Lately I find myself wishing my campaigns were set someplace a little better defined. For awhile now I've been running a very episodic campaign that started in one town, then relocated to another, and then another. I have no idea where those town are in relation to each other, no idea what other towns might be nearby, no idea what terrain lies between or around them.
And this has sort of worked okay so far, but lately it's also got me feeling like I want more definition from my setting. I want the "sense of place" that comes from knowing where you are and knowing what's around you. I want the opportunities that come from having a sandbox for my players to traverse and explore. I want an overland map.
Let's look at a few examples of overland maps I've seen recently that I've liked.
First, and most recent is the unnamed map Edward Kann posted to the
Forbidden Lair of the OSR MeWe group. He calls it
"wilderness map done in gridcrawl style". I like it. It's simple, hand-drawn, unconventional for being on a grid instead of a hexmap, and something about it captures my imagination. It pleasantly reminds me of the maps from the old
Legend of Zelda games, and other 8-bit overworlds.
 |
| Wilderness Gridmap by Edward Kahn |
Next are a couple maps by Evlyn Moreau of
Le Chaudron Chromatique. Evlyn has a couple maps I want to show off. Her most recent is
a keyed map of a lake and its surrounding environs. I particularly love the way the black-circle numbers break through the edge lines as they lead you on a meandering tour around the lake. It reminds me, for some reason, of Tom Gauld's map of his home.
 |
| Lacustres Map by Evlyn Moreau |
 |
| Map of the Area Surrounding Our Holiday Home by Tom Gauld |
The other map of Evlyn's that I find really inspiring right now is
her Doodle Map. This one is more colorful and more whimsical, with more obvious landmarks. Again, it's a pointcrawl, rather than being tied to a grid or a hexmap. This one feels more like something that might accompany a
Mario game from the 16-bit, SNES era. It's full of skulls and snails and mushroom houses, and other interesting details. I should point out that if you go to the sidebar of Evyln's blog, she's got a link to free PDFs of
Lacustres and
Doodle Map as well as her other books, as well as a link to her Lulu storefront.
 |
| Doodle Map by Evlyn Moreau |
Finally, I like
Aos from Metal Earth's
map of the Bad Canyon region from his forthcoming
B/X Mars book. Compared to the Wilderness Gridmap and the Doodle Map, this is much smaller in scale, much closer to the Lacustres Map in terms of the geography covered. Like Evyln's second map though, Aos has included a number of interesting landmarks to draw the players' attention. The canyon setting is also a neat way to put literal walls around the sandbox setting, rather than making it an island, or requiring informal agreement to stay within the bounds of the map.
 |
| Bad Canyon Map by Aos |
The map by Tom leads to his website where there is another map, intended as wrapping paper, that also looks fabulous. Once upon a time I would've shared the link on G+.
ReplyDeleteWe might as well share it anyway! Tom Gauld, Grant Snider, and Brian Rea (who does all the "Modern Love" cartoons for NYT) are probably three of my favorite cartoonists right now.
Deletehttps://static1.squarespace.com/static/58c43ff4e3df28a158a7fde6/t/5c10e10e032be4e80197ce1b/1544610079518/webwrap.jpg
And thank you for the post. Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention. i changed the fonts on the final release.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your map-in-progress!
DeleteLove that first map! I'm a huge fan of the 2D Zeldas and it definitely brings out that charm. Now I'm thinking about Link's Awakening, as an OSR game.
ReplyDeleteLink does love collecting equipment...
DeleteThat would be great, I think it would fit as an old school RPG in itself; it has a similar power curve and structure.
DeleteI dislike maps. No - I love maps but I dislike drawing them, mainly because I don't think in terms of geography when moving from place to place but in terms of plot. But players always ask how far it is, and what sort of terrain, and I feel I need to draw maps ... these are a great inspiration for alternatives to the hexcrawl maps I've been trying to draw, so thanks!
ReplyDeletePointcrawl maps are definitely easier to draw, and quite possibly easier to use. They're usually not as good looking (unless you're someone like Evlyn or Aos) but they do a good job of presenting the information in a usable format.
Delete