I hate making maps!

[Mercule]

I had something of an epiphany tonight. In planning for my homebrew game, I realized where my biggest time sink is. Dungeon mapping. I hate it and I suck at it. I've got an adventure almost completely put together except the map. Yet, I stared at a blank sheet of paper most of the night.

I know one option is to scavange. After looking through all my dungeons, though, I couldn't come up with anything that was even close to what I wanted. Maybe I'm being too picky. I dunno.

Is there a cure? What is it?

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

dont know what to tell u man try getting your maps offline frist then makeing your stuff around them also i use graph paper most of us do im guessing not the best at it put color pencils do help make it look somewhat better if u have time and wish to do so also theres some map makeing progs autorealms and dugeon mapper i think is still around also was an interactive dungeon a while back u may what to look into that as well

 

[frankthedm]

Google image search http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=dungeon+map&sa=N&tab=wi

Wotc map archive http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/mw

phenious crow's map downloads http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=73423

I love gifs in MS paint for maps. here is one i made based on the Temple of Zargon In The Lost City

 

[Buttercup]

Wow, Frank! Nice map. Got any more you feel like sharing?

Mercule, Frank's recommendations are the one's I'd give you as well. The only thing I can add is that you try one of the online or downloadable dungeon generators. I've never found them to be all that useful myself, but perahps they would give you what you're looking for.

 

[The Forsaken One]

Indeed nice work frank . For the rest, never enough maps! Huzzah! Phileas his thread is *art*. Saved me so much time, can't ever thank him enough for that.

 

[Cergorach]

Maybe you can tell us what your looking for, maybe someone has what your looking for or some enterprising soul can make what your looking for...

 

[EricNoah]

Yeah, me too. even with CC and Dundjinni, I would almost always scavange someone else's map before making my own. Once in a while I get inspired and put something together like this cathedral (I looked at some real world examples of cathedral maps to get some ideas).

For scavenging, I go to Dungeon magazine (the web enhancements are really helpful), WotC's Map-a-week, and phineas crow's maps as others have mentioned.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Ironically, I love mapping, but I hate taking the time to do it.

Are you looking for "just a dungeon"? I found Fat Dragon Games EZTiles reviewed here to be a decent "fungible dungeon". Wizards has also put out their Dungeon Tiles (though I haven't reviewed them), and as folks upthread pointed out, there are a number of good mapping products as well.

Are you looking for a dungeon that fits a grand vision? That you probably have to map out yourself.

 

[Mark CMG]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=40259

Hope that helps!

 

[MarkB]

There are a couple of random generators I occasionally use if I'm not sure what sort of layout I want.

Random dungeon generator

Random cave generator

The latter site, if you click the link back up to the next level, also has some nice pre-gen maps.