Floorplans and Battlemaps

[Merova]

Hi all!

A few questions:

Do you use maps in your games?

If so, what is their function? Tactical? Establishing mood?

Does it help your group get "immersed" in the setting or does it bump them?


My thoughts:

I normally use a battlemap when GMing a game that includes a tactical element as part of regular play, be it due to a combat focus or an investigative focus. I find that having a mapped out environment aids in quickly adjudicating things like area effects, ranges, and terrain complications. Normally, I just mark it down on my handy battlemaps with a pen.

I've rarely used a map when running a game that doesn't heavily feature either combat or investigative elements. For instance, in social or survivalist focused games, I usually narrate the setting. After all, there is no range modifier on bluff checks.

However, I'm wondering if using maps and minis as often as possible might aid in creating an immersive experience for the group. I've recently taken up reviewing at the d20 Magazine Rack, and was assigned to review a series of pdf playing aids from SkeletonKey Games and 0one games. At first, I was a bit in a quandry; how does one review floorplans and environmental tiles? I looked at them, and felt totally disinterested; yeah, they were pretty, but they were just floorplans, not much different than what I can scribble out at a moment's notice on my battlemap. Or so I thought.

However, it's my policy to playtest everything before reviewing. So, I printed them out and mounted them on some posterboard, then took them to my Saturday game. It was an "intrigue" night in my Ravenloft game, but I used the tiles whenever I could. Conversations were held in collumned or statue-lined hallways. Walks through the gardens included faux-ruins. I didn't run a single combat that evening, but the tiles were used aplenty.

The result was that my players really got into the setting, even though the maps were only being used for backdrop purposes. My players normally are inclined towards "exploration of setting" type of interests, but their reaction was much more enthusiastic than usual. Way more than when I just narrate or scribble out a sixty by twenty corridor.

Then, a few days later, I was playing at my Greyhawk game. The GM asked to use the wilderness tiles from SkeletonKey for a fight among some ruins. So we laid them out and put them to excellent use. Normally, GMs don't put in little things like bushes or smaller structural elements like a bit of crumbled wall, when drawing battle scenes. I certainly don't; it's too much effort to make on the fly. The use of these printed tiles made the game much more tactically diverse and created a more immerse experience to the combat. It was easier to imagine "being there."

So, that's my recent experience. What's yours?

Thanks for reading.

---Olivia

 

[MerakSpielman]

I create detailed maps of all places I expect my players to go, and several more places I don't expect them to go (these can be recycled for ad-lib use later if unused).

As we progress through any "dungeon" type setting, somebody always maps it out. This is a vague map, just to keep us from getting lost and to keep track of ways we haven't gone yet, and we usually don't even bother with things like "graph paper" or "scale."

Also, we have a large battle mat that we put on the gaming table. It's old, and has hexes instead of squares, but it works fine and we're used to it. Whenever a battle breaks out, the DM (me) sketches out a quick approximation of the battleground with wet-erase markers, we put out our miniatures, and play out the battle.

Non-combat drawings on the battle mat are very rare, but every now and then there will be an area that requires a very fine level of description (a murder scene, for instance) and the DM will draw it out for us.

 

[Iron_Chef]

We use a huge Chessex battlemap (double-sided hexes and squares) for big dungeons or other complex settings. Otherwise, we use "battle boards," which are cardboard box tops with full color, square overlayed tile print outs of various terrain or locations that we got from Dwane Agin's Hero Quest site, with most being tiles from the guy who did all those inserts for Dragon over the past few years. That site seems to be down now, unfortunately. They are beautiful and add a lot to the atmosphere, moreso than the chessex mat and our DM's bad drawing skills ever could.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

We draw maps of all places where combat takes place. We do this on 5mm grid paper. We then put the map on a block of styrofoam (a cardboard box will do in a pinch) and stick in needles to show the positions of everyone.

All the accuracy of miniatures - at a fraction of the price.

 

[Merova]

Thumb Tacks & Foamcore

All the accuracy of miniatures - at a fraction of the price.

Hi all!

I had a GM do something similar, but with colored thumb tacks and foamcore board. It was amazingly efficient for tactical adjudication. However, I never really liked being the "purple tack." I prefer seeing a representative figure for my PCs, which is why I use minis. YMMV.

Again, this leads back to the "immersion" question. I prefer minis over more abstract representations, such as tacks or coins or scratchmarks on grid paper, because my ability to imagine "being there" is aided by them. My recent experiments with printed tiles and floorplans has led to a similar conclusion. A well rendered corridor or a detailed wilderness backdrop does wonders for my "immersion" experience, when compared to my typical practice of scribbling out bare environmental or architectural details on my old Chessex.

Whether the situation calls for combat or conversation, having a floorplan in which the players can imagine their PCs acting seems to aid in the "suspension of disbelief" and helps the players get "into" their characters.

I know that some players loath minis and maps, citing them as examples of a "wargaming" bias. I can understand this prejudice, which was probably gained by an unhappy prior experience that left a lingering dislike. They usually speak of "roleplaying vs. roll-playing." I've found that the floorplans aids in the "immersive" experience, which is definitely an aspect of "roleplaying."

So, any thoughts, agreements, or disagreements?

Thanks for reading.

---Olivia

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Hi all!

A few questions:

Do you use maps in your games?

If so, what is their function? Tactical? Establishing mood?

Does it help your group get "immersed" in the setting or does it bump them?
...
So, that's my recent experience. What's yours?

Thanks for reading.

---Olivia

Yes! I use maps. Both for tactical purposes and establishing mood. For the former, like many others, we have a small and large Chessex battlemat to draw out encounters on. For mood, I typically draw a nice "treasure map" style piece to give out to PCs. The latter helps with immersion.

However, it also depends on the group. I have one group where some of the PCs are more powergamers than roleplayers, so it's always tough to create good RP moments. They ignored a map of a mountain that people who later looked at termed "beautiful." In my other group (my AU campaign), it's smaller and everyone's really enjoying the roleplaying. Any mapping helps, and they got a real kick out of a tiny, spryte-sized map.

I shall have to try your tile method though. That does sound like it's worth it if it continues to improve the feeling of immersion. Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[SkeletonKey Ed]

I use a lot of different map products other than the ones I make (click on the link in my signature and have your credit card ready .

I noticed when I went from a Battlemat to more detailed stuff like Dwarven Forge, Adventure Tiles or 0one's Battlemaps that I started getting lax on my room descriptions. I was presenting the areas with a "here it is" attitude that actually pulled the players out of RPG mode and into war/board game mode. I changed my approach within a few game sessions and the RPing returned. The change in the players wasn't deliberate; it was triggered by me letting the maps stand for themselves. I learned that maps are a visual aid but not a replacement for the imagination - just a heads-up to anyone experiencing something similar. It is now to the point that I hear moans and groans when I break out my Battlemat.

Traditional dungeon and cave maps are selling quite well right now. What I want to do is try to break out of the dungeon a bit, which is what I did with the Sacred Wilderness and Wilderness Ruins sets. 0one has their Inns & Taverns set of Battlemaps and I'll probably do a tavern set of e-Adventure Tiles as well. In the near future I'll be releasing a set of tileable sailing ships and a coliseum. Not that I'll stop doing dungeons and caves, but I would like to give as much flexibility as possible.

Suggestions are welcome.

Cheers - Ed

 

[ConnorSB]

Right now I'm planning on purchasing a bunch of the Skeleton Key games stuff, having tested my printing and cardstock-onto-gluing abilities with a bunch of thier samples. Thier stuff looks good, its cheap, and will make my game much more.... good looking, when I actually run one again.

I like the PDF thing, and Skeletonkey seems to have done things right with them. When i printed some of the free tiles, they never did the annoying thing of printing over multipe pages, which has the potential to really mess up cutting and pasting jobs (not fun when the corridor is cut in half and is impossible to realign), like some mapping pdfs i have used. Thier room selection is very good, and all look good because there is no repetion in the way flagstones are cracked and broken (IE: a very natural, nonrepetative look).

My one comment/suggestion is that it would be very, very cool if they got the rights to "remap" dungeons from other products (outside Skeleton Key games), making a companion product that was basically the maps in the adventure, blown up and detailed and colored and printable.

Like if they called up Monte and got the rights to sell the "Banewarrens Map Companion" PDF, which would have all the rooms from the adventure, beautifully mapped out and ready to be printed (and modular, of course). Of course, I plan on doing this anyway for my own use, but it would be a very, very cool addition to my game.

Even if there were not specific companion products, it would be cool if they could put out a little mini-pdf that basically says "this is what the dungeon looks like in the book, with room numbers and stuff, with another map next to the first with new numbers, and the rooms divided up using different colors saying "these are the tiles you will need from Dungeon Corridors I and II, and this is where to place them to reproduce "The dungeon of (insert name or whatever).""

Now that would be cool... and mean that I wouldnt have to do any work.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Do you use maps in your games?

If so, what is their function? Tactical? Establishing mood?

Does it help your group get "immersed" in the setting or does it bump them?

Behind the DM screen, I use maps if a dungeon/structure/area is exceptionally complex. Otherwise, I just go with general descriptions.

If you mean tactical maps like battlematts and whatnot, then the answer is not if I can possibly help it.

I'll use a matt if I'm running a battle with dozens of foes, so many that the PCs must know where they all are. Beyond that, I really dislike how strongly many games focus on the tactical. I prefer more abstract combat, such as found in previous editions. And I've found that, more often than not, use of miniatures both slows down combat and ruins suspension of disbelieve. (IME only, of course; I'm sure most of you have found it otherwise.)

In my group, we've instituted house rules to make combat flow more smoothly without using maps and minis. But even in campaigns that don't use such rules, I prefer playing without the matts.

 

[NeghVar]

My group uses the SKG stuff pretty extensively. They print nicely, they look outstanding, and Ed seems to be always working on or releasing something that fits the groups current needs. Being that the group uses primarily home-grown dungeons and such, the free-form nature of the tiles works pretty well.

I also have to tell you that the new D&D minis work exceptionally well on the tiles from SKG.

Thanks!