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100% GMing
Treasure Tables is dedicated to game masters, offering GMing advice and ideas since 2005. I'm Martin Ralya, and I've been GMing since 1989 and writing for the RPG industry since 2004.
Tools of the Trade: Laminated Maps
Wed. February 1, 2006
Laminating the maps that you create for your game is a great way to increase their lifespan — and it’s cheap, too!
So when should you consider laminating your maps? There are 4 scenarios in which laminating your maps is a good idea.
For games that benefit from using miniatures/counters (like D&D), I like to use two different mapping options in the same campaign: One for mapping on the fly, the other for mapping in advance.
For mapping during the game, I use Tact-Tiles. They rock. (I reviewed Tact-Tiles here on TT.)
For locations that benefit from being mapped out in advance, I draw them on large sheets of 1″ square graph paper (which comes in big rolls). I usually roll these up after the session, and keep them on hand for future games — and that’s where lamination comes in.
When to Laminate Your Maps
• When you plan to re-use the location more than once or twice: Some campaigns really lend themselves to recurring locations, and they’re a great way to reinforce the campaign’s theme — as well as cut down on prep time.
My last long-running D&D campaign was based in a large city, so there were plenty of opportunities to reuse locations. Laminating these maps (which I actually didn’t do for that game — I should have!) makes it much more likely that they’ll hold up to regular use.
• If the location is likely to come up in another game: If you play the same game again a few months or years down the line, chances are you’ll be able to work in some of the same maps you’ve already drawn.
Substantial maps usually take me an hour or two to draw — even when they seem fairly simple — and that’s work that can be avoided if you can reuse those maps. If they’re laminated, they’ll last longer without showing their age.
• If things on the map are going to change during play, and you might want to use it again: When I’m thinking about an upcoming encounter (most often, a battle), I look at whether or not map elements are likely to change or move around during play. If they are, I usually just use my Tact-Tiles and draw the map on the spot.
But if there are lots of moving parts and the party is likely to return to the same location, I prefer to draw the map on paper and then laminate it. I did this for the party’s airship in my last Eberron campaign, which allowed us to mark off who slept in which cabins and other useful bits of information.
• When your maps need to travel frequently: If you run games at a friend’s house, at cons or in your dorm’s lounge, taking your maps along can lead to them wearing out fairly quickly. This is especially true with the graph paper rolls I use, since the paper is fairly thin. Again, lamination neatly solves this problem.
Tips on Lamination
I laminate my maps at my local Kinko’s, which only costs a few bucks. They have two kinds of lamination available: the stiff kind, and the flexible kind. Larger pieces can only be laminated with the more flexible variety of plastic. Both options work well with grease pencils (sometimes called “China markers”); I’ve never tested them with anything else.
If you want to be able to roll up your laminated maps, make sure you opt for the flexible option. If your map is smaller, though, the stiff laminate will save you from having to weight down the corners during play (which is nice).
Either way, I always take one last step with a freshly laminated map: I round off all of the corners with a pair of scissors. Laminate most often peels at the corners, and if you round them off this is a lot less likely to happen (plus it looks nice).
Do you laminate your maps? Did I miss any tips or tricks that have worked well for you?
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Comments
8 Responses to “Tools of the Trade: Laminated Maps”
Martin,
Where do you buy your 1″ “rolled” [or is that roled? ;)] graph paper? Also at Kinko’s?
Cool post Martin.
I posted on my blog yesterday about a site with PDFs of all sorts of different graph paper that you can use to draw and print. They have different sized square graphs, hexagons, and even more exotic types of graph paper.
They would be perfect candidates for laminating…
DMN: I went in with a friend back in Michigan who knew where to get those rolls, and I can’t recall where it was. The place was pretty flaky, too — it took several weeks for them to arrive the last time we ordered from them.
Back in Three Mapping Options, the TT post where I first brought up rolled graph paper, I linked to a site that sells the rolls: EAI Education. $20 seems reasonable, but I’ve never ordered from them (I still have a nearly-full roll at home). Hope that helps!
Pedro: Good link — thank you.
Thanks Martin,
I’ll check them out.
Hey just throwing a comment out about lamination. My own battlemap is a simple D&D minis skirmish map that I had laminated. Nice cheap alternative for the gamer on a budget. I had the one in the back of the DMG done too.
If you get one of those half rolls of colored duct tape, the roll will fit around the rolled up map and still be able to go into a tube. (I play at another guy’s place) Then just use a small square of the tape to tack each corner down to the table.
The stiff laminate is nice too. (Only available at Staples in letter size…make sure you specofy you want ID card laminate.) I made a whole wack of dungeon tiles once and laminated them this way, then put a couple dots of silicone on the bottom to keep them from sliding on the table. Add a hole and you can put them in a binder.
Staples also carries large easel size pads of 1 inch graph paper for about 14 bucks CDN. (not sure if Staples is in the US or not…but its a big box office supply here in Canada…I do my laminating there too)
This is great for users of the Dundjinni tactical map software.
I plan on cutting the borders off of my laser printed map sections, laminating them with the “stiff” lamination and then gluing them to poster board. This creates a colored battle board. I add printed accessories to this board (like trees, rivers, boulders) to create many different outdoor scenes.
I’ve had a lot of wear on them in their initial incarnation, so lamination will solve that issue.
This method is also great for creating miniatures-scaled colored dungeon geomorphs.
I just write in Sharpie on my Flip-Mat (laminated map that folds instead of rolls) when I want it to last for a long period of time. Then, take it off with a dry-erase marker later.
Of course, I am no artist and I wouldn’t want my work “under” lamination!
Trev: Laminating the skirmish maps for D&D sounds like a good idea. (And yep, there are Staples stores in the U.S. — I’ve never used them for lamination, but I’m not surprised that they do it.)
Mike: I dig the Dundjinni tie-in, and the idea of laminating little terrain elements separately, too.
Jeff: Is your Flip-Mat one of the ones that Steel Sqqire makes? I saw those at last year’s GenCon Indy, and I thought they were pretty nifty.