that's really a pain.
For more regular stuff like dungeons, drawing isn't too hard.
- You start with a 1-inch grid flipover sheet (found at office supply store).
- Using a normal pencil and ruler, draw all the straight walls lightly. If you make a mistake at this stage, it's easy to fix with an eraser.
- Using a compass, draw all the round things like staircases, tables and summoning circles.
- Use color pencils to color in the edges; doors get brown, make the walls gray and so forth.
- Use unusual colors like purple for details you want players to pay attention to, like magic circles.
The ruler and compass are big friends to make stuff come out neatly.
If you have the resources, just buy all of the map packs that you can. They're fairly modular and can be used to cover most circumstances.
If you're a GM on a budget (and who isn't?), then just get a nice fat dry erase marker and a battle mat and draw your map during the session. It's the cartography equivalent of drawing a stick figure in that ANYONE can do it. Just follow the line on the mat and make as close as an approximation to the map as you can. You don't have to draw in details, just the walls will usually suffice.
The more you do it, the easier it will become. There's really no excuse not to draw out temporary maps on a battlemat.
|
|
I use the local office Max. They have a 24" x 36" printer. I just take them the PDF and they print it out at those dimensions which is close to 1" squares. For some adventures I just have them do each map, for others they have to split it in half and print both halves. The later modules are great because they have maps without a lot hidden information on them. Earlier adventures you have to block stuff out that you don't want players to see.
Oh, and their prices are reasonable, about $2.50 a sheet. Some other places charge a lot more.
Morag
|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Another trick you can use:
Wet erase will not wipe off without water.
Draw your map in wet erase. Then draw temporary features (like spell area effects, etc) in dry erase marker or crayon.
Alternately just do everything in dry erase crayon, which has a much nicer color pallet for dungeon maps. (soft oranges and yellows, rather than hard neon ones, etc.)
|
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
|
What's the correct dpi for a 1 inch grid?
My wife and I are both struggling to get our PDF prints to scale!
Oh, that's never the same. When I copy images from the PDF they always end up at different sizes. That's why I put them into an image processor.
(You can use GIMP for free.) Not only makes that easier to clean the image up, but you can also adjust image size. I just count the squares horizontally. 1 square is one inch, so if the image is 10 squares wide, I adjust image size to 10 inch.|
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
|
To make it worse, some of the images have different vertical and horizontal dpis...
I will sometimes also use gimp to lay a 1 pixel wide, 50-75% opaque yellow or blue-green 1 inch by 1 inch grid over the map, so that you can actually see where the squares are, as paizo keeps doing things like laying out grids in black on wood floors, where they cannot be distinguished from the grain lines.
|
|
Most of the new scenarios have versions of the maps without any of the gm markings on them. Older scenarios you can find the same thing if you hunt around online/on these forums. Print out a copy of the map, hand it to a player and ask them to draw it out for you while you continue running the game. Where I've played, it's pretty common for gms to ask that or for players to offer to. Not only do you avoid having to draw, but you also don't have to interrupt the flow of the game to do so.
