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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 7383135" data-attributes="member: 6796661">Look for used large-format printers. I'm lucky to have access to a <a href="https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-designjet-t790-24-in-postscript-eprinter" target="_blank">HP Designjet T790 24"</a>. My dad is a semi-retired facilities manager. When we fully retires, I'm thinking of buying it. New, these things run about 3,000 USD. You can buy them used for about a thousand less. Keep in mind that the ink and paper are also expensive for these things.  But if you print a lot of battlemaps, it might pay for itself.  If you have a gaming group that can go in on it or if you print for folks in your group for a small charge that can help offset the cost. I bought the Curse of Strahd map pack from Schley and printed them all. It is nice having them all printed and ready to go. But, all that said, even if my dad gave it to me for free, I would think twice about taking it. One, as I stated already the ink is not cheap. Two, it takes up a lot of space.  Most likely, after my current campaign wraps up, I'll probably invest in a flat screen that I can lay flat on a table and VTT software. It is just so much more affordable and convenient to do it this way now that the cost of displays have come down so much. A screen+VTT makes more sense than printing, even when using minis for many reasons including:1. Large sheets of paper can get unwieldy at the table. With a screen, you just move the image around as the party explores. 2. Large sheets of paper take up a lot of space. You have to store them. I have thousands of digital maps in Evernote, nicely folded and tagged. Available on my laptop and my phone. 3. Scaling is easier. Many battlemap PDFs are not scaled correctly for printing at 1":5' scale. Almost no JPGs are. So you need to resize for printing, which requires more prep time. VTTs make it much easy to load a battlemap image and quickly measure out the scale to properly resize it. 4. Fog of war and incremental reveal are a pain in the rear with paper. VTTs make this much easier. Paper, however, is much more convenient when running public games. I don't want to lug around technology and worry about plugs or technical issues if running a public game. I can just roll up my paper maps in a poster tube and bring a masking tap to hold the paper down at the table. I also prefer pre-printed paepr maps to Chessex battlemaps or tiles because I don't need to spend time drawing out a map or dealing with setting up tiles. But for how little I run publich games, it would make more sense to just pay to print if I didn't have easy access to a large-format printer. If I had to money to open a lifestyle business, I would open a hobby store with tables that have displays built into their surfaces that gamers could rent by the hour and the DM could just plug in a laptop or make wireless connection from a laptop, tablet, or phone. Heck, maybe I'd also have a large-scale printer in back to print battlemaps on site.</blockquote>

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