Wizards and Dungeon Maps: Gridline madness

[JDragon]

...snip... I've found graph paper that is the same size as my battlemap (in terms of # of squares for height and width), so when I draw maps on that, I know it will fit on my battlemap. I know not everyone uses battlemaps, but several groups do, so I think this is a fair request.

I have actually done something similar to this. I made my own graph paper that has the same # of squares as both the large and small battlemats. Now I don't expect mods to come sized this way, but it does help when I'm redrawing a section of the CRM (see my post above) so I know all the rooms I need are going to fit. Or preping my own games, now that doesn't mean a dungeon will fit on just one battlemat, but it allows you to plan the change to another mat, so you don't shave 10' off one side of a room.

The other solution I have found is TacTiles (http://www.bc-products.net/Index.html) which allows you to put down more mapping space where you need it. I have two large sets (24 tiles) and love them, my group hasn't had anything bad to say about them either.

Of course these don't help when the maps are impossible to read and work with.

 

[Kalendraf]

While I agree with MerricB, I think the suggestion above is absolutely horrific. "Wow, look! Yet another dungeon that fits perfectly on our battle mat. Looks like, yet again, we know the size of the dungeon. Go figure!" The lack of variety that would result from that suggestion would kill any desire I have for pre-made maps... and my players would catch on to that trick pretty darn fast.

I understand your concern that this could lead to bland, predictable maps. However, this has not been the case for my group. We use the battlemap every session, and I still manage to keep them guessing. Though we don't like it, sometimes we do scroll off the map. All it takes is 1 time in about 20 or so and it's more than enough to keep 'em guessing. It's especially effective when those off-the-map rooms just happen to be something important like the secret treasure vault or the doorway to the BBEG. Meanwhile, during most other sessions, the map happily fits on the battlemap giving the DM and players much more gametime.

Also, I'm not saying that every corner should line up perfectly with the battlemap. Rather, keep the arbitrarily long rooms and hallways that have no reason for being that size to a size that can actually fit on the map. If there's no valid reason (spell range, etc) for having an inexplicibly long 425' hallway that simply will not fit on a map vs. a shorter one that will, then I say by all means go with the shorter hall. The same goes for room dimensions where it makes sense. Does a room really need to be 160' x 140' causing the last 20' of each direction going past the map? Though it may depend on the encounter somewhat, it's quite likely that a reduced 140' x 120' room that actually fits on the map will suffice.

IMHO, cartographers that do manage to get their maps to fit properly strike me as being very thoughtful to their customers.

 

[RFisher]

These DM maps with aesthetic features that harm the usability drive me nuts. Save the pretty aesthetics for player handouts. The DM's map should focus on clearly communicating the things the DM needs to know & being suitable for marking up during the game. The grid needs to be very clear, not obscured.

I don't mind the features not lining up with the grid, as long as the grid is clear, though. The players' map shouldn't be an exact duplicate of the DM's map unless they've got survey equipment & a lot of time. It's going to be rough & approximate.

Indoor maps with a 10' grid, like most of the classic modules, drive me crazy too. Ten feet is rarely an appropriate scale for an indoor map. Some of those classic dungeon complexes were amazingly huge. Must've all been built by giants.

 

[MerricB]

One thing that might explain the disparity of views is in the use of the battlegrid.

Some DMs draw out the map as they go along on a reusable battlegrid. I don't. I come from the descriptive school of combat (as opposed to the miniatures school of combat). On the occasions that I do use a battlegrid, I just set up the current room, rather than the entire dungeon.

When the PCs are adventuring in a dungeon, the description will be:

"The passage to the east continues for twenty feet, then turns north (in the thirtieth foot). It then goes a further thirty feet before ending in an iron door with a sigil engraved on it".

If the map is clearly marked with a grid, those determinations of distance are quickly seen by me and communicated to my players. Part of the fun of the game for us is in the mapping - when my players end up with a map that looks exactly like the one I'm using, they are very happy.

Cheers!

 

[coyote6]

If you're going purely by description, it seems like marking the sizes of rooms & passages on the map would be far more useful than gridlines. Grids mean you have to stop and count squares, even when the whole map lines up nicely. If there are blueprint/layout-style numbers indicating that the corridor is 8 ft wide, then that's the simplest thing in the world to figure out.

If I weren't using a battlemat, and every building was still in sizes evenly divisible by 5, with walls that took up no space, I would *really* have to battle the urge to crack jokes.

To answer Merric's earlier question, I'll either (a) describe the sizes, but not very precisely. If the room's 85 feet by 25 feet, I might say "It's gotta be nearly a hundred feet long, and about a quarter that wide". If the PCs want to bust out the surveying & measuring gear to get precise measurements, they can do it, and I'll count the squares (or if they use magic -- there's a rod in one of the Books of Eldritch Might...). If a fight breaks out, I'll sketch out the shape of the room, so players can get a feel for things.

Option (b) is that I just draw the map on the battlemat (erasing old parts for new parts, as needed). Then, I do occasionally feel the pain of weirdly shaped and sized rooms. But I just draw an approximation for the fight -- I'm not terribly worried about it matching the map precisely. Even if it lines up perfectly on a grid, I'm going to screw up drawing it.

(When the players mock my inability to draw a straight line with a ruler, I add HD to the monsters, increase their numbers, or both. Well, I always consider it, at least; I can't remember if I ever actually have done it. )

When we first started 3e, the group liked to map things out; afterwords, I'd give 'em a photocopy of the map (assuming they explored everywhere), and let them compare. We haven't done the mapping thing in a while; it may be because someone asked, "Which of the PCs is actually wandering around with paper and pen in hand, and not a weapon, anyways?". Of course, it's also been a while since they've been on a big dungeon crawl. THe recent "location-based adventures" have had smaller or more modular locations, and have thus been easy to either keep in mind, keep on the battlemat, or sketch roughly on the whiteboard.

(When I say "sketch roughly", the emphasis is on the roughly. Draw well, I do not. Can't emphasize that enough. )

 

[MerricB]

Although my descriptions could be rough, when it comes to the players mapping, they need to be somewhat accurate.

The odd cave that can't be accurately mapped is one thing, but like Hit Points, we make sacrifices in realism to make the game fun and playable.

Although the corridor may only be 8' wide, on the map it is easiest represented as 10'.

Cheers!

 

[Thotas]

When I'm drawing a map on the board (well, actually I'm a Tact-tiles convert too, but anyway ...) I figure it's an abstraction of the battlefield, just like the minis I'm going to put on it. So my 20 x 35 foot room with a door in the third five foot section from the corner is a roughly 20 x30 foot room with a door roughtly in the third five foot section from the corner. Those aren't the dimensions of the room, or cavern, or whatever anymore than the Player Characters are all shaped like 5 foot cubes. DM maps are utilities, and if the Grand Reception room needs to be made to look really spiffy, give me an illustration from the character's point of view that I can show the players themselves.

 

[JDJarvis]

Of course players can get past mapping issues by not mapping. They can put chalk marks on walls, sure locals might notice the chalk marks but no one ends up stuck having to fiddlt about with a parchment, pen and light in a location as horribly dangerous as the typical dungeon.

I'd just like published maps to not be so dense with artisitic details I can't mark up the maps (or even photocopies of them) as I like while running the game. If I'm running an adventure long enough the map ends up littered with little notes and pictographs about what has happened and who has passed where and when they did it.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I agree that the maps should be readable and simple for the DM to use, but I also don't think almost everything should be made to align with the grid, it's too "artificial" for me. I'm pretty forgiving about a person standing in a square that is partly occupied by a wall on the battlemat, and for the party mapping things out, I don't give them rough numbers. We understand that sometimes it leads to errors, but it is part of the game, none of the PCs are professional cartographers. Besides, its fun watching the party search for a secret door they think must be there because there is an odd hole in the map, when all it is is a mapping error

 

[Davelozzi]

I have no problem with 5' square, though my preference would be dark lined 10' squares divided into 5' squares with a lighter line. I also like the more detailed, better looking maps that they've been using, at least in general, and particularly those made by Christopher West. But I do agree with Merric that the grid lines should line up with the walls whenever practical.

IMHO, cartographers that do manage to get their maps to fit properly strike me as being very thoughtful to their customers.

I don't really agree with this, though for dungeons or other indoor stuctures, whatever. But for a wilderness map, I'd much rather it be realistic, and without any sort of grid (love those hex overlays from the old FR boxed set and others). I hate the way they changed the Forgotten Realms map in 3e just so they could fit it on one map and show less water. Likewise, I'm not a huge fan of the way the continents in Eberron are practically spaced one per hemisphere (quartersphere, technically).

Also, in general, I hate when maps stop showing features at the border. In Eberron, it's a real chore to flip around from page to page to see how the roads or lightning rail lines match up going from country to country. Likewise, in the real world, I hate when an atlas has one town per page and stops streets at the border instead of just showing the relevant part of the next town until it hits the edge of the page.