Battlemats - do you draw as you go?

[Shadowslayer]

You know, one tip I read one time was this: Get a big pad of 1 inch graph paper, easel sized for presentations. Then draw out your dungeon on it. Then cut each room out. Come game time, as your PCs travel thru, just plunk down the appropriate room.

Not as nice as mats and TacTiles I know, but its cheap and easy. (Unless your dungeon is real complicated)

 

[Steel_Wind]

Something kind of odd has happened in our game session lately which is on point.

As you may recall, I'm the guy who posted the Digital Projection pics on the "Coolest. Gaming Setup. Evar." thread.

For a number of reasons, I've been running my games at home instead of our usual location for the past four sessions (five including tonight). The first four I ran at home I ran on my backyard patio. Nice chairs, umbrella, BBQ, moonlights. It was nice for a change - but no projector.

I noticed - the past two sessions in particular which were dungeon crawls -that the game had really bogged down. Drawing out the dungeon on the battlemat was the chief suspect.

Tonight - we moved the game back indoors and used the projector.

It was night and day. There was no comparison in terms of speed. We got through our combats *twice* as fast - easily. Exploration was MASSIVELY faster.

Anyways - moral of the story: pre-drawn areas on your tabletop are night and day faster. Whether that's through tact-tiles or , better still, a projector - pre-drawn is the only way to fly.

 

[S'mon]

Anyways - moral of the story: pre-drawn areas on your tabletop are night and day faster. Whether that's through tact-tiles or , better still, a projector - pre-drawn is the only way to fly.

I haven't seen any problem with drawing it out at the time, sketching the combat location only takes a few seconds. Problems would only arise if I were to attempt to draw out every noncombat location the PCs enter, when I did that previously it was indeed nightmarishly slow, but I've learned better.

 

[Michael Dean]

I got tired of not being able to clean my battlemat off completely. So I went out and bought very cheap clear transparency sheets. I line them up side by side on top of the battlemat, draw out the rooms I need using the square grids as a guide for distances, and then just gather them up and put in a folder. That way, I can pull out one sheet at a time as the party explores and lay it out on the battle mat. I also draw up generic buildings that way; taverns, city blocks, etc... and have them ready to use at a moments notice.

 

[the Jester]

I got tired of not being able to clean my battlemat off completely. So I went out and bought very cheap clear transparency sheets. I line them up side by side on top of the battlemat, draw out the rooms I need using the square grids as a guide for distances, and then just gather them up and put in a folder. That way, I can pull out one sheet at a time as the party explores and lay it out on the battle mat.

Oooh- nice idea! I have to keep this one in mind for when I have a complex area where I expect a lot of combat....