I'm always looking for battle maps for my RPG sessions. I feel like I end up using dry erase markers on a blank grid most of the time, but when possible I do love a good photo-realistic map. It's a futile effort, of course, because even when I purchase maps specific to a campaign my gaming group ends up in a place off the map, or else the maps I need aren't even included in the box (I'm still bitter about that.) The point is, flat maps are easy to carry around to games, so when there's nothing else to buy at a game store that I want to support, I buy a map. That's how I came across Paizo's GameMastery Map Packs. This is my review of the product concept.
The short review is that I'm a fan of GameMaster Map Packs and have purchased 15 of them.
What is a GameMastery Map Pack?
A GameMastery Map Pack is a stack of 5x8 inch cards with a portion of a photo-realistic map on it. Few RPG combats fit into 5x8 inches, so you're meant to assemble a larger map out of several cards. Depending on the pack, the cards might fit together to form several different locations, or they may all fit together to form one really big battlefield. For example, the Lost Island map pack forms a great big contiguous setting:
But the Ambush Sites pack forms 5 different sites:
That's the concept, and it's a pretty handy idea. In practise, some aspects work better than others.
Good: Card stock
The maps being made of sturdy card stock is a great feature. I've got a lot of paper maps, and every time I unfold one to lay out on the table, or fold it to return it to the shelf, I wonder how many more folds it's got left in it. One of these days, that paper map is going to fall apart. Card stock is practically forever, or at least it feels like it would be, by comparison.
Good: Glossy finish
Map packs have a glossy finish, so you can draw on them with dry-erase markers. That's appealing, even though I've yet to actually take advantage of it.
Good: Sized for fog of war
You know what the problem is with great big maps that reveal everything all at once?
They reveal everything, all at once.
In many dungeon crawl or skirmish combat situations, it makes sense that visibility is limited. Maybe there's a wall in the way, or a whole forest of trees, or maybe it's just dark (and you're not playing 5e where everyone has dark vision). Whatever the cause, there's reason to believe that characters on the tabletop wouldn't be able to see everything around them.\ We've all used the trick of covering up parts of the map with blank paper. With GameMastery Map Packs, you do the opposite. You don't cover part of the battlefield, you just don't put that part of the battlefield on the table until somebody moves into that space.
Bad: Fog of war, again
Unfortunately, when you don't need fog of war, you do start to question why you're bothering to assemble a puzzle of little map pieces when a big fold-up map would be quicker.
It's a trade-off, and the annoyance factor highly depends on the location and maybe how you play. If you don't bother with fog of war, or the setting is a big open field with no reason to be obscured, then your map coming in pieces is more annoying than useful. If the setting demands fog of war, then being able to put parts of a map down is a really convenient game master trick.
Also, not all maps are split elegantly. It's not a big deal, but some tiles look like an arbitrary cross-section out of a larger map (which is, to be fair, what they are).
Bad: Portable for reduced portability
At first, I loved the size of the map pieces. At 5x8 inches, there's no excuse not to have a spare pack on you at all times, for those notorious gaming emergencies we all like to think will definitely happen some day. But after you buy 15 map packs, you realise that packs of 18 rectangles of 5x8 card stock, stacked on top of each other, quickly get pretty tall. The convenience of having lots of varying maps in a "small" form factor is nullified once they're essentially a brick you have to carry around with you from game to game.
Bad: Hope you like puzzles with no jigsaw
I'm not a jigsaw puzzle person. The map pieces in a Map Pack aren't labeled or numbered in any way. It's up to you to figure out how to piece them together. Once you've figured it out, there's no system to lock them together, so they inevitably start to wiggle around on the table until you've got tectonic gaps after every in-game 25 and 40 feet. Those are the times I wish for a big paper map.
Dungeon crawling made manifest
Some of my favourite games are Mansions of Madness and Dungeoneer. In those games, you start with a single tile or two on the table. As players explore and look around, you place new tiles to reveal new locations, new mysteries, and new threats. It's a pattern I have a lot of positive association with, and that's actually how I mostly use GameMastery Map Packs.
It's not necessarily a method of play that works for every gaming style, but for skirmish wargames or dungeon crawls that I'm making up as I go, it's the perfect way to pace narrative and combat. When characters can only see 25 or 40 feet in front of them, there's an implicit freedom for them to focus on things that are close at hand. And that's explicit freedom for me to only have to invent stuff that's close at hand. As the player characters progress or do perception checks or light torches, or whatever the protocol, I place a new map tile down and mentally queue up a bunch of new possible encounters or traps or loot or whatever.
In fact, this is a very fun method of solo roleplay. I grab a hero miniature and a handful of monsters, and then start exploring a map. Roll for encounters when I cross from one tile to the next, and it's almost like turning the page of a game book.
A novel resource
I'd bought GameMaster Map Packs specifically for use with my gaming group, but I rarely bring them out for my group games. However, I use them all the time for personal "procedural" dungeon crawls. Without them, I don't think I'd play solo miniature-based dungeon crawls half as often as I do. They've unlocked a whole new gaming system for me, so I'm happy with them. Broadly, I don't believe that GameMaster Map Packs are essential tools to have in your tabletop games kit, but they can be a fun and novel tool to have on hand.