D&D 5E Starter Set: Phandalin Map

Wangalade · Jun 21, 2014

AMFitzTheRuke said:
It's purpose is to show us what the place looks like. Isn't it obvious?

it is not what the village actually looks like, it is an artist's rendering, else why are there colorful rooftops, why is it so easy to differentiate the road and non road, why is the grass so green/of a uniform color? if you want something that looks like the village from the perspective of the pcs, do a profile view with a perspective from one of the streets looking into the village. even granting that it lets the players know what it looks like, my point still stands that it is just a pretty picture.

MarkB said:
I'd say its primary purpose is to give the adventure a sense of place by providing the players with a good visual representation of the village their PCs are interacting with. That's a different use than a navigational tool, but it's more than mere aesthetics - it's an aid to immersion.

World English Dictionary
aesthetic or esthetic (iːsˈθɛtɪk, ɪs-)

— adj
1. connected with aesthetics or its principles
2. a. relating to pure beauty rather than to other considerations
b. artistic or relating to good taste: an aesthetic consideration

so this gives the players a good visual representation-which is artistic and relating to good taste rather than other considerations which maps are normally made for?
it doesn't let me know the geospatial relation of the village to anything else. it may give a *sense* of place, but it gives no *information* of place. the mine may be to the north and the triboar trail may head to the west.
this image may or may not add to immersion, that depends on who the player is.

Wangalade · Jun 21, 2014

thewok said:
The same way we do it down here in the South.

true, but then how do they get lost? in the real world it is easy to get lost when following directions, whether those include street names or land marks. in an rpg someone gives you directions and then you are there, there is no actually following of those directions usually.

MarkB · Jun 21, 2014

Wangalade said:
World English Dictionary
aesthetic or esthetic (iːsˈθɛtɪk, ɪs-)

— adj
1. connected with aesthetics or its principles
2. a. relating to pure beauty rather than to other considerations
b. artistic or relating to good taste: an aesthetic consideration

Well, thanks for proving my point, since the use I suggested for it related neither to pure beauty nor artistic taste.

it doesn't let me know the geospatial relation of the village to anything else. it may give a *sense* of place, but it gives no *information* of place. the mine may be to the north and the triboar trail may head to the west.

And now I literally have no idea what you're on about. Show me any real-world map of any town or city that provides the location for some other place dozens or hundreds of miles away from that town or city.

Why on Earth would you expect this map to do any such thing?

We already know that a larger regional map will accompany this one to show the wider area, because that map was previewed before this one. What this map does is provide a handy little "you are here" view of the layout of the village itself. That allows for greater immersion, because when the DM or the players describe going to a specific location within the village, they know how it relates to the rest of the village, and what other locations they might pass along the way.

Wangalade · Jun 21, 2014

MarkB said:
Well, thanks for proving my point, since the use I suggested for it related neither to pure beauty nor artistic taste.

its primary purpose is to give the adventure a sense of place by providing the players with a good visual representation of the village

How is a visual representation not artistic?

And now I literally have no idea what you're on about.

I was talking about the map providing a "sense of place"

If I am in a city, say San Francisco, and I want a "sense" of the place, meaning where it is and where I am, I don't look at a street map, because that is clearly a navigational map and doesn't provide any sense of place. I would look at a local map to see where San Francisco is and what other communities are nearby, etc. I would see the city is on the tip of a peninsula at the edge of a bay, and see there are several other large communities surrounding the bay. Looking at a street map(or city map, since any city map of SF will be a street map) informs me of how to get from A to B, and not any idea about the place.

MarkB · Jun 21, 2014

Wangalade said:
If I am in a city, say San Francisco, and I want a "sense" of the place, meaning where it is and where I am, I don't look at a street map, because that is clearly a navigational map and doesn't provide any sense of place. I would look at a local map to see where San Francisco is and what other communities are nearby, etc. I would see the city is on the tip of a peninsula at the edge of a bay, and see there are several other large communities surrounding the bay. Looking at a street map(or city map, since any city map of SF will be a street map) informs me of how to get from A to B, and not any idea about the place.

So, looking at a map which shows San Francisco as a dot tells you more about what kind of place it is than looking at a map which shows it as a city? Yeah, I don't think either of us are going to be bridging this conceptual gap.

Wangalade · Jun 21, 2014

MarkB said:
So, looking at a map which shows San Francisco as a dot tells you more about what kind of place it is than looking at a map which shows it as a city? Yeah, I don't think either of us are going to be bridging this conceptual gap.

Which map gives more of a sense of the place of san francisco among the world and which is only useful for navigation?

All maps have a purpose, the first map allow a user to navigate the SF railway system, and the second map shows the geographical relationship of cities and landmarks to each other and the highway system.

The map of phandalin fulfills neither navigational purposes, nor information about its place among the world. as you mentioned earlier there is a smaller scale regional map which does provide a sense of place for phandalin, but it is a rather large area and contains neither the mine nor the destination of the triboar trail. to really provide a sense of place for the adventure there would be a middle scale local map showing the mine, phandalin, and any other nearby locations.

Thaumaturge · Jun 21, 2014

I suspect the problem is "sense of place" is being used differently by different people.

Thaumaturge.

MarkB · Jun 21, 2014

Wangalade said:
Which map gives more of a sense of the place of san francisco among the world and which is only useful for navigation?

The second map shows me something of where the city is. The first one gives me some sense of what kind of city it is. Both are useful for more than just navigation.
[MENTION=1927]Thaumaturge[/MENTION] is right, I think, in that you're using a different definition of "sense of place" than I am.

Wangalade · Jun 21, 2014

MarkB said:
[MENTION=1927]Thaumaturge[/MENTION] is right, I think, in that you're using a different definition of "sense of place" than I am.

ok, this does seem to be true, but after looking up what sense of place signifies on several sites, I don't see any map contributing to sense of place. Sense of place seems more to result from a person's specific knowledge of history, geography, legends, combined with the feelings about each aspect of the place. one acquires a sense of place from experience and living in/near that place.

with that in mind I don't think a map contributes to a role player's sense of place, it seems to fall more on the details of the interaction with the place in game.

It would be great to hear an example of how someone would use this map in play that could not just be duplicated by a list of places and a short description.
I don't see it serving any purpose as a map(looking at it from a cartographic perspective).

MarkB · Jun 21, 2014

Wangalade said:
ok, this does seem to be true, but after looking up what sense of place signifies on several sites, I don't see any map contributing to sense of place. Sense of place seems more to result from a person's specific knowledge of history, geography, legends, combined with the feelings about each aspect of the place. one acquires a sense of place from experience and living in/near that place.

Okay, what I mean by "sense of place" is "some idea of what the place is actually like".

I get that from this map.