D&D Instant World Builder – Part 1: Maps
This article is part of the Instant World Builder Project.
Instant World Builder #1: Maps
Drawing maps for a new campaign might be my favorite DM activity. It’s what I start with when I design worlds and campaigns. I am usually motivated, inspired and always surprised to see the plot hooks that arise during map-drawing.
Unfortunately I can’t let myself do too much map-drawing otherwise I would never get around to doing anything else. So here are a few thoughts on creating maps:
Write on the map
It saves time to write notes directly on the map. It allows for a better work flow if you don’t have to write on 2 different sheets or documents. For those of you who are artistically inclined it might not be fun because too much writing on the map makes for an ugly final product. But you’ll be the only one looking at the map so a lot of time can be saved by not caring about the looks of the map.
Let the players and their characters work on the map
One of the best worlds I’ve created was almost completely drawn by a player. When the party would explore an unknown area I would draw a very rough copy of my map and let the cartographer of the group draw it. The more skilled he became at cartography – both as a player and a character – the better the map I would draw for the party.
As the players traveled the world the map would expand and lots of details were added – the climate, the type of creatures encountered, odd places they wanted to explore, sites of their great victories, where they got owned by a red dragon, whatever. The end result was a map 10 times richer than the one I originally drew, and it was fairly accurate.
Note: I wrote an article on drawing dungeon maps that could also apply to drawing world maps.
Do you have any nifty map-drawing tricks?
I’d love to hone my skills! Feel free to share your knowledge.
i must thank you for the efforts you’ve put in penning this blog. excellent blog post .
http://www.n8fan.net
I make a map as is with trap doors and the whole nine yards and describe the map to my players. when they have an encounter, I pencil in the walls. i uesd to worry about them going into other rooms, but they dont. tis sad
I have created literaly dozens of world maps with realistic coastline, detailed mountain ranges, and every lake , river, desert…blah, blah, blah, ect… Though none of them found any real place, but then it hit me. Take the 22 (yes i counted) world maps and put them all together into one colossal world. so far i have “DMed” two campains levels 1-30 and am on campain three level 12 with plenty of room for more.
Just a tip for people who have 8 maps and cant decide.
PS. if your wondering, we do play very often because we’re all 15 years old and only two of us accualy have girlfriends. im single -_-
I am starting a new campian with ppl who are new the the game and i am trying to come up with a free form game play for an entire world with 11pp and they r going to play in the same world but in diff places how do i allow evil chars and good chars interact and still have both chars alive to fight in a continued conflict kind of like magneto and prof X