How should I make my adventure's maps?

[djdaidouji]

I've been making adventures for my campaign, and I thought that I should take some of the adventures and make small module things out of them, so I can use them later on, and so other people could borrow them from me.

The one thing I was wondering is how should I make the combat maps? I recently bought KotS, and I really liked the posters they gave, but I can't really put posters in a PDF. The inside battles bothered me a bit, because it assumed I had dungeon tiles, which I didn't. (I had picked KotS up on my way to a friend's house, and when I got there, it turned out it was a surprise going away party for me. When they heard I had it, they all wanted me to run it, which I did, but we were grossly underprepared) We ended up printing off grid paper and using that, which was not too bad, except that the rogue moved so much that we all forgot which circle was him and which was erased a couple times.

I could make my maps like that, and leave it up to the DM to gridify it, but I think there could be a better solution. Perhaps at the end of the module, I'll put all of the maps on pages for the DM to print out, with a small note suggesting "Put this map in a clear plastic page protector and use erasable markers to mark your characters." The map wouldn't have 1 inch squares, as that would be difficult to print out without the map section being twenty pages long. I'd think they would be half that, which is enough room to draw a circle and put the character's initials/class in it.

Anyway, I just wanted to get people's opinions on it. If you were to print off an adventure module, what kind of maps would you prefer.

 

[tophu]

I got a poster sized 1" grid paper from Office Depot. It is designed to be put on an easel, but it works great for maps. I can fit about four dungeon rooms on it, folded to show them in turn.

 

[AMP Productions]

You can...

-Print your own dungeon tiles, just use inch grid and make as many different sized rooms hallways you can think of.

-Get an erasable mat, like a Chessex grid map. (my fav)

-You can design your own in photoshop, dunjinni, or any other program and print them out at kinkos or something like that. (exspensive and time consuming)

on all of these, you can also print ot tiles that have things like detritis, collumns, statues, shelves, tables, chairs, chests, etc. to spice up the plain maps.

-Rob

 

[djdaidouji]

Not exactly what I was asking, but thanks for the ideas.

The question was more, if I was to make adventure modules that other people can download and use, in those modules, how should I format the maps so the people who download them can use them the easiest.

 

[Mercutio01]

It might just be me, but PDFs seem to work for things I've used from E-tiles and other sources.