And now we uncover the Day 24 topic of the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge which is ‘reveal’. I had to think about this one for a moment until I decided that I wanted to talk about revealing the map that the player characters are on.
Being a gamer since the early days of BECMI and AD&D 1st Edition, I have many memories of a map on the table being drawn by the Dungeon Master as our characters moved around on it. As I took on DM roles I realized how much of a challenge this can be. My favorite DM is physically unable to move around the table like he was previously to draw the map. When I was planning to run an OSR one-shot for some 5e players, the map that I had downloaded from the internet was too big (by the number of squares) on the dry-erase mat that I had purchased.
One of the nice things about going to gaming conventions like SaltCON is seeing how some GMs have handled the map situation when it comes to revealing where the characters are at. Some just have portions of the map pre-printed and they get laid down as the characters enter the area. One GM introduced me to the Dry-Erase Hexagon Game Tiles that I picked up after finding it om Amazon. Some will cover the pre-drawn map with paper and then remove it as the characters move along.
While I haven’t seen it in person, I’ve had some GMs tell me about a projector that they had set up above the gaming table that would allow them to digitally display the map on the table for the players to move their figures on. This sounds like a dream situation for me. While I love my house, I don’t have a room big enough to host a regular gaming event.
This also reminded me of why I didn’t like some virtual tabletop systems. The worse one was Fantasy Grounds where the map was so graphic heavy that even the GM with a high-powered gaming computer was experiencing massive lag and slowness.
I’m willing to try out new ideas and take suggestions. Have you had any luck with other options to reveal the playing map while around the table? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.