To D&D GMs: Importing maps?

[Aegix Drakan]

Heya!

I'm slowly worldbuilding out a Savage Worlds setting I'd like to run at some point, but one thing about TTRPGs always holds me back, and that's maps.

Like, one one hand, I usually rely on "theatre of the mind"... But on the other hand, if I want to run a dungeon crawl that's not just "here's a bunch of encounters, I'll describe the environment in vivid detail and then draw a few boxes and circles to represent cover" my approach feels lacking...Especially if navigation is supposed to be tricky.

I know there are places online where one can buy dungeon/encounters maps that people can play on... But even if I did buy some, how would I display them to the players?

Even if I use the Flex Table that lets you load images onto the surface, it's kind of messy and would require reconfiguring the table each time...

To those DMs among us, how do you handle encounter/dungeon maps when running your games?

Edit:
Wound up jumping to Foundry and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I can't look back.

TTS is still the gold standard for board games (It's how my pals and I will keep playing Dominion, Santorini, that one viking game and Boss Monster), but Foundry is getting me dangerously excited to fun my TTRPG stuff. I lost the entire weekend to slapping together another adventure in it and I could. not. stop.

[Slushy]

Look up OneWorld, lets you save and load entire maps over specifically the board. Its a little confusing to learn, but its amazing once you understand the basics of 'packing' your maps and 'building' them, and 'linking' them on the device to get to each other. Also wanna make sure ya hit 'sync' after 'building'. Should be some video tutorials online.

[SaltyO]

Before I abandoned TTS as an rpg-VTT (after many years of using it) I had my own kinda setup going on. OneWorld is great for tinkerer types that love to spend time learning new tools and messing around with mods, but I didn't have the time or patience for that, as cool as it is.

I snagged the flex table mod from the workshop, it worked fairly well. One thing that does not work well is Fog of War (FoW). Actually, very nuanced control of what players see or can manipulate on a TTS board was very hard to accomplish in my experience; it's one of those things that an online GM needs to have working without having to think much about it.

When I was really on top of things I would also grab Memory Bags (if those still exist, they are invaluable) and set the scenes up before game night, storing them ready to go in the bags. These bags remember the configuration of all objects on a table (a scene, a bunch of monsters, etc.) and can load and unload them with the touch of a button.

You're right that it's messy. Unfortunately not much has been done to improve the tools for GMs who commit to TTS, it's just not really meant for that. One very frustrating thing about TTS is that it's not a good place to house dynamic text documents, or text of any kind really, which is another must-have for a GM. Character sheets alone are just a pain in the ass.

I have sincejumped onto Foundry for rpgs. It's just a great VTT.

[Aegix Drakan]

Hot damn, One World and the remake/fix for it look great... But potentially waaay more than I'll actually need. (And the fact it can break if the links that fuel it break, like they apparently did for the main one)

I'm going to experiment with SwapTable to just display a single image at a time, and see if that's enough.

Thank you for the suggestions, and I'll potentially look into Foundry as well! :)

-

I am aware that TTS isn't really the best VTT, and I may move on to another one if I do actually run a real campaign in this setting...

But TTS is what me and some of my friends use and have, so I was hoping to see if I could make it work in here first. :P

[Aegix Drakan]

Originally posted by SaltyO:

I have sincejumped onto Foundry for rpgs. It's just a great VTT.

SWEET MERCIFUL MERCY, if Foundry is anywhere near as good as the Anniversary Overview video makes it sound, and customizing in my wacky homebrew shenanigans into their Savage Worlds system, I think I'm going to make the jump to that. :o

How the hell is it THAT in-depth, without being a subscription? Yeah, okay I'm sure I'll have to buy additional modules for stuff, but like... gods, it looks STACKED and relatively simple to use.

[Baryonyx]

Honestly, if you want to use 2D maps only in TTS, why do you use a 3D program? Like, why throw away all the potential? Especially just drawing some crude lines on a plane. You don't need TTS for that.

But if you do actually want to make use of what TTS has to offer, then there are some ways to work with the quirks that the game has. For example, you could create a kind of "ring" of player areas and DM zone, then use the additive load feature to load that on top of existing 3D encounter maps. Then there is not much to fiddle with. In fact, there exist many mods already that make use of this kind of system.

And even if you did go the route of 2D encounter maps (there are plenty on the workshop as well, no need to buy any really), then all you'd have to do is import them as a custom board, or tile because that will resize appropriately on its own with regards to aspect ratio. You just need to change the total size in the end to match up with your ingame scale, but that's easy. No need to be frustrated with the fixed aspect ratio of the custom table.

Finally I would just like to highlight the huge amount of *free* content on the steam workshop - you don't have to buy any modules, don't pay a single penny to access all that is out there. You just need to grab it and make use of it.

[Aegix Drakan]

Originally posted by Baryonyx:

Honestly, if you want to use 2D maps only in TTS, why do you use a 3D program? Like, why throw away all the potential? Especially just drawing some crude lines on a plane. You don't need TTS for that.

I live 3 hours away from all of my non-work friend groups, so TTS is the only way we get to play board games these days, unless I make the loooong trip over there during a long weekend.

So I figured I'd worth with that I have if I could. Besides, physically rolling dice in TTS is fun, as is handing out actual, "physical" Bennies to the player.

But browsing the workshop for encounter maps (or anything really) is kind of a painful experience.

And mapping has ALWAYS been my weakest point. It's always the longest and most painful part of making any of my hobby-level RPGmaker games. So actually drawing? Unless I'm just crudely slapping down circles and squares to represent cover, making any maps would take multiple hours of work I really really don't like.

[VipreRX]

You could use tiles or cards and map the image to those. That way you wouldn't have to change the table size.
Import the image pregame so that you can resize them then toss them into a bag for later use.

[SaltyO]

I'll follow up on my last comment with something positive: TTS is the greatest RPG VTT if you care most about immersion and ambience, and you're willing to put the time in to getting there! Some creators have done some mind-blowing things with it, and there are some amazing 3D, even animated maps out there.

I do not wish to argue against Baron's comment, either. I used 2D maps on TTS and would then do "faux 3D" thing with stagecraft; props, shadows, etc. Actually building something 3D is a serious investment for something like an RPG map, even using someone else's 3D map can pose certain challenges. It all depends on what your priorities are as a GM.

And yes, TTS is still a must-have for general board gaming, at least until one of the clones makes it worth leaving all the aforementioned free content. TTS is about the workshop now more than the actual software.

Edit: It might help to try making a test scenario on any map and then try to simulate the player experience. Experiment with FoW, lay out what you need on the table. My tables ended up covered in stuff. After a while organizing became a job in itself.
Some basic things that frustrated me frequently were : Poor record keeping of dice rolls (even with dice mods), lost data resulting from TTS or mod bugs, poor PDF support, dynamic text objects like character sheets and counters bugging out.

TTS is a sandbox foremost, not an RPG tracking environment.