When I first started 4e, the gridded combat maps were sort of an unfortunate tag-along for me. I didn’t hate them, but I also wasn’t thrilled to have them around. This was back in the times of Keep On The Shadowfell being your #1 source for all things 4e, so the bulk of the game wasn’t in my fingertips. When I saw how everything worked, I still didn’t warm up to maps, but I mentally prepared myself to start playing with them. I also looked for alternatives. Like all the gridless 4e brews out there.
Nowadays though, I find that kinda pointless.
After playing 4e for over a year, I began to really enjoy the battle map. I began to really envision 4e battles, and they ceased being sort of nebulous in my mind. Shifting being 5 foot movements back and forth, enemies maneuvering around each other and through terrain, throwing each other epically long distances, throwing each other to the ground, making 5 x 5 x 5 explosions in concentrated areas. It’s like the animation budget in my head rose enough that I didn’t have to outsource to koreans anymore.
Whenever I find combats where the grid is removed from 4e (I play in some games where this happnes), but I’m supposed to use gridded mechanics anyway, I sort of mentally stumble nowadays. Things become nebulous, slow, weird. I don’t have as much fun, either with the fluff of the combat or the tactics. I’ve gotten so used to maps. I myself don’t try to remove maps anymore.
Having been turned on to Maptools (and I recommend the torrent linked at the bottom of this thread) I’ve been cranking out maps and having so much fun with it. I imagine what sorts of battles could take place on this field. I no longer try to remove it. I’ve accepted the grid. It’s my friend and a welcome member of my games. It’s another element to the combat to make it fun and exciting, and also another element for the story to be fun and exciting. I used to have sort of muted, spreadsheet-esque grids, but now I try to make more colorful maps to really help people immerse themselves more.
I think my warming up to the map started off-line, which is odd because I rarely play off-line. I bought some of Wizard’s Dungeon Tiles with some Ebay coupon things. I put together a few little mini games for my sisters, and we had a lot of fun arranging the tiles. Since then I’d been looking for ways to “arrange the tiles” online for my real games. At first I used the Dungeon Tile Mapper to output maps, but Maptools really does the trick for me now.
For me, the map really helped me enjoy 4e on a whole ‘nother level, instead of taking me “out” of the game. And as a DM, mapping is almost the most fun part of prep for me now!
gridless 4e is damned difficult to figure out. it feels futile to attempt it. I gotta check out maptools sometime, I made this battle map here for online use http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfvkqjnd_286hkj2jng4
but alot of people keep talking about maptools. I’m slow to check out new programs. Always so much to learn.
Kaeos, my links in this post for some reason didn’t show up. I have re-linked them, so you can check out Maptools following them. Pick up a torrent utility and get that objects torrent. Maptools is a LOT easier to figure out when you have external objects and textures to play with. It’s just like putting pieces on a grid or drawing on a whiteboard, real simple.
The torrent is 2 GB, but I urge everyone interested in maptools to get it. It has some real nice stuff.
2G? crap… I’ll check it out though I have to get a good torrent utility first. Time to hit google search.
I recently started playing with an online group, as a pc, not a dm. I’m really enjoying using maptools. Its robust enough for people that want an enormous amount of options, but also simple enough for the casual user. I’m considering running an online sw saga game on it online, rather than fave to face just so I could experience the dm side of it. I agree with your thoughts on the grid as well. I’ve bought dungeon tiles like crazy and find that building encounter areas opens up tons of ideas and possibilities. People shouldn’t disregard them so quickly as useless, they can add to the creative process if you give them a chance.
<_< Do they have any non-video tutorials?
Maybe check their forums. I think they had a tutorials forum.