Are the adventures league maps more reasonable in size?
I'm just frustrated with the size of everything and i find the dungeons to be awkward and clumsy in actual play.
Has anyone found it easy to just shrink and remove rooms?
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What I was looking for was, advice on running dungeons when I'm only able to bring one sheet of 26 by 32 graph paper with 1 inch squares. I can't get table space, so I wondered how people run dungeons.
Or better yet, since people remove rooms from dungeons, how have they had success with it?
I haven't played mad mage, I have heard it is all one dungeon which I agree would be a bit much but I am all for large dungeons that take quite a few sessions to go through.
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
Outside of dungeon crawls it is hard generally hard to have more than 2-3 encounters a day without it being forced, and in my experiance 1 encounter in a day is more common than anything else. If there is only 1 or 2 encounters in a day the characters that have limited resources (mainly spell casters) can use high level spell slots every turn and will greatly outshine a character like a rogue that does not use resources and can do the same amount of damage per round whether there are 1 combats per day or 10. Having a dungeon crawl with lots of encounters so the pell casters have to use cantrips or other unlimited resources much of the time gives other classes a chance to shine, and gives the spellcasters the challenge of resource management
Are the adventures league maps more reasonable in size?
I'm just frustrated with the size of everything and i find the dungeons to be awkward and clumsy in actual play.
Has anyone found it easy to just shrink and remove rooms?
Are you talking about Dungeon of the Mad Mage or Yawning Portal? I mean that's a book of dungeons and a book that is nothing but dungeon. Maybe I'd put Tomb of Annihilation with those two books. The finale of RotFM maybe, but that's really a lost city, somewhat inverted ... anyway, other than that I don't really find the other books to be too big on the dungeon front. I mean the hardback adventures are basically full on campaigns. Maybe if you went over your experiences with specific adventures as opposed to the blanket statement for all the hardback adventures, you might get more targeted responses.
I can't speak for AL, but you might want to take a look at Candlekeep Mysteries, the adventures with dungeons tend to be on the smallish/simpler side. They're designed to be basically one shots.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
On the outside. Look into dungeon draft and world draft programs and start creating your own. Also I think that photoshop has a free community version to help shrink maps or cut them apart. Unsure but worth looking into.
Are the adventures league maps more reasonable in size?
I'm just frustrated with the size of everything and i find the dungeons to be awkward and clumsy in actual play.
Has anyone found it easy to just shrink and remove rooms?
Are you looking for a way to resize the map itself or re-engineer the encounters contained in the adventure?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
What I was looking for was, advice on running dungeons when I'm only able to bring one sheet of 26 by 32 graph paper with 1 inch squares. I can't get table space, so I wondered how people run dungeons.
Or better yet, since people remove rooms from dungeons, how have they had success with it?
I'm limited on table space in my game as well, however I haven't run a published adventure with poster map in a good minute. That said, the options you have are to take your existing hardcopy map to a print shop and ask them if they can re-produce it in 1/4 or 1/2 size. The suggestion of re-creating it yourself has already been made, that is an option.
Last resort type thing I can come up with is the old way of running dungeons. *Theatre of the mind*(jazz hands) DM describes the layout, another player (we'll call 'em the "Mapper") draws the map out on typical graph paper with as much detail and understanding as possible. Or, just run it without the map. The players will be hung up on where they are, and what direction to go and all that. They'll be lost, figuratively and literally. It can be frustrating, but it can also be fun for the right group.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
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Are the adventures league maps more reasonable in size?
I'm just frustrated with the size of everything and i find the dungeons to be awkward and clumsy in actual play.
Has anyone found it easy to just shrink and remove rooms?
-------------------------------
What I was looking for was, advice on running dungeons when I'm only able to bring one sheet of 26 by 32 graph paper with 1 inch squares. I can't get table space, so I wondered how people run dungeons.
Or better yet, since people remove rooms from dungeons, how have they had success with it?
"All I'm hearing is words... DO SOMETHING!"
I haven't played mad mage, I have heard it is all one dungeon which I agree would be a bit much but I am all for large dungeons that take quite a few sessions to go through.
Outside of dungeon crawls it is hard generally hard to have more than 2-3 encounters a day without it being forced, and in my experiance 1 encounter in a day is more common than anything else. If there is only 1 or 2 encounters in a day the characters that have limited resources (mainly spell casters) can use high level spell slots every turn and will greatly outshine a character like a rogue that does not use resources and can do the same amount of damage per round whether there are 1 combats per day or 10. Having a dungeon crawl with lots of encounters so the pell casters have to use cantrips or other unlimited resources much of the time gives other classes a chance to shine, and gives the spellcasters the challenge of resource management
Are you talking about Dungeon of the Mad Mage or Yawning Portal? I mean that's a book of dungeons and a book that is nothing but dungeon. Maybe I'd put Tomb of Annihilation with those two books. The finale of RotFM maybe, but that's really a lost city, somewhat inverted ... anyway, other than that I don't really find the other books to be too big on the dungeon front. I mean the hardback adventures are basically full on campaigns. Maybe if you went over your experiences with specific adventures as opposed to the blanket statement for all the hardback adventures, you might get more targeted responses.
I can't speak for AL, but you might want to take a look at Candlekeep Mysteries, the adventures with dungeons tend to be on the smallish/simpler side. They're designed to be basically one shots.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
On the outside. Look into dungeon draft and world draft programs and start creating your own. Also I think that photoshop has a free community version to help shrink maps or cut them apart. Unsure but worth looking into.
Are you looking for a way to resize the map itself or re-engineer the encounters contained in the adventure?
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
What I was looking for was, advice on running dungeons when I'm only able to bring one sheet of 26 by 32 graph paper with 1 inch squares. I can't get table space, so I wondered how people run dungeons.
Or better yet, since people remove rooms from dungeons, how have they had success with it?
"All I'm hearing is words... DO SOMETHING!"
Physical map size. Got it.
I'm limited on table space in my game as well, however I haven't run a published adventure with poster map in a good minute. That said, the options you have are to take your existing hardcopy map to a print shop and ask them if they can re-produce it in 1/4 or 1/2 size. The suggestion of re-creating it yourself has already been made, that is an option.
Last resort type thing I can come up with is the old way of running dungeons. *Theatre of the mind*(jazz hands) DM describes the layout, another player (we'll call 'em the "Mapper") draws the map out on typical graph paper with as much detail and understanding as possible. Or, just run it without the map. The players will be hung up on where they are, and what direction to go and all that. They'll be lost, figuratively and literally. It can be frustrating, but it can also be fun for the right group.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad