Ravensburg Reboot: Streamlined City Map

I mentioned in my last post how I was tweaking and reworking parts of my Ravensburg setting. Today I streamlined the city map. The old map had lots of redundancies in it: two separate market quarters, three run-down "tough" neighborhoods, two or three different artisans quarters, and so on, all of which made it unnecessarily harder to flesh out -- e.g. how's this market district different from that market district? And would that difference actually matter to players? In practice it never did, as far as I know. So I've redone the map, and cut it down, sticking more or less to one quarter per function that was on the old map (city governance, market, scholars and scribes, travelers inns and taverns, church for healing, bad neighborhood to go looking for trouble in, etc.). So Ravensburg now looks like this.

All the NPCs, factions and shops from previous games will all still be there. But I've cut out a bunch of unnecessary fluff separating them all geographically and making my prep tougher.

New Ravensburg Maps and Other Projects

Things have been slow on the gaming front this past year. A new job with tons more work has put a crimp in things. I've managed to keep playing regularly, but have not spent tons of time prepping or DM'ing. That said, I've been slowly, silently chipping away a few things in the background.

Ravensburg Revisions and Maps. Overall I've been happy with my Ravensburg setting. But I've never been quite satisfied with the overall broader world that serves as the setting's background, and I've always thought that the sandbox area around the city and the nearby Black Tower has always been a bit too small and confined. So I've been reworking these, tweaking the world, and expanding the immediate sandbox.

The world -- Ravensburg is in the League of the Five Republics.

A close-up map of the League.

I've intentionally left the scale off of these maps for now. I'll probably create other small sandboxes around the world at some point in the future. Long-distance travel from one sandbox to another will happen "at the speed of plot" to quote Straczynski. 

Ravensburg area map -- each hex is 5 miles. 

At 40 hexes x 30 hexes, the sandbox map is just slightly smaller than Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival map (which was something like 43 x 34). Basically I want now to start thinking up ways of integrating the sandbox and the dungeon below the Black Tower (something like NPCs and/or factions who have agendas simultaneously in and out of the dungeon, so players will have reasons to adventure in both underground and in the wilderness. I was sort of doing this already with the city of Ravensburg and the dungeon, so this would just be an expansion.

Creating a House-Ruled Reference Sheet for OD&D. For this I got inspired by the Zenopus Archives blog, where the author has posted some cool reference sheets for Holmes Basic D&D. So I tried my hand as something similar for the original three booklets, plus my own houserules. I left off the aerial combat and naval combat rules (which I've never needed), and ended up with an 8-page set of reference sheets that contain everything I ever use: character creation, equipment and advancement (2 pages), all magic-user spells, distilled (2 pages), all cleric spells, distilled (1 page), combat, turning, and saving throw tables (1 page), dungeon adventuring, encounters and post-adventure (1 page), wilderness adventuring (1 page). The pages look like this: 

The documents are in 9-point font which is surprisingly still readable when printed out, even with my tired old eyes. 

And just for fun. Just to entertain myself today I made a new banner for the blog right before posting this. It was time for a change.

Next on my gaming to-do list. All the above was done over a period of months chipping a way a bit at a time, a few minutes here, a few minutes there. With summer break finally here, I'm hoping to get some chunks of meaningful prep time. First I want to go back and organize my notes on NPCs and areas the Wednesday night group have interacted with to date. Then the next step is to start fleshing out some more NPC and monster agendas that will link dungeon to wilderness -- things like monsters in the dungeon with NPC allies in the wilderness, monsters/NPCs who have multiple bases both underground and in the wilds, items or allies somewhere in the wilderness needed to defeat threats from the dungeon and vice-versa, etc. 

With luck I may be able to run a session or two of Ravensburg by middle to end of July. 

Falcon's Gate Map: Color Version

Color version of yesterday's map. Super-easy to do with the layers feature in Hex Kit. Just open the B&W version, save with a new name, and swap things out.

I should add that I still use a photo editing program for my labeling. Once I have all the terrain the way I want it, I generate a png image of the map, then switch programs to label, since that gives me a wider array of fonts, sizes, highlighting, positioning, etc.

Falcon's Gate Map

Another map, this time for the Falcon's Gate idea I came up with some time ago. This time in black and white using the Hex Kit "Classic" tiles.

I have to say, I'm a big fan of Hex Kit because of the very shallow learning curve, variety of tiles, and ease of use.

Another Hex Kit Map and a Bit of Zazzle

Another experiment with Hex Kit. I paid closer attention this time to the ends of the road and river tiles, and got them to line up a bit more nicely.

I also just got a new binder with a custom spine from Zazzle. They had a font that passes for a reasonable approximation of the original D&D title font (though alas the "&" is wrong). But with a bright red field and yellow lettering, I think it evokes the Moldvay Basic rule book colors pretty well. I've put my printed-out version of the B/X Essentials rules in it.

Hex Kit Map Experiment

A little experiment with hex kit. The text I added with a photo editing program (Microsoft Picture It).

I may need to play with the roads a bit more, and maybe adjust the highlighting on the text.

Ravensburg: Messin' with Maps

I've tinkered a lot with broader contextual maps for the wider world surrounding Ravensburg. Here's my latest attempt, and the one I'm happiest with so far.

The World of Ravensburg -- latest iteration.

This map was inspired by an ancient world map attributed to Anaximander (610-546 B.C.): 

Map Reconstruction by: Bibi Saint-Pol, on Wikipedia.

Schematic Maps: Another Drawing Experiment

Another experiment in abstract schematic style mapping. This one was done in Word, with "view gridlines" turned on, drawing shapes (text boxes for rooms), and then turning the gridlines off again. Background was added with Microsoft Picture It 9, but any basic drawing program could be used for that sort of thing, really (and there may even be a way to fill in the gridlines in Word to make a background; I need to look into that more).

The small grey boxes at certain junctions are doors. Because room IDs are merely overall descriptors of each room, I'd probably even leave them in on an online players' map. I didn't do secret doors, but I think what I would do for those is have the connector line extend out from the hidden room, but not connect with anything visible to the players. This would let me know where the secret connects, without revealing it to the players (assuming online fog of war). So I wouldn't even need to have two separate maps for GM/players.

Zoomed-Out Abstract Dungeon Mapping

The game I'm currently playing with Brie (my wife), involves hand-drawn mapping of the dungeon during play. For me, this now feels "clunky" since I'm so spoiled by years of playing online with the fog-of-war function on a virtual tabletop. Add to that the fact that our sessions involve a much more narrative style of combat without requiring a grid to regulate things, and that got me thinking about ways to abstract the map and simplify the process of navigation, since we don't really need a large-scale detail map anyway.

So here is what I've come up with – a small-scale grid where one square abstractly represents the amount of distance a party can cover per turn of exploration or one round of flight/pursuit. So instead of a traditional scale of one (quarter-inch) square equals ten feet, this gives a smaller scale of one (one-inch) square equals roughly 90 feet.

The small white circles are doors, the up-arrows are stairways up and the down-arrows are stairways down. All other details about the room would be noted in the key, including precise dimensions (e.g. 20' x 50', 30' x 30', whatever). In other words just because the rooms appear the same size on the abstracted map doesn't mean they are.

There are several benefits I can see with this:

1. It's easier for me to make than a detailed large-scale grid map (I'm really bad at that). 
2. It's easier for FTF in-play draw-by-hand mapping for the player(s) – especially with every square being labeled, and without the need to draw the rooms in detail.
3. The fact that every square is labeled means I can key everything easily, and re-key as things change without having to erase/add in things on the map.
4. It should be easier to ensure that things like stairways line up from level to level. 
5. Counting turns spent exploring might be easier (one square equals one turn -- I'm thinking I might actually put tick marks in the squares themselves, including multiple tick marks if PCs spend time looking about a given room).
6. I think it will pair well with my abstract battle board adaptation. 

Now I just have to take it out for a spin. Definitely with Brie, and maybe with +Ken H and +Tim Shorts on Wednesdays, since we're no strangers to "theater-of-the-mind" play there either.

A Break from Regular Play and How I Plan to Save Time in My Occasional Games

I'm taking a leave of absence from regular gaming. I'm wrestling with a huge work project that is leaving me in a perpetual state of exhaustion, and regular weekly gaming just isn't working for me right now. I'm not giving up gaming altogether, but I am going to game fairly sporadically over the next few months to a year. One-shots here and there, the occasional short-term campaign, that sort of thing.

One of these short-term items I'm planning on is a Pits and Perils one-shot I plan to run for the small (and fairly sporadic) Wednesday Night group of +Tim Shorts  and +Ken H. I'm looking forward to doing that since P&P seems right up my alley – it's rules-lite, OD&D-esque, and comparatively low-powered. Adventure game over combat sim. Exploration of dungeon over exploration of character. You get the idea.

So looking forward to trying this.

I managed to save a LOT of time prepping my one-shot by cutting out all original mapping. That's right. I created none of the maps in the adventure. Having NO artistic ability, I am a lousy mapper by nature. Computer programs like hexographer, or various drawing programs generally help me a lot to create things that look nice, but even with their help, when I make up my own stuff from scratch, it takes a very, very (did I mention "very?") long time. To the point where I often spend more time on the maps than on the adventure or campaign content itself.

So for my P&P one-shot, I pillaged from other sources, all of which I heartily recommend, and which I'm listing below.

Donjon D20 Random Dungeon Generator: I've been using this for a long time now. I use it for the maps, without using the randomly generated content. I have not drawn a dungeon map since I discovered it. Most of the dungeon maps from my West Kingdom PbB campaign and all of the dungeon maps from my Ephemera campaign were created by this generator. Sure, I edit what comes out of the generator. Sometimes I want a particular flow to the way the corridors branch. Or maybe I want the walls on one side of the dungeon to be collapsed and have rough edges. Editing maps from here is fast and hassle-free. If you set the map style to "standard" it comes out in a basic black which is super easy to tweak. Just generate something bigger than you need. Then, on your own, use a painting or photo-editing program to black out the unneeded bits, rough up wall edges, whatever you need. Easy-peasy.

A donjon d20-generated map that I edited for my Ephemera campaign. The secret doors and 10' corridor between them, along with the vats and pumps, were simple add-ons I quickly edited in.

Judges Guild Resources: Village Books I & II, Castle Books I &II, Island Book I. All of these are available at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. I never used Judges Guild materials in my earlier gaming incarnation (middle school through college). They weren't available in stores near me, and I only knew of their existence at all through magazine ads. While some of these may now look a bit dated for some people's taste, they do provide a large quantity of maps for a darned good price. Just as an example, the village books each have something like 48 maps in them, for $3.99. So I now have some 96 maps for $8. Basically, I will never have to draw another village map (or castle map, or island map) again as long as I live. That's a serious time-saving tool.

Cover of Village Book II, from Judges Guild.

Kenzer & Co.'s City Map Folio for the Kingdoms of Kalamak Setting: This has about 30 city maps in it, in various shapes, sizes, and surrounding geography for $6.99 on DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. It's easy to edit too. Screen shot the page, then use a photo-editing program to switch the map to straight black and white, use a white-background text box to replace the Kalamak setting city name with one that suits your setting. Bam. Done. Or if the Kalamak setting names suit your campaign, just use them as is. Here again, I may never draw another city map again. I mean really, would I ever run a campaign area with more than 30 cities, even if I had all the time in the world? Probably not.

Lots of nice city maps in here.

So, no from-scratch map-making for me. It's turning out to be a HUGE time-saver that will fit well with my heavy work-load and spotty gaming schedule.

Another Map Day

Got up this morning, paid some bills, did some taxes, then spent the afternoon mapping.

Map made with "Hexographer" and "Microsoft Picture It."

Something to use in the future as a really, really small sandbox environment, or else as a single point in a larger point-to-point map.

Some Days You Just Feel Like Mapping

I woke up this morning and felt like making a map.

So I did.

Map made with Hexographer and Microsoft Picture It!

Another one for the "maybe-I'll-run-a-campaign-here-one-day" file.

Hand-Drawn Mapping During Online Play

SPOILER ALERT! Don't look at the map below if you're planning on playing in The Lost Mine of Phandelver.

In the Ubergoobers' Monday night D&D 5e game run by +Rob Conley, we've been using dynamic lighting on Roll20. Dynamic lighting is an interesting feature in that you, as a player, only get to see what your character can see, based on position and light sources.

What the world looks like with dynamic lighting.
– Wait a minute! How do we get out of here?

It took me a while to get used to it, since previously we had mostly used the fog of war feature on Roll20, which reveals areas as you reach them and lets you see continuously all areas of the map you have explored, even after you leave them behind.

What this meant was that using dynamic lighting, it was hard to keep track of where things were happening, or even where the party was in a given dungeon since, in contrast with fog of war, dynamic lighting causes explored areas get blacked out again as you go.

The solution navigating a dungeon with dynamic lighting? Good old-fashioned hand-drawn mapping.

Hand-drawn mapping lets you see where you are and where you've been.

It may not be pretty, but the last session or two it has worked well, including helping us high-tail it out of the dungeon (before the floating skull off to the northeast spotted us) once it was time to retreat, rest and regroup. We knew exactly where we were, where we wanted to go, and how to get there.

My Favorite Maps

Over at Gothridge Manor, +Tim Shorts asked folks to show him their best map.  I honestly can't claim to have any particular talent at drawing maps -- in fact, I think I'm rather weak at it -- so the best I can conjure up are some cobbled together maps that I made using Microsoft Picture It! or by using Hexographer in combination with Picture It! Most of these are maps I've drawn up as I've been thinking about what to run after the Ephemera campaign winds up.

Galewind Island: A possible setting to run in the future. 

The surrounding sea allows for almost limitless expansion.

Krule World: Another possible setting to run in the future. 

The eponymous city making it just a bit less serious in tone.

Ravens Port: An urban/megadungeon combo. 

The map is a woodcut of "Genoa" from Hartmann Schedel's 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle. 

I edited it (adding and removing features and adding labels) with Picture It!

Fairbrook and Evirons: from my now completed West Kingdom PbB campaign.

Mostly this one has nostalgia value, as it marked the my return to GMing after about two decades.

Making Maps -- 9 Rough Map Sections for Ephemera

I roughed out some maps (too brain-numbed to do anything verbal after grading a stack of papers) beyond my center map for Ephemera. I'm doing these as bite-sized sections for easy use, but I've patched them together to have a rough overview of the lay of the land around my center starting section. No villages or labels on them yet (except the center section).

Before edit

I'll probably tweak the north-center, north-eastern and eastern-center sections, since I find they look distinctly... well... sectional. They were the first sections I did after the center, and I made the mistake of not letting non-clear terrain touch the edges of the map which gives them a very unnatural-looking "border" effect. But just extending a few terrain features to, and/or just over, the edges should help to rectify that a bit.

EDIT: I have tweaked several sections, and I think the terrain overlapping into multiple sections does wonders to get rid of the artificial "boxy" border effect. 

After edit: I think the terrain overlapping into different sections looks better.

All in all though, it gives a rough idea of the main terrain features. At some point, either to the north or to the south, I'll make the coastline take a radical turn inward (eastward) to shake things up a bit. But that's a way's off time-wise. The 24-mile-per-hex map now covers over 600,000 square miles, about the size of Alaska or Mongolia. More than enough to start, and there are far more important things to work on. 

But this was a good, or at least satisfying, exercise for today.

Playing Around with Hexographer

I just started toying around with Hexographer -- I've decided I love it, so I went ahead and bought the pay-version (the free version gets me everything I need, frankly, but I try to support products I like and plan to use). It's got a short learning curve and it felt pretty intuitive to me. Just for fun I redid my West Kingdom campaign map, which looks like this using Hexographer (and a little bit of Microsoft's Picture It! photo-editing program).

And a close-up of the hexes immediately surrounding Fairbrook.