How important are pretty maps?

[The Lost Muse]

How important are pretty maps in an adventure module? Is it more important that they look good, or are easy to use, or are both equally important?

Thanks for your input!

 

[Kaladhan]

I would rather have well designed maps than esthetic maps. What is a well designed map is open to interpretation, but let's say that I don't like linear catacombs. I want the players to have options in the path they take.

 

[Agamon]

Yep, ease of use is much more important than pretty, though a nice looking map isn't a bad thing.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I would say that a good looking map, IS a useful map. A well made map is a pictoral representation of the world from the top down, a crappy looking map, even if it contains somewhat useable information becomes much more useable when the pictoral representation becomes more focused and clear.

I say this as someone that cannot draw, but spends hours and hours trying to optimize the useablitly of my hand drawn maps. I have run the gamut of lines and stick figures to my current mapping project inking over pencil (I love comic illustrators, they are so smart).

But, if lines pointing directions advanced plot or give the players a better idea than a Chinese watercolor poster....hey, go with what workd.

 

[scourger]

I'm really liking the pretty poster maps in Fantastic Locations right now.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I'm really liking the pretty poster maps in Fantastic Locations right now.

I would be interested in those. What makes them good? I've seen the maps in DDM, how do they compare? What is the best way of dealing with not spoiling the dungeon when you lay it out? -Covering sectors up with sheets of paper or rely on the players to not use their meta-game knowledge ingame?

 

[Odhanan]

How important are pretty maps in an adventure module? Is it more important that they look good, or are easy to use, or are both equally important?

Thanks for your input!

I think it's important for maps to trigger the DM's imagination, to be evocative and clear. There's nothing wrong with B&W maps, for instance, and you don't need to put thousands of different textures on the piece to make it great to look at. You do need to convey the right information with a glance though, so clarity and organization are a must by all accounts.

After, that all depends on particular styles and tastes. Personally, I prefer HAND-drawn maps to computer-generated, which I find often soulless (there are exceptions, however, like Skeleton Key Games' works for instance, which I find very appealing despite the "computer graphics feel" they have). Whether B&W or color, monochrome or not, it doesn't really matter to me. If it's evocative and clear, it's all good!

 

[Kristian Serrano]

I tend to prefer maps that are designed to squares rather than simply having a grid layer on it. There's nothing I hate more than trying to recreate the map for combat use and struggling to figure out the placement of items on the grids/hexes.

I also dislike overly simple maps that have detailed descriptions of room contents associated with them. For example, I've seen maps that have basic outlines of a room with a description of everburning torches in sconces and a huge statue in the room and the map shows nothing of the sort. Worse yet is when an adventure module references an NPCs tactics using those room contents.

I also prefer for maps to be downloadable such as those presented in Paizo's Dungeon Magazine Supplements. WotC, for example, doesn't provide high-resolution digital copies of maps found in their supplements and adventure modules. In fact, they used to provide 300dpi maps for all of their Map-A-Week features, but lately they've cut them down to a measly 72dpi, which is relatively useless.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

When it comes to adventures I would rather that the maps bundled with it be black and white or greyscale. Pretty maps for overview of a larger area are great, but it comes down to the bang for your buck, meaning the more of it you can actually use, the better.

 

[Alnag]

Well, for me the good look means the map is easy to read. So I tend to answer both aspects are equally important, but on the other hand I know, that my concept of good map is far from general consensus over this issue.