New Realms = Old School

[Raven Crowking]

To the OP, ignore the petty jibes--it is a very nice, naturalistic map, and much nicer than Hexographer and other computer generated varieties. WotC could have done well to pay you for it.

+1.

I would be willing to play in a 4e game where the DM took so much care, and was so evidently running a sandbox. Hope it is great fun for you!


RC

 

[Windjammer]

Hope it is great fun for you!

RC

Thanks! The map only started as a rough sketch for me to get onto ch. 1 of the FRCG. I had disliked the 4E realms heavily until recently, and pretty much concurred with Nitessine's brilliant if brutal dissection of the book's first chapter (still makes me laugh). But as I started to sketch the implied sandbox of that frequently reviled chapter on Loudwater, that's when I fell in love with the setting. For the first time I saw the whole point of the book - it's a starting point for the DM, not a definitive or fully developed version of anything. It's the antithesis of a canonical setting - and it says so, right on page 38 (using verbiage coming close to the Grey Box - Book 2, page 6: "Each Forgotten Realms campaign should be different, reflecting the personality and gaming needs of the players and the DM.").

And oh, that first chaper itself - often decried as "generic" and "un-Realmsy" - is absolutely dripping with Realms flavour. Check the book on what lies at the heart of hex L16 on my map (FRCG page 28, entry "Dire Wood"). It's actually the dungeon that Ed Greenwood himself described at great detail in The Temptation of Elminster - and if you read the whole tale surrounding that dungeon you've just found a great way to tie the risen empires to the East into the Loudwater region.

Now I haven't read many FR books at all, but snippets like that (on hex L16) really set me on fire. Now I want to re-create Ed's dungeon for 4E. And so on and so on...


As a final word of caution - my map isn't entirely faithful to the original. For instance, the Vault of Xammux (hex R21) is originally drawn inside a forest. In my version it's on the slopes of a mountain range next to that forest. Whence my cheeky reference to the Spellplague in the OP. I literally shifted some of the landscape to e.g. surprise my players. I also think that the tons of roads in the original ill behove a "Points of Light" type of setting, and so I didn't paint most of them.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Thanks! The map only started as a rough sketch for me to get onto ch. 1 of the FRCG. I had disliked the 4E realms heavily until recently, and pretty much concurred with Nitessine's brilliant if brutal dissection of the book's first chapter (still makes me laugh). But as I started to sketch the implied sandbox of that frequently reviled chapter on Loudwater, that's when I fell in love with the setting. For the first time I saw the whole point of the book - it's a starting point for the DM, not a definitive or fully developed version of anything. It's the antithesis of a canonical setting - and it says so, right on page 38 (using verbiage coming close to the Grey Box - Book 2, page 6: "Each Forgotten Realms campaign should be different, reflecting the personality and gaming needs of the players and the DM.")

If only more people saw it that way. The 4e FRCS is exactly what a modern "fill-in-your-own-numbers" FR set in the spirit of the Grey Box should have been.

Of course, the map still sucks, especially compared to yours, but you can´t have everything, eh?

Agreed. Blowing up a campaign setting to try to please those that hate the setting anyway is just lame.

They changed the setting to please those that wanted to swim in DM-created setting-expansion instead of ever-increasing gobs of predetermined lore. But whatever.

 

[Imaro]

...
They changed the setting to please those that wanted to swim in DM-created setting-expansion instead of ever-increasing gobs of predetermined lore. But whatever.

The problem I see, is that this was the purpose of having both FR and Greyhawk. Contrary to many people's opinions, they were actually accomodating two different demographics... those who wanted deep lore and detail had Forgotten Realms, those who wanted a framework with plenty of room to detail it themslves had Greyhawk... soin a way FR did change to accomodate those who didn't enjoy it in the first place (and IMO, probably should have played in Greyhawk instead of wanting FR to become Greyhawk.). This is all IMHO of course.

 

[Jack99]

@Windjammer Cool map, thanks for sharing. And I agree (and have said so since 4e FR was released) 100% with your points.

What if your old-school is 3.X?

Then you are not old-school. Just SOL

 

[Coldwyn]

Windjammer, stop teasing.. I really want to start our campaign soon!

 

[JeffB]

Great Map- I totally dig it! and I also think the Loudwater area/writeup is great- and if I were to run FR again, I'd totally sandbox there.

And for my tastes, give me the 4E version or the OGB version (along with FR1 & FR5)- all the stuff inbetween* those 2 sets IMO, is icky-doody


* the vast majority, but not all-

 

[howandwhy99]

Very, very cool. I do agree, steal from everywhere! In our OD&D game we have been in the Wilderlands of Harn section of the Grey Realms since the beginning. I must admit I couldn't use FR as a campaign setting as is, but it has a lot of great stuff to steal.

PS:
You must spread some Experience Points around before giving it to Windjammer again.

 

[Windjammer]

What's the scale on the hexes?

Sorry for not replying earlier to this. T. Foster brought up the same issue on a twin thread I started re: my FR map on TheRPGSite, so I'm going to replicate his point and my response here. Hope it helps, but if you got better advice please share it. Thanks.

Nice-looking map. But surely each hex being 40 miles across is way too big a scale for a hexcrawl "there's only one interesting thing per hex" type game, no? Most such maps, IME, tend to have scales of 4-6 miles per hex.

You're totally right about the scale. I guess anyone stealing the map can always ditch the scale and replace it with something closer to his tastes.

I'm fine with the scale as is, but that has to do with 4E specifics (e.g. combat time) that aren't pertinent to your point or your tastes [ed. T. Foster runs rules-lite OSR games as far as I'm aware of].

That said, there's always the possibility to run so-called "complex encounters" sc. interlocked sets of in-game situations where one triggers the next (say, an ambush with three waves) and you sorta end up having more than "one interesting thing per hex".

In any case, I'll sure make adjustments to the scale myself if it works out poorly in my campaign.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

In original D&D, Gary talks about a "referee's map" of the wilderness that uses 5 mile hexes (in fact, the movement rate table uses number of 5 mile hexes, rather than miles or leagues). In the 1e DMG, he talks about a world or continent map using hexes of 20 to 40 miles per hex (the Greyhawk map uses 30 miles per hex), with more detailed or zoomed in area maps that divide each large hex by five, giving a scale of 4 to 8 miles per hex. I like either a 30 mile hex + 6 miles per hex area maps, or a 25 mile hex + 5 miles per hex area maps (the second is what I'm currently using). Your map's hexes cover more area than I would choose, but they're still within the guidelines that Gary suggested.

Hex crawls seem to work well with on a 5 or 6 miles per hex area map (especially for interesting sites on your world map). Both 5 and 6 miles work out well with leagues (the distance one can walk in an hour). Historically, leagues have been commonly defined at both 2.5 miles and 3 miles (take your pick), so your "referee's area map" hexes can break down into 2 leagues (2 hour walk) each. These maps complement your world map.

The league measurement is also useful on the world map. For example, at 25 miles per hex and a 2.5 mile league, you have a hex being a 10 hour march in clear terrain (that pace may or may not sustainable over many days, but it's still useful to have 1 hex = 1 day's walk, roughly). Also, the standard OD&D or AD&D "barony" or domain is a 20 to 30 mile radius around the castle or fortress (i.e. a "point of light"), which works out well with the world map's hex scale.