Dungeon Tiles or New Maps?

[MatthewJHanson]

There is a lot of discussion in the Bark at the Moon thread about the use of Dungeon Tiles vs. new maps for published adventures.

So I'm putting together a poll to get a quick read on the general opinions of EN World.

What do you think?

 

[Holy Bovine]

I would *love* to see some actual maps in Dungeon mag again. I don't think every adventure needs to have hand-crafted maps - the Delves can keep the dungeon tile format as it really suits the 'quick n' easy' style of the delves - I've used many of them as transitional scenes between major plot points and actually like the concept.

Maps are just as vital, however, to a full fledged adventure as any piece of artwork. A well done map helps a DM visualize the adventure, imo and is really necessary.

 

[the Jester]

God please let us have some good maps again. I strongly feel that the impact of Dungeon Tiles on the maps in Dungeon is significantly lessening the quality of the magazine.

The lame "We wanted to spend our art budget on other things" answer doesn't wash for me, since until recently every single adventure in Dungeon had pretty good maps.

Add to that 4e's terrible habit of leaving out overall area maps and man, I tell ya, this is one of 4e's biggest weaknesses.

 

[Aegeri]

I bought Dungeon 137 from Paizo for a single adventure about spiders - merely out of morbid curiosity. Not only did I get an awesome picture of an NPC, I got an unexpected bonus for my game of:

A town absolutely covered in webs (OMG). That was an unbelievable find for my campaign.

And an entire spider themed dungeon. Another great find.

That $8.20 NZ I spent on that adventure was more valuable than I would say 4 of the past 6 months of Dungeon. And it's not even a relevant damn edition to me.

That's really how much of a difference maps make in my assessment of the worth of Dungeon.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I am a huge fan of dungeon tiles and have nearly ever set, and two of many of them, but I don't want ot see dungeon tile maps, except in short 2-3 encounter things.

Yes, on the table, I will likely use tiles to map out the room for combat, but as a DM, maps are far more provocative. They are great to show the feel and odd layout of the room, also.

One thing that gets me about most dungeon tiles maps is they are so boring. Single level, with very little features. Dungeon tiles themselves can be far better than what is in most mags or adventures I have seen.

 

[Ahrimon]

I don't mind the dungeon tile maps so much. But I do wish they would at least touch them up. Remove the obvious tile lines and color correct everything so that same ground type is actually the same color. It's pretty sad when you can clearly tell every tile. Especially when you can tell that different tiles are from different sets. And extra especially when the grid styles change or don't line up.

Overall the tile map quality is pretty craptastic.

Edit: I'd also like them to make the maps (either style) printable at full resolution. That would make my life easier.

 

[malraux]

If I'm ever just going to read the adventure, then bespoke maps are cool. If I'm going to run it as a DM, I hate the overly complicated maps in Dungeon. IME from playing through/running SoW, the coolest looking maps end up looking like crap when drawn out. Tiles look like crap on the page, but look not bad in play. Either way its a tradeoff, but my preference as a horrid drawer is something easy.

 

[The Little Raven]

Non-tile maps mean one of two options for me. First, I print out a blown-up version of the map and it looks crappy. Second, I redraw the map and it looks crappy.

With tiles, I get use out of products I have purchased, and I feel that Wizards is supporting the products in the same way they support classes and races with new articles and such. Not making tile-based maps, to me, says "Hey, customer, we'll sell you these tiles, but we won't actually provide any support or inspiration for them." I can also more easily prep my games head of time with tile-based maps, and like using the other art that takes the place of maps to show my players and add to the atmosphere of the game.

 

[Daern]

maps whatevs

I'd rather have more art and handouts than fancy encounter maps. I do appreciate regional maps quite a bit.

 

[zoroaster100]

I voted "other" because" I'd like to see them use the dungeon tiles for most encounters, but occasional new maps for special unique encounter areas. I'd like to see them use most of their art budgets for regional maps and art rather than encounter maps.