The group has decided that we are going to have a full day session to serve as a season finale of our Ptolus campaign. If I time things properly we can get to this by next weekend (August 2nd). So, the plan is to make this an event. I have shuffled the wife and daughter off for the afternoon and early evening to avoid distractions. I am planning a suppertime BBQ (burgers and hot dogs with potato salad) which will allow for easy cooking/cleanup and then back to gaming quickly. So, the event is prepared now I must prepare the session to make it something worthwhile.
The season finale of our campaign is going to be the end of the Night of Dissolution (NoD) module from Malhavoc Press which we have been running since we ran out of the adventures in the Big Book (BB). The party just crested 9th level so I am looking to make sure that the module is challenging enough but that they can achieve success after some tense moments.
Usually I use my Tact-Tiles for mapping. These are great for large maps but the company is no longer in business so you can’t buy them new. You can try second hand or go the do-it-yourself route. For this session I have decided to do something a little different. For those of you who aren’t my players, read on. Players, please stay out. 
My plan is to built a scale model of the room where the Final Ritual takes place. My players are quite visual and I think this will be a fun thing for them to see. I started construction last night in the wee hours of the morning and at 3:30 had a rough looking scale model. Just for the record, it is not a good idea to do this work in the wee hours of the morning when you have an 18-month old daughter who wants to brighten your day at 7am. 
Today, I will finish some stairways and side flourishes before I spray paint it black to cover up all the tape and other imperfections. I’m going to take pictures of the process and will post them here so you can see how I did it. I am not a crafty guy so the underpinnings look a little rough but black spray paint will cure all.
After painting I will need to redraw the gridlines for combat purposes, install the double dias altar on the second level along with the tanks and tubing. The bleeding hand level needs the big hand that bleeds and a custom miniature job for the big villian.
I am making a checklist of figures I need to represent the bad guys and will be heading out to the gaming stores to see if I can find some that match or are close that I can mod. If anyone has some of the legwork done on minis for this encounter and wants to post the mini # and set, I’d be eternally grateful.
It’s a good thing that I am on my summer holidays because I can see this thing taking up a lot of time to complete! I think that it will be worth it to see the players’ reaction to the big finale scene and I am having fun putting the model together. More to come!
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July 23, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Donny
great post! I SO hear you on the young one angle. Rest assured, eventually they grow old enough to wake up and go watch TV ; )
Visual representation is an often overlooked part of the game. Each player sees the world a little differently, and it’s YOUR job to make sure they are at least in the same chapter. Battlemats can be handy, but there is only so much detail you can free hand without it becoming a tragedy come eraser time.
WoTC tiles are not really very drawable(?) and Paizo’s flip mats are VERY generic. I usually end up with a combination of all three as the night progresses. Kudos to you for going the extra mile for your gamers!
July 23, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Deadshot
Thanks Donny for stopping by!
I agree on the dungeon tiles. I have never seen the draw to using those simply because they look so familiar if you use similar settings. (Didn’t we pass that dead guy before?) I have a couple of the Flip Mats which I like to use for the actual battles saving the Tact-tiles for the overall maps. These are especially great when the overall map is a larger scale and we can blow it up on the flip mat.
My little one likes to roll daddy’s Big D20 and to sit with all the boys but eventually she uses her claw claw attack to take off with the players’ miniatures.
July 25, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Tenach
The GM of the gaming group I’m part of does not map things out for us, but he does word things in such a way that everyone sees things more or less the way he is wanting us to. Well, he does map the general “what you see” during a battle, and our miniatures consist of unused dice. Honestly, I have not seen a need to go any further, unless you were really having a hankering to spice up the look of the visuals. While nice and all, I think it really just comes down to 1) what the GM wants and 2) what the players want.
The GM will usually just take each person’s perspectives, as you know those will come out by their actions, and rolls them together (if feasable and only if it’s the asthetics of the world).
July 28, 2008 at 9:18 am
Deadshot
@Tenach – Welcome to the blog and thanks for commenting! I agree that the need for mapping and miniatures has gotten a bit out of hand as D&D has moved through its various editions. Through my high school and college gaming career we usually had a piece of graph paper and everyone got represented by a letter. We still had an amazing time and figured out what was going on through the GM descriptions. Perhaps its the widespread appeal of video games that gave us such dazzling visuals that made us gradually move to a more 3D layout of mapping.