Silver Moon
Adventurer
Using Real World Maps
I use real world maps a lot in my games. I basically take a map of anywhere and just trace it. The Interstates become the major roads; the State highways become the side roads; and natural things like lakes, rivers, and mountains I pretty much keep as it.
I put the larger communities exactly where they are, I just change the names (although in many cases the County name works just fine as a different name for the city where it is located). For populations I scale it to 1/100 of the current population, which translates well for Medieval times.
You don't even have to worry about players knowing the area if you pick a place that is far away to use (I have found that maps of sections from the western Canadian Provinces work great for this).
I use real world maps a lot in my games. I basically take a map of anywhere and just trace it. The Interstates become the major roads; the State highways become the side roads; and natural things like lakes, rivers, and mountains I pretty much keep as it.
I put the larger communities exactly where they are, I just change the names (although in many cases the County name works just fine as a different name for the city where it is located). For populations I scale it to 1/100 of the current population, which translates well for Medieval times.
You don't even have to worry about players knowing the area if you pick a place that is far away to use (I have found that maps of sections from the western Canadian Provinces work great for this).