Reddit reviews 4 Pack Gaming Paper Wet/Dry Erase Tiles 1" Grid
We found 7 Reddit comments about 4 Pack Gaming Paper Wet/Dry Erase Tiles 1" Grid. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
We found 7 Reddit comments about 4 Pack Gaming Paper Wet/Dry Erase Tiles 1" Grid. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I'm a pretty new DM too! So far it's been going really well. Here's the things that I think have helped me lead fun games:
Feel free to PM me if you'd like more information about my story/my materials :) I love to talk D&D :D
Uh, yeah, I do it every week in my games.
I take my map and I print it out, full size, on regular 8.5x11 paper. If it's a 2 level dungeon I'll put one on both sides (or 2 separate sheets; I put these in plastic sheet protectors so I can put them in a binder for easy transport.) If it's really large and if our table could really support it I'd use 11x17 sheets, but we have limited space.
Then, I use these:
https://www.amazon.com/Pack-Gaming-Paper-Erase-Tiles/dp/B073V3W83Z
(Apparently they're out of stock on Amazon which is weird but there are many similar products.)
I lay the map down in front of my players. I don't do any fog of war, covering up parts of the dungeon with post it's, or anything like that. I just show them the damn map. About 50% of my maps these days are hand drawn anyway to look like a Dyson Logos map, so dammit the players are gonna see it.
I have never had an issue with metagaming. If your dungeon can be defeated by knowing the layout of the place, it is a shit dungeon.
When there is an encounter, I put the tiles down and roughly sketch the area the players are fighting in. The map should already have a grid so you know what you're working with. I have never had anyone have a problem with this approach. You don't need a hyper detailed background on your battle map--you need a grid and some things to represent the players and monsters.
I encourage you to try doing it like this, if you think for some reason your game NEEDS detailed printed battlemaps. Do it for a session or two. See how much anyone complains about it. Hint: The answer is zero, because they don't care. They're worried about getting their intellect devoured by an intellect devourer. Not about if the background under their mini is plain white with dry erase markers or fully printed terrain.
I like these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073V3W83Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If you need to transport them you can just put them in your bag without needing to carry around a big tube.
I have a "casino grade dice stick", also known as a croupiers rake, which is a 4 foot long L-shaped stick that allows me to push miniatures around from my edge of our gaming table. The far end of the map might 4-5 feet from me (a 7x4 Carolina Game Table), so this helps a lot. Players can also move minis if I ask them, but this works great too.
For initiative, we use 3x3 index cards folded in half, with the PC's name and an arrow on both sides. The arrows both point to the same edge. The DM arranges the cards in descending order of initiative, and sees the tents from one side, while players see them from the other side, but regardless if we're reading Left to Right or Right to Left the arrows eliminate any confusion of who comes next. We then have NPCs 1 & 2 and Boss cards, and make others if we need them.
I print lots of maps (Epson EcoTank printer, so the paper is more expensive than the ink; I use Epson Premium Presentation Matte paper), but when we need to run a map on the fly I use these dry erase tiles https://www.amazon.com/Pack-Gaming-Paper-Erase-Tiles/dp/B073V3W83Z
When playing Savage Worlds we made rings with red and yellow pipe cleaners to designate Shaken and Wounds, but now with Adventure Edition we got the tokens in the Essentials box set and use those.
These gridded dry-erase mini-mats are what you want if you're starting out. Cheap as heck, easy to use, and modular. Get a couple packs and some colorful dry-erase markers and you're set.
I've tried two things that both work fairly well:
It's not paper but I recently started DMing and I decided to buy these dry erase tiles. They're really cheap, easy to transport, and obviously wont get any creases in them. They're also double sided if need be. I would recommend buying 2-3 packs of these though, as one pack wouldn't be enough for any medium sized dungeon or bigger.
So far they've been a lot easier to use than having to deal with large mats rolling up on themselves.