I run games in person and I've never been happy with how I show the map to my players. I've done printed tiles, a laptop turned around, a TV on the table, and plenty of pure theater of mind. Each one has a catch: printing takes forever, the TV means my notes are on the same screen the players can see, and hiding rooms is always fiddly.

I recently built a battle map with fog of war that streams to a separate player screen (a second monitor or their phone), so I can move tokens and reveal rooms on my side while the players only see what they've discovered. Building it made me realize how differently everyone solves this, so I'm curious:

How do you show the battle map at your in-person table right now , TV, tablet, printed grid, or theater of mind? And what's the single most annoying part of your setup?

Also, for those who bother with fog of war at a physical table: is it worth the hassle, or overkill?

Genuinely trying to learn how people handle this. Happy to share what I built if anyone's interested (link in a comment so I'm not spamming).

For anyone asking, the tool is Sanctum, a free, offline, open-source D&D 5e campaign manager. The battle map + player screen are the newest part and I'd love feedback on them specifically:
https://athanasioust.itch.io/sanctum

I use a gridded vinyl mat and wet erase markers with scatter and terrain from the 1985 Games sets, or I use full preprinted maps from packs I've gotten from Dungeon In A Box.

I just draw it out on a dry erase grid. If I care enough to bother with fog of war I'll draw it as the party explores but I rarely do.

Thats very cool! Do you ever find hiding the unexplored map a pain, or is revealing it by hand part of the fun? Trynna figure out if its even worth having fog of war effects or not.

Free account for my wife, I use that one for the TV up where everyone can see it. Then they can tell me or move around themselves. you can also do this with just a random free account. just don't add the dummy char to the battle.

I see, but how would u deal with an unexplored dungeon if not by using fog of war? Do you just draw more as the party moves on?

Im sorry, account? What tool are you talking about?

After trying many options, my go-to now is to combo:

* Tablet with a "full" map with fancy colour and art etc with a fog on it that I can erase (it's just a layer in a picture editor)
* A dry-erase gridded map that I can draw on when we need exact dimensions for a battle or other such situation

Best of both worlds, super convenient and low-prep.

That's great, glad there are also other people that consider fog of war as a necessity.

Ok for dnd beyond, My method. I have a paid account for me and a free one for the wife, I sign into hers with a different browser run as another user. then move that one up to the tv. She still can sign in on her tablet. and that way nothing is spoiled, and i keep the dm stuff on the screen in front of me. (tv is connected to laptop dock via wireless hdmi. )

I see.That's honestly the exact thing I was trying to kill: Sanctum has a dedicated player view you open on the second screen/TV (or the players' phones over local wifi) with fog of war built in, so there's no second account or full VTT needed to get that split. Out of curiosity, when your players move their own tokens on the shared screen, does that work smoothly or does it get chaotic? Trying to decide how much control to hand players in mine.

I do printed maps and use cotton balls as fog of war. It adds some really cool aspects to the game and really make it feel like a live dungeon crawl.

Now that's creative

For spontaneous or small/contained encounters, I'll have a few notes about the environment and use that to scribble out an adhoc map on the dry-erase board.

For preplanned encounters and boss fights, I buy a cheap white sheet of cardstock from the dollar store and spend the night before the session cackling madly as I draw out topography, water bodies and such.