What are you going to do with the map and tiles in your DMG 3.5?

[candidus_cogitens]

I certainly have no intention of tearing up my DMG to get at them. Don't know what WoTC was thinking when they put those in there, and not on some kind of perforated page. Hopefully they'll make them downloads on the website, so we can just print them out.

I agree with Pogre's agreement. And I second (or third) the motion that WOTC should make them downloads. I think they would be really handy, but WoTC should know that gamers are fetishists about their books and other gaming paraphernalia.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I really want to find a way to use the DMG inserts, because they can be a great time-saver. As the DMG itself points out (somewhere), you don't have to have a battlemat-thingy for the entire map of the enemy fortress: just use those portions of the map that you need. For example, if the PCs get into a fight in a hallway with a right-angle turn, use that part; if they are in a 4x4 square room, use that part; and so forth.

Has anyone tried carefully cutting the inserts out with an X-acto knife or similar?

 

[Particle_Man]

I got professionals to copy out of my textbook for the tile sheets, and got multiple copies of some pages. I also laminated the map. I haven't used the tiles yet (too lazy to cut them out and have them individually laminated) but I have used the white side of the map.

 

[talinthas]

the battle mat is exactly the same as the one that came in the 10 dollar D&D adventure game intro box. I've found it highly useful for the past three years, and its nice to have a new one since my original is all banged up =)

 

[haiiro]

I'll be leaving mine in the back of the book.

I use Fiery Dragon's excellent counters, and draw my own maps. No point in tearing them out and not using them.

 

[Eccles]

Make your own, if you want blank white tiles.

I do them in Excel. Make bordered cells 91 pixels wide by 96 pixels high (near as dammit one inch square), and then change the page borders to as narrow as you can manage.

I actually copied a couple of these together to make double sided A3 plans which I then laminated, but if you wanted A4 disposables, they'd be easy to run off!

(This still doesn't help people who want to use hexes...)

 

[Joshua Randall]

1" Squares in Excel

The official Microsoft answer on how to specify row height and column width in Excel, in inches or centimeters:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=213422

That's a lot of code. Here is a simpler method for making 1" squares in Excel:

[color=red]
Sub MakeSquare()
Dim WPChar As Double
       Dim DInch As Double
       Dim Temp As String

        Temp = InputBox("Height and width in inches?")
        DInch = Val(Temp)
       If DInch > 0 And DInch < 2.5 Then
           For Each c In ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Columns
               WPChar = c.Width / c.ColumnWidth
               c.ColumnWidth = ((DInch * 72) / WPChar)
           Next c
           For Each r In ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Rows
               r.RowHeight = (DInch * 72)
           Next r
       End If
End Sub
[/color]

Enjoy!

 

[Hackenslash]

What Map and Tiles ???

Oh you mean those bits of spare paper in the back of the DMG...
Seriously, I will be leaving them where they are and not even bothering with them. I have played DnD too long without mini's and material representation to waste any more time tring to accomodate some maps and tiles etc...and then have to bother tring to get the right mini's and the painting and the arranging, Honestly I am surprised that those of you that do use mini's actually have time to adventure. No critisism intended, what ever works for your group....Fair enough, but when our group tried to give mini's a go in 3.0 it created more problems then fixed and made more work of every encounter than speeded things up. Combat ended up taking forever as people would spend ages tring to figure out angles for spells and effects from abilites etc...and then micro manage to the nearest 5ft square the best places to be to avoid the monster they could see on the map. So in short, we will stick with our imaginations and figurings and leave our tiles and maps where they are. Sorry but no mini's for us...Anyone else have the same problem with incorporating mini's in their campaigns ? I understand that 3.0 Edition was Mini's affiliated and players were encouraged to use them so this question may only apply to players from the original Basic edition and 1st Advanced edition but maybe 2nd edition players have experienced problems incorporating mini's too. Cheers All

 

[Uder]

Are you going to photocopy them, or just pull them out and try to take care of them.

I pulled out the battlemap to give to a friend's nephew. I have a collection of much nicer Chessex and Crystal Caste battlemats.

The tiles? I don't want to fool with the binding on my book, so they're staying in. In the past I've bought tiles and never get around to using them anyway.

Really, I don't think these things are aimed at the experienced gamer, but at the person who just got their first RPG and needs some of the basic equipment.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Re: Re: What are you going to do with the map and tiles in your DMG 3.5?

I pulled out the battlemap to give to a friend's nephew. I have a collection of much nicer Chessex and Crystal Caste battlemats.

The tiles? I don't want to fool with the binding on my book, so they're staying in. In the past I've bought tiles and never get around to using them anyway.

Really, I don't think these things are aimed at the experienced gamer, but at the person who just got their first RPG and needs some of the basic equipment.

You may very well be right about what WoTC was aiming at.

But since you're one of the "experienced", how can I get a look at these Chessex and Crystal Castle battlemats?

The only thing I have is an erasable blank off-white vinyl mat with squares on one side and hexes on the other. But what I don't have and WISH I had is a selection of "props": bridges, columns, corridors, walls, pits, doors, etc. I wish I could get a bunch of that type of thing that I could just pull out and throw on top of my vinyl mat to add color to the scene.