Mad Mage maps

I had a quick look at the preview and saw that the thumbnail suggested they've chosen to go with the 'hand-drawn sketch' style of maps again, perhaps in continuity with the Dyson Logos maps from Dragon Heist. I'd like to know if the maps for all the levels are going to be of the same style? Personally, I can't stand them. The quality of the maps is probably the biggest consideration for me as to whether the module is worth putting down coin for. I find these black and white sketch maps ugly, lazy-looking and find they don't particularly work well for VTT's. Saying that, I know there is certainly supporters for this style, maybe they work better in a situation where you might print them out and incorporate them with map's a DM has whipped up themselves on graph paper. But when you've got artists like Schley and Blando, who have done such beautiful work on the previous modules, and you've got a number of great cartographer's producing colourful, quality battlemaps every week on patreon, I feel disappointed they've chosen to go with such a crude style again.

I can definitely agree with Jase's opinion. I ran curse of Strahd for my group, and we really enjoyed the beautiful detailed maps. At a glance, one could guess what you were walking into, and characters would know where chairs were to take a seat at tables, or where an armoire was so you couldn't stand there. With Dragon heists new style of maps, it just looks.. empty. If any room has no description, or the description is lacking, it may as well be a completely empty blank white space. Not every gm is great at adlibbing descriptions, especially when all they have to go off of is a blank white space. It feels like a cheap let down to go from beautiful, colored, detailed maps, to something I myself could do in my spare time, and I am no artist. It's easy to take a beautiful detailed map, and downgrade it into a hand drawn version for a real life table top, but taking a plain drawn scrap and upgrading it to something colored, populated and beautiful is time consuming for individual gms to do. I can't imagine having run curse of strahd and walking the players through Castle Ravenloft with this new style of map. It would have been utterly boring and lifeless, going from one big empty space to the next. I looked at the preview map for Dungeon of the mad mage. Unless that computer generated looking style is going to be replaced by a hand drawn map, then that's an even worse downgrade from what little character the drawn maps had. I agree with Jase, one of the reasons I buy a module from the roll20 marketplace is to have access to pre-done, high quality maps. If that's changing going forward, I understand that's a Wizards choice, not necessarily Roll20s, but that'll still impact where my money is spent. 

I just tried this out, because I wanted to see what qualifies as 'top-notch' in terms of Roll20 conversion. So very not impressed. Because this particular thread is about the maps, let's focus on that. ONE map, ok, fine, didn't expect much for a free demo. But it's HAND DRAWN. Ugh. So ugly. Apparently, a map consisting of a single large hand-drawn image is Roll20's idea of 'top notch' implementation. I wonder why they consider things like color and detail to be lesser. Would a fully detailed map therefore be somehow lower quality? Or is there a notch above 'top'? The map is also enormous. 73 x 98 units large. Who makes anything with these kind of units? Presumably, 75 x 100 would be less than 'top-notch'. Oh, but if I try to make a new map with the dimensions "75 x 100" I get a warning:  Maps with very large dimentions may load slowly or not at all. Do you wish to continue? Ignoring the typo in Roll20's own warning not to make maps this big, it now seems clear to me why the dimensions have been set to such odd values. Good: The map does include a complete dynamic lighting layer. Bad: Using said dynamic lighting slows my computer down to the point where it literally takes up to a minute to simply move my field of view. Attempting to zoom out far enough to move a larger distance makes the game quite unplayable while Roll20 tries to catch up. Also, some (not all) of the tokens on the map emit light. I didn't check them all. I'm certain there must be a reason, for example, the Flesh Golem in room 8b emits 60' of light (that nobody, including itself, can see) but I'm not very clear on what that reason is. Speaking of the tokens, not a one (as far as I've looked) has any of its information visible to players. The nameplate is visible to GM only. The health bar (green) is likewise visible to GM only. These things are game and GM-dependent, so while I would change this for my own games (a long tiresome process) I understand the reasoning behind this decision, if there was any. In addition, as far as I've been able to tell, not a single token has any token actions set up for it. The FIRST module for Roll20 had token actions. I know, I wrote them. I would expect that after 5 years, token actions would be considered standard. Yet, this 'top-notch' product has none. True, there's a brief mention of them in the handout "NPC Initiative", but that just says you should make your own. Likewise, there are no macros. For the GM or for players. On the plus side, the character sheets are usable by clicking, for many abilities stored on the sheet. And, a player or GM who knows Roll20 well can make their own macros, or move sheet buttons onto the macro quick bar. I doubt the average first-time player will have any clue this is possible. And, as I just noticed, the bandits on the map are not... anything, really. There is no bandit journal entry. There's one for the Bandit Captain, but not the generic bandits. Considering the bandits seem to be a fairly major part of this storyline (they're everywhere on the map), this would appear to be a fairly major problem. In a 'top-notch' product. The stirge swarm in room 41 likewise has an issue... Half of them have no nameplate. Of course, since only the GM sees this anyway, this isn't a very big problem. They're not numbered either. Each goblin, each rat, each bandit is simply named 'goblin' or 'rat' or 'bandit'. A simple number on each (Goblin 4, Rat 15, Bandit 7) would help quite a bit. But that's perhaps being nit-picky. I do like the fact that the room numbers are on the GM layer. That's genuinely helpful. So, yeah, my opinion (regarding ONLY the map, in compliance with the new Code of Conduct) is that this map is of very poor quality, poorly set-up, and poorly bug-tested. I certainly will not purchase the module it is advertising, if this is the type of quality I should expect. -Phnord, only slightly snarky.

Hmm, I don't mind the style of the map, but it contrasts with the token style. I know there's no easy fix for that, and it would involve some kind of compendium, alternate token style setting, but it is a bit off-putting. I kinda like the old school look actually, but, at least for the NPCs in the module, a cruder art style might be beneficial.

Dean I personally would love to see Roll20 offer alternate maps for a product like this. When Dragon Heist launched, one of your competitors had an alternate map pack available that came with your purchase. While I personally didn’t love that map pack either, I think Roll20 is in a unique position to try to help differentiate between what might work well at a live tabletop but might not translate as well online, and find ways to work with your licensing partners to make solutions that benefit your customers. I’m sure there are licensing details to making new custom maps, but I also know it would go a long way to making a Roll20 module essential. When Tomb of Annihilation came out, the overland hex map treatment was lauded everywhere as such an amazing implementation over the book. For Curse of Strahd, Roll20 made non-isometric maps that helped enhance the online experience. This is that same sort of opportunity. Aside from the maps in this adventure (which I personally feel are a slight step up from Dragon Heist, but only barely, and certainly don’t live up to the expectations I have for a WotC product) I’m always happy with the construction of your conversions. Since individual users have such varied ways of working, it is nice that you have a standard implementation for tokens, sheets, handouts, lighting, etc. 

Dean, I appreciate both the consideration of my thoughts, and the hard work from both you and Kristin (and any of the team who also were involved) on those modules. Your work has saved ME countless late night tears (who am I kidding, I would never have taken the time to make that hex map!). 

I'm with Jase. I was thinking of purchasing but I'm completely turned off by the maps. I want to SEE Undermountain, not a bunch of blocks. If roll20 offered a decent quality map alternative, even as a separate bundle, I'd be likely to purchase it.

As a possible future alternative, perhaps working with one of the accepted Roll20 Marketplace creators to "dress up" the maps a bit.  For me, even just having some dungeon texturing would make it more attractive - something like Gabriel Pickard's Dungeon Mapper textures , would give it a little bit of atmosphere.

Just throwing my name out there, I would 100% be down to re-make all of the Dragonheist Maps and the Mad Mage maps. Honestly, I already am going to be re-making some of them for one of my personal games as is. You know where to find me if this is a possibility!!! Also, I really like Dyson Logos, and have always been a fan of his maps in IRL games. I hate seeing an artist I looked up to for so many years catch so much flack, but I totally understand. The VTT is built in a different way than the cross hatch B&W maps we grew up with in yesteryear.

Munky said: Also, I really like Dyson Logos, and have always been a fan of his maps in IRL games. I hate seeing an artist I looked up to for so many years catch so much flack, but I totally understand. The VTT is built in a different way than the cross hatch B&W maps we grew up with in yesteryear. Yeah, don't hear this as me bashing Dyson or the hand-drawn style in any way.  I love his maps.  I was just saying to have more textured maps available as an alternative, like Loren the GM mentioned above.

Gozer the Gozerian said: Yeah, don't hear this as me bashing Dyson or the hand-drawn style in any way.  I love his maps.  I was just saying to have more textured maps available as an alternative, like Loren the GM mentioned above. Not at all! You are suggesting an option for alternative maps, which is what a lot of people would like to see. Everyone has their own preferences, and that is completely understandable. I have my own preference for the visual representations in my own personal games on the VTT as well. That's how I started making maps in the first place! Some people just word their opinions a little nicer than others. The part that breaks my heart is the amount of people I have seen taking this opinion, and I know that it can be crushing to an artist to see that a large portion of a fan base is not happy with something you created, especially when they care as much as I know Dyson does. On the bright side WotC recently collected a lot of opinions with their survey that was floating around. I'm more than confident they will take that feedback moving forward too! As for the temporary solution, there's always using tile sets and builder kits to achieve the look we all want individually, but there's not always time for that, especially when you dropped 50 bucks on a product already. Given IP rights and other limitations, 3rd party artists can't exactly recreate them for the public, though, and that is for a good reason. I doubt WotC will do anything about this particular book though. But just in case they do......

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link outside roll20, but if you google 'valeur rpg' you will find a site where someone has done a pretty good job converting most of the Dragon Heist maps to be more suitable for VTT's.

Dean said: Loren the GM said: When Tomb of Annihilation came out, the overland hex map treatment was lauded everywhere as such an amazing implementation over the book. For Curse of Strahd, Roll20 made non-isometric maps that helped enhance the online experience. This is that same sort of opportunity. Thanks for your constructive input :) I'm familiar with the ToA hex initiative (that implementation has my late night tears staining them, as I was still working on production back then), as well as the Curse of Strahd maps that we simply needed to do because the immense depth of the iso setup would have been a... difficult... integration (thanks to Kristin's late night tears for making that happen). In the case of exclusively commissioning a complete redo of approximately 30 (very large) maps, as well as seeking licensing sign-offs on each, for the sake of stylistic preference - the math doesn't quite add up the same in my (personalish) opinion. But your feedbacks are helping me to see value in considering options to cut the difference, at the very least on stylistic cohesion with tokens and connective product. I'll definitely keep these thoughts close when analyzing future products and how we can implement. Very much appreciated. Dean, I commented on the exact  reasoning's you described on another platform. Met with similar criticism on the WOTC map style choice, people often forget that behind it all, there are business decisions to be made. And if anyone has ever seen the original Undermountain maps, they would understand why WOTC ( and by extension roll20) went this route than full detailed maps. It is just to cost prohibitive. If there was someone who wanted to take the opportunity and go ahead and make 20+ maps, stylized and detailed and offer that to customers, here is your chance! I for one, don't mind the old school map style. I'm extremely happy we got an updated version of this most famous and biggest dungeon in Faerun!

Hello, after reading all these posts, I only say this: I like the kind of map you made. And it is a BIG map. Will be awesome to play in it. But I have one question: Baybe it's just me, but the map setting said 1 square= 5 feet... But I have 0.5 for 1 unit.. that makes the map smaller than it shows if I'm referring to the token. I have token's size of 2.5 by 2.5... Sure I can change all that by myself. But if the purchased copy will have the same problem, will by sad to pay full value for a job not finished. But again, maybe it's a computer problem...

Here we have a door that is at a strange angle for some reason. It is not flush with the wall or the door. This looks strange and unprofessional when seen in dynamic lighting. Here is me fixing the door so at least it looks straight, although not flush with the walls still it looks more visually pleasing to the eye in dynamic lighting. Of course gotta show off those lovely zebra stripes inside the walls still :) Side by side comparison. What is going on here lol, is the secret door drunk? Look at the slanted angle for the now not so secret door that is gonna stand out clearly in dynamic lighting. Go home door, you're drunk. I guess the wall on the right is a bit prettier and likes to be shown off more? Wait.....what??? Head explodes from OCD overload.

Eric G. said: Hello, after reading all these posts, I only say this: I like the kind of map you made. And it is a BIG map. Will be awesome to play in it. But I have one question: Baybe it's just me, but the map setting said 1 square= 5 feet... But I have 0.5 for 1 unit.. that makes the map smaller than it shows if I'm referring to the token. I have token's size of 2.5 by 2.5... Sure I can change all that by myself. But if the purchased copy will have the same problem, will by sad to pay full value for a job not finished. But again, maybe it's a computer problem... I am going to have to second this. I know making the 1"=1 units creates a larger map, but having it set to .5 causes problems when I add new creatures to the map. I will have to redo the entire map which also means redoing all the dynamic lighting and at that point why should I bother paying for the product? I often deal with large maps in my games and they are not an issue. Setting up vision for all the NPC's is a problem and slows things down. Its been mentioned on other products you produced that vision on the creatures add very little for gameplay but adds a great deal of stress to the system and slows things down to a crawl. Also make token actions for the monsters. It's easy for you to do it but hard for new players and DM's. I expect more for my $50.

Ed S. said: Eric G. said: Hello, after reading all these posts, I only say this: I like the kind of map you made. And it is a BIG map. Will be awesome to play in it. But I have one question: Baybe it's just me, but the map setting said 1 square= 5 feet... But I have 0.5 for 1 unit.. that makes the map smaller than it shows if I'm referring to the token. I have token's size of 2.5 by 2.5... Sure I can change all that by myself. But if the purchased copy will have the same problem, will by sad to pay full value for a job not finished. But again, maybe it's a computer problem... I am going to have to second this. I know making the 1"=1 units creates a larger map, but having it set to .5 causes problems when I add new creatures to the map. I will have to redo the entire map which also means redoing all the dynamic lighting and at that point why should I bother paying for the product? I often deal with large maps in my games and they are not an issue. Setting up vision for all the NPC's is a problem and slows things down. Its been mentioned on other products you produced that vision on the creatures add very little for gameplay but adds a great deal of stress to the system and slows things down to a crawl. Also make token actions for the monsters. It's easy for you to do it but hard for new players and DM's. I expect more for my $50. When you drag a token onto the map it will resize appropraitely for you. You don’t need to redo the entire map lol not sure why you would think that. As for resizing the entire map, this can be done with a single click with an API. 

Seb said: Ed S. said: Eric G. said: Hello, after reading all these posts, I only say this: I like the kind of map you made. And it is a BIG map. Will be awesome to play in it. But I have one question: Baybe it's just me, but the map setting said 1 square= 5 feet... But I have 0.5 for 1 unit.. that makes the map smaller than it shows if I'm referring to the token. I have token's size of 2.5 by 2.5... Sure I can change all that by myself. But if the purchased copy will have the same problem, will by sad to pay full value for a job not finished. But again, maybe it's a computer problem... I am going to have to second this. I know making the 1"=1 units creates a larger map, but having it set to .5 causes problems when I add new creatures to the map. I will have to redo the entire map which also means redoing all the dynamic lighting and at that point why should I bother paying for the product? I often deal with large maps in my games and they are not an issue. Setting up vision for all the NPC's is a problem and slows things down. Its been mentioned on other products you produced that vision on the creatures add very little for gameplay but adds a great deal of stress to the system and slows things down to a crawl. Also make token actions for the monsters. It's easy for you to do it but hard for new players and DM's. I expect more for my $50. When you drag a token onto the map it will resize appropraitely for you. You don’t need to redo the entire map lol not sure why you would think that. As for resizing the entire map, this can be done with a single click with an API.  You comment doesn't add anything and is not helpful

Ed S. said: Seb said: Ed S. said: Eric G. said: Hello, after reading all these posts, I only say this: I like the kind of map you made. And it is a BIG map. Will be awesome to play in it. But I have one question: Baybe it's just me, but the map setting said 1 square= 5 feet... But I have 0.5 for 1 unit.. that makes the map smaller than it shows if I'm referring to the token. I have token's size of 2.5 by 2.5... Sure I can change all that by myself. But if the purchased copy will have the same problem, will by sad to pay full value for a job not finished. But again, maybe it's a computer problem... I am going to have to second this. I know making the 1"=1 units creates a larger map, but having it set to .5 causes problems when I add new creatures to the map. I will have to redo the entire map which also means redoing all the dynamic lighting and at that point why should I bother paying for the product? I often deal with large maps in my games and they are not an issue. Setting up vision for all the NPC's is a problem and slows things down. Its been mentioned on other products you produced that vision on the creatures add very little for gameplay but adds a great deal of stress to the system and slows things down to a crawl. Also make token actions for the monsters. It's easy for you to do it but hard for new players and DM's. I expect more for my $50. When you drag a token onto the map it will resize appropraitely for you. You don’t need to redo the entire map lol not sure why you would think that. As for resizing the entire map, this can be done with a single click with an API.  You comment doesn't add anything and is not helpful Sorry if you don’t find that information helpful but you had two clear problems and I gave you solutions for both. Personally I think your bad attitude, self entitlement and rants  on these forums is toxic and not constructive too but you don’t see me openly telling you that. :) What Roll20 provides in a module goes far beyond what the hardcover provides, for the same price. Your opinion on the value of of the module for $50 if arbitrary. You need to consider the amount of hours and resources that goes into producing one of these modules for Roll20 as opposed to buying the hardcover for the same price.

Hi folks! My name is Trivia, and I am the head of the team that has brought you Roll20 WOTC modules since Tomb of Annihilation .  First, thank you very much for your feedback. While we cannot act on all of it, it means a lot to me, personally, that you all care enough about what we're doing to want it to succeed. Genuinely, thank you :) I wanted to come in and discuss some things about what's currently possible with Roll20 conversions, just to clear up some things that may not be common knowledge: 1. The team takes a significant amount of time to read and discuss what cool Roll20 specific stuff we can do in each module.  We are limited to what's in the book, but these meetings are what has given us the ToA hex grid map, rollable table lists and card decks, and so on. We are invested in creating the best true-to-the-book conversion we can. 2. We have licensed requirements on what can and can't change for our converted products.  For Dragon Heist and now Dungeon of the Mad Mage , I  went through the book files and created several aged and stained paper textures to give the maps a bit more character than the black and white versions that are in the book. (If you look at the handout for Dungeon Level, that's actually a capture of how it looks in the book, for reference).  The team spends (literally!) hundreds of hours on each conversion. We have a person dedicated to maps alone, who works with the files we are given to move things to the GM later, create patches to keep immersion for players, and so on. 3. Conversions are created using the same tools available to anyone using the VTT.     We hand draw the Dynamic Lighting. We place tokens by hand and create NPC sheets. We do our best to make something that Roll20 users will enjoy, and if this particular product does not hit the mark for you, I understand, and I'm glad that we were able to give a taste of the final product before money was invested in the experience. I've got to get back to polishing, but I hope that helps clear up some things on our end.  Thank you all again for your care and love of tabletop that we all share :) Trivia Production Coordinator P.S. Eric G - That's a typo! The map scale should read 10 ft (then split into .5 units to make 5ft), and we'll get a patch in ASAP to update error. I've also double checked that the final product is set to the correct scale. 

Seb said: I understand how dragging a token works, there are other issues with a token at half size, like the bar sizes, ect. Removing the sight from NPC tokens would allow for a larger map size with no noticeable reduction in performance and I prefer a map to be 1-1.

Trivia said: Hi folks! My name is Trivia, and I am the head of the team that has brought you Roll20 WOTC modules since Tomb of Annihilation .  First, thank you very much for your feedback. While we cannot act on all of it, it means a lot to me, personally, that you all care enough about what we're doing to want it to succeed. Genuinely, thank you :) I wanted to come in and discuss some things about what's currently possible with Roll20 conversions, just to clear up some things that may not be common knowledge: 1. The team takes a significant amount of time to read and discuss what cool Roll20 specific stuff we can do in each module.  We are limited to what's in the book, but these meetings are what has given us the ToA hex grid map, rollable table lists and card decks, and so on. We are invested in creating the best true-to-the-book conversion we can. 2. We have licensed requirements on what can and can't change for our converted products.  For Dragon Heist and now Dungeon of the Mad Mage , I  went through the book files and created several aged and stained paper textures to give the maps a bit more character than the black and white versions that are in the book. (If you look at the handout for Dungeon Level, that's actually a capture of how it looks in the book, for reference).  The team spends (literally!) hundreds of hours on each conversion. We have a person dedicated to maps alone, who works with the files we are given to move things to the GM later, create patches to keep immersion for players, and so on. 3. Conversions are created using the same tools available to anyone using the VTT.     We hand draw the Dynamic Lighting. We place tokens by hand and create NPC sheets. We do our best to make something that Roll20 users will enjoy, and if this particular product does not hit the mark for you, I understand, and I'm glad that we were able to give a taste of the final product before money was invested in the experience. I've got to get back to polishing, but I hope that helps clear up some things on our end.  Thank you all again for your care and love of tabletop that we all share :) Trivia Production Coordinator P.S. Eric G - That's a typo! The map scale should read 10 ft (then split into .5 units to make 5ft), and we'll get a patch in ASAP to update error. I've also double checked that the final product is set to the correct scale.  I appreciate all your hard work!

Ed S. said: Seb said: Personally I think your bad attitude, self entitlement and rants  on these forums is toxic and not constructive too but you don’t see me openly telling you that. :) What Roll20 provides in a module goes far beyond what the hardcover provides, for the same price. Your opinion on the value of of the module for $50 if arbitrary. You need to consider the amount of hours and resources that goes into producing one of these modules for Roll20 as opposed to buying the hardcover for the same price. I honestly think you have me confused with someone else. If you need any help with some roll20 features I will be happy to assist. You have some issues that you have expressed here with some of the basic functionality of roll20 and perhaps you are unaware of some more complex functionalities. I am happy to help you in any way possible. Feel free to message me any time. :)

These maps kinda look like crap to me. I hope that you could improve them in upcoming releases by using established creators on the marketplace or professional artists. The adventure might still be nice though.

I appreciate that roll20 operates within confines of what WotC allows you to do, and the work you guys have done - tokens, dynamic lighting, a 1:1 conversion of the map - is really solid and impressive. That being said, with this style and level of detail, this module is straight up not worth $50. I would guess there is nothing you can do about either the quality of the map or the price, but I hope you have some channel back to WotC, and can let them know that this level of quality just does *not* work for this platform. My sincere thanks for offering this preview, by the way. It was a really honest thing of you to do, and it prevented me from spending $50 on this module.

Thank you for the effort on obtaining the license Roll20 team, but I will be passing on this module (based on the maps), and wish I had not purchased Dragon Heist. I purchase the modules to save time on the maps, and I'm not satisfied with these conversions for such a high price point. I do thank you very much by offering up a sample of what we'd be getting, as a consumer I find it to be an excellent move, as I know what I would be getting! 

The Maps for Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage are a travesty.The modules should be bloody half price compared to beauties like Curse of Strahd. Roll20 should consider making their own and selling them as an addon.

Ok, moving forwards, If Wizards of the Coast didn't actually pay artists for 20+ fancy new maps to be made in their new book, there is little that roll20 can really do about it. I'm sure if maps were made, the roll20 dev team would have used them and me complaining here won't help. After all the high quality maps that I've been using with my group for the past year, it will still be a huge step down in the way of quality to what my players usually get to see. Can anyone recommend any drivethroughRPG or Roll20 marketplace asset sets that I could use to recreate the dungeon? I suppose the key things are just a nice wall and floor texture, that can be reproduced with 'relative' ease....&nbsp; Currently, the only map pack I've purchased (which may be my best option?) is:&nbsp; <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/869/dungeon-explore-premium-starter-set" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/869/dungeon-explore-premium-starter-set</a> Cheers!

Godthedj, It's a pretty big ask because the new maps are so bare-boned. Most of the maps from the modules before Dragon Heist were done by Mike Schley. He's got a distinct style, very detailed and colourful. If you search for 'valeur rpg' you can see a site where someone has converted a lot of the maps for Dragon Heist. It's not perfect but they've done a pretty serviceable job. I believe they're using a program called ProFantasy Software and using a pack/plugin designed by Mike called 'Dungeons of Schley' to reproduce the maps with that same look. I don't have the time or money to try it out myself but it might be worth a look. I would link all these things but I'm not sure if this is against forums policy.

It's not a perfect fix, but if you don't mind having a dungeon floor which is very uniform and a bit boring (but at least textured and easier to add assets onto later) - This map pack (see link in my post above) - seems to be doing the job! Looks like it would take me literally DAYS to remake the entire thing though. - Am I correct in thinking that I cannot download the higher res maps from either the 'demo' version of this, or the proper paid for version, - from the assets library in my game - so that I could take them and trace over them in with fresh textures in photoshop?

Contoa said: I can definitely agree with Jase's opinion. I ran curse of Strahd for my group, and we really enjoyed the beautiful detailed maps. At a glance, one could guess what you were walking into, and characters would know where chairs were to take a seat at tables, or where an armoire was so you couldn't stand there. With Dragon heists new style of maps, it just looks.. empty. If any room has no description, or the description is lacking, it may as well be a completely empty blank white space. Not every gm is great at adlibbing descriptions, especially when all they have to go off of is a blank white space. It feels like a cheap let down to go from beautiful, colored, detailed maps, to something I myself could do in my spare time, and I am no artist. It's easy to take a beautiful detailed map, and downgrade it into a hand drawn version for a real life table top, but taking a plain drawn scrap and upgrading it to something colored, populated and beautiful is time consuming for individual gms to do. I can't imagine having run curse of strahd and walking the players through Castle Ravenloft with this new style of map. It would have been utterly boring and lifeless, going from one big empty space to the next. I looked at the preview map for Dungeon of the mad mage. Unless that computer generated looking style is going to be replaced by a hand drawn map, then that's an even worse downgrade from what little character the drawn maps had. I agree with Jase, one of the reasons I buy a module from the roll20 marketplace is to have access to pre-done, high quality maps. If that's changing going forward, I understand that's a Wizards choice, not necessarily Roll20s, but that'll still impact where my money is spent.&nbsp; Same feeling. :(

Honestly, all this thing of black and white maps is a shame. I’m ranking these adventures as the worst adventures for 5e so far, only because the maps. What a bad time I spending.

Well I started playing through the module last night. We play 'text only'. - So far so good. Again, this is not a complaint about roll20 (I think) but it's a shame that each room doesn't have 'box out' text. It means that for every room means I have to scan through the spoiler filled description text, and then reword it all for the benefit of the players. I've decided that I'll need to go through every room before the game and rewrite every description beforehand. EDIT- In other news.. I've started making my own maps up.... it's mixture of using textures and copying bits from the purchased module. I did start dragging them into the map within roll20. But realised a single map would need over 500 different transparent png art assets. So I instead made it in photoshop so that I could flatten it and then import it back in again.

sorry for the small OT : I would like to evaluate the maps is preview no more available ? I see&nbsp; <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/module/106/" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/module/106/</a> &nbsp;it should be available for PLUS (like me) and PRO but i dont see how I can get it!

Lapo said: sorry for the small OT : I would like to evaluate the maps is preview no more available ? I see&nbsp; <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/module/106/" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/module/106/</a> &nbsp;it should be available for PLUS (like me) and PRO but i dont see how I can get it! Good question Lapo. I'll see if I can get an official answer for you. My suspicion is that it was a promotional item and should likely have been removed once the product was on the Marketplace.