Sneak Peek At Ghosts of Saltmarsh Maps

Here's a sneak peek at some of the maps to be found in the upcoming D&D Ghosts of Saltmarsh, courtesy of WotC's Twitch stream.

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And Dyson Logos, one of the cartographers for the book, has shared some of his work which will be appearing!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing is, it doesn't matter which way is north. You could just as easily call the compass directions Igle, Skwigle, Diggle and Miggle. All that matters is where things are in relation to the other things on the map.

 

[Hussar]

The thing is, it doesn't matter which way is north. You could just as easily call the compass directions Igle, Skwigle, Diggle and Miggle. All that matters is where things are in relation to the other things on the map.

True for doing orientation. Not so true when running a game. The players are doing a dungeon crawl. You are describing the room. The standard way of doing that is through compass points- there's a door in the west wall, there's a mural on the north wall, etc. Now, with a map that is rotated 90 degrees, you have to remember, every single time you look at that map, unlike the 10000 other maps that you've seen, this one is different. You have to remember that this one, unlike all the other ones, puts north to the left, so, now, all your room descriptions have to take that into account.

It makes using the map a lot more difficult, mostly because the other 99% of the maps you will use in D&D will orient north at the top.

Are we talking about different things here? Because, I'm talking about using maps in D&D during play. That's all I'm talking about.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why not simply rename your compass points Top, Left, Bottom and Right then, if you find it so difficult?

 

[WaterRabbit]

True for doing orientation. Not so true when running a game. The players are doing a dungeon crawl. You are describing the room. The standard way of doing that is through compass points- there's a door in the west wall, there's a mural on the north wall, etc. Now, with a map that is rotated 90 degrees, you have to remember, every single time you look at that map, unlike the 10000 other maps that you've seen, this one is different. You have to remember that this one, unlike all the other ones, puts north to the left, so, now, all your room descriptions have to take that into account.

It makes using the map a lot more difficult, mostly because the other 99% of the maps you will use in D&D will orient north at the top.

Are we talking about different things here? Because, I'm talking about using maps in D&D during play. That's all I'm talking about.

So to summarize your responses it is about pedantry -- yours in particular. "The standard way of doing..." this is pedantic. But not only pedantic, it is not correct. In my 40 years of playing D&D no DM has used compass directions in any sort of standard. Why? Because they aren't that useful in a dungeon. The most common in my personal experience is "To your left you see" "To your right is a" "Across the room or opposite". With VTTs the players generally have zero idea of compass direction because none of them are actually mapping the area.

Maps are generally drawn for practical reasons not artsy ones as you put it. Sometimes it is inconvenient to have the north side of the map on the short edge of the paper. The map maker generally assumes that the reader is smart enough that they can turn the map in whatever orientation the find most useful.

You are so caught up in this convention that it has become a straight-jacket to your thoughts.

 

[Gradine]

Yeah, unless one of my PCs specifically had some kind of direction sense I would never use cardinal directions in describing locations/dungeons. I would always use positional.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

We always mark north on the maps. Easier that way.

 

[MNblockhead]

Have to say I'm with Hussar here. While I enjoy the discussion on the history and philosophy related to cartography, ultimately this is a game. As a DM I appreciate designers who make their adventures easier for me to run. Changing orientations from one map to another, is annoying. A small annoyance but one that is easily addressed. Artistic decisions regarding layout and in-game fluff should not come at the expense of playability. At least not with a mass-consumer game like D&D.

I mean, we can argue about whether color or B&W is more useful for DM (will likely depend if they are using VTTs or not) but is putting North at the top of the map really that controversial?

 

[MNblockhead]

Yeah, unless one of my PCs specifically had some kind of direction sense I would never use cardinal directions in describing locations/dungeons. I would always use positional.

Hmm... I always assume all characters, who are supposedly rugged adventurers, have basic direction sense and describe their surrounding accordingly. Now there may be some more complex underground location or other confusing location that will require special skills or feats or tools to determine direction, but otherwise I find it easier to use cardinal direction instead of assuming all characters enter and stand in an area in the same position.

I find there is much more confusion if I use "left" and "right" than if I use cardinal directions. If I'm specifically addressing a single character, I might use left/right but just as often use clock face.

Then again, half of my players have military experience and some are still outdoorsmen.

Perhaps it depends on the group, but in my experience, most players don't have any issue using cardinal directions, so long as everyone is clear on where "north" is.

 

[Beleriphon]

Apologies. Sorry, missed the numbers.

OTOH, even at 400, you're still talking almost two hours per page. That's a LOT of time to convert. Particularly when you're going from electronic to electronic.

That seems very, very excessive considering that most of the conversion really is just cut and paste. Sure, there's some linking to do, and, yes, Fantasy Ground's UI is a dinosaur and utter garbage, but, still, it shouldn't be taking about 2 hours to input a single page.

Automation creates bugs. Links aren't always right the first time. So first pass through is at most half of the time quoted. Then there's the editing, and testing. That takes a long time to test everything.

 

[Zardnaar]

Might have to by this. Naval themed/island adventures are a weak spot.