The Princeton Architectural Press Grids & Guides Notebook For Visual Thinkers link didn't work (for me at least). I think it's because the URL doesn't contain the search terms themselves because of the way the Princeton Architectural Press' website's search facility works. If people want to find the Grids & Guides notebooks (there are a few variations) search for 'Grids & Guides' (using the '&' symbol and not the word 'and').
As soon as I saw these grids and guides I picked three up and they arrived today. Thank you for the recommendation Zak. Any recommendations for felt tip markers? I always seem to end up with dried out useless ones. Thanks
I remain fascinated by this. I've started sketching out ideas for use with the black notebook... and then received the blue and tan ones for birthday gifts.
Also! A while back my mother (who is retired and a crafty busybody) started making tiny, 3 by 4 inch notebooks using random assemblages of note paper and old textbook pages. I've been hoarding them for a while and now I want to sift through them finding a suitable host for my as-yet unfinished Black Metal Frost Giants of the Hate Mountain Demand Toys sandbox module.
July 30, 2020 at 9:48 AM
Anonymous said...
I bought this notebook on your recommendation and love it so far, but my markers are no good for it - they're bleeding right through the page. Do you have a recommended marker and/or coloring-device you use for these notebooks? Thanks!
I had the same problem! However, there's a solution:
If you buy pens makrketed under the name "sign pens" they won't bleed. Pentel makes them in a regular and brush-tipped series in dark green, a wonderful blue, yellow, pink, dark blue, indigo, violet, red, black and orange.
The only colors I then find myself regularly without are brown, caucasian/peach, greys and light green.
For brown and light green I use (smaller) Pigma micron .05s and for grey and peach I find that if you use a light-colored Copic sketch pen and don't push too hard, it won't bleed too much.
March 9, 2021 at 1:55 PM
Anonymous said...
Cool, I found a 12-pack of the Pentel sign pens I'll order today to get started with - I'm not quite the artist as you, but I'm working on ideas and if I find myself needing some more colors, I'll look into the Pigmas & Copics as well.
You guys may have seen the converted cookbook I use for the Cube World atlas...
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This is a much more day-to-day workhorse product.
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So it's sturdy, well-stitched, it's A4 (or A5? whatever: the objectively best RPG book size as decided by LotFP at some point), it was even reviewed in New York Magazine :
In the past I’ve stocked up on whatever cheap-ish notebook hits these requirements:1. Sturdy cover (won’t get dented in purse)2. Opens flat3. Good paper: ink won’t smear / bleed4. Of a comfortable writing size5. Decently attractive These days, I no longer settle. There’s a better option out there. I’ve tasted the fine wine and I can’t go back. Luckily, the wine is priced at a reasonable $16. It is the Princeton Architectural Press Grids & Guides Notebook, and it is not like Other Notebooks.
What really sets it apart is the variety of different grids it provides, which Cube World readers might've seen...
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Each spread has two different grids or guides left and right, eight in total, ideal for drawing a map on one side and putting notes on the other....
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The triangle one is perfect for making hexmaps...
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The circle one is probable the most eccentric but it has its uses...
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The ledger paper on the left has 38 numbered lines, which is perfect if you want to make a standard encounter roll table where there's a 2-in-6 (33.3%) chance of a random encounter. Just do 33 entries and then you've got a few extra lines for things like "Torch goes out", "Thirsty, drink", "Hungry, eat some rations" etc. and the last line is "38.-100 No encounter".
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The one on the right is a logarithmic scale grid, which is nice for diagrams or drawings where you need a sense of perspective...
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...or depth, I used it in this Tracery map under the Lodestone Golem to show the steps down from the upper level to the lower ones:
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The left-hand "plaid" grid here is an architectural grid...
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Which you can use if you like to include the thickness of the walls as part of your map, so like between Green 4 and Green 5 here you have a lil' gap and a guide to the width of a standard doorway:
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The 6-panel grid on the other side is based on a grid for drawing storyboards, I used it to, for example, draw the map on the graph paper side and put in little sketches of the distinctive features on the panel side:
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You probably know what to do with this stuff here--dot grid left, standard graph paper right:
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Interleaved between these they also throw in a few random reference pages, this one is languages: sign language, semaphore, etc:
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I turned the reference page on geometric shapes into the 4-dimensional room map that you might've seen in the Red & Pleasant Miscellany.
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There are a few different versions of this notebook and (I can't decide if this is good or bad) they each have a slightly different set of 8 grids:
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That beige one is the "Grids & Guides Notebook for Ecological Thinkers" which, despite the beigeness and cringey title (you can totally see Elon Musk being at some TED talk and going "I've always been an ecological thinker") has a really useful grid for dungeons: large squares about the minimum size you can write in with a .005 pen and about exactly the minimum size for a plausible dungeon room, with a coordinate grid (A, B, C, 1, 2, 3...) already printed in...
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Which is ideal for drawing an area map freehand (you can just use the coordinates to identify points of interest) or for making idea matrix charts where two pairs of ideas are knocked together to look at all the combinatoric options like these....
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I used this grid for the Tiger King Dungeon...
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Anyway yeah that's the best notebook! Ummm...there's a new module up in the store all about flayers and negazohedrons and brain-eaters...
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So if you want it, get it.
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"The Best Graph Paper Notebook For D&D"
16 Comments -
The Princeton Architectural Press Grids & Guides Notebook For Visual Thinkers link didn't work (for me at least). I think it's because the URL doesn't contain the search terms themselves because of the way the Princeton Architectural Press' website's search facility works. If people want to find the Grids & Guides notebooks (there are a few variations) search for 'Grids & Guides' (using the '&' symbol and not the word 'and').
May 18, 2020 at 1:31 PM
Une carte des fromages de France (ou une carte de France des fromages, c'est pareil), je le savais! C'était donc ça...
May 18, 2020 at 4:01 PM
Oui
May 18, 2020 at 4:04 PM
The LOTFP books are A5.... ;p
May 19, 2020 at 12:04 AM
@terje
maybe?
i dont know which is which anyway
its the same size is the point
May 19, 2020 at 12:07 AM
Love it ! But why have you put blue masking tape(?) on your Micron ?
May 19, 2020 at 11:11 PM
@Peggy
To distinguish the new ones--which are full of ink--from the ones that have been sitting around the apartment for months.
May 20, 2020 at 7:16 AM
How dare you expose my secret fetish purchase, you masher! Now everyone will know, and I shall languish in an under-supplied malaise all of my days...
May 22, 2020 at 10:36 PM
As soon as I saw these grids and guides I picked three up and they arrived today. Thank you for the recommendation Zak. Any recommendations for felt tip markers? I always seem to end up with dried out useless ones. Thanks
May 29, 2020 at 2:03 PM
@Karma Choying
Pentel Sign Pens.
May 29, 2020 at 2:11 PM
Thanks again Zak!
May 29, 2020 at 3:12 PM
I remain fascinated by this. I've started sketching out ideas for use with the black notebook... and then received the blue and tan ones for birthday gifts.
Also! A while back my mother (who is retired and a crafty busybody) started making tiny, 3 by 4 inch notebooks using random assemblages of note paper and old textbook pages. I've been hoarding them for a while and now I want to sift through them finding a suitable host for my as-yet unfinished Black Metal Frost Giants of the Hate Mountain Demand Toys sandbox module.
July 30, 2020 at 9:48 AM
I bought this notebook on your recommendation and love it so far, but my markers are no good for it - they're bleeding right through the page. Do you have a recommended marker and/or coloring-device you use for these notebooks?
Thanks!
March 9, 2021 at 1:48 PM
@Buffwalk
I had the same problem! However, there's a solution:
If you buy pens makrketed under the name "sign pens" they won't bleed. Pentel makes them in a regular and brush-tipped series in dark green, a wonderful blue, yellow, pink, dark blue, indigo, violet, red, black and orange.
The only colors I then find myself regularly without are brown, caucasian/peach, greys and light green.
For brown and light green I use (smaller) Pigma micron .05s and for grey and peach I find that if you use a light-colored Copic sketch pen and don't push too hard, it won't bleed too much.
March 9, 2021 at 1:55 PM
Cool, I found a 12-pack of the Pentel sign pens I'll order today to get started with - I'm not quite the artist as you, but I'm working on ideas and if I find myself needing some more colors, I'll look into the Pigmas & Copics as well.
Thanks!
March 9, 2021 at 2:07 PM
@BuffWalk
Fantastic! Would love to see how it works out!
March 9, 2021 at 2:12 PM