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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aboyd" data-source="post: 5031273" data-attributes="member: 44797">This will be long.  I don't want it to be long, but I know up front I'm going to give you a brain dump from my current sandbox campaign.  So, apologies.  Or "you're welcome" if you're into this sort of thing.I'm of the opinion that you should indeed map out the whole world, so that you know when to say to your players, "there isn't any more land."  Of course, eventually they'll be off in spaceships or spelljammers or something and it won't matter, but for the first huge chunk of the game, it matters a lot.The good news is that this very big map can be very sloppy.  I can do a basic one in 5 minutes.  Just landforms will do it.  However, if you're feeling inspired (and you have the ability to reign yourself in before becoming overwhelmed), then getting general notes about each region is cool.  For example, knowing that the eastern portion of the map is frozen tundra populated by frost giants is very useful.  You don't need to stat up any creatures or even pick the areas of civilization (though you could), but it's always nice to give yourself a framework that will help you to wing it convincingly when the players suddenly go hundreds of miles off course on a whim (which they do).Having said that, in my campaign, I use the <a href="http://paizo.com/dungeon/products/issues/greyhawkmap" target="_blank">giant Greyhawk poster map</a> as my world map, but in terms of what the players do on a day-to-day basis, I focus on the region around Rel Astra.  Here I'll attach a tiny little portion of the big map, which I scanned in and used from levels 1 through 6:<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=42321&d=1261032369" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Some things to note about the map.  First, it's a modified scan -- the Hightower Tor, Zolmik's Retreat, Almack, Seawell, and the lighthouse were all added in with the Gimp (a Photoshop-like tool).  The areas south of Rel Astra would have been very unpopulated otherwise.The second thing to note is that the hexes are huge -- 30 miles each.  I handwave them to be even slightly bigger -- 32 miles each.  That's because in D&D 3.5 (which I use), 32 miles is the normal daily movement speed for people on horses.  So it's easy to say "1 hex per day."Third, I like that things are so far apart.  I really don't like 4th edition much, but the "points of light" idea was a prizewinner for me.  I want my game world's towns to feel like isolated little points of civilization, fighting back the monster hordes.  So going from Rel Astra to Almack is about a 3 day ride, and I want that ride to be scary -- maybe not lots of wandering monsters (it gets boring) but 1 big problem?  You bet.(That's what the "Hightower Tor" was -- that's the free 1st-level module on the Wizard's site that has a zombie hobgoblin to fight.  Well, after my players cleared it, I had the local hobgoblin tribe assume that their burial grounds were deliberately desecrated by Rel Astra.  While the PCs gained levels 2 & 3, I had the tribe gathering there, rebuilding, and readying to launch a war which the PCs could have stumbled upon and stopped.  However, around level 4 they began moving by boat, missed it entirely, and so eventually I launched the war without them, resolved it, and just had it be a news/gossip item that they could hear about.  That's the sandbox for ya.)OK, well, I still have tons to add and this is already far too long.  I'll start a second post.  More maps.  Hang on.</blockquote>

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