Use of Maps?

Hey Faters,

I have a questions about the maps on the virtual table top. I recently upgraded to a Plus membership, being more of a GM than a player. And some of the stuff associated with the virtual table top is seriously cool; like dynamic lighting and the sound tracks that the GM can play. It really does seem to enhance play.

However, since Fate is a more abstract system, do any of you ever play without the virtual table top? I ask this because some maps are difficult to come by and sometimes don't really enhance play. A perfect example of this is a Western Town Map. I love Westerns and think Fate works wonderful with the genre. But finding maps is nearly  impossible. 

Hello randomvector,

Maps work great with Fate, just remember to avoid the “Advanced Squad Leader” miniature rulez and simply break your Map up into Zones.

/Matt

What are the Advanced Squad Leader rules?

Thank you, Matt! 

Ben said:

What are the Advanced Squad Leader rules?

Advanced Squad Leader *



The antithesis of Fate.

/Matt

* no insult to this fine game expressed or implied

Here's a Map of Zones:



This could be a large warehouse with three zones (two on the heavy crates).

Read up on Zones!

Randy Oest shows how to use Zones in his article "How I Setup a Junkyard Boss Fight in Fate" If you purchase Randy's Thoughts on Fate: A Collection of Essays on the Fate RPG (only $2!) from DrivethruRPG, it contains pictures of the Junkyard cards.

/Matt

Here's a pay-set of Western maps on drivethrurpg.com

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/155041/An-Aver...

Dunno about anyone else, but I'm not spending money on maps (or anything RP related) if I don't actually need it. I'd just hand-draw a crappy map rather than pay money for one.

Thanks Matt & Pierre. 

Adran06 said:

Dunno about anyone else, but I'm not spending money on maps (or anything RP related) if I don't actually need it. I'd just hand-draw a crappy map rather than pay money for one.

I googled “old time map of Deadwood” and got hits on a number of images that would work great for a Western game. Between Pinterest and google, I’ve found many useful images and maps.

There are also many ways to make your own maps, from the crude drawing features on Roll20 to specific map making software, with a variety of painting programs, desktop based or tablet/smartphone based, in between.

The advantages of the Roll20 store is its already loaded and formatted for your screen. That convenience coupled with having something that looks nice (well, better than you can do) is sometimes worth the price.

However you cut it, maps are great ways to represent your game, even Fate games. I ran a Fate “High Road to China” 1920s two-fisted adventure game and used old style maps of countries to do the red line traveling effect from the Indiana Jones movies and it hit the mark. Just have to make sure the map doesn’t become a miniatures war game.

/Matt

I agree Matt. Thanks for the advice. 

Hey Pierre, I appreciate the link. I purchased the maps and the module adventure. The maps are hex style, but we'll just ignore that! :-)

My GM for Umdaar uses Index Card Images that we'll write advantages or aspects on, I've been using them as zones as well..

Hmmmm...

Adran06 said:

Dunno about anyone else, but I'm not spending money on maps (or anything RP related) if I don't actually need it. I'd just hand-draw a crappy map rather than pay money for one.

That is perfectly fine. If you don't feel that having a nice looking detailed map enhances your experience, then there isn't a reason for you to use time or money to get one.

As a side note, when talking about adults in so called developed countries, they generally use most of their money to things they want instead of things they need.

This is not related to maps, but you can get a Wild West soundscape or two.  Tabletop Audio produces 10-minute sound-loops to go with your tabletop RPG, and sound-boards called SoundPads, of which they have one for the Wild West.  You can broadcast your sound-mix to the players, if they can open up one more window in their computer.

https://tabletopaudio.com/

https://tabletopaudio.com/true_west_sp.html

Pierre, this is freaking awesome! Thank you! 

I googled Western Town map and got 2 million results. there has to be stuff there you can use. just save it to your computer and drag it into the game table. 

Thanks Vikshade. 

As a GM, I rarely use Maps in my games. I've gotten more in the habit of using the tabletop to represent (as someone above said) aspects, the exchange of FATE tokens, etc.

For the sake of reference or putting aspects upon it, I usually draw my own maps for my Fate games, though I mostly make overland maps and not close up maps of the scenes the characters are in.