Taking Your Game To The Next Level | Acrylic Tabletop Map

When I started being a Dungeon Master I figured that I needed to get a dry erase grid map so I could draw out encounters and situations very simply so I did.  Now that a majority of my games have gone towards using Roll20.net for our sessions the days of pen, paper, and in-person seem to be a fading art. Or at least so I thought.

My 5th edition campaign meets in person and the DM came up with a great idea that allows you to have your battle grid and to have your battle maps all pre-planned and hidden. He took a sheet of clear acrylic Plexiglass and hand drew a grid onto it creating a thin, clear battle grid that maps could be placed under or can be drawn on with dry erase markers.

A few notes/tips:

• Acrylic glass can be expensive depending on how big you want it, but places like Michaels or Hobby Lobby (other vendors are available) have coupons when you sign up for emails that can make it more affordable.
• We found out the hard way that dry erase markers can remove Sharpie lines from the acrylic so if you're drawing on it be sure to draw on the opposite side that the Sharpie is on.
• Normal battle grids are 1 inch by 1 inch.

While this does seem to be a bit of effort for a battle mat, if you want to create your own hand drawn maps without having to get grid paper this works well.  If you don't want to do this, there are still plenty of battle mats that you can buy for about the same cost as this project.

What You'll Need for this Project

• 1 clear Acrylic or Plexiglass sheet
• 1-2 Sharpies (or permanent marker of your choice) Fine Tip 
• T-Square, Yard Stick or other long straight-edge
• T-Squares will help ensure that you're drawing lines at right angles to the edge of the sheet.