About to run LMoP for my first DMing experience. Say the party picks a fight in a large building, like a church. How would you quickly draw out the layout of a whole church or manor? And have it still be good.
Having been a player for some time, I’m more than ready for fights to be picked anywhere, even in nearly impossible to make places. For example, a fight that breaks out in a butcher’s shop? I can draw that real quick. But for a fight that breaks out in a cathedral (just an example, there are no cathedrals in LMoP), how to draw a full-on cathedral in less than two minutes?
You don't need to draw out the full layout. If a fight breaks out in a forest, do you draw the entire forest? A cathedral is just a long hall with a lot of benches and an altar. And if you're really stomped, just use theater of the mind. Not all combat encounters need a battle map.
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Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
In general I only pull out a map (rather than theater of the mind) for fights that I expect to be complex and difficult enough that minor miscommunications are going to matter. Most spontaneous fights are sufficiently one-sided beatdowns that there's barely a point to rolling, let alone getting out the map.
Personally, I find that a quick rectangle with a few doors, a small rectangle for an alter, and a few straight lines for benches makes a fine cathedral.
I don’t draw in much detail. It’s just so the players have a rough estimate of the layout so they can plan their turns. My descriptions and player imagination are what really show the players the details of the space, and most of the time, in depth descriptions aren’t necessary. If the players pick a fight, what they really care about is the enemies, not the scenery.
I do theater of the mind for any battle that is not meant to press the party. Tavern fight with some randoms? TotM. Party veers off track and stumbles into a cave with a monster? TotM. Boss battles are really the only ones I get maps made for and that is just to make my job as the DM easier. I used to have an assortment of battle maps ready to go, but it almost turned my DMing into a part time job. I want to have fun too, so I now prep a lot less.
In general the case where TotM breaks down is situations where it really matters where everyone is (because people are trying to make efficient use of area effects or zones, or take advantage of terrain and choke points, or cut off a potential way for enemies to flee, or some such); it's not impossible to get the important information across without a map, but it's often slower than just using a map. I use a map in most of my combats because I rarely bother to resolve minor combats in detail at all (you try to beat up the merchant? Okay, you succeed) and anyone important enough that the PCs won't just clobber them probably already has a map, but there's certainly plenty of encounters that simply aren't very complicated and don't need a map.
I am not a fan of theatre of the mind for combat, and wanted to second that your sketches don't need to be that great. Basic furniture, which can be as simple as a bunch of rectangles, provides obstacles, cover, things that can be destroyed, and other challenges that require specific maneuvering, making combat dynamic in a visible way that theory of the mind either can't allow (or allows with too much ease).
Personally, I use miniatures for most of my terrain, but that's not really for everyone and really not a great investment for a first-time DM. But, if you can, you could print out a bunch of pictures of top-down furniture and use those cutouts to quickly assemble a whole variety of rooms. Provided your cutouts are organized, it is easy and fast enough to put them on the map and create a visual representation of the battlefield.
I've got players that are fine with TotM, but more that prefer having a map, even if it's simplistic... as long as they have a grid. I have a list of about a dozen assorted maps that suffice for most random encounters. After a period of time, the players will start to recognize them, but that just gives them some familiarity with the terrain/layout and they just roll with it faster. 8^)
You can google image “D&D church encounter” pick a few that you like, and upload the images to a word doc. Narrow the margins, oriented to landscape, and print in color on 11x17 paper. Laminate them.
There, you just expanded your collection of church encounters to use in a pinch.
Say you need a tavern next game but don’t have one. Quickly draw something or theater of mind it, and jot a note to show up to the next session and every session henceforth with several laminated tavern maps in your collection.
It is fine to not have something the first time. The mistake is not adapting and expanding your collection in response to your experience, and continuing to slow the game and breaking immersion with a half baked hastily drawn scribble or TotM with the same type of encounter repeatedly.
I won't run a combat without a battlemap, my players don't like it.
Just go onto Pinterest and search for "Battlemap Cathedral," "Battlemap cavern" or "Battlemap Forest" or whatever you need and provided it's a fairly generic location you'll immediately have a bunch of maps. I play on Roll20, so I just make the map and the tokens and it takes about 3-4 minutes to set up. If you're playing on a white board or otherwise using miniatures, you can just draw out the most important parts.
I'll usually just draw a simple floor plan of anywhere that a fight is going to take place.
As long as the tools are available and it won't take long, I'll usually draw it since some people aren't as good as others at imagining the layout from a description which then makes theatre of the mind difficult for those players and they don't usually have as much fun when struggling to picture a situation. A map makes the layout concrete for these folks so they can focus on what their character will do that makes sense to them.
As an example, a church/cathedral becomes a rectangle with a raised section at one end with an alter. There might be a door or two at that end leading to the quarters/rest of the church/vestry, another door might lead to stairs up to a balcony, the main double doors would be at the end of the rectangle. If the church is in a place with a bad climate there might be a wall across from the main doors preventing a view (and blocking wind/weather) into the church from outside. The floor would likely have two rows of pews with aisles at the walls and up the middle. Moving over the pews along the length of the church would be difficult terrain - moving along the rows of the pews would not. Drawing it would be a large rectangle - two rectangles on the walls at one end for the doors, a bunch of lines marking where the pews are, another rectangle for an alter, perhaps a line for the stage and then any other doors. Takes longer to type the description than to draw it :)
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About to run LMoP for my first DMing experience. Say the party picks a fight in a large building, like a church. How would you quickly draw out the layout of a whole church or manor? And have it still be good.
Having been a player for some time, I’m more than ready for fights to be picked anywhere, even in nearly impossible to make places. For example, a fight that breaks out in a butcher’s shop? I can draw that real quick. But for a fight that breaks out in a cathedral (just an example, there are no cathedrals in LMoP), how to draw a full-on cathedral in less than two minutes?
You don't need to draw out the full layout. If a fight breaks out in a forest, do you draw the entire forest? A cathedral is just a long hall with a lot of benches and an altar. And if you're really stomped, just use theater of the mind. Not all combat encounters need a battle map.
Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
In general I only pull out a map (rather than theater of the mind) for fights that I expect to be complex and difficult enough that minor miscommunications are going to matter. Most spontaneous fights are sufficiently one-sided beatdowns that there's barely a point to rolling, let alone getting out the map.
I agree with the others, just use Theater of the Mind.
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Personally, I find that a quick rectangle with a few doors, a small rectangle for an alter, and a few straight lines for benches makes a fine cathedral.
I don’t draw in much detail. It’s just so the players have a rough estimate of the layout so they can plan their turns. My descriptions and player imagination are what really show the players the details of the space, and most of the time, in depth descriptions aren’t necessary. If the players pick a fight, what they really care about is the enemies, not the scenery.
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I do theater of the mind for any battle that is not meant to press the party. Tavern fight with some randoms? TotM. Party veers off track and stumbles into a cave with a monster? TotM. Boss battles are really the only ones I get maps made for and that is just to make my job as the DM easier. I used to have an assortment of battle maps ready to go, but it almost turned my DMing into a part time job. I want to have fun too, so I now prep a lot less.
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In general the case where TotM breaks down is situations where it really matters where everyone is (because people are trying to make efficient use of area effects or zones, or take advantage of terrain and choke points, or cut off a potential way for enemies to flee, or some such); it's not impossible to get the important information across without a map, but it's often slower than just using a map. I use a map in most of my combats because I rarely bother to resolve minor combats in detail at all (you try to beat up the merchant? Okay, you succeed) and anyone important enough that the PCs won't just clobber them probably already has a map, but there's certainly plenty of encounters that simply aren't very complicated and don't need a map.
I am not a fan of theatre of the mind for combat, and wanted to second that your sketches don't need to be that great. Basic furniture, which can be as simple as a bunch of rectangles, provides obstacles, cover, things that can be destroyed, and other challenges that require specific maneuvering, making combat dynamic in a visible way that theory of the mind either can't allow (or allows with too much ease).
Personally, I use miniatures for most of my terrain, but that's not really for everyone and really not a great investment for a first-time DM. But, if you can, you could print out a bunch of pictures of top-down furniture and use those cutouts to quickly assemble a whole variety of rooms. Provided your cutouts are organized, it is easy and fast enough to put them on the map and create a visual representation of the battlefield.
Edit: Fixing an autocorrect typo
I've got players that are fine with TotM, but more that prefer having a map, even if it's simplistic... as long as they have a grid. I have a list of about a dozen assorted maps that suffice for most random encounters. After a period of time, the players will start to recognize them, but that just gives them some familiarity with the terrain/layout and they just roll with it faster. 8^)
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It's theater of the mind.
Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
You can google image “D&D church encounter” pick a few that you like, and upload the images to a word doc. Narrow the margins, oriented to landscape, and print in color on 11x17 paper. Laminate them.
There, you just expanded your collection of church encounters to use in a pinch.
Say you need a tavern next game but don’t have one. Quickly draw something or theater of mind it, and jot a note to show up to the next session and every session henceforth with several laminated tavern maps in your collection.
It is fine to not have something the first time. The mistake is not adapting and expanding your collection in response to your experience, and continuing to slow the game and breaking immersion with a half baked hastily drawn scribble or TotM with the same type of encounter repeatedly.
I won't run a combat without a battlemap, my players don't like it.
Just go onto Pinterest and search for "Battlemap Cathedral," "Battlemap cavern" or "Battlemap Forest" or whatever you need and provided it's a fairly generic location you'll immediately have a bunch of maps. I play on Roll20, so I just make the map and the tokens and it takes about 3-4 minutes to set up. If you're playing on a white board or otherwise using miniatures, you can just draw out the most important parts.
If i play in person, i will either look through my poster maps for a proper map or draw one on a blank chessex.
If i play online, i will either look through my digital maps for a proper map or draw one on a blank grid.
I'll usually just draw a simple floor plan of anywhere that a fight is going to take place.
As long as the tools are available and it won't take long, I'll usually draw it since some people aren't as good as others at imagining the layout from a description which then makes theatre of the mind difficult for those players and they don't usually have as much fun when struggling to picture a situation. A map makes the layout concrete for these folks so they can focus on what their character will do that makes sense to them.
As an example, a church/cathedral becomes a rectangle with a raised section at one end with an alter. There might be a door or two at that end leading to the quarters/rest of the church/vestry, another door might lead to stairs up to a balcony, the main double doors would be at the end of the rectangle. If the church is in a place with a bad climate there might be a wall across from the main doors preventing a view (and blocking wind/weather) into the church from outside. The floor would likely have two rows of pews with aisles at the walls and up the middle. Moving over the pews along the length of the church would be difficult terrain - moving along the rows of the pews would not. Drawing it would be a large rectangle - two rectangles on the walls at one end for the doors, a bunch of lines marking where the pews are, another rectangle for an alter, perhaps a line for the stage and then any other doors. Takes longer to type the description than to draw it :)