Review - Byte Me Games MasterPad

Almost since the beginning of the tabletop RPG industry gamers have broken down into two categories; theater of the mind players, and players who use miniatures (or counters or standees).  As much as I enjoy and respect theater of the mind my first choice has always been gaming with miniatures.  Over the years many companies have provided mats, tiles and books to support miniature gaming.  Today I'll be looking at Byte Me Games' MasterPad.

MasterPad comes as a spiral-bound 30 page booklet with full-colour dungeon map sections on one side, and 1" blank graphs on the other side for creating your own maps and tiles sized for traditional gaming miniatures.

My initial impression of MasterPad was instant excitement. I run a lot of games, and consistently do not run them at my own home.  This means more portable gaming accessories are instantly appealing to me.  Once I started delving a bit deeper I found more to be enthusiastic about.  The look of the tiles is nice and clean with serviceable grid markings that don't get in the way or make you overly aware that you are looking at a grid.

One of the things I was actually surprised by was how well the physical quality of the product functioned on the tabletop.  Historically one of the things I have not liked about gaming tile sets is that they are frequently printed on what is intended to be a thick high-quality card-stock.  I say 'intended' because the problem I have frequently experienced is that thicker heavier card-stock tends to warp and curl which makes them almost immediately unusable.  If the tiles curl they no longer link up and function as intended.  MasterPad is printed on heavy paper, but paper none-the-less.  I was initially skeptical of what I perceived as being of lower quality but after heavily using the MasterPad tiles for a couple of weeks the tiles are perfectly flat, and I suspect if they were to warp or distort they could be more easily re-flattened than card.

Overall I think MasterPad is a terrific product and a welcome addition to any DMs toolkit.  Anyone who uses miniatures or has been considering using miniatures but wasn't sure what to use as a gaming surface should definitely get their hands on a MasterPad.

MasterPad is available from Byte Me Games who can be reached either through their website at https://bytemegamez.com or through Twitter at @ByteMe_Games

-Jay