Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Hamlet [RPG]


If you look close at this double-sided flip-mat, you can see the designer paid enormous attention to detail.  It's quite beautiful as such things go, and one of the best looking ones I've seen.

One side of Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Hamlet is a birds' eye view of seven buildings of various sizes clustered around a central common.  I really like the added elements of the nearby field and the ruined watchtower, but it's really the little details that make it stand out: the well in the center of town (you can even make out the cranks), the stoops outside the front door of each building, the stacks of firewood, etc.  

The other side is a sort of mountain keep overlooking a river.  Buildings are clustered around the keep, and on this side we can see the interiors of each one.  The layout is done quite well, as you can trace the path up the different elevations and I can imagine some really interesting encounters.  This would serve well as a "headquarters" for an adventuring party, as it'd be easy to label the different rooms and buildings.  The building interiors are again quite detailed, with papers on the desks, trapdoors on top of the towers, and a statute in the keep's grand hall.  This side of the mat doesn't really fit what I think of when I think of a "hamlet", however, and might have been better suited to a "fortress" or "castle" flip-mat.

I've only had occasion to pull this flip-mat out once, but I certainly won't hesitate to do it again.  Not everyone notices or cares about the little details, but if you're someone who does, you won't be disappointed.

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