Map choices

[R D Ramsey]

I have to say, I'm surprised by the map choice breakdown.

I haven't read anything more than the titles, but I checked in on each entry to see which flip-map was used.

5 Battlefield
2 Pub Crawl
1 Haunted Dungeon

Not what I expected, since on the surface Battlefield is the most difficult to make interesting. I think Haunted Dungeon has some other pitfalls, but I did expect it to be most popular.

Shows what I know!

Anyway, on to reading what you all did with them!

[Isaac Volynskiy]

Really? I'm not surprised. When I was still in the running, I was also considering the bridge map.

The other two maps (dungeon especially) look like they could host multiple encounters, it would be more challenging to use the space for just one.

[R D Ramsey]

Yeah, I think the Haunted Dungeon in particular is dangerous because of the multiple encounter problem. I'm not sure I could solve that, personally. Hopefully the top 8 did!

The problem with the bridge for me is that it's kinda boring as a location, so you need gimmicks to spice it up. I guess it's all a matter of how good your gimmicks are.

[Captain Phoenix]

Battlefield sales must be going through the roof!

[Anthony Adam]

R D Ramsey wrote:

Yeah, I think the Haunted Dungeon in particular is dangerous because of the multiple encounter problem. I'm not sure I could solve that, personally. Hopefully the top 8 did!

The problem with the bridge for me is that it's kinda boring as a location, so you need gimmicks to spice it up. I guess it's all a matter of how good your gimmicks are.

Like having a dragon land at both ends when you are half way across, the only escape route being to dive and swim - you did put ranks in swimming didn't you ? :P

Or, maybe the bridge itself is a glorified huge mimic/construct >.<

Or, it's not really a full length river, it's a stretched out humungous water weird laying in wait ...

I've used the second one, the players were expecting the proverbial troll to come from underneath to demand payment for passage and got the bridge itself standing up to demand payment - lol, their expressions were priceless.

[R Pickard]

Battlefield is pretty simple but simple can be good -- it allows for a LOT of possibility and creativity. It could be an urban (bridge just outside of town) or wilderness adventure. It could be in a number of climates. You have your widest number of options to choose from as far as who or what you're encountering or why.

Pub crawl narrows most of your options to "this is an urban encounter of some kind." There's still a lot of possibility in there, as urban encounters can be nicely varied, and you could decide if the encounter was in one of the pubs or in the streets, time of day, etc. but your scope of what happens here and why is much more limited compared to "wilderness possibly near civilization bu maybe not." Your encounter will more likely be with humanoid NPCs, or maybe undead, or some other urban specific monsters, but if you're thinking "dragon fight" or what have you, this probably doesn't work. Someone who works well within restriction, or who was already thinking "urban encounter," was probably attracted to this one the most. But if they weren't, then it wasn't probably even considered as an option.

Dungeon is dangerous--dungeon has been DONE. It is the thing "and dragons" that is the daddy of this game system, and some of us have seen dungeon after dungeon after dungeon and all the encounters a dungeon could hold. You have to be sure you have an idea no one's seen before or a take or twist that makes an old idea new again. It doesn't make it impossible but it makes it a particular kind of challenge.

You're also limited here in WHAT to encounter--although the game is rife with underground dwelling creatures, if you don't want to work with those (and we also had an awful lot of "underground" last season) then this is not going to be your first choice.

[The Raven Black]

I agree with DQ that Battlefield is where most designers will feel comfortable because it opens so many possibilities for them to express their creativity : it easily allows a "sandboxy" approach of anything can happen.
If I had been in the Top8 this season, it is the map I would have chosen because it fits well with the encounter I had in mind.

That said, I believe another kind of designers revel in using their creativity to make the most of a limited canvas. These would love the "railroady" Dungeon : there is a turn, but who knows what will happen after that ?

Way I see it, the urban Pub Crawl stands halfway between these 2 extremes, which is usually not the most comfortable position for a designer. So, my guess is that it will appeal to someone who was already planning for an urban encounter.

It will be very interesting to know the reasons behind the Top8 choices AFTER the voting is done ;-)

[Trekkie90909]

Battlefield is the most boring in that it limits creative output to one of very few scenarios (an escape, a checkpoint, or a random encounter). I thought pulling it off well would require exceptional creativity; there were one strong and one weak submission for it, the others were pretty bland.

Pub crawl had a lot of appeal to me since there's a lot you can do with it, and it suggests a more social encounter which really gives the PCs a chance to shine and gives the designer a chance to show their stuff. I was very impressed with one designer, and the other one wrote an interesting encounter which sadly had a few holes.

Haunted Dungeon is at once the easiest map to write for, it is after all a 'typical' dungeon, and the most difficult to fully utilize due to its scale and complexity. The submission for it seemed like it could have been interesting, but like it was a partially thought out draft rather than a real submission; much of which may have been due to word count constraints.

[Curaigh]

I thought the battlefield was the least exciting and the haunted dungeon the most dynamic. Someone pointed out the dungeon would be difficult to use the whole map for a single encounter, which is the assignment this round. I therefor expected way more pubs, but I think the Top 8 (that I have read so far) have made the battlefield their own in their descriptions.

[Robert Thomson]

R D Ramsey wrote:

I have to say, I'm surprised by the map choice breakdown.

I haven't read anything more than the titles, but I checked in on each entry to see which flip-map was used.

5 Battlefield
2 Pub Crawl
1 Haunted Dungeon

Not what I expected, since on the surface Battlefield is the most difficult to make interesting. I think Haunted Dungeon has some other pitfalls, but I did expect it to be most popular.

Shows what I know!

Anyway, on to reading what you all did with them!

I actually wasn't surprised at all. I felt the Battlefield was the obvious choice, since it's the most limited in scope, making a single location encounter easier. I thought pub crawl was the middle choice, since it would be easy to concentrate on a single building within the location. Haunted Dungeon seemed like the most difficult to use by far.

Before results were released for the previous round, my first reaction was to use the Battlefield since the limited scope of it should be easiest to build a tight encounter. However, I moved away from that and the encounter I would have submitted was a Haunted Dungeon, because I actually expected nobody else to use that location, and thought it would be able to show off some things I couldn't do on the other two maps.

[Robert Thomson]

Anthony Adam wrote:

I've used the second one, the players were expecting the proverbial troll to come from underneath to demand payment for passage and got the bridge itself standing up to demand payment - lol, their expressions were priceless.

I thought about doing a troll bridge before I moved on to deciding that the haunted dungeon was the way to go. Thought the troll bridge was going to be seen as a joke encounter.

[Anthony Adam]

Robert Thomson wrote:

Anthony Adam wrote:

I've used the second one, the players were expecting the proverbial troll to come from underneath to demand payment for passage and got the bridge itself standing up to demand payment - lol, their expressions were priceless.

I thought about doing a troll bridge before I moved on to deciding that the haunted dungeon was the way to go. Thought the troll bridge was going to be seen as a joke encounter.

Yeah, that's why I made it the bridge itself as a construct - a troll would have been way too easy and expected ;)

With my players, they tend to react very like this...

"Uh-Oh, Look sharp, G< is putting out the battlemap!"

Same when I draw on the dry erasable grid map!

So now I toy with them, draw something... "Oh, that's for later!" - keeps them on tenderhooks until I use what I draw - and when I erase it because they have "bypassed" that encounter - lol, I'm evil!

[Robert Thomson]

Anthony Adam wrote:

Robert Thomson wrote:

Anthony Adam wrote:

I've used the second one, the players were expecting the proverbial troll to come from underneath to demand payment for passage and got the bridge itself standing up to demand payment - lol, their expressions were priceless.

I thought about doing a troll bridge before I moved on to deciding that the haunted dungeon was the way to go. Thought the troll bridge was going to be seen as a joke encounter.

Yeah, that's why I made it the bridge itself as a construct - a troll would have been way too easy and expected ;)

With my players, they tend to react very like this...

"Uh-Oh, Look sharp, G< is putting out the battlemap!"

Same when I draw on the dry erasable grid map!

So now I toy with them, draw something... "Oh, that's for later!" - keeps them on tenderhooks until I use what I draw - and when I erase it because they have "bypassed" that encounter - lol, I'm evil!

Putting out extra maps that don't have combat and then having people put miniatures on them is also great for drawing out metagame buffs. It gets people to stop going "it's a battle map...ok, I buff up before the fight."

[Curaigh]

Anthony Adam wrote:

So now I toy with them, draw something... "Oh, that's for later!" - keeps them on tenderhooks until I use what I draw - and when I erase it because they have "bypassed" that encounter - lol, I'm evil!

That's an excellent idea :)

I toy with them by bringing random Large, dragon, or Large dragon minis.
I also like to ask for initiative in room A) even though it is not needed until room C).

[Charlie Brooks]

I almost never use maps and minis at my table, but if I did I would be very tempted to run a session where the battle mat was out for everything, even the non-combat encounters.

[The Raven Black]

No such things as non-combat encounters when PCs and/or GM are determined enough

[Charlie Brooks]

The Raven Black wrote:

No such things as non-combat encounters when PCs and/or GM are determined enough

Too true.

I recently ran a trial session that turned into a melee. I wonder if the battle would have happened if I had laid out a battle mat with all the guards and nobles assembled there so the PCs would have seen how outnumbered they were.

[Anthony Adam]

Charlie Brooks wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

No such things as non-combat encounters when PCs and/or GM are determined enough

Too true.

I recently ran a trial session that turned into a melee. I wonder if the battle would have happened if I had laid out a battle mat with all the guards and nobles assembled there so the PCs would have seen how outnumbered they were.

Over a period of some 3-4 months I emptied my local game store of all its boosters of Pathfinder goblins for a goblin invasion at our table - I still need more to do it justice but tipping 100+ goblins onto my edge of the battlemap was wonderful!

The players had a blast committing whole scale goblin-cide, and they still talk about a "the real scale mini invasion" encounter some six months later! :D

Oh, and Curaigh, I still have my turkey-sized Wizards red dragon too! ;)

One other thing I did once, just as a one off, to each player, "Roll a d20 30 times and record the results in order. Write your name at the top and pass it to me!"

The game began ... "Oh don't worry, I have your first 30 attack rolls, saves, skill checks, etc. here now, I'll let you know when I run out - you just worry about the damage die rolling for a while. Please, please, dont mention it, I know you get tired rolling that big d20 a lot in nerves. Enjoy the respite and relax. Enjoy the ride!"

Can you say tension levels off the charts?

You can imagine the desperate expressions when they make an action that required their next number, which of course they couldn't remember.
And the banter when the first player finally used their 30th roll and could use his dice again!

I must do that again sometime! Maybe get them to roll 40 times and put their resulting rolls in a folder "for later" and forget them for a session or two - ohhh, that got my evil tingles a tingling... muwah hah hah haaaa!

[Thomas LeBlanc]

Maybe the prevalence of the bridge map has to do with it being the newest map with little use in PFS and other Paizo adventures?