Mapping - how do you do it? (fixed version)

[Gilladian]

Since I use real-world maps for my campaign world, I steal them from the USGS and other sites, either print and redraw the necessary details (lots of white-out or tracing paper gets used).

For dungeon/town/site maps I frequently steal stuff I find online and rekey it for my own use (but I would never POST a map I did that with).

The few maps that I've done myself tend to have a drawn base, scanned or (in one case) photographed and then use CorelPaint to modify. This is the photo map: Vishteer Campaign / Marig

It is a posterboard sheet, originally, then laminated (I wish I'd photographed it first, darn it!). This version is only about 1/4 recolored, but it is generally usable for an overview of the town.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I originally drew something in Paint; then drew a bigger world map. When i lost that file, I copied the exact design into Campaign Cartographer, which was quite a labor of love. I never even tried to do it by hand because I am a hack at that sort of thing. I never use any maps other than the whole world map.

 

[The Shaman]

Okay, I use all of the above as well as historical maps.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

As I am currently running the Shackled City AP, I just use the maps provided with the book. There has been no real need for the players to see what the whole world looks like or anything like that.

For combats and exploration I draw it out on a Flip-Mat with dry-erase markers.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Grymar]

What is the map for?

Is it a handout for the players?
The battlemap?
For my reference only?

A handout to the players will likely have some level of GIMP used on it. Battlemaps and reference maps are going to be hand drawn.

 

[Dykstrav]

Hand-drawn with a pencil and graph paper, almost exclusively.

Why? Well, I actually got my hands on a copy of Campaign Cartographer 2 when it was new and took a shot at it. I was quite willing to use it and satisfied with the results until I realized that I was spending inordinate amounts of time drawing a map that I was going to use for one adventure.

I sat down and considered the purpose of a dungeon/adventure map. Since I'm not publishing my homemade adventures, I came to the conclusion that the maps are technical documents, not artwork--they don't have to be gorgeous as long as they are functional. After all, I'm not going to be able to transfer all of that detail to the battle mat with wet erase markers. That basically put an end to my days of using computers to generate dungeon maps. I think that it's a far better use of my time to work on the adventure and hastily sketch a map with pencils on graph paper.

The only exception I make is for overland maps, settlements and the like. For those sorts of maps (which I will use repeatedly), I do actually consider it worth it to me to take an entire day or so to work on a map and make it look presentable. It's basically a handout for my players and I'm going to use the locale repeatedly, so I feel that the extra time is justified.

Nowadays, I usually use dungeon tiles to represent a dungeon. So instead of sketching out the dungeon complex first, usually I'll actually get the tiles out and play with them on a big table to make the encounter areas, then figure out how they fit together. Sometimes I sketch it onto graph paper. But it's getting to where it's easier for me to just take a few photos and sort of stitch them together, because it's easy for me to have that photo open in actual play (my notes are usually all-laptop these days).

 

[DragonLancer]

My artisitc skills are pants so I gave up on hand drawn maps years ago. I've yet to find a cartographer package that is (a) free or very very cheap, and (b) easy to use. Even CC which I bought when I found a copy cheap in a store bargain bin was just not intuitive enough for my tastes. It's one reason why these days I prefer a published setting where someone else has done the hard work.

 

[jaerdaph]

I've been using Campaign Cartographer software from Profantasy for about 14 years now. I have CC3 and all the add-ons. Sometimes I'll use GIMP or Fireworks to do a little pre and post work in CC3.

 

[grodog]

I generally draw my dungeon level maps in blue ink (via my Parker rollerball pen), then color the fill in with black sharpies. I draw maps on the smaller grid sizes (8 and 10 squares per inch) in pencil, and sometimes other levels too, but in general I prefer working in pen. I scan these "raw" maps, so to speak, and then finish them after the rough outline is mostly final.

I sometimes scan the maps in progress too, but scanning's just for posting and sharing them rather than any post-drawing manipulation (at least so far). I do, however, make photocopies of the not-quite-finished maps, and then use those to finalize the map contents and as I build out the encounters key. The final map shows an original map, as well as one of the more-finished maps as a scanned photocopy with my various notes and jottings on it that evolve into a key after one or two permutations.

The maps!:

and

and

and the notes/jottings version

versus the original