The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => RPGs => : sarendt March 01, 2010, 10:52:53 PM
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So I found some old maps I drew and Ross suggested that the board might enjoy checking them out. I will post them here in follow on posts... I hope to anyway, assuming I can get it to work :*)
-Scott
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testing...
fail :*( -having problems getting images to link as they are to large to attach...
*Update* - All the maps should now be working with thumbnails and links :*) Yay me :*)
** Modified to include update
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(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2423/uricklandcontinent.th.jpg) (http://img8.imageshack.us/i/uricklandcontinent.jpg/)
starting point:
I started with a map from the real world, bonus points if you can tell me where it really is! I modified it to fit my interest, which strangely enough were a newly colonized continent! I was shooting for more of a hundred years into colonization though, so it was still fairly new world, but they had a lot of the basics and a few cities had quite large populations and large castles as well. What I really wanted was a continent that I could build on, but that would require me to create a 'HUGE' back story and history for, but one that I could fill in as I went. Although the countries were orgionaly colonizes of a larger continent, communication and trade have dropped off and many regular (ie non educated) people now barely remember that they were once a colony.
Some other strange ideas I through it were that humans and gnomes where the only primary races allowed. I had back story for Elves and Dwarves, so a character could play those, but they had to be briefed with their back story. No one choose to play those races so it didn't turn out to be an issue. Also I made Goblins much more friendly and civilized, like cousins to the gnomes, they were steam punk tinkers while the gnomes were clock work tinkers.
The cities labeled at the top might be hard to find unless you zoom in a bit, it was drawn in with a led pencil and didn't stand out in the scan. There are four nations, similar in my mind to some of the colonies in North America in the 1700's. The players start in a small village called Riversend in Urickway (red on the map), the country of Urickway was recently invaded and captured in short order by Urickland, a much larger country ruled by a senate, similar to the roman's. The reason they invaded Urickway was to save its people from what they saw as a iron fisted tyrant. In reality the king of Urikway was mostly just lazy and didn't both to rule much at all, more willing to live life to its fullest rather than be bothered with leading his country. Some of his advisers ruled with an iron fist and thus Urickland believed the king did as well.
Thus the players start the game to find that their country, shinny and new to them of course, in the course of the first game has been free'ed! To many of the local villagers this comes as a shock, as part of freedom comes a lot of taxes, something they weren't use to prior to acquiring their freedom.
So I think that should cover the first map. The other two countries don't play in much in the early game, but they have names and rough agenda's of their own. The Urick Islands nation is primary the high seas men and traders, little worried about the ways of the mainlanders. I never came up with a name for the orange country, but they would be a nation that mostly just wanted to avoid being conquered by Urickland. This was a fairly safe country as Urickland really did see its actions as just (Think US in Iraq... regardless of the out come we or our motives we conquered the country to make it a better place in our eyes...)
**Modified to fix image link to Imageshack
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So I found some old maps I drew
Hey, -Scott, there's no shame in borrowing maps from other web sites, we all do it. But don't claim you drew it if you're not going to be bothered to take off the URL from the site you got it from (http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/samerica/outline/fk.gif).
Also - crayons?
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Sorry, -Scott, only that first image came up for me when I first visited the page. Now I'm seeing the other maps that you actually drew. Apologies.
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@robotkarateman: No worries, I was adding a lot of detailed description to the post as you were replying, hopefully I cleared up what I was doing with that first map. Its primarily colored pencils I believe, but I may have used crayon, sometimes coloring large areas is a pain, and I feel that color adds a lot of detail to a map so I always try to do them in color.
Scott
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protip: use imageshack.us to host images then copy the direct link and paste it in the reply box with the img tags enclosing it.
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This was a map I created for my own use, the players were given a similar map, but with a lot of the details removed or just not there yet as I would add things at the players went along. I have some more detailed maps for the 'abandoned tower', Dragon cliffs, abandoned hill dwarf village.
(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/691/riversend.th.jpg) (http://img35.imageshack.us/i/riversend.jpg/)
Riversend: pronounced River'Send, basically I tried to imagine some locals calling the place rivers end when they moved here and over time it slurred to Riversend. I have another image of some of the details for the town and towns folk, these are the ones who live in the center of town vs. the farmers and their families.
(http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/6421/riversenddetails.th.jpg) (http://img641.imageshack.us/i/riversenddetails.jpg/)
The players were primary humans, I think their was one gnome that I had come in on a trade caravan as a locksmith. Most I introduced as children of farmers. Prior to creating characters I ran a game that bridged another game we were playing with high level characters, low 20's I believe. I had the high level characters do a task for the gods, the gods asked them to 'oversee' some children from another world that needed help solving a problem that was to big for them. Each character was introduced to a child of about 8-10 and more or less became that child for the first game. The story was that their village required the river to survive and for some reason it was starting to run low. A group of teenagers (the same ones the players would eventually be :*) had traveled down the river and had not returned. Rumors of a fort at the base of the mountains caused lots of villagers to fear the worst. The group had to solve the problem and hopefully rescue the others. I had them stealing food and supplies and sneak off through the woods to get to the 'dragon cliffs' (cause there is a loud water fall there)
(http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/6884/dragoncliffs.th.jpg) (http://img192.imageshack.us/i/dragoncliffs.jpg/)
Eventually they encounter the goblins that are using the water to power their own mining operation, (thus the lowering water level) but because goblins in this world are civilized (relatively) they treat the children with respect if they don't attack first (which would have been suicide, they players were quite worried as they had no clue how their lvl 0 kids would solve any of the problems, I was trying to see if they could play with out their weapons and spells to solve every problem) The children broker a deal with the goblins and the village elders, which starts trade between the humans and goblin nations for the first time, making the village more important than it was, which plays into the events of the future when suddenly the village finds it self owing a lot of taxes.
This last map is of the area around the goblin outpost and the inside tunnels where the other adventures were being held captive. The Goblins have a mechanism that uses the water to mine, so its sucking up some of the water in addition to damning the water. The weird colored area at the bottom is suppose to be a elevation map of the tunnels. This never played into the game, it was mostly an experiment, it proved to myself I could do it, though it wasn't easy or obviously useful...
**Modified to change links to ImageShack
**Modified again to add an explanation of the last map
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@clockworkjoe I will try using Imageshack later, i have a good start for the moment, if folks would like to see the rest, there is probably about another dozen or so maps and descriptions, let me know. The players only made it to the next city before the group broke up... I plan on developing the world some more though for future games, so I could have more to add after that as well.
-Scott
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Part of the apeal of posting these was to hear everyones thoughts, I understand its still mostly unfinished but if anyone has comments or suggestions I am open to hearing them :*)
-Scott
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I'm not sure what kind of feedback you're looking for. You posted your images, stated what they are, and left it at that. Please clarify what it is you're looking for.
A few points I can make -
- The maps are confusing. Without your descriptions, posted here, there's very little indication as to what exactly we're looking at. Ok, the upside down V's are clearly mountains, but what about the rest? Only the second map has a legend on it and that only for terrain. There's some kind of structure in the middle that's completely indecipherable without the notes you provided.
- Your maps seem to be haphazard collections of shapes and objects that are only there because you wanted them to be there and offer no concessions to realism. For example, the map of Midriver. Are the buildings really huddled along the beaches like that? Come a good rain the entire town is washed away. Does the town really have only one road? Must be a pain in the ass to get your goods to market. The houses on the opposite side of the river from the buildings numbered in the 60s are completely boned regarding transportation, unless they're all riding around in on the river like some sort of swampy Venice. Think about the logistics of a structure before you place it.
- Freehand lines - ugh. Really, look into a ruler or straight edge if you're going to freehand artwork. Also, consider using different types of lines for roads, trails, etc., to differentiate them.
- Back to legends - it's easier to put an A. next to an item and then include a separate list of names and descriptions than it is to put them on the map. Map 3 is a good example of why. Some of the text reads like description, others like names, still others like designations. Pick a convention and stick to it.
- Building maps are a pain for everyone, but you can get real-world examples from dozens of sources. Also, see the above point, it applies doubly so for indoor maps.
- I am completely baffled by map 6. I get that it's some sort of cave structure, and I think I understand your elevation coloration, but it's difficulty to look at and not intuitive at all.
Of course, these are all criticisms of the maps as a public release. If you published these maps on RPGArchive.com, they'd garner a lot of criticisms such as the ones I've made.
But, if the maps work for you, then there's no problem. If the point is for you as GM to keep track of when and where, then these work perfectly fine ... for you.
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Here's a map from my current campaign - it's the handout version of the map intended for the players to use. Per my points on your maps above, notice that this map leaves out a lot of detail that is filled in verbally. This keeps the map cleaner and easier to read.
(http://www.steveospage.com/pics/amity_handout-thumb.jpg) (http://www.steveospage.com/pics/amity_handout.jpg)
In particular, I've left off all roads (because of scale), included only the major landmarks the characters would know, and included no terrain information. Just the basics of what the map had to include.
Hope this helps give an idea of what I meant.
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@robotkarateman: The feed back that I am looking for is not quit a critisim of the maps themselves, though if I can learn from it I won't complain :*) I guess what I am after is how do these maps look from a player prop point of view if you were using them in your game as a player.
Most of these maps are to serve two purposes, for me and for my players. Most of their look was designed to look like a real map you would get handed in game, I use them as props with the hope that they add to the game feel. It allows me to give the players information with out having to spell it out, who takes the time to look at the map in detail an wonder what this squiggle is? Then they go off and explore it... Also if your telling the players the information than it must be important, but if I give them notes from npc's or maps of the world its up to them to gain the information and come up with their own conclusions as to the meaning.
Some of them are maps that I as the GM was using but are very similar, possibly copies of them. The reason I do this is so that I can add information to the maps as the players explore, maybe they go someplace and have a random incounter with a spider, and their on my map I mark spider territory... in the future when they go there I know what was there.
- I personally dislike straight edges for these types of maps, let alone artwork... but I can see the advantage for the purpose of having your maps online, at which point one might just use computer graphic's, which look great when printed out, just like a computer did it, thats just to much breaking the forth wall for me though... Any of the maps I have seen from the ancient civilizations look horrible to modern standards, especially if you know what the current maps look like, but they fill me with wonder and make me want to go explore those worlds when they didn't know everything.
- The whole map of midriver wasn't described, you hit on the idea of it fairly well though, especially for how 'haphazard' they are :*) It is a swampy venice, that was exactly what I was going for. The homes that don't have access are ment to be a pain to get to, possibly theives dens, and loaners live out that way. Some of the homes are of older constructions with deep foundations of stone, others are built on high pilings or stilts to prevent them from being washed away but still give them access to the rivers and creeks, which is what they use for transportation (ie roads). All that 'brown' that I think you thought was beach is in fact board walk type areas, so you can move through the main part of the city and keep dry.
- Your point about map 3 is a very good point, that map as I descibed was my copy, that I would refrence to as the players are running around, thus I wanted the names of each farm easier at hand then fliping through papers. Not maybe the best solution but for me it worked.
- Most of the indoor maps for me are just short hand, i put them on display only for their background information for the forum. For most of those buildings I just wanted to be able to copy them or describe them to the players in a consistent manor, so it wasn't ment to be an exact or perfect map of the interiors of the buildings.
- Im not sure about your point about getting real world examples, do you mean to use them or to use them as a bases for starting ones own maps? I use some very old maps, or maps from other fantasy worlds at ideas, but wouldn't ever use a modern map, except in a modern game, say like shadowrun.
- Map six is a pain for me as well, I think it was more of a mental exersies on 'could I' make a cave three demensional on paper, I proved to myself that i could, but that it was a pain...
I hope that explains a bit more of what I am looking for and presenting, again if I post more images to the file with out describing them don't expect to understand them, they aren't ment for that.
Robotkarateman, thanks for taking the time to look at them, even if there was some confusion about them.
-Scott
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@robotkarateman - What is the scale on your map?
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I guess what I am after is how do these maps look from a player prop point of view if you were using them in your game as a player.
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I post more images to the file with out describing them don't expect to understand them, they aren't ment for that.
Those two things are mutually exclusive. How can you expect us to judge the maps as props but then state we're not meant to understand them?
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@robotkarateman - What is the scale on your map?
Vague.
The full-rez version prints off at 10.5" wide, and I scaled that for 1" to be 1000 miles. But, for story purposes, that distance kind of flexed. 1" is about 800 miles-ish, depending on how much of a time crunch the players are on.
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I post more images to the file with out describing them don't expect to understand them, they aren't ment for that.
What I mean by this is that as I am currently putting files into picasa and then adding links and descriptions on this forum. Some images, such as 'midriver' have no description on the forum, thus it will be very difficult to understand the map until such time as I can add the description and link it here.
Thus when you go to picasa and flip through the images and complain that things dont make any sense you know why.
Those two things are mutually exclusive. How can you expect us to judge the maps as props but then state we're not meant to understand them?
Sorry, I didn't think it was that poorly worded in the first post.
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Vague.
The full-rez version prints off at 10.5" wide, and I scaled that for 1" to be 1000 miles. But, for story purposes, that distance kind of flexed. 1" is about 800 miles-ish, depending on how much of a time crunch the players are on.
I read this to mean that if the players are in a hurry, due to some type of drama, then things are closer then they might otherwise be?
What level are your playing at? Do the players really know about stuff thousands of miles away?
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I read this to mean that if the players are in a hurry, due to some type of drama, then things are closer then they might otherwise be?
Or farther. Depends on what the story requires and what makes for the best drama.
The only thing I don't change is the distance between places they've been to more than once. My players have access to the raw files for our podcast, which they do listen to, so it's hard for me to hoodwink them.
So far, they've been operating primarily in the Liegeport area, so they've gotten pretty familiar with the lay of the land.
What level are your playing at?
The system we're using doesn't use levels.
Do the players really know about stuff thousands of miles away?
Some. The map they were given was a map they stole from some bandits who got it from a government surveyor they waylaid. The major towns, ports and forts are there (ie the stuff the government cares about), but not much else. They've gleaned other information just from talking to NPCs, and they made one trip to about the center of the coastline.
Where Ross went with America for his new world inspiration, I went Australia, so the theme of our campaign has been indentured servitude of the poor, unloading of criminals, and plunder of natural resources by big companies. A lot of the information about the company-held territories is know only to the companies, especially if it's bad.
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What system are you running? Are your podcasts on RPPR as well?
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Test 3...
(http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/2807/midriverclose.th.jpg) (http://img706.imageshack.us/i/midriverclose.jpg/)
Midriver: So this is the close up view of Midriver, the second city the players came to. This is just down the road from Riversend and I will add a crappy image of the surrounding area that includes Riversend shortly. So this city, as those of you who have read the previous posts know is basically a swamp version of Venice. The major mode of transportation is via small boats. Some homes aren't accessible except via riverboat. The blue is obviously (I hope) water, either the main river on the south (bottom) and the smaller creek's that create the cities roads. The dark brown is a major and paved road built higher then the ground floor of many buildings, with bridges (black areas) over any of the creeks and a large stone bridge over the river. All the brown hatched areas are board walks that run in front of the buildings and have railings. All the rest of the areas on this map would be very difficult terrain, basiclly walking through a few feet of water with mushy mud under it.
Many of the buildings are labeled, if I have the sheet I used to detail which numbers were which buildings I will add that as well. I remember "1" was the major Inn and 2-7 were upper class buildings made of stone and didn't fit the building style of the other buildings at all. 53-60 is the wharf for trade to on/off load cargo and store it.
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Ok, so technically my image showed up, but I have to admit it isn't very convient to look at currently... Any suggestions to making it small until you click on it like robotkarateman post earlier.
Thanks :*)
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What system are you running?
AARG. My own system. I'll be releasing it for free in the next few months.
Are your podcasts on RPPR as well?
No, they're on my site. I considered asking Ross about posting them on the community site, but I'm not sure that'd be appropriate.
Any suggestions to making it small until you click on it like robotkarateman post earlier.
I think Imageshack gives you a thumbnail code that links to the full sized image. I could be wrong, I just hosted mine on my own page.
Let me know if you don't find anything. I have plenty of space on my sites, I could host for you.
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Vague.
The full-rez version prints off at 10.5" wide, and I scaled that for 1" to be 1000 miles. But, for story purposes, that distance kind of flexed. 1" is about 800 miles-ish, depending on how much of a time crunch the players are on.
So your continent is approximately the same diameter as the earth? The diameter of the earth at the equator is 7,926.41 miles, the US is about 3000 miles wide, on your map one continent is approximately 10,000 miles wide by my math, maybe 8,400 miles at the smallest...
How do people travel around here? It would take months of travel by horse and cart to get from one state to the next? Is your whole planet this large or just this continent?
Your maps seem to be haphazard collections of shapes and objects that are only there because you wanted them to be there and offer no concessions to realism. For example, the map of Midriver. Are the buildings really huddled along the beaches like that? Come a good rain the entire town is washed away. Does the town really have only one road? Must be a pain in the ass to get your goods to market. The houses on the opposite side of the river from the buildings numbered in the 60s are completely boned regarding transportation, unless they're all riding around in on the river like some sort of swampy Venice. Think about the logistics of a structure before you place it.
Did you have any concession to realism when you made this map? Unless everyone in your world has acess to magikal ways of traveling, especially your players it should take weeks of travel to get from city to city. A horse can travel 50 miles in a day under the best of conditions, so to travel from Liegeport to Fort victory, as the crow flies is 750 miles and takes a horse two weeks? The average person, say a farmer taking his goods to market would travel a month or more...
Old world ships, such as the ones Columbus sailed averaged less than 4 knots, 8 knots max, or about a hundred miles a day. To travel from one side of the continent to the other would take 3 months, how far away is the old world? How large are the ships that they travel on to keep enough supplies to survive that travel time?
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Did you have any concession to realism when you made this map?
Relax. I somehow doubled the distance when I posted earlier. That's what I get for not including a scale key on the map.
The continent itself is 9.5" on paper, 3800 miles.
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wow, ok, that makes a lot more sense.
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(http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4280/urickway.th.jpg) (http://img687.imageshack.us/i/urickway.jpg/)
This was a very quick sketch I did of the area surrounding Midriver and Riversend. I wanted to give the players an idea of the surrounding area but hadn't made a map at that scale yet. I believe this map is about 60 miles per square. This would have also worked well for a rough layout of that map when I get around to doing it, making sure the scale is correct and putting key features in where they should be. Its amazingly difficult to go, by hand, from a map with scale of 400 miles per square (the first image I posted that I printed from online and colored/added lines to) to something on this scale (or any other scale for that matter) and not screw it up, even with making a rough go at it first. I have in the past just tried to wing it and ended up putting a lot of time into a map that was a waste because key elements of it were wrong.
(http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1706/midriversurrounding.th.jpg) (http://img192.imageshack.us/i/midriversurrounding.jpg/)
Here we have the area surrounding Midriver, Riversend is to the east along the road.
- The break in the road where it intersects the river requires a boat of sometime to move past, a canoe is docked for one or two people to use or to call a ferry from town to move larger carts and wagaons.
- The bridge over the river labeled "Troll Bridge" has a real troll living there, I like to do cliche things like that :*) This troll is a troll mom who has a couple trollings living under the bridge as well. The bridge is over a deep chasam of about 250 feet or so, the troll's cave under the bridge on the east side and has a short path leading to it from that side. There is a sign with the troll's hand written "Trol Brige, Plese Poot Gold Hear!" so some thing similar. Mostly she's just like any other working mom, just trying to get by. She was meant to scare the players a bit and be an encounter that they couldn't beat at their level, 3 I think at the time. They did attack her and managed to knock her off of the bridge, so they 'passed' the encounter with out killing her...
- The black hexagon south of the city is the midriver castle, a under manned home of the slightly richer nobles. Its construction is a mystery and I never went into much detail of it as the players never showed any interest in going there. It is of similar construction to the nicer homes on the far side of the river, which would be made by some ancient people who lived here.
- A small labyrinth lies a short walk off the road North of the Troll bridge, again something that was never explored. I had wanted to put a puzzle type encounter here, something that would be similar to the Pan's labyrinth movie but never made it
- Some various quests area's are labeled on the map, just some basic stuff I had hints about in town but never developed, again the players choose to run off on other errands.
The players only spent about a day or two near Midriver, I had some out of game plot going on at this point and one character had been asked to go find a missing goblin scholar that was studing a 'Dark Manor' in the foot hills to the North. He had been in regular communication with his guild but they hadn't received any word for a few days and wanted the party to seek him out. The 'Dark Manor' was based on the zone 'Mistmoore' from Everquest. I will link those maps soon hopefully.
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So does anyone else have any maps to share? Any thoughts about good point of the maps? Parts that aren't as good? Does anyone have any stories of GM's using game props to good ends?
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(http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/colmstead/Map.jpg)
Something I drew for someone
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Thanks Charlie72 :*)
Could you explain some of it for us? What is the map for? Which game system? Was it used by the players or the GM?
-Scott
* Interesting note: that the goverment doesn't like your image file and I was forced to load the page on my way too cool DROID in order to see it :*)
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So does anyone else have any maps to share? Any thoughts about good point of the maps? Parts that aren't as good? Does anyone have any stories of GM's using game props to good ends?
My favorite map that I created can be found here (http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php?topic=110.0).
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Some guy I know wanted a map for a DnD game. Don't know If he used it. Dots are towns/citys, Circles with dots are ruins.
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My favorite map that I created can be found here.
That is a nice bloody map! Did the map itself work well beyond just being a very cool prop? If you were going to do it again would you make the map or or less detailed?
-Scott
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My favorite map that I created can be found here.
That is a nice bloody map! Did the map itself work well beyond just being a very cool prop? If you were going to do it again would you make the map or or less detailed?
-Scott
The map was a map of the dungeon the players were exploring. I gave them the map so I didn't have to freehand the dungeon as we played. You'll have to ask Ross and Jason how the map worked. The best part of the gaming was Fuzzy Dan riding a dragon-boar down a hallway filled with sleeping gas traps while everyone chanted "sleep with the pig."
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You'll have to ask Ross and Jason how the map worked.
I don't know who this Jason person you speak of is, but I do know the Ross wanders these halls from time to time...
-Scott
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You'll have to ask Ross and Jason how the map worked.
I don't know who this Jason person you speak of is, but I do know the Ross wanders these halls from time to time...
-Scott
I thought you were a player in the Springfield RPPR circle.
-Scott
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nope.
-Scott
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In the unlikely event anyone was patiently waiting for more maps, I have to appologize for taking so long, my home life has been a little hectic lately so I haven't had time to update this more. I do still plan on doing so soon though.
-Scott