Doing Some Dungeon Mapping

I am mapping additional levels of the Montporte Dungeon, using AutoREALM, and I am doing some experimenting as I go. My goals are to: (1) Speed up the mapping process; (2) Make the maps a little more interesting; (3) Make the maps bigger so that I do not have to flip back and forth so often in Roll20.

I have been creating maps with a grid that is 60 x 60. With 5' squares, that creates a 300' x 300' map. That's the size of the maps used in Michael Curtis' (The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope) Stonehell. He uses 10' squares, but I wanted a scale that would support tactical virtual mini play on Roll20.

My current maps are functional, but each level of Montporte is big and so each 60 x 60 map (at 5' per square) only represents a small area. Players cannot zoom out in Roll20 and see the bigger picture. And for me creating maps of entire levels has involved the tedious tiling of smaller maps into a giant grid in MS Publisher and then saving it as a JPG file. I am sure there are other ways to do it, but I just testing to see what works.

My first attempt at a 180 x 180 maps (900' x 900') yielded this map (I am only showing a small portion so as to not give the Montporte players too much info):

Meh. It is blurry and the graphics using for the flooring in AutoREALM did not scale properly when I saved the map as a JPG. The rectangular rooms on the right are 30' x 60' rooms with brick floors. Those bricks are mighty big.

I messed around with the size and shape of the JPG file, which can be modified in AutoREALM when saving the file and I ended up with a much better looking map:

Much better. This will work, although I still need to test it Roll20 [Later edit: It works fine in Roll20].

My next questions are:

• Leave the grid out of the map and use the grid in Roll20 as needed?
• Set up these levels with the dynamic lighting feature in Roll20? I can always give the players updated maps (in the journal section of Roll20) of what their characters have mapped so far. I am not sure how much work this would be on my end or if it would make a really big megadungeon unplayable for the players. Thoughts anyone?

Megadungeon Hall of Fame: The One-Page Dungeon

The One-Page Dungeon idea captured my heart back in 2008-2009 and its influence can be seen in Michael Curtis' (The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope) Stonehell dungeon (which is actually a composite of two-page dungeons). The One-Page Dungeon approach is a great way to design a dungeon and I have used it quite a bit myself. The One-Page Dungeon template (by Michael at ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog) is a great way to get a playable dungeon area created, as it enforces the discipline of not creating too much extraneous material that either becomes a time suck (if you are a perfectionist) or simply won't be used in play.

You can see the key posts by Dave (Sham's Grog & Blog) here and here. Michael (ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog) had an important post in between Dave's two posts, which you can find here. Michael Curtis (The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope) wraps up this class of Hall of Fame inductees with his post on the same topic here.