I accidentally found a nifty way to do exploration of a map

[blargney the second]

Last night I had the very first game of the Kingmaker campaign I'm DMing. Exploration is the major theme of the first book in particular, and I accidentally found a cool way to pull that off.

Step 1) I bought the Kingmaker map folio. It contains four large poster maps of the region the PCs will explore. I took the posters into the store of a friend who has a laminating machine. She mounted each one on a foamcore board, then put it into glossy laminate.

Step 2) I bought a bottle of Crayola black washable paint at Staples. Then I covered a map in a thick coating and used a blow-dryer to dry it out before the game started. I had been planning on wiping sections off with paper towel and soapy water, but I noticed that there was a small section that was slightly flaking off. I scraped it with my fingernail and it came off cleanly.

Step 3) I now have a giant scratch and win poster map. The stiff backing makes this even easier to use.


Edit: Pictures posted below.

 

[Ray_K]

That just may be worth the money to invest in lol. I really like that idea, players would love it too. It's completely interactive, way more so than "Ok, I go here" "Ok, you find this". It'll actually encourage players to WANT to explore the area.

 

[Quickleaf]

Take a picture and post it! Sounds neat!

 

[LeStew]

yes I'd love to see a picture too!

What a great idea!

 

[d2OKC]

This is a great idea. Seriously.

I'll second (or third or fourth) everyone who has asked to see pictures!

 

[BriarMonkey]

Nice! That's way better than my thought of spending the time to cut out hexes from sticky notes and covering the map that way.

 

[VinylTap]

With smaller 8x11 maps you could probably do it even cheaper. Get a clear plastic binder insert and coat it black. Solid idea.

 

[Scott DeWar]

we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture, we wanna pic-ture,

am I getting annoying yet? or have you got the idea?

 

[blargney the second]

Pictures, eh? The poster is about 18" by 24". On the shot showing the whole map, you can see the flaking I originally noticed in the center on the right side of the image. I'll touch it up with some more paint after we move into our new apartment this weekend.

Edit: ps - I fingerpainted it on. Hadn't done that in more decades than I care to admit!

 

[Karak]

We do the same thing but a slightly different way.
We get a dry erase board and a single piece of transparent plastic to go over it.
Draw/tape/put the map on the board, cover with the transparent edge and draw over the secondary piece of plastic. They make massive black markers at our local construction store so painting over the plastic takes about 2 minutes. Wipe off as people go, using your fingers, papertowel or whatever. I love how the non permanent markers ink sort of just turns to dust one your hands so its not a mess at all which is nice.