I’m just going to get this out of the way: yes, I know all about confirmation bias and I know all about Baader-Meinhoff. Hell, I’ve researched and written about both extensively during my time working on the GM Word of the Week podcast. So, as you read today’s Long, Rambling Introduction™, don’t feel that you need to ruin a good opening by showing off your knowledge of that s$&% in the comments. Thanks.

As happens so often in my life as the sweary Socrates of the online gaming community – a qualifier which I’m pretty sure is unnecessary because Socrates was an a$&hole and probably swore a lot himself – as happens so often in my life as a GMing guru, the same topic just keeps coming up over and over. It’s the topic of using maps at the game table. I was asked on a live stream about my use of maps at the table. I’ve had two different newbie GMs ask me about the subject. I’ve had a couple of random conversations with GMs making the transition from online gaming to realspace gaming. And I’ve actually been on my own little journey of analysis and evaluation regarding maps at the table. All in the span of the last three weeks or so. Give or take the time it actually takes me to finish writing this f$&%ing article and proof it and edit it and get it posted.

Now, the thing is, the topic of using maps at the game table has been an off-again-on-again hot topic since the beginning of f$&%ing time. Seriously, upper paleolithic era GMs probably argued with each other about the use of rocks on dirt to mark combat positions in their favorite historical fantasy role-playing games Flint Tips and Funeral Rites: Adventures in the Lower Paleolithic Age. But even though the arguments have been raging for years, it hasn’t always been the same fight.

But these days, the fight itself has actually quieted down some from a big flare about that started about a decade ago with the release of 4th Edition. What hasn’t gone away is a massive amount of confusion about how to use maps at the game table. And the internet isn’t helping any of that confusion. In fact, it’s making it all worse. Between the ubiquity of videos of people playing games over the internet using virtual tabletops and the number of do-it-yourself gamers posting about they made their own thousand dollar gaming table with an overhead mounted, downward-facing projector maps hooked to their laptop so they can project a battle grid directly on the table, expectations about maps and visual aids at the table are a f$&%ing mess.

So, I’m here to help. Mostly, I’m here to help newish GMs figure out how to use maps at their home game tables in the real world. In a PRACTICAL way. And I’m also here to help more experienced online GMs make the transition to realspace games. And I’m also, also here to tell ALL OF YOU GMs that whether you use maps extensively or not-at-all, you’re f$&%ing wrong. These days, about 75% of all GMs have become so overly reliant on maps at the table that they’ve wrecked some crucial GMing skills without realizing it and maps have become such an accepted part of the game that that same 75 % of all GMs would never, ever even ask whether there was a benefit to NOT mapping. Meanwhile, 24% of all GMs have jerked the other knee and thrown out all maps while screaming about how they ruin imagination and how they result in wasted time and how people are so much more immersed when everything is in their own head, mostly to justify the fact that they, personally, just don’t like bothering with that s$&%.

The other 1% is actually a very tiny, fractional percentage of all GMs that includes me and possibly one or two other enlightened souls. And after this article, hopefully, it will include you too.

So, let’s talk about how to use maps at your game table in a PRACTICAL way in the REAL WORLD. And also, how NOT to use maps. Long, Rambling Introduction™ over.

How Do I USE All These Maps

A few weeks ago, I started thinking very heavily about my overreliance on maps at the game table and everything it was costing me and my game. And, fortunately, I was thinking about it when I was because I suddenly started having encounters with other people who were looking at the issue of maps at the table. First, this one new-ish GM was leafing through a copy of Curse of Strahd that she intended to run for her new-ish group and she suddenly put it down in exasperation and said, “how am I supposed to print out all of these maps for my players.” Second, I was asked by a new-ish GM at a convention how I showed players all the maps while I was running games and I discovered he’d been watching YouTube live streams of online games in Fantasy Grounds and s$&%. And then I was chatting with an online GM who was gearing up to run a real-life game for some real-life friends at a real-life table and he was like, “I need to figure out how to get some big poster maps printed.” And I was asked during one of my own live streams how I handle showing players maps.

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure where all this confusion was coming from. But then I realized that it was coming from youngness. Or rather, it was coming from oldness. My oldness. Thanks to my oldness, I already knew the simple answer to all of those questions. The answer is, “you actually don’t show your players most of those maps. They are just for you. You can use a few of them at the table for specific reasons, but they really aren’t meant to be shown.” And the reason I knew that answer was because I grew up in a very different time.

Back in my day, the maps in modules were actually pretty simple line-drawings. They didn’t have detailed backgrounds, sometimes they didn’t even show things like furniture, and they didn’t even have colors. Except for blue. Some of them were blue. But that was okay because things like inexpensive color printing and oversized printing on poster-sized paper and overhead projection systems and touch-screen surfaces and virtual table-tops and downloadable maps on the Internet all didn’t exist. Mostly, we had graph paper. And, honestly, graph paper was actually not always easy to come by. Because we also didn’t have office superstores. Which is why so many home-made dungeons were filled with odd corridors and strangely shaped rooms and dead-end hallways. Graph paper was precious and you wanted to fill every square.

All right, so it wasn’t the paleolithic era. One of my prized possessions from the era was a Chessex Double-Sided Reversible Battlemat™ that I got at a local hobby store. A few years later, I was overjoyed when I saved my pennies and graduated to the much bigger Chessex Megamat™. Which I ordered. By mail. From an ad in a magazine. A physical magazine.

With those wonderful pieces of technology, I could easily and hastily draw any map I wanted to draw right in front of my players. As long as the map wasn’t bigger than about 22 squares on a side. Or 30 squares by 45 squares with the Megamat™. And then I could wipe it clean with a damp cloth and draw something else. It was great. Mostly.

I promise, by the way, that if you’re here looking for advice about how to use modern maps at your real-life table in the second decade of the 21st century for people who have lived for less than two score years, there IS a point to my little trip down memory lane. Now shut up and listen to your elders. Back in my day, we had a thing called discipline.

See, there were a couple of problems with the Battlemat™. First, it was only about 22 squares on a side. Even a very tightly designed dungeon that would make Gary Gygax or some Celtic knotwork artist proud would be hard-pressed to fit into that space. Second, you couldn’t leave the drawing on it for weeks and weeks. Otherwise, it would eventually stain. It had to be cleaned after every session. And third, well, it took time to draw s$&% out. Not much time. I mean, we’re just talking about line-drawing schematics, not a f$&%ing Van Gogh, but it did take a good twenty to thirty seconds to add a room to the map, assuming it had a reasonable number of interesting features. But still, that was twenty to thirty seconds that basically amounted to a loading screen in a video game.

So, I learned how to draw fast, how to describe while I was drawing so I didn’t stop narrating, and I also learned to only draw the s$&% I NEEDED to draw. The players didn’t need a map for EVERYTHING. In fact, they actually didn’t need many maps at all. The only time I really drew a map was when a fight broke out. And, to be honest, even then, I would sometimes just skip using the map and run the fight without a map. In short, as a GM, I learned to recognize when a map would actually ADD to the experience and to evaluate how much it would ADD to decide whether it was worth the cost. I learned the valuable skills of cost-benefit analysis, table pacing, and using different tools in different situations at the age of eleven because of a lack of color printers. Because I had no choice.

Now, compare that to today. The maps included in most published adventures are gorgeous. They are highly detailed. Granted, that level of detail is really starting to hurt readability, but then, my eyes have gone all squinty in my old age. And there are lots and lots and lots of maps. Every dungeon is mapped – which is normal – but so is every kingdom, every city, every town, every village, and every hamlet. Hell, in some modules, some individual houses and shops are mapped out for absolutely no good reason other than to pad the cartographer’s budget. And they are very pretty. Maps have always been a part of the game. I’m not saying they weren’t. But they now seem like a hugely important part of the game that you have to use somehow. As a new GM looking through a module, you have to wonder why all those maps are there if you’re not expected to use them. The idea of maps as eye candy for GMs seems crazy.

Moreover, because of the ubiquity of online gaming with virtual tabletops that make it effortless to share an entire map of a massive underground complex and to reveal it slowly as the players explore it, there’s this implication that that’s the default way to play. After all, the online tools have made it so easy to have massive, gorgeous maps in the middle of the virtual table. And as the game plays out, everyone moves their figures from room to room and space to space, in and out of combat.

And beyond even that, social media has given crafty gamers the chance to show off their gaming setups. Especially adult gamers who now have a lot of disposable income to fling at their hobbies. And with the advent of things like easy access to silicone molds and do-it-yourself resin, various types of clay-based modeling compounds, and 3d printer technology, there’s a lot of s$&% to show off. And a lot of tutorials. Not to mention tech-heads rigging up touch-screen table-surfaces in their custom gaming tables or mounting projectors to their ceilings and projecting maps right on a table surface. All of these technologies are way more accessible – assuming you have the cash, and some of it isn’t even that expensive – and thanks to social media, they are far more visible to everyone in the gaming community.

And they all look damned cool. I won’t deny that. And I admit, sometimes, I feel like a willful anachronism when I’m unrolling my Chessex Megamat™ and pulling out my EXPO™ Black Vis-A-Vis Overhead Transparency Markers. But I still run a great f$&%ing game. And at least it makes me actually think about my maps at the table.

And when some poor new GM just wants to invite three friends over to sit around a real table to run their first game and they can’t mount projectors on the ceiling and they don’t have the time to mold-and-paint an entire dungeon, at least I’m still around to tell them how to do things the practical way. And I can even tell you how it might improve your game – even your online game – if your map were a little less accessible.

Three Maps for Game Muster Mark

Let’s start by talking about the three different kinds of maps you might want to use at your table and what each one is for. And this is important to understand because online games and virtual tabletops have blurred the lines between the different kinds of maps. And there’s at least one kind of map that you might want to start pulling away from. Hard. Because it may be hurting your play experience more than you think.

First, you’ve got the tactical map. A tactical map is a to-scale map that depicts a place where a fight is happening. It allows everyone at the table to keep track of everyone’s position on the battlefield and figure out where people can move and who they can target and how many monsters are still standing and all that crap. For obvious reasons, tactical maps are almost always used with some kind of token. Miniature figures are common in realspace. Graphical pogs are used in virtual tabletop software.

Now, in the past tactical maps have been the focus of lots and lots of arguments. Especially about ten years ago, just before the virtual tabletop thing really took off. And some of those arguments still flare up to this day. What you have to understand is that, to resolve combat, the game has always included a certain level of precision in things like distance, speed, and position. And tactical maps and miniatures have always been a very good way to track all of that stuff. However, late in the AD&D 2nd Edition era, several optional rules modules were added to the game that greatly enhanced the role that precise distances, speeds, and positions played in the game. And many of those optional rules were then incorporated as core components in D&D 3E and D&D 3.5. Consequently, having some means of accurately tracking distances and positions during combat became much more important than it ever had been before. D&D 4E built on this framework by adding more positional and movement-based mechanics. And D&D 4E actually took A LOT of flak for “REQUIRING” the use of maps and miniatures to play the game. D&D 5E claimed to dial some of that back, but the fact is that it still has a lot of mechanics based on precise distances, speeds, and positions and so the game expects that you will keep track of that s$&%. Somehow. Obviously, the easiest way to track precise positions and distances is a map with tokens on it.

So, to address all the various arguments and get on with the important s$&%, I’m going to make a few points. First, tactical maps and tokens have always been an optional part of D&D. Second, just because they are optional doesn’t mean it’s easy to get along without them. Depending on the edition you’re playing, it can actually be very hard to get by without them. Third, if you’re playing ANY edition of D&D beyond that was released in or after the year 2000, the game’s rules assume you’re tracking precise positions and distances using a square grid and all of the rules are built to interact with that grid. Fourth, just because you need a means of tracking precise positions and distances, that doesn’t mean you have to use a full-sized poster map and miniatures. You can use model dungeon terrain and painted miniature figures, you can gummy bears on a vinyl map, you can use paper standees on a big old gridded sheet of lucite that you lay over a map you printed on an oversized printer, or you can use a sheet of graph paper and write and erase initials in the boxes as people move around. The form of the thing doesn’t matter. And arguing about which form is best is a f$&%ing useless argument for screaming internet morons. Don’t be a screaming internet moron.

From the above, you can probably gather that the point of the tactical map is to play out a game of D&D combat chess. And that’s it. That’s what a tactical map is for. It’s a tool for resolving combats. And, as such, it needs to be as clear and clean as possible. It needs to show only as much s$&% as will actually affect the combat or may potentially affect the combat. Abstract symbols and line-drawings are just fine as long as they are clear and consistent and get the point across. Extraneous artsy details are unnecessary and can sometimes be confusing. People need to know where they can stand and where they can’t. They need to know what spaces block movement and what spaces block line of sight. They need to know what spaces will hinder or hurt them. And they need to know where the things they can interact with are. That’s it.

Beyond the tactical map, there’s also the exploration map. The exploration map is a map that depicts an entire space that the party is exploring. It’s a map of the whole dungeon. Or at least a whole level of the dungeon. Or it’s a map of the whole castle. Now, do not get the exploration map confused with the dungeon map in the module. That map isn’t meant for the players. It isn’t meant for use at the table. I’m not saying it can’t be; I’m just drawing a distinction between diagrams for the GM to use when running the game and visual aids for the GM to use to communicate information at the table. The map in the adventure module is there so the GM can keep track of where the party is and where they will end up if they go east from the Chamber of Screams or go up the stairs in the Second Floor Landing of Sharp, Stabbing Pain. That map is basically a flowchart of the adventure dressed up so it’s pretty to look at because lots of nostalgic GMs buy products based on the maps inside.

Now, virtual tabletop games often make the exploration map pull double duty as the tactical map. And this is where all the confusion lies. Because on a virtual tabletop, you can have a giant-a$& map of an entire dungeon that’s already to scale and zoom in to any room and play out a fight on the exact same map. You can also do neat things with dynamic lighting and fog-of-war effects to reveal the map slowly to the players as they move their little pogs around the map like they are playing a f$&%ing board game instead of exploring an actual place. You can even let the gorgeous, high-resolution map do all the describing for you.

The exploration map helps the players understand the layout of the space they are exploring. It helps them keep track of where they’ve been and where they want to go next. It helps them see the whole space at once. And that can be helpful. But it’s actually also very, very optional. And, in fact, I’m going to come back and explain why it hurts certain types of games toward the end. Most ironically, it hurts the very types of games that it seems to benefit the most.

The reason I point out that it’s optional is that it’s also really hard to use an exploration map at realspace table. Obviously, they have to depict the whole space. And if you try to use such a map at any sort of playable, tactical scale, you’ll run out of tabletop. Beyond that, though, because one of the three pillars of the game is exploration – according to the designers; those stupid words aren’t my f$&%ing words – you don’t want to show the players anything their characters haven’t seen with their own eyes first. So, the exploration map is something you want to gradually reveal to the players. You don’t want them to see the entire map of Castle Ravenloft all at once. You want them to discover it one creepy room at a time.

The third type of map is what I like to call the setting map. And these are the ones I was referencing when I said there are a lot more maps these days than ever before. A setting map is a map of some part of the game world that the players aren’t really meant to explore. These are all the town maps and kingdom maps and village maps and regional maps and stuff. They show features that most people in the game world are aware of and that the characters either have some first- or second-hand knowledge of or could find out about pretty easily. I mean, sure, the characters don’t know where the lord’s castle is in a city they’ve never been to before, but they can find out so easily that it’s not really worth making a part of the game.

Again: remember, I’m not talking about the maps in the module book here. Those maps are all for the GM. I’m talking about maps the GM shows the players at the table. And yes, they might be the exact same maps. The map of Chult in the GM’s module book becomes a setting map the moment the GM prints out a copy and drops it in the table and says, “okay, you are here.”

Setting maps do not do anything mechanical for the game. Nothing at all. But because GMs tend to really, really, f$&%ing really overuse maps, GMs love to keep track of the players’ precise position on the streets of Waterdeep while they are shopping for magical trinkets between adventures. Don’t do that s$&%.

Now, although setting maps don’t – and SHOULDN’T – serve a mechanical purpose in the game, that doesn’t mean they are useless. They are actually really cool to sit in the middle of the table when the players aren’t exploring a dungeon somewhere. They help remind the players where they are and bring the setting to life. If they are well-drawn, they can evoke a certain tone and do other bulls$%& things for the feel of the game. They are also a great way to get the players curiously prodding around and showing them what’s in the general area they can interact with. Basically, you can think of them as combining the best aspects of establishing shots from TV shows and movies with menu screens from video games. All for the price of a single piece of paper you drop in the middle of the table and just leave sitting there for as long as the players are running around the locale.

And that’s it. Those are three types of visual aid maps you might want to use at your table. Tactical maps are for running combats, exploration maps are for helping the players keep track of the layout of a location they are exploring, and setting maps are for grounding the players in a part of the setting they don’t have to physically explore. But how do you actually use those maps at the table? Where do you get them? How do you get them out of the module? And what if you can’t get them?

From Module to Map

Let’s say you’re running a published adventure and you want to use some maps at the table. How do you do that?

Well, the first thing you have to realize is that there are way more maps in the module than you need to use at the table. A lot more. There’s a bunch of maps that won’t serve any useful purpose at the table. For example, you do not need to-scale, tactical maps of any space in which there won’t be a fight.

So, the first thing you really need to do is go through your module and figure out what maps you want or need to use at the table and what purpose they are going to serve. If there are locations that are likely to have fights inside of them, you’ll want tactical maps of those spaces. You’ll want them to scale. And you’ll want tokens to represent the PCs and the things they will be fighting. Now, if you have the means to do so, you can scan and then print out at an appropriate size the maps of all the locations where there will be fights. But this is about being practical. Because that can get costly. And time-consuming. And, look, the first time you run a game, it might seem really exciting to go through the book and scan all the maps you plan to use at the table and then have them printed at the local Staples or Kinkos or whatever at a good scale. But you have to consider how much fun that will be when you’ve been running games for a year. Or two. Or f$&%ing thirty.

There are LOTS of solutions out there for getting tactical maps to the table. Obviously, I called out the vinyl mat already. And there’s lots of other products too. Giant rolls of gridded paper. Gridded, dry erase tiles. Dry erase laminated folding mats. And many, many others. And all of them are just fine. If you look down at the comments, I’m sure you’ll see a bunch of screaming Internet gamers telling you the One True Way™ to bring tactical maps to your table. It’s an argument that gamers love to have.

The truth is, though, that there’s only one important question about the form your tactical maps take: do you prepare them in advance or do you generate them at the table. For example, one of my fellow gamers likes to draw out all of his tactical maps in advance on gridded, dry erase tiles. Which he told me is the One True Way™, of course. Meanwhile, I show up at the table with a blank Chessex Battlemat™ and draw maps as I need them. Preparing the maps in advance does save time at the table, especially if you aren’t a quick draw, but it can also chew up a lot of resources and time. In an open-ended dungeon, where you have no idea which of the twenty encounters are going to happen in any given session, you need to be ready for all twenty at all times. So, you need enough tiles to draw out all the rooms and enough time to draw them all in advance. Generating maps at the table takes speed and skill. Ideally, you learn to talk while you draw. Also ideally, you don’t try to make art. You go with simple lines and simple symbols and build a shorthand that your players recognize. And even then, it still does eat up precious seconds to start every combat and to wipe every combat clean.

The thing is, though, that you do have to be able to generate tactical maps on the fly if you’re going to use tactical maps. Unexpected s$&% always happens. Random encounters break out in strange places. And the players sometimes start fights where no fight should ever break out. Like in the local alchemist’s shop. And if you want to be able to use a tactical map for those fights, you have to be able to create it on the fly. And that means the time you spent getting good at generating maps at the table is time well spent. It makes your game more versatile.

But then, that is ALWAYS the tradeoff of being a GM. Hell, that’s the Fundamental Paradox of Game Mastering: things always go better the more prepared you are, but preparation is inversely proportional to versatility. Me? I say prepare some tactical maps in advance if you want, but you’d be better off making sure you can run a fight even when you aren’t prepared.

Anyway, the point is: spend some time figuring out a tactical map solution that works for you and make sure you’re ready with the tactical maps you need. And don’t bother with to-scale maps of things you don’t need tactical maps for.

As for setting maps, I like them and I use them a lot as I described above. So, go through the module and find the map of the kingdom or region the adventure takes place in and any towns or cities the players will spend SIGNIFICANT time in. That means more than a few minutes for a briefing and a shopping trip before they head off to the dungeon. Photocopy or scan-and-print or download-and-print those maps onto a single sheet of paper. Use cardstock if the map will be useful for more than a couple of sessions and maybe even use some self-adhesive laminating sheets for the map of the home base of the entire campaign and you’ve got yourself a visual aid.

It’s okay to spend a little time preparing setting maps because there usually aren’t too many of them. Usually, there’s one for the region or kingdom when the players are traveling through the wilderness and one major city or town. Two maps and done. Ignore the rest. And ignore the maps of individual houses and neighborhoods and all that s$&%. It’s all just eye candy.

So that’s your setting maps and your tactical maps. What about exploration maps?

F$&% ’em.

That’s right, I said f$&% ’em.

There’s really not a great way to share exploration maps at a realspace table in a way that slowly reveals them as they are explored in any way that doesn’t eat up a lot of time and resources and waste space at the table that is better used for tactical maps, setting maps, snacks, and a bowl for your tension pool. If you’re not going to invest in things like projectors and HD video surfaces and s$&%, it’s really not worth trying. And I’m going to include an appendix in a moment that explains why you should use fewer maps, not more anyway. And the exploration map is the first one I’m going to tell you to ditch forever. But, if you’re not convinced by any of those arguments and you want an exploration map, I’ll offer you a solution. I call it the “minimap.”

If you’re used to drawing tactical maps at the table – and you really do need to be able to do that, even if you like preparing tactical maps in advance – if you draw maps at the table, you can also generate a minimap at the table. A minimap is a hasty little schematic of the place the players are exploring that you can quickly draw out as the players are exploring. It doesn’t have to be to an exact scale, just a relative scale, and it doesn’t have to show any detail. It just has to show how rooms are connected and how the site is laid out. See, the big mistake GMs make when it comes to exploration maps – apart from the mistake of using an exploration map in the first place – the big mistake GMs make with exploration maps is to make them too precise and too detailed. They only need to show very basic layouts. They don’t need to be art. And they don’t need to be precise.

I used to keep a little line-drawing of the dungeon – little more than lines and boxes, actually – in one corner of my Battlemat™ as the players explored. Precisely like the minimap that appears in the corner of the screen in many video games.

But I really, REALLY suggest you just give up on the exploration map altogether. And, more importantly, I recommend that you break your reliance on maps altogether. Not completely. I’m not saying you should never use maps. I’m just saying you should use them sparingly. But I can’t explain why without going way, way, WAY over my word count.

So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to post a little appendix to this article about why you should consider NOT using maps as much. Or even at all. It won’t be a full article. I won’t even charge my Patrons for it. It’s just 3,000 words or so of ranty, sweary bonus content. Because I am just that nice a guy.

Read the Appendix: Break Your Mapaholism