The outstanding characteristics of magnesium alloys make them promising materials for biomedical or lightweight construction applications, especially in combination with the advantages of laser-based powder bed fusion. While most research in this field focusses porosity and microstructural properties, the surface quality is left out. Because the surface is an important factor for corrosion and notch effects, this work addresses the adjustment of the surface roughness from parts made out of a WE43 alloy. Using design of experiments contour scan trials are carried out for vertical and down skin surfaces. As a result, the roughness of vertical surfaces is reduced from approximately 27.1 μm (Ra) and 172.2 μm (Rz) without contour scans to 13.4 μm and 109.8 μm with contour scans. The applicability of the contour parameters is approved by cross sections to investigate the porosity of the contour volume interface.