Review: DramaScape – Basic Tavern

Basic Tavern
Basic Tavern is a fantasy-styled battlemap in square and hex grids with cartography by Simon Powell and published by DramaScape.
By Aaron T. Huss

Learn more about Basic Tavern here
Download Basic Tavern here

Basic Tavern is a free offering from the recently create DramaScape. Although it’s free, it doesn’t fall short of detail or visual perfection. In fact, it is quite a stunning battlemap with a great number of details within. The tavern itself is very simple with a door on both short walls, an assortment of tables, a fire place, a kitchen, and a wooden floor area. To coincide with the beauty of the battlemap is a front cover illustration depicting the battlemap as you would see it from the main door.

OVERALL

For a free product, this is an amazingly detailed battlemap. Combine that with the front-door perspective on the cover and you end up with an exquisite look at everything within the tavern.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 8 out of 10
The battlemap is laid-out very well consider grid placement and location within each page. It comes in two formats with a square grid and a hex grid. However, it does not include a greyscale version to save you on ink. In addition there is an overview showing the taven as it is designed and a very valuable mapping of the different pages showing their location in relation to the battlemap as a whole.

Visual Appeal: 10 out of 10
Basic Tavern is a visually stunning battlemap for something so simple. Besides the extremely detailed floor, each table is given a variety of items to make the scene more realistic such as plates, food, and knives. However, one of the most appealing items on this battlemap is the textures of the stone floor and wood use throughout. It is extremely detailed and quite a sight. Battlemaps often lack this amount of detail on a simple texture.

Desire to Use: 10 out of 10
Many adventures start in a tavern. Why not make that tavern the best looking one you can find? Any GM would be proud to put this on their gaming table and show their players exactly what the tavern looks like, eliminating the need for all those detail questions… just look at the map and you’ll have an answer!

Overall: 9 out of 10
When you pick-up a free battlemap such as this, you really get a semblance of what DramaScape is capable of creating. Its simplicity should not be overlooked as many fantasy and historical games involve taverns at some point in time. And if they do, why wouldn’t you want the best looking map you can find? This Basic Tavern is truly a work of art!