I don't have a good way to make maps for my players to use during adventures like Storm King's Thunder. I've tried using a dry erase mat, but most of the areas like Deadstone Cleft are too big, and drawing them out on sheets of grid paper didn't work well either because each room needs like 4 sheets. Is there a printable format I can give the players, or do I just have to try and put together multiple sheets of paper for each room? They're coming up on Maelstrom, and I REALLLLLLY don't want to have to draw all that.
I know how you feel. What I do is take the map they give to you and white-out the things they can't see or cover them up with paper. I do wish the campaign came with a player version!
We just did the Lost Mine of Phandelver. I found that if I printed the maps at Costco (the player version) that most of the maps worked great and were the ideal size for miniatures. Then I covered the maps with paper to hide the parts not seen yet. They looked great and were reasonable at about $10 a map. The final Cave Echo map was too small unfortunately.
These are copyright materials, so you cannot sell them or make a profit, but if used for personal use, my understanding was that this was okay. You can use Kinkos and they will make a larger map than Costco. The map from Costco is maxed out at 20”x30”.
I tried printing them myself (using a MacBook, it will allow you to scale it up and then one page it worked out to about 9 pages). But it was a pain in the arse removing the white borders, and after taping it all together...well it looked pretty homemade.
Have you considered using either the print-out or a white board for the "as you go" map, and then just building encounters on the fly by drawing each room independently on the battle-map?
I've tried, but I don't have enough space to draw every room on my map, and I'd hate to buy another one. Even worse I feel like would be to erase the rooms, then redraw them during the game session. I may just use the print out like you said, and just draw out a couple more important rooms...
So, I'm not sure whether I was clear, but what I meant to say was print out/draw a complete exploration map (at any scale), and then just use the battle-map for encounters. Using this method, I find that there is generally very little erasing and re-drawing of the same rooms, and, since scale doesn't matter, you can use just whatever size paper you want to use, so "not fitting on the map" isn't a thing either... unless you are having an issue with a single room fitting on the map, at which point I would simply adjust the scale until it fits.
Another thing you can do is just force one of your players to map the cave system room by room, and draw their own map (if they want one.) This adds to the realism (because mapping a big cave system by just memory is nearly impossible) and gives some idle hands a task to do, if you've got a problem child. With this method, also feel free to use "natural" directons, instead of cardinal directions (meaning forward is Up, Backwards is down, reguardless of N-S-E-W.) this can lead to good role-play ;)
Yeah, I got your meaning. My issue is, for an area like Maelstrom EVERY SINGLE ROOM has some kind of combat encounter if the party is dumb/aggressive enough. So I don't want to have to draw out every possible room that they might have a combat in, you know? I get the big ones, like the Throne Room and the audience chamber/amphitheater/wherever-the-4-giant-lords-are, but the rest of it would be a pain. And to make those rooms to scale, I gotta use anywhere from two to eight sheets of paper, all taped together (which is fugly). Or I can draw one, maybe two of the rooms if I'm lucky, on the battlemat. So what to do with the other rooms is the problem. I guess they don't have to be mapped, and I can just follow your suggestion of giving the characters the map in the book so they have an idea of where to go
When using the battle map, I just draw major landmarks. The party understands it is roughed in so they know where things are and supply the rest with their imagination. It is really fast and works much better than I would have guessed.
So the smaller map for overview and then battle maps roughed in works really well. Don’t try to make the maps too much. They just need to know where the objects are that can be used in combat.
Spend a session playing with no maps and try to stretch your theater of the mind muscles, maybe?
I don't generally start drawing on the battle mat until that classic moment when the DM (me) says "ok, roll initiative."
I don't know if you have access to LMoP, but in it, there's a really cool players map of wave echo cave that is literally undecipherable before the characters get there because you can't tell (really) solid walls vs open rooms and some of the lines have been strategically omitted. If you want to give your players a map, give them something like that.
Personally, I normally lay out the general map, If the characters own one, and cover up the key, and any places they may not know about or have mapped. If they dont own a general map, I wont use it, though I will try to hint at them getting one. As for areas, I normally describe it to them and draw a rough 2D layout on a whiteboard, so we can change it as we progress.
I use some wet erase dungeon tiles that I got on Amazon for the most part, and put up the parts that are relevant. I do have a problem with bigger maps though (Thundertree and Wave Echo Cave in LMoP as examples) because those locations are huge with 1" squares for use as a battle map for minis. Those larger maps I'm still in search of a good solution for since trying to swap out huge sections of map on a table where the map barely/doesn't fit in the first place is a pain.
I pre-draw the whole map (player version with no secrets, etc...) and cover everything they haven't seen/gone to yet. Works well for my group, and they *really* like having the maps done that way.
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Hi all,
I don't have a good way to make maps for my players to use during adventures like Storm King's Thunder. I've tried using a dry erase mat, but most of the areas like Deadstone Cleft are too big, and drawing them out on sheets of grid paper didn't work well either because each room needs like 4 sheets. Is there a printable format I can give the players, or do I just have to try and put together multiple sheets of paper for each room? They're coming up on Maelstrom, and I REALLLLLLY don't want to have to draw all that.
I know how you feel. What I do is take the map they give to you and white-out the things they can't see or cover them up with paper. I do wish the campaign came with a player version!
We just did the Lost Mine of Phandelver. I found that if I printed the maps at Costco (the player version) that most of the maps worked great and were the ideal size for miniatures. Then I covered the maps with paper to hide the parts not seen yet. They looked great and were reasonable at about $10 a map. The final Cave Echo map was too small unfortunately.
These are copyright materials, so you cannot sell them or make a profit, but if used for personal use, my understanding was that this was okay. You can use Kinkos and they will make a larger map than Costco. The map from Costco is maxed out at 20”x30”.
I tried printing them myself (using a MacBook, it will allow you to scale it up and then one page it worked out to about 9 pages). But it was a pain in the arse removing the white borders, and after taping it all together...well it looked pretty homemade.
Have you considered using either the print-out or a white board for the "as you go" map, and then just building encounters on the fly by drawing each room independently on the battle-map?
I've tried, but I don't have enough space to draw every room on my map, and I'd hate to buy another one. Even worse I feel like would be to erase the rooms, then redraw them during the game session. I may just use the print out like you said, and just draw out a couple more important rooms...
So, I'm not sure whether I was clear, but what I meant to say was print out/draw a complete exploration map (at any scale), and then just use the battle-map for encounters. Using this method, I find that there is generally very little erasing and re-drawing of the same rooms, and, since scale doesn't matter, you can use just whatever size paper you want to use, so "not fitting on the map" isn't a thing either... unless you are having an issue with a single room fitting on the map, at which point I would simply adjust the scale until it fits.
Another thing you can do is just force one of your players to map the cave system room by room, and draw their own map (if they want one.) This adds to the realism (because mapping a big cave system by just memory is nearly impossible) and gives some idle hands a task to do, if you've got a problem child. With this method, also feel free to use "natural" directons, instead of cardinal directions (meaning forward is Up, Backwards is down, reguardless of N-S-E-W.) this can lead to good role-play ;)
Yeah, I got your meaning. My issue is, for an area like Maelstrom EVERY SINGLE ROOM has some kind of combat encounter if the party is dumb/aggressive enough. So I don't want to have to draw out every possible room that they might have a combat in, you know? I get the big ones, like the Throne Room and the audience chamber/amphitheater/wherever-the-4-giant-lords-are, but the rest of it would be a pain. And to make those rooms to scale, I gotta use anywhere from two to eight sheets of paper, all taped together (which is fugly). Or I can draw one, maybe two of the rooms if I'm lucky, on the battlemat. So what to do with the other rooms is the problem. I guess they don't have to be mapped, and I can just follow your suggestion of giving the characters the map in the book so they have an idea of where to go
When using the battle map, I just draw major landmarks. The party understands it is roughed in so they know where things are and supply the rest with their imagination. It is really fast and works much better than I would have guessed.
So the smaller map for overview and then battle maps roughed in works really well. Don’t try to make the maps too much. They just need to know where the objects are that can be used in combat.
Spend a session playing with no maps and try to stretch your theater of the mind muscles, maybe?
I don't generally start drawing on the battle mat until that classic moment when the DM (me) says "ok, roll initiative."
I don't know if you have access to LMoP, but in it, there's a really cool players map of wave echo cave that is literally undecipherable before the characters get there because you can't tell (really) solid walls vs open rooms and some of the lines have been strategically omitted. If you want to give your players a map, give them something like that.
Personally, I normally lay out the general map, If the characters own one, and cover up the key, and any places they may not know about or have mapped. If they dont own a general map, I wont use it, though I will try to hint at them getting one. As for areas, I normally describe it to them and draw a rough 2D layout on a whiteboard, so we can change it as we progress.
I use some wet erase dungeon tiles that I got on Amazon for the most part, and put up the parts that are relevant. I do have a problem with bigger maps though (Thundertree and Wave Echo Cave in LMoP as examples) because those locations are huge with 1" squares for use as a battle map for minis. Those larger maps I'm still in search of a good solution for since trying to swap out huge sections of map on a table where the map barely/doesn't fit in the first place is a pain.
I pre-draw the whole map (player version with no secrets, etc...) and cover everything they haven't seen/gone to yet. Works well for my group, and they *really* like having the maps done that way.