Sneak Peek At Ghosts of Saltmarsh Maps

Satyrn · Apr 14, 2019

Parmandur said:
Mike Schley, cartography troll?

Does this mean his maps are especially vulnerable to fire?

Remathilis · Apr 14, 2019

oreofox said:
Personally, if I had my way, there would be no writing at all on any of the maps for D&D. At least, the player versions. No numbers, no names, no compass rose. Nothing. That way would be easiest to use a map. What if I want my Saltmarsh to be on a northern coast? I'd have to either rotate it 180 degrees, or flip it horizontally. Both making for bad aesthetic thanks to the writing. Maybe I like the look of the town, and would like to use it for a coastal town in a homebrew setting, but I don't have a "Saltmarsh" or a "Kingfisher River". Having a wordless map would be the best solution.

YMMV and all, but that is the worst possible use of a map I can think of. Maps are there to provide names, scale, orientation, and (in the case of D&D maps) locations to key encounters. A textless map doesn't do any of that.

Imagine you are reading the text of an encounter in Saltmarsh and it tells you "Old Durig can be found hiding at the Dancing Dryad (Area 47)". You want to know a few things first about this locale. Where is it? How far is it from the Wicker Goat (where the PCs are now)? What street is it on? Is it near the water or deeper inland? What direction does the PCs need to go to get there? That's all stuff the text on a map tells you easily. Without it, you'd be forced to make all that stuff up yourself (its 1.5 miles across town at the edge of the pier to the east) and the point of including said map is wasted; you could put any pretty picture there and it would have as much info.

Remathilis · Apr 14, 2019

Here, for all of you upset that the map is wrong/labelled whatever, a clean version with no names, numbers or markings of any type.

Guest 6801328 · Apr 14, 2019

Satyrn said:
Does this mean his maps are especially vulnerable to fire?

If you want to be a filthy metagamer, sure.

oreofox · Apr 14, 2019

Remathilis said:
YMMV and all, but that is the worst possible use of a map I can think of. Maps are there to provide names, scale, orientation, and (in the case of D&D maps) locations to key encounters. A textless map doesn't do any of that. Imagine you are reading the text of an encounter in Saltmarsh and it tells you "Old Durig can be found hiding at the Dancing Dryad (Area 47)". You want to know a few things first about this locale. Where is it? How far is it from the Wicker Goat (where the PCs are now)? What street is it on? Is it near the water or deeper inland? What direction does the PCs need to go to get there? That's all stuff the text on a map tells you easily. Without it, you'd be forced to make all that stuff up yourself (its 1.5 miles across town at the edge of the pier to the east) and the point of including said map is wasted; you could put any pretty picture there and it would have as much info.

I should have been a bit clearer about the textless map. My bad and I apologize. In an adventure book, maps with the numbers and names and all that other stuff is more than fine. And that should definitely be included. My reasoning behind wanting a textless map is there being that option available. Not everyone plays in a published world, and not every homebrew world might have room for a "Saltmarsh" or such. Maybe I like the look of a particular map (say, Phandalin), but the name of the town doesn't fit in the world, or maybe I find the name doesn't agree with me. In this example, there are many fan-made Phandalin maps with no text, but that's not always an option. So having the availability of a textless map would be great.

ddaley · Apr 14, 2019

I love maps of any orientation... especially Mike Schley maps!

Hussar · Apr 15, 2019

The trolling comment was for those who are so ardently defending this. As far as Mr. Schley goes, well, I presume he wasn't given a choice in the matter since he had to follow whatever idiot decided to do that in the DMG 2. Considering he's got dozens of maps on his website, and, oh look, every other map orients north to the top. :wow: :shock: :amazement:

Basically someone made a mistake ten or so years ago when they were adding a map to the DMG2 and no one has since corrected the mistake.

ddaley · Apr 15, 2019

Thankfully, there is a way to unsubscribe from a thread!

Azzy · Apr 15, 2019

*headdesk*

MonsterEnvy · Apr 15, 2019

Man what a pointless complaint. I have see maps that have directions other than North facing up. And it has never bothered me, or provided any inconvenience.

Like I don't even get why people even want to rotate the map so that north faces up, that will just make the map uglier and provides no benefit other then making the map fit the normal standard which is not needed to read a map.

oreofox said:
If you use this map, you will have to call it the Kingfisher River, edit out the name, and possibly making the map even worse, or tell your players to ignore the name. But that still leaves the lettering being messed up. A 4th option is to just ignore this map and use one of your own, which could possibly produce problems on its own. Would it have been so hard to make the map oriented with North at the top, and then when adding it to the book, rotate it counter-clockwise to give it the "portrait" layout?

Or you could just leave it as is. North does not need to be up.

Sneak Peek At Ghosts of Saltmarsh Maps

Satyrn

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Remathilis

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Remathilis

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Guest 6801328

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oreofox

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ddaley

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Hussar

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ddaley

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