Players mapping Old School

Hello all, Curious if anyone has tried to get players to do any kind of mapping like you would back in the redbox days. If so, are they doing the mapping on roll20, offline, another tool? Let me know what has been for for you.

In my face to face campaign one of my players uses Roll20 to map out where the group has been.

Gauss....what kind of drawing are they doing?

You could use an online "whiteboard" site like <a href="https://awwapp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://awwapp.com/</a> I'm sure there are others.

Greg , they use the drawing tools and a blank page to make a map as they explore.

My players just draw a simple line sketch on paper, it works well enough. I use Dynamic Lighting and LOS enabled, so the player's view of the dungeon is revealed only as they move along and then disappears behind them. It's up to the players to create their own map to record where they've been. Until recently, the underground settings were simple enough that they didn't need a map to get back out. But now they're exploring an old dwarven mine... When it came time to leave for the first time so they could rest and re-equip, they had no clue how to find their way back to the surface because no one had bothered to map. They asked me to just whisk the characters back to the surface but I would not do it. And so, after blundering around in the dark and making many wrong turns, they finally found their way back out. Needless to say, when they went back in the second time one player mapped the way.

Brett, nice story. I was hoping to have the players do this via roll20 or something we could share since we are not face to face. I think I have to give up on the idea, since the area we play uses DL and LOS but the player mapping would have to be on a different map. Here is my current idea: Use a page to have an old style dungeon map (TSR and the like). Using fog of war, reveal the map as they progress. I describe the events and the exploration and move the flag based on where they want to go. After much debating, I am going to just use encounter maps for the fights (encounter maps for rooms and a couple generic hallways, etc.) I also get marching order on this page (tokens off to the side) and who has the light sources. Also, as a plus, I will have tokens with HP counters on them for torches (mins before they are out), water (number of rest left), food (number of rest left).

Late to the discussion, but you could put a section on your map where they can draw, like a sheet of parchment in the upper left corner with it's own illumination.

Greg said: Hello all, Curious if anyone has tried to get players to do any kind of mapping like you would back in the redbox days. If so, are they doing the mapping on roll20, offline, another tool? Let me know what has been for for you. It wouldn't be old school if it didn't involve graph paper: Although I believe he later switched to taking screenshots and pasting them together. Which looks better and is more accurate, but lacks a little je nais se quoi.

Greg: Perhaps you could have 2 separate Roll20 campaigns for your group. One is the "live" campaign, with Dynamic Lighting, LOS, etc. The other campaign is simply blank screens for them to draw out maps or whatever other administrative use you all can think of. Since it is possible to be logged into more than one instance of Roll20 at the same time, it should work.

I wouldn't want to have more than one session of roll20 up even though it is possible. Main reason - server load. I like quick roll20 :) I'd look for a google hangouts solution (there is a collaborative drawing app but I don't like it). There is a google hangout app called Cacoo that allows collaborative drawing. But I've not played with it. Alternately, you could just use roll20 - give a blank page and let them draw a map of where they are going. Then when an encounter occurs, flip to the encounter map. I might try this actually to bring back that "old school" flavor. In my live sessions I still have the players map dungeons on a chessex mat (remember those?).

I still have several Chessex battle mats rolled up and stored in my game closet, along with all my miniature figures. I do miss face-to-face tabletop gaming, but since I cannot do that I am grateful for Roll20.

For my group, Chessex battle maps weren't high enough contrast for my almost completely blind friend. I made this webpage to create a pdf map of sufficient contrast with channels for lines. I made of PDF of a page 36" x 36" and had it printed and lamented at Kinko's. We drew the maps on it in wet erase and battle notes in dry erase. Good times. =D