Mapping, tiles, boards, dungeons, cities

@D'karr:
Well yeah, but are you always the DM and always the person providing maps?

I can use CC2 and make my own, but it doesn't really help other people that much.

So would you use something like this if it helped prevent you from having to draw out a map?

Say a 3PP have an adventure that used the paper tiles and made a map and all you needed to do was assemble it rather than explode it from a book and create it for the proper scale when printed?

@Moniker: Would you buy and use paper disposable tiles that you could write on and cheaply and easily replace?
 

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A newsprint pad with glue on the top is exactly what I had in mind actually.

As for PDFs you print out yourself - for me that is the deal-breaker - I want ready-made - if I wanted to spend my own ink I would use one of the many options already available - which I don't.

Each pad could be a different theme: city, dungeon, prairie, forest, desert, etc. . .
 

@D'karr:
Well yeah, but are you always the DM and always the person providing maps?

About 99% of the time yes.

I can use CC2 and make my own, but it doesn't really help other people that much.

It helps me. :D

So would you use something like this if it helped prevent you from having to draw out a map?

Probably not. Drawing the maps is part of the fun for me. I have a ton of Dungeon Tiles and I still use my maps a lot more. The problem with Dungeon Tiles, similar to Dwarven Forge terrain, is the setup time. If I take them to a game is a bag/box, for each encounter I have to set them up. At that point, looking for each tile and placing it takes longer than using a battlemat and drawing it with a wet erase marker.

With my maps, it's just simpler. Lay the sucker out and I'm done. Now granted, creating the map is a lot more work. But for me it is fun, so no work at all.

Say a 3PP have an adventure that used the paper tiles and made a map and all you needed to do was assemble it rather than explode it from a book and create it for the proper scale when printed?

Maybe. If the map is evocative I'd probably use it. If it's black & white and looks like what I can draw with pencil, probably not.
 

I was thinking glued at top first as well then looked at the cost of glueing and then thought about erros in geting them in order to have stacks of say the 20 maps el-remmen.

That would be like paying someone to stuff envelopes and that almost always means some little flyer could be missed in 1 in 10 stacks.

Wouldn't be very good, and having all 5 of a given tile in one place means that when you only need one you have to loosen the other 4 to get to things under it.

It is still a thought, but something a publisher would have to make sure to get right in the process.

D'karr, they wouldn't be black and white. Even newsprint image quality could be color. Of course a novelty item would be blue maps. Say taking Geomorhpic shapes and make the lines in blue on white paper. Otherwise they would be full color, but like the reason behind paper over game board stock the ink would be reduced to help make production costs lower and replacement costs lower.

Also the PDF idea could be for those who want to as an option not the only method for acquiring these paper "tiles", otherwise there is no real point as there are TONS of them out there already that this can be done with for free.

D'karr, I can understand wanting the better quality and do not mind that all will not like the idea, but I think some might that don't have the skills for CCx or can afford the latest and best mapping programs and printers to print their own off with, otherwise if they did then tiles as they are now wouldn't sell, or only sell a single set as people would just scan in a tile and print as many as they need and glue them to stiffer stock.

Which would be possible with these as well. Your maps are good, but not everyone can do that. ;) If we all owned plotters and CC3 I am sure we would be better off for mapping, but that still isn't here yet and plotters aren't that affordable for cost and space.
 

I have found a lovely solution to the D&D tiles mapping:

1) buy a large piece of felt (you can get these at most fabric stores),
2) buy the D&D tiles and arrange them on the felt,
3) buy a large piece of plexiglass (you can get these at most hardware stores like Home Depot) and lay the plexiglass over the D&D tiles (this keeps the D&D tiles from moving).

The plexiglass allows me to draw on its surface and erase the drawings with a spray bottle and some paper towels.

Moreover, because of the felt I can actually layer several progressive "dungeons" on top of one another and peel them off to reveal them to my players.

I love this "Geek Lasagna" approach.
 

How about sorting and storing all those tiles when you have to transport them somewhere and have to take time to set all that up? Or needing tile 13 for the top layer and one closer to the bottom,a nd you just don't have an extra tile 13 so you can put one in both places without having to buy a whole other pack of tiles just for tile 13?
 

You may be one of the perfect people to capitalize on this idea. http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/247221-mapping-tiles-boards-dungeons-cities.html

I am trying to make tiles and such, but don't really know where to start. :erm:

I figured I'd answer here, rather than in the other post :)

So, are you basically talking about something very similar to the existing WotC dungeon tiles (with regard to passages and rooms - with 'dungeon dressing' tiles that you can place on top to change the look of the room) but printed on something similar to Paizo's map packs?

Or are you thinking along the lines of the dungeon floorplans that GamesWorkshop used to produce years ago...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3163/2867792968_82ec88348b.jpg?v=0
...but brought up to date a little.

Or maybe just a paper pad that contains a whole dungeon floor - that you then cut to shape/draw on as needed:
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l159/csp_kris/bm01.jpg

Also the PDF idea could be for those who want to as an option not the only method for acquiring these paper "tiles", otherwise there is no real point as there are TONS of them out there already that this can be done with for free.

As you say, there are already a lot of pdf dungeon tiles out there (some free, like my own http://www.enworld.org/CrookedStaffProductions/page15.html , and some you have to buy) - but admittedly they are a drain on the printer ink (one of the most expensive liquids in the world it would seem ;) ) - but it's always good to see more variations.
 
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Simply, takes your tiles and reduce the image quality a bit to recude the printing costs, and then take those lower cost and slightly lower quality images and print them.

Group them into sets and glue the tops of the and sell the pad at stores for people to buy "tiles" rather than having to print them out themselves to replace the current game board stock tiles, so they are cheaper to buy, cheaper to replace, and can be cut to size for what you need without worrying about destroying them as the "basic set" of tiles will NEVER go out of print as long as the product lives.

The dungeon floor plans is close, but still stiffer stock like most module covers and would cost a bit more. The dungeon floor is on the right track, but you would need more than that and have things like your own tiles thrown in so it isn't like just buying a "blank" mat from Chessex or where ever.

All in paper, and all types of tiles. This way you can cut out lengths of corridor that you need rather than being stuck with 10 or 40 feet lengths, but can cut your own size and have much more custimization of dungeon and overland design as if you had enough sets of Dwarven Forge - Miniature Terrain maker of MasterMaze for Warhammer miniatures, Star Wars miniatures, D&D miniatures , Reaper miniatures, and Lord of the Rings Scenery to make exactly what you want...but cheaper and out of paper so it could be disposable of even reusable.

Get tired of using a room, turn it over and write on the back of it.

Then you find a map in a published adventure and need to make it you can use your paper tiles to make it so that it may be the same floorplan as the one in the book, but has your preferred tiles to use rather than the default ones.

Say you didn't want Tudor style buildings, but wanted stone, then you just grab the stone tavern that is 4x8 quares and plop it down. Choose which table tile you want and plop them down in your own pattern to design the room interior. Even if brave enough have a tile for the bar itself so you can have empty buildings and turn whichever you want into a bar.

Either leave them lose for those that need to move of tape them down or stick them with a glue stick or other adhesive.

Look at the WotC dungeon builder and see how you can overlap tiles and such to create a design, and think it you had paper tiles that you could do that exact thing with so that certain parts overlap, but you can cut out those parts.

The idea came form looking over the old Geomorphs and how you photocopy them out, but these "paper tiles" are sold and don't require printing yourself, but PDFs available for people that want to print them themselves.

Like I say your tiles would be great as a start to have printed and sell, IF people didn't mind doing the work to have the customization of creating their own rooms and designs, and is seems many do, and the printed ones may be cheaper than ones you print yourself.

Hope that answers your questions.
 

I think I understand a little better now... basically something similar to the old GW floorplans, but done as cheaply as possible to make them somewhat disposable...

e.g. you would have lots of duplicate sheets with a basic floor pattern (something like the 1st picture below) that you could cut up to represent rooms and passages, and a couple of duplicate sheets that contains various details - to add a little variation to those rooms and passages (2nd picture below - though obviously each detail would be different and not the same 6 images that I have repeated over and over).

mockup.jpg

I think something like that would be handy for folks who like to run modules (so that they can have rooms of the correct size/shape, that are likely to see combat, cut out/glued together ahead of time), instead of drawing the rooms out on a conventional battlemat as you go along.

I guess if something like that was available right now, I would have probably purchased one or two, but I'm guessing the key point here would be the cost - and keeping it as low as possible so that they could been seen as being disposable (rather than something you'd use over and over again - like the WotC tiles).

Or have I completely missed the point? :)
 

You are right on track, but not just indoors, but outside areas, pages of rooms and buildings, pages of corridors that you can cut to length if you need one shorter than the biggest size, etc.

Being cheap paper means you can reuse them later if not glued down, or throw away after you are done and buy more if you don't have any left over in your pad.

The idea is where WotC gives 6 tiles per pack for like $20 that you can punch out of the die-cut game board, this thing would have like 100 sheets in the pad, and it is 5 sets of 20 tiles that can be used for lots of things.

Maybe even have an outdoors pack, indoors pack that lets you design a room, cavern pack, etc.

I may mock up a set of ideas and post them here to get some more input on the types of tiles in a pad later today or before the holiday.

You would need a floor like you have there, and you could cut it into the shape you want form it in the left side pic.

Say cut it to one 2x10 corridor with a 5x5 room on each end of it. Or any other shape/design you want to make from it.

The key is cheap, disposable/recyclable/reusable, replaceable, pre-printed for those that want to just buy pads rather than having to print their own via PDF.

One thing you may forget is you COULD make them reusable for tiles you want to keep for some reason, but gluing them to a piece of stiff cardboard like say a cereal box. Just that you would have the option to have more per pack of a single tile than just the one you may get now, and being paper you can cut to fit better, and not feel so bad about cutting up something expensive.

You are on the right track, now just to figure out how to get this done, and like you said the price to print as cheaply as possible and package them somehow.

Of course POD would be one way, as well PDFs could be sold to start to give funds to help the initial printing costs.

If you beat me to making it and making money off of it no problem, because I might just buy some of yours! :lol:
 

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