Mapping more than the obvious

[Sic Transit]

This isn't me asking how to make maps for online play. There's a zillion options for that these days, from Excel sheets to dungeon autogenerators to taking screenshots of roll20 maps or whatever. I'm not necessarily good at maps, but I can get the job done.

My question is... How do people handle the fancier aspects of game cartography? Lighting. Line of sight. Map exploration / fog of war. Do people generally make at least broad sections of map visible and trust in players to explore responsibly? Do you conceal secret doors and the like unless they are detected? Does anyone try to use the lighting rules as actually printed (in, well, any edition)?

[Retry]

It varies to whether I'm using a vtt or if I'm handling it irl. When I'm at the table with my players and I actually have a map that isn't the world map for them to reference then I'll let them see everything and trust them to act accordingly. For vtt or pbp I'll keep everything in a fog of war and reveal just enough so they can see the interior walls of whatever room they've explored and describe what they can see.

The dynamic lighting most of these vtts have is fancy and all, but I often lack the time to get each dungeon properly configured for it unless I purchase a map pack - which I seldom do. Its easier just to tell the PCs what they can see and keep quiet about what they cannot until it becomes relevant.

[Sic Transit]

Originally Posted by Retry

It varies to whether I'm using a vtt or if I'm handling it irl. When I'm at the table with my players and I actually have a map that isn't the world map for them to reference then I'll let them see everything and trust them to act accordingly. For vtt or pbp I'll keep everything in a fog of war and reveal just enough so they can see the interior walls of whatever room they've explored and describe what they can see.

The dynamic lighting most of these vtts have is fancy and all, but I often lack the time to get each dungeon properly configured for it unless I purchase a map pack - which I seldom do. Its easier just to tell the PCs what they can see and keep quiet about what they cannot until it becomes relevant.

VTT map handling is obviously its own creature. I've run games out of a couple of the major VTTs, and have definitely taken the time to set up the lighting options, line of sight, fog of war, and so forth. And of course, IRL tabletop if I'm free-drawing the map on a board, I only draw what the players can see...

...but I'm especially curious how people handle that such things on this site for PBP play. For example, if you've got a party in a big room with a couple closed doors, do you just go ahead and slap the whole map down and trust the players to use in-character knowledge appropriately? Or do you edit the maps to reveal as you go? It strikes me that the latter might slow down what is already a relatively slow rate of play. Speaking from the 3.5 action economy, if I've got a player next to a closed door and they take a move action to open that door, they've got their standard action remaining, but that would need to wait on the DM updating the map?

I suppose it really should anyway... Perhaps I'm overthinking this.

[Strange2099]

Hi Sic,

I’m no DM, but I’ve been in many PBP games here on RPGX that use maps. I believe that nearly all of them “reveal as we go” to maintain some element of Fog of War.

It certainly isn’t speedy, but if speed is what you’re looking for then PBP might not be the right medium for you. Of course, there are conventions such as declaring Readied Actions in advance for “If/Then” scenarios, but since it sounds like what you’re worried about would typically require initiative rolls, I don’t see much lost in the approach?

[ultracheng]

I used 30 dungeon tiles to generate a random dungeon. Players won't see the next tile until the party decides to exit the current tile. This creates some fog of war and variety.

[Lemming23]

I go with theatre of the mind, mostly. No need for maps then, and I don't use the extra crunchy rules that demand to know which direction each character is facing down to 5 degrees or so and how strong the easterly breeze is. I do encourage my players to create their own maps though based on my descriptions, when we're playing fantasy games, and reward them for doing so. But I've never needed to draw maps or use a battlemap in the last 40 years or so of roleplaying.

[Kayal]

I mostly use Theatre of the Mind, as well, but I have ran some map-heavy games in the past.

Roll20 has a built-in Fog of War feature that's available to their free accounts.

For PBP, I sometimes create maps in Gimp and just put a solid black layer over the map. As more of the map is found, I cut away the black to reveal it.

Example ...

Before entering, the characters peak through the glazing & grilles to see the first room.


Eventually, they go inside and look around.