Maps and Minis

[Bercilak]

Howdy folks,
My group is getting ready to head into the Fire Forest, and I was just curious how other DMs were handling maps and minis.

In Adventure 1, I printed out the maps on Enworld using Excel (or as pdfs), meaning that I had a lot of cutting and taping to do. For Adventure 2, I've got a friend who is going in early to work to use a plotter to print out the maps (but I feel guilty about asking him to do this, not to mention he's one of the players, so he gets a sneak peek at the maps). I also use Tac-Tiles when I need to, but I guess I just wonder what other folks are doing. (I'm looking at the maps for Adventure 3 and thinking, "ZOMG! I don't have enough tape for those!)

The same applies for minis. I use a combination of official D&D minis, some home-brewed counters from KotS and random minis from my own painted collection. One of the reasons I was initially drawn to the official 4e adventures from Wizards was because of the free counters packs that Fiery Dragon produced. Has anyone done anything similar for WotBS? Or any other suggestions on ways to make minis?

Thanks y'all,
Berc

 

[Blackbrrd]

I would have no problems with a player getting a sneak-peak at the maps.

We usually use a table cloth with a grid and match-sticks/pencils to make the rooms. Takes 2-3 minutes for each encounter. With 3-5 encounters per session of 4-5 hours, this isn't much time.

 

[Truename]

The same applies for minis. I use a combination of official D&D minis, some home-brewed counters from KotS and random minis from my own painted collection. One of the reasons I was initially drawn to the official 4e adventures from Wizards was because of the free counters packs that Fiery Dragon produced. Has anyone done anything similar for WotBS? Or any other suggestions on ways to make minis?

Fiery Dragon sells a bunch of other counter packs, including their "Counter Collection Digital" series which is a very good deal. That's what I use, supplemented with the occasional Google image search.

Once I have the token images picked out, I print them onto cardstock, paste them onto chipboard (scrapbooking shops have this, sometimes as "scrapbook covers"), and cut them out. An easier option that I just discovered is to print the tokens onto 1" circular labels (Avery sells these) and stick them onto 1" fender washers (hardware store) or pre-cut 1" chipboard circles (art supply store).

For maps, I hand-draw them in advance on Chessex battlemats. I have a megamat and two smaller mats. I also have an easel pad of 1" gridded sheets from Staples that I use when I need more room.

I rarely print out the maps because it takes so much work to cut and paste them together. But if I had access to a large-format printer, I'd be using it constantly.

 

[liggetar]

We went virtual when my older daughter got old enough to grab minis and dice, and everyone has laptops. So I use MapTool and just copy the maps over there. So for tokens, I take pictures from the adventures themselves, and supplement that with image searches and Fiery Dragon counters as well.

 

[Burchard]

We use a Chessex Battlemat and wet-erase markers for most maps. I've also started using Gaming Paper with pleasing results. The 30' rolls are $4 each and I've had a good time drawing the maps with a decent set of markers.

 

[samursus]

Paizo flip mat and dry-erase markers. I have a fair size collection of minis, and use some of those as well as generic numbered pieces of wood that I made... I definitely need to print out some tokens though.

 

[John Doom]

I print and tape. It takes about 10 minutes a map once you're in the swing of things, but if you're using a scissors instead of one of those large paper-cutters then your time jumps to near an hour a map.

 

[Noumenon]

One of the reasons I was initially drawn to the official 4e adventures from Wizards was because of the free counters packs that Fiery Dragon produced.

Is there any way I can still get these counters? I loved their free Castle Shadow pack and I use their counters all the time.

I would love to see every adventure come with a .doc file where you could print out monster tokens for the entire adventure. But there are so many different approaches to tokens... I print them on 3x5 cards and stand them up like this, so I wouldn't really appreciate round ones at all.

What do you 1-inch washer people do for Large or Huge monsters? I just print 2x2 or 3x3 versions of the same tokens.

 

[Truename]

What do you 1-inch washer people do for Large or Huge monsters? I just print 2x2 or 3x3 versions of the same tokens.

I'm the one who mentioned using 1-inch washers, but I'm not actually using them for monsters yet--just for healing surges and magic item dailies. For monsters, I use chipboard which I cut to size. Chipboard is like the die-cut tokens you get in most board games, but even thicker and heavier.

Next time I make monsters, I might use washers (haven't decided yet), but only for the Medium and smaller ones... for the larger monsters, I'll probably continue to use chipboard.