How do you create setting maps if you can't draw?

[CruelSummerLord]

In the past, I've tried to detail the world of Greyhawk beyond the Flanaess, but I ended up scrapping what I had written because, without a map to give it some substance, it all just seemed hollow, contrived and cliched. I have some images in my head of what the various parts of the world would look like...but I simply can't draw. My motor skills are so poor that anything I'd draw would just look like something a five year-old would do. Anything I tried to draw would just be embarassing.

How, then, do you create a setting map if you can't draw? Even moving a mouse to make it go the way I want would in a way be pretty hard, if I use a computer program.

 

[Creamsteak]

Well there are a handful of techniques using computer aid that don't actually require refined mouse use. For example, manipulating of existing maps (topography especially) by stretching, skewing, cropping, and color-shifting can give you some results. Another technique would be to use a random method till you get something "close" to what you want. For that, you would want to google something along the lines of "fractal map generator" and work from there.

I find that one of my favorite methods (as someone that can't draw) is to take images of Mars or Mercury as a base level, and then start playing around with it bit by bit.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Use a fantasy world map from the internet, adjusting it if necessary?

 

[Hejdun]

I was in the same sort of boat, but I ended up creating something that is pretty good by my standards. One thing I did that helped enormously was to flat out copy coastlines from the real world. I'd fire up Google Earth, search for coastlines with interesting topography, and then trace that coastline for use in my campaign. I did the same thing with rivers. It may seem subtle, but it's one of those things that if you did it by hand, it'd look too obviously made up. Nature has a ton of little quirks that we don't think of when we're sketching things by hand or winging it on the fly.

For instance, my current campaign world has a peninsula that, if you flipped it, is from England. It has sections of coastline copied from France and the Caspian Sea. I forget what rivers I used, but they were minor ones.

 

[Jorunkun]

I use the worldbuilder in Civilization 4. You can plonk down gorgeous tiles with your mouse, and it has seperate layers for base terrain, elevation and what is on the tile (i.e. forest), so you can have things like forested tundra hills.

A simpler alternative is Hexmapper - just google the term. It's a free tool to create simple hex-based maps.

 

[Silver Moon]

I use real maps and just trace them. Get a big map of a State or Province nowhere near where you are playing, turn it upside-down or sideways, and then trace out an 8.5x11-inch sectiion of the map. Interstates become major roads, State roads become minor roads, local roads become trails. Lakes and Rivers remain the same. For cities, towns and villiages I use what is there but divide by 100 - so a real city with a population of 2,000,000 would be a fantasy city of 20,000. I'll often even give the city the name of the real-world county that it is situated in. Mileage scales could be kept the same or doubled or halved depending upon what is needed.

 

[kensanata]

No map

Or just have dots on a map connected by lines, and every line is a fixed route taking a known number of days. Then just write a paragraph or two about every such road.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I've used a topography map and either raised or lowered coastlines.

 

[S'mon]

"How do you create setting maps if you can't draw?"

You use the arr-kelaan hexmapper. No drawing skills required.

http://home.paonline.com/zaikoski/ak/INDEX.HTM

 

[theskyfullofdust]

Check out this website Cartography Guild for useful tips on maps and the like. There are plenty of maps too, including Greyhawk ones