The status of the Cooperative Dungeon Project?

[Conaill]

Hey Trainz! Big THANK YOU to you and Mark for all the hard work you guys have put into this project! Too bad you can't keep going the way you were, but I totally understand the "life getting in the way" part.


By the way, for those of you who didn't already know... there's a party going through Tomb of Chaos on the Living EN World forum as we speak:

E1: Tomb of Chaos [Judge: Patlin]

Interestingly, these guys have decided to skip a bunch of the intermediate rooms and forge on straight towards the final chamber. We'll see if they wind up regretting that... They've just run into (a beefed up) Yinepu right now.

Please refrain from posting on this IC thread, and/or pointing them to the CD threads... wouldn't want to tempt the players to "read ahead" in the adventure!

 

[Conaill]

der_kluge: nice map!

We would *definitely* need to make a 5' grid version to print out. And shading the elevation (while still maintaining a clear grid) should be fairly easy. We can even jigger the cave boundary a little to make sure there's no "ambiguous" squares (i.e. each 5' square is either more than 75% empty, or more than 75% filled with rock. For now, let's assume all those details can easily be fixed in post-production (if need be, I could do that myself, if and when I have a few hours of spare time).

On elevation: keep in mind that in real cave systems, the passage from one cave to another often starts at a different elevation. For example, the passage to #5 may very well start high up in the back wall of cave #4, whereas the passage to #13-17 might be on the same level as #4 (or vice versa).

 

[Wycen]

Trainz, thanks for all your effort and good luck with your own projects.

I will be happy to contribute to another effort, whatever the map might be.

 

[Buttercup]

And the contour lines are standard geographical representations. Look at any topology map ever done in the world. They have the same kind of representations. Arrows up or down are just as confusing. If I draw an arrow, people will say "does this mean it goes uphill, or does this it's going downhill?" Plus it'll make the map just look stupid.

Curtis, you asked for critiques. Two people have said that the contour lines aren't as clear as they might be, and you've been dismissive both times. Why did you ask if you didn't want to hear what people had to say? Were you only interested in Mark CMG's opinion? Because if so, maybe you should have just emailed the map to him.

 

[der_kluge]

Curtis, you asked for critiques. Two people have said that the contour lines aren't as clear as they might be, and you've been dismissive both times. Why did you ask if you didn't want to hear what people had to say? Were you only interested in Mark CMG's opinion? Because if so, maybe you should have just emailed the map to him.

Well, I like critiques, and I'm glad for them, I'm just not entirely convinced the solutions are workable.

I'll play with it today to see what I can do with it.

 

[Buttercup]

Well, I like critiques, and I'm glad for them, I'm just not entirely convinced the solutions are workable.

I'll play with it today to see what I can do with it.

Ok, fair enough. Personally I don't like the idea of arrows either. I think subtle gradations of color/greyscale is the way to go, because darker intuitively means lower. For instance look at that chasm on the map. No one could be confused about it, thaks to the shading.

 

[Firebeetle]

They're 10' squares. It's not a tactical map. You're not suppose to print this out and put miniatures on it.

I needs to be 5' squares and there is no reason for it not to be. I makes drawing maps SO much easier if the map in the book is the same representation on the playmat. I can't think of a reason for it NOT to be in 5' increments. Map smarter is the key here.

 

[Mark CMG]

In fairness to all who have posted (and those who lurk? ), I am the one who asked that the map be posted *and* I am interested in any and all opinions on it. As long as people are being polite to one another there shouldn't be a problem.

I am also thinking that I will blow up the map we use this time so that people can print it out as map tiles for the game table. Five foot squares will be necessary to this. I'd like to limit the number of extraneous (non-encounter) rooms because of this, also. While a map similar to the one presented so far might be useful, there are features inherent in it that are problematic for this actual project.

I would suggest the following be kept in mind for anyone interested in proffering a map for Cooperative Dungeon 05 (- Lair of Lament ?) -

Cavern-ish (no relation to Butch or Henry )

Seven encounter areas

Five foot squares

Clearly defined elevations

It should be designed to fit on one standard 8 1/2 x 11 page while leaving some room for a numbered breakdown. No writing (lettering or numbering), including the legend and compass, should be on the map as they are more easily incorporated during the graphical layout process.

It should be a 300 dpi tif, gif, or jpg image, for posting in this thread, though a Photoshop or Paintshop Pro for later, should your map be accepted, would be even more useful. I deal dimensions might be 7 or 7 1/2 x 8 or 9 *or* 5 or 6 x 9 or 10. I'm not particular if the map winds up in portrait or in landscape orientation.

While I think that is all fairly clear while still keeping things about as flexible as possible. Feell free to ask questions if this is not clear or if there is something I did not address.

Thanks!

 

[der_kluge]

Ok, Try this one.

I am a Paintbrush GENIUS! Mwahahah! *ahem*

 

[Gansk]

I like the map, but if you want to cut it down to seven encounter areas:

1) eliminate the southeast passage leading to areas 13 through 17. (wall it off)

2) get rid of the number 11 (encounter area 10 can still describe what's going on in 11).

3) get rid of numbers 3, 4, 5, and 7. (area 2 can describe 3 & 4, 6 can describe 5, 8 can describe 7).