I use MS Paint (or used to, anyway... I use the bitmapping tools of GIMP now), but I'm sure there's better ideas. I usually type up a list of items or important things that the numbers signify (and some numbers are meaningless), but for example, here is an outside map I did:

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/2140/outsidefi4.jpg

Now, here is an inside map I did:

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8564/insidekk4.jpg

What are your thoughts on them? I use them for both my own personal reference, and if on a rare chance the runners manage to get a "rough satellite photo" of the area or a building blueprint; and I can add important information as needed.

I have a folder full of these guys at home from sessions that I have run before. I got the idea from one of my old GMs, Shadowrunner13 (who may or may not frequent this site), back in around 2002. So I thank him dearly for his input.

EDIT:

Yeah, those little red things are doorways, by the way. Some of them have doors in them, some of them don't. But I usually make a note of that on my newer maps (those are about 5 years old) by putting bars through it if it is an open doorway or has no door.

Strong recommendation - try Inkscape. It's what I used to do the maps in the adventures on my site (Cold Blood and Carnival) and things like . As well as being very intuitive and fun to use, it (a) makes it very easy to build up a library of objects you can re-use, (b) makes scaling of maps incredibly easy without loss of quality due to being based on SVG (scalable vector graphics) rather than bitmaps and (c ) produces really high-quality output. Check out my adventures, or this map for an example.

I think your maps are fine and clearly have effort put into them. But apply the same effort to doing them in Inkscape and they'll look a lot nicer I think or take you much less time.

-Khadim.

we are a little bit low-tech in that department . . we use pen and paper for maps and the GM tells us details based on our perception test successes *g*

Oh yes - same here. I don't mean to imply that I do these sorts of maps all the time. I'll often just sketch things out with pen and paper and definitely during a game.

I occasionally like to do up a nice house-plan. Usually I just use the line and square tools in MSpaint, then copy paste them into photoshop, where I make each floor it's own layer, with a white layer inbetween so you can isolate them. I also have a pop-up layer with the names of rooms like "bedroom one" "bathroom" etc.

On the fly I just throw lines down as the characters walk around and make perception tests. Once I did a street scene just with a grey-fill square drag tool on MSpaint.

I actually made a thread about game maps

If you don't have anything in mind for a set-piece scene, just writing in "floorplan" to google images gets some cool, pro looking stuff if your characters do the legwork. I've got some great, huge maps of university campuses and corporate offices saved in a folder that I dip into.

I rarely do maps. If I need to, I do it using Pen and Paper, sometimes xfig. I have the problem with my players that if I don't draw something on a map, they assume it's not there. Might happen if I draw for example the map of a restaurant with all the tables but don't bother with the chairs.

This makes for a bit less free form layout, particularly 'on the fly' layouts. But for the past year I have been going the way of props.

Cardstock Props to be exact.
I use the Modern line but you can obviously mix some Sci Fi or Horror in with it. And there are a crapload of extras under the kitbash section.

I do still use battlemaps + markers for specific unique building.

The stuff I've done for Missions I've worked out of a combination of Visio, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Looking back over what I've done over 2 years it really has grown quite a bit. Plus the more you do, the quicker the workflow becomes. A map like I've done for one of the more recent adventure, with full color and a few effects to make it closer to photo style have been cut down into 3-4 hours of work. A year ago it was taking me over 8 hours to do uncolored maps.

Remember though, Vector graphics are definitely a good way to go.

Yes, I really need to look into the Vector graphics stuff. MS Paint is very antiquated and it takes me a lot of time to do everything via bitmapping, and the image still only looks like a vague blueprint. I like the idea of using Photoshop or GIMP to make a sequence of layers to the building, that is absolutely genius, and I think I should try that out. I know that have pre-made maps kind of ditches some freeform aspects, but I usually only map out the important target for the run. Anything else I let go freeform. I fear if I don't plot out the main target of the night, then I might slip up. And some of my corporate layouts have up to 70 to 110 "numbered" items per floor. And that takes a lot of time and effort to make, and I'd never be able to be near that precise when running on the fly. Especially when only maybe a dozen of them get hit by runners on their way through the building. I definitely will look into using some new programs; thanks for the help!

Caine Hazen - I definitely agree. The maps I used to do in MS Paint took me hours of work between planning and moving and adding things. But now, as I continue to make them more complex, the time is cut down immensely. Easily in half, if not more. It has really sharpened my bitmapping skills.

not to brag on how big of dorks my group is, but we are mini-holics. Scattered throughout our place is a few hundred armed lead & plastic miniatures. We have a few six foot by four foot sharpie friendly grid maps and between the ten gamers involved, we own at least 500 custom miniatures. Now that's what nerd is made of!

I have always been a big fan of maps. Used to spend hours drawing them by hand on graph papers. Now-a-days I don't have that kind of time, so I've found more efficient ways...

Usually I start with an aerial image from Google Maps for the exterior and roof. Warehouse Aerial

Then I use Photoshop to line out the interior, windows, doors, etc. I use a bunch of drag and drop objects from Omnigraffle for the office furniture, or draw things in Photoshop. Warehouse Interior

One advantage to using Photoshop is you can keep everything in separate layers, which allows you to "build" upwards by superimposing one floor over the next. You can also do open catwalks and things like this: Warehouse Catwalk

Heres another example from the same adventure:King Co Medical Examiner's Office

Wow, I really do like these vectored graphics maps and the idea of taking an existing image and expanding upon it. So many cool things. I think that GIMP has a layering tool, too, so I'll have to see what I can do with it. Still, very cool, and gives a much better illustration than MS Paint has done for me in the past. I like the drafting approach to the buildings and attention to detail.

Adobe Illustrator for stock paper-figure map tiles. I print them out using a 1"x1" (1"= 1 meter) grid and tape them together. Or I sketch out the scene on a dry erase battlemap using a big 24" metal ruler and circle/square templates. If I'm making a quick map for myself? Graph paper and a mechanical pencil.

our group uses miniatures and a rather large erasable play-mat for our games, I keep a rough idea of maps in my head and depending on the situation or where they're going i quickly draft a floorplan on the mat. I took a CAD course in high school so I can usually list off most required facilites in most kinds of buildings pretty quickly so the floorplan only ever takes 5-10 minutes at most to draw and my group doesn't mind the play-stop as it gives them time to strategize their entry.

Before I draw the map I get our hacker to roll a test to see if he can obtain the floorplan from the system, he usually can, but when he can't i draw the map as they discover it.

Basically the same here. I might grab a floorplan ahead of time and then draw it on our battlemat, but most is just rough idea in my head, then put it on the battlemat. Mostly though, the players are just wanting to see where their cover is or its a GM shortcut to not have to describe as much.

In my DnD days, I did everything on graph paper and would pass it around to the players...

What do you use for figurines? The old Ral Partha minis?

I've scanned artwork from previous Shadowrun editions (the Laubenstein archetype drawings from SR1 and Sprawl Sites are especially nice), and made little stand-up black and white character pieces using folded heavy stock paper and generic black 1" bases. About three inches tall and an inch wide. I also use the heads from the contacts sections and use those as NPCs representations. Three inches wide and tall with a small tab at the bottom for the base to hold. For vehicles, I've scanned images from the Rigger Black Book, scaled them appropriately, printed them, trimmed them and pasted them to foam core board so that they lay flat on the board. Typical motorcycle is 2" wide by 3" long. Typical car 3"x 4". I even did a tilt rotor transport that was about 15" long but I didn't account for the wing span with the width due to the size. I figured the characters could just duck under the wings.

Wow, some of you guys really do go all out for sessions.

I'd say I spend about 4 hours of planning for about 7-9 hours of game time (usually "a session"). But most of that is done in drawing maps and then listing out events.

pretty much anything that would pertain to the settings

Typically Warhammer40K, HorrorClix, and assorted miniatures. Some of the group has gone so far as to cut up a couple miniatures and glue them together to make their own unit. I want to order some Ral Partha minis, but that won't be until we get a big order together so we're no making multiple orders.

For the most part we just use what work, sometimes stuff doesn't work, but as long as we keep track of what's what then we're ok, afew minis set aside as charactors, a few set aside as reoccuring NPCs, and the rest are determined as needed.

we have about 3 different boxes of minis of all types, so we've got things pretty well set

That's really cool! I thought about doing stuff like that but a) I'm horrible working with plastic or wood (don't ask about my 3D design experiences in art school) and b) I wanted something that matched the artistic look of the SR rule and sourcebooks.

I also forgot to mention that I make gridded scale maps of the generic re-occurring locales used in Sprawl Sites. My girlfriend then laminates them at her school. Laminating them makes it easy to add extra doors or windows with markers or scribble in slippery puddles or whatever.

I love having maps available for my runs, but I can't draw a decent map to save my life. However my best friend has a degree in autocad so he can do up some decent ones. The program he uses is Architectural Desktop 2004. Of course that is a rather expensive program, but with it you can create floorplans of unparalelled accuracy and detail. Not sure how this is relevant, but I just felt the need to say it.

I've used Campaign Cartographer and city Designer from ProFantasy a bit, but I need to do more to get better at it. I've got no CAD background so it's a steep learning curve for me.

I've also found these big flip charts (about 3' x 4') with sheets of 1 inch x 1 inch graph paper at Office Depot that I use to draw out maps on when things get "tactical". I typically will sketch out areas I think battles will take place in on paper ahead of time and just draw it out on the graph paper when we're ready to fight while everybody refills their beer. We use various paper minis for characters and NPCs then.

Methods for Map-making

Good ol' graph paper and a mechanical pencil for "quickies" and small places.

I download floorplans from the internet all the time, as well as exterior ground maps. University sites are a GREAT source of building floorplans. Hospitals, some factories. Pretty much I am always on the look out for cool floorplans. The internet is a wonderful thing. Of course, sometimes I worry about flagging Homeland Security by downloading a few floorplans from a hospital and then googling up weapons or explosives or other dastardly things.

PaintShop Pro 9 for making my own floorplans from the downloaded images. It's also useful for overlaying a light colored grid on the maps for "scale." You can create soem very interesting buildings using a stock floorplan and then using cut and paste to remove portions or add portions to the map. I really prefer Paintshop Pro over any version of Photoshop I have ever used.

In my actual gaming, I often print out an 8 1/2 X 11 page or two of the downloaded floorplans of the target. One with all the info on it for myself and one that is un-notated for the players.


Minitures, Mats and Gameplay Aids

When we play, we use 25mm miniatures for our PC's and major NPC's. I've been painting minis for over twenty years (since highschool) My brother and several other members of my gaming group all enjoy the hobby themselves to varying degrees. One of the things about going to Gencon for the last decade and a half is the obscene amount of money we have blown invested on "lead" as we still call it. We used to even have "painting parties" where several of us would get together and paint together.

I use battle mats, mostly self-created, 36"x24", with a one inch graph. Each inch is 1 meter in scale. We use wet erase (Vis a Vis) markers to draw out necessary floorplans for combat upon these as the game progesses. I have about 6 of these mats. For measuring movement, I use a small flexible tape mesure. It's handy for measuring out "non-straight" movement on a grid surface. I prefer the Vis A Vis over dry erase markers because players havea nasty tendency to lean on the mat and erase parts of hte floorplan. A damp wash cloth and a paper towel allow you to easily correct or erase any of the floorplan as needed.

For "enemies" (say that group of gangers that is harrassing the players right to breathe) we use something that I think is a bit innovative: the wooden letter tiles from Scrabble sets. A cheap Scrabble set, new, is only about 10 bucks. In it are two complete alphabets (if you use the blanks to make your own extra Z and X) I then take markers and color the edges of each alphbet. I have several sets of these and, becasue they are color-coded and differentiated by letter, they are great to use for bar patrons, staff, enemies, etc all on the same mat. And they fit nicely into those one inch squares on the mat.

I make my own battle mats by using cheap white butcher paper (found in any Walmart for 3 bucks a roll) and a T-square and a Vis a Vis marker (it wipes nicely from the T-square when you are done making the lines and dries permanent on paper). Once the big graph is finished, I take it to a local shop and have it laminated. It costs only a couple bucks to make a mat like this, all materials and laminating included.


I do a lot of GM'ing in others homes and my aids are all perfected for easy travel:

- A shipping tube for holding all my mats rolled up

- A nice big backpack to hold:
A.)My core SR books (the BBB and Street Magic mainly, since switching to SR4)
B.)My folders for adventures and PC characters( I keep the sheets for charactrs so they don't get lost; players are welcome to make a "copy" for their own perusal at home.)
Dice
C.)Scrabble tiles
D.)Writing/mapping implements, tape measure
E.) My lunch/snacks

- And (for the last two years) my laptop, holding pdf's of all my SR reference books, "jsut incase" I need them. I LOVE my laptop.


I hope my list of gaming maps, mats and other aids helps you, Vegetaman!


Vlad

Waaaay too much work to build maps like that.

I just sketch things out in a general sense and give a really good description. This is a ROLEPLAYING game, not Warhammer 40K. Give them a rough idea of distances, give good descriptions, and work through it.

Yeah, for fights that only have a few people or are not major events, I tend to run things in a narrative style. But after enough arguments with my players ("Wait a minute, you didn't say there was a stack of boxes there! I thought that guy was farther away, how did he get in melee range so fast?!") I've resorted to drawing out scale maps on my 1x1 graph paper.

Or you know... make maps if thats what you and your group enjoy. Lets not go disparaging the ways that other people like to play the game just because your way might be different.

Another useful tip I've picked up over the years is to print maps on 8.5 X 11 sheets and put them in clear plastic sleeves. Then you can write on them with dry erase markers til your hearts content and keep track of character movements on a turn by turn basis.

I've also recently discovered THIS.