Alternative "Map" Method

[Von Stalhein]

Just thought I'd share a little technique I've just started using. I was pulling my hair out over a) the lack of modern/sci-fi battlemaps, and b) the general state of battlemaps - don't get me wrong, there's lots of impressive stuff out there, but most of it just doesn't fit my personal artistic sensibilities (I am not a big fan of CG-style, for starters). I had resorted to making "floorplan-esque" maps in Photoshop - a bit like the fantastic Dungeons In Blue line on DriveThruRPG, only for modern/sci-fi purposes - but these still frustrated me, for two reasons.

Firstly, while they didn't rankle me with their style, they were not at all exciting or evocative. They looked, as you might expect, like quasi-schematics.

Secondly - and this applies to maps for fantasy too - it was pretty much essential that the scale be set to 50px = 5 ft., because otherwise the maps were ridiculously huge and each (individually even more bland) tile took up far too much space. But the problem with this was that shrinking tokens down to 50 or 40 px resulted in a huge loss of detail. And I wasn't happy with that at all.

So the solution I have settled on? I'm abandoning maps altogether! But, since my long-running game uses Savage Worlds (now the v4 alpha), making the combat automation work demands using tokens on a map; and I still want to see those nice, large token artworks! So while I'm abandoning maps, I'm replacing them with backgrounds! It ends up looking a little like an old-school JRPG, with the PCs stacked up on the left, and the enemies over on the right. It also works as a more customisable combat tracker! (One less window for the players to have open.) The best part is that I can use any and all of the beautiful background and concept art that is all over the web as the backdrop for a battle.

And it doesn't completely remove the tactical situation either. I tend to put an FG-grid on top of the image (set to 120px so the tokens are at 100px resolution) and when there's a situation where distances or positioning are super-important, I arrange the tokens as necessary. So far it has worked really well and I haven't had any "slowdown" from players getting confused about positioning. In fact, it's stimulated my players' to think more creatively about space (in all three dimensions, and with all the real nuances of it) rather than just treating the map like a Pokemon overworld map.

In any case, thought I'd just share my experience on this. I'm sure this might be less appropriate for dungeons and other "exploratory" areas (I still use separate, non-combat maps when the PCs are trying to find their way through an unknown environment) but if you find yourself sometimes despairing about your maps, it's an alternative that might be worth trying!

[Trenloe]

Sounds like a good alternative approach. Do you have any screenshots of it in action?

[Griogre]

I'd like to see a screen of you next game, with this in action as well.

Also on maps, many GM's use a map grid of 1/2 of their medium sized counters IE, 25 pixels for a 50 pixel tokens. This offers large file size reduction for the maps while usually hold good detail for both the maps and tokens. You might want to give it a try if you haven't already.

[Von Stalhein]

I've attached two example images; they're not from an actual game, I just booted up the game client to give an example. The first image shows one of my "redprint" maps of an interior. The second shows the system I've changed to. (The third is Griogre's system - see below.) It's important to look at the map first. The reason is this: tokens in my experience look just fine if you already know what they look like at high-res, and then see them at a dodgy resolution. Personally, I find the resolution and detail of the tokens on the "redprint" map far too low. They are effectively at 40x40px when you take the grid boundaries into account (tokens by default occupy 80% of the available grid space). It's a 50px grid on the redprint map. The background image used in the second case has a grid set to 120px, giving an unmodified 100px display of the tokens. I find it much nicer. This is even more true on those tokens which have very fine lines, as opposed to being gradient-based art. As the pixel count shrinks, the definition of line shape suffers the most, but this is what I like most in my art. Note that the PC tokens, in each case, suffer the least because they have the most gradient-based art style.

@Griogre: Is my third example image what you mean? Those are tokens at 50px shrunk into a 25px grid. I personally can't abide how that looks; it's just a pixelated jumble at that size. Perhaps other types of tokens would work perfectly well at 25px (and 50px) but I think that by the time you're at 25x25px you're really into the realms of needing Pixel Art if you want something that doesn't melt the retinas. Regarding bandwidth, I'd rather hit the preload button or wait a minute longer than sacrifice image quality. The only speed issues I've ever had are with players who already had flaky connections in general. (For the record: I sit on top of a T3 junction, I don't know the stats, but downloading stuff on Steam usually caps at 30mb/s.)

I should add that, part of the reason I want these tokens large, and the reason I said to look at the images in order, is that the tokens in my games tend act as the portrait for the NPC as well. So I want the image to be clear. It's not that the PCs will have already seen a separate portrait, which now only needs to be vaguely recognisable once shrunk. As a final note, since SWv4 requires dropping dice onto the token in order to auto-calculate combat it is more user-friendly for players if the tokens are larger, and thereby make bigger targets!

[Griogre]

Ah, no. I should have explained it better. After you zoom in to place your tokens - leave the map zoomed mostly. Thus the tokens should be at normal, or close to it size, and the map is the one zoomed in. Depending on the resolution of the map you might find halving the size is too much though it should work fine on the redprint style maps. You would still get real reductions in map files size even if you used a 32 pixel grid with 50 pixel tokens.

Yeah, reducing map size is always for the players since its normally the biggest transfer item from the host.

[Mask_of_winter]

You don't need maps to use targeting in SW v4. You can do it from the tracker by holding down CTRL and dropping the dice on the token.
See my youtube video from FGCon5 where Ikael explains how to do this. Fast forward to the 40mins mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnng_95UmnY&list=UUCD40ar-KYNs0fLDSgfughQ

[Von Stalhein]

You don't need maps to use targeting in SW v4. You can do it from the tracker by holding down CTRL and dropping the dice on the token.

Aha! Holding down CTRL was what I missed! I had only set targets in advance. That's very useful to know, thanks!

I'll still be using the system outlined above, for the most part; for the purpose of disseminating art, etc.

[Ikael]

Aha! Holding down CTRL was what I missed! I had only set targets in advance. That's very useful to know, thanks!

I'll still be using the system outlined above, for the most part; for the purpose of disseminating art, etc.

In the newest version of SW4 (which should arrive into public testing this week) you don't need to do the CTRL targeting either, anyone could just drag and drop attack/trait/damage on CT entry to apply it against the entry. However there is small thing in targeting: CT entries must have been dragged and dropped into map/image. You cannot just start targeting if no tokens exist, but host can cover that by dragging CT entries into empty image (no need to share it). This limitation comes from CoreRPG but personally I would love to see changes where you don't need to use tokens at all to apply targeting.

[Von Stalhein]

Ikael, that sounds fantastic. Huge kudos to you and everyone working on SWv4. It's already so good, I'm sure the final release will be really something! Bearing in mind these updates, and the functionality in other rulesets, the way I'll be running combats looks a bit like this:


For off-the-cuff encounters with no background, or Chases in SW, I'll just use the Combat Tracker.
For most combats, where "general"/"narrative" positioning is what matters, I'll be using the background system described here (which allows abstract positioning).
For combats over larger areas where details of movement and position can have a bigger dramatic impact, I'll still use floorplan-style maps (e.g. a firefight in a large hangar complex).


Once again, I think the most interesting point is that a well-chosen background can stimulate players creative thinking more than a map - e.g. they can leverage vertical space more easily - and makes them think in more detail about the narrative situation.

[kane280484]

I used to run games like that. I added for this purpose additional test, a possibility to "find cover". The more combat-oriented character was and the more cover was available at the fight scene, the easier was the test DC to obtain better cover. Finding cover was, as far as I remember, move action in my book, and there were three types of cover (light/medium/heavy) but details are not important, they're up to be done. I thought it might be good idea to drop here when I red about your approach.

I remember that focusing more on descriptive battle made them more cinematic and worth to remember than running on maps. Everything has pros and cons I guesss.

[Von Stalhein]

Just to say I recently caught an actual shot of gameplay using this method. It's in the Gallery: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22579-Savage-Post-Cyberpunk!&p=191868#post191868