How do you make maps?

[Redcloak]

I have problems with visualizing locations in my head. (remember that one Calvin & Hobbes where Calvin starts seeing in cubism? It's kinda like that) How do you guys go about making physical representations of your settings? Both in the creating and the putting on paper.

 

[Flagg]

Are you talking about maps of towns/cities, or maps of geographical areas?

 

[Persell]

Or maps of certain encounters like: the duel in the throneroom?

 

[wordman]

If by settings you mean "buildings", an architecture course or book can help. Seriously.


Also, when building a place, don't think about what you want to do with the place. Instead think about what the people who originally built the place wanted to do with it. How did they eat? How did they shit? How did people move through the building? Is there a public portion of the building? A private one? Did they have servants and, if so, where did they live? Are there parts of the building just for servants? Does the place have a good view of something (say, the ocean or a mountain) and, if so, how would they have built the building to take advantage of the view? When visitors come to the place, where do they go? When shipments of goods come to the place, where to they go?


If by "setting" you mean "city or towns", similar questions are still useful. For example, if the city is on a river, chances are a good portion of that river has warves and warehousing on it, and probably associated slums. Where does the fresh water come from? How economically stratified is the city? Have the rich taken the high ground? Is there industry and, if so, what is it?


You don't need to get to caught up in this, of course. This is Exalted after all. But just a little thought on these kinds of questions goes a long way when building a floorplan.


Quick example, applied to a mausoleum I made. The layout pretty much just fell out of answering questions about what dragon blooded would want from a building publicly enshrining a solar they (secretly) killed in the city she created and ruled. Once I answered the questions about how such people would have wanted the space to work, I built the maps in a couple hours:

• The first level was intended to be public during the day, allowing the people of the city to pay their respects. It has an impressive entrance, an even more impressive foyer and a large room containing tributes of various kinds. It has a sarcophagus. It has no other obvious places to go. It is intended to give the impression that it is the entirety of the tomb. It isn't. When needed, the foyer is a fairly lethal trap, as is the sarcophagus, which is actually solid rock. There is an elaborate magical method of transporting deeper into the structure for those who know the secret. All of this comes from two goals the builders had: a) provide a public place for veneration and b) prevent anyone from actually reaching the solar's body.
  
• The second level, the dragon-blooded built for themselves. They needed a place where they could use some plunder from the solar without anyone knowing they had done the plundering. It also uses a few spaces as traps and tries to use the floorplan to, again, make intruders think there is nothing more to the place.
  
• The third level is the actual tomb. It is built with very low (five foot) ceilings. This is for two reasons: a) it restricts movement, making the job of the tomb defenders (small automotons) easier and b) it actually prevents some of the treasure entombed within from being removed without destroying the place (the tomb was literally build around some of the items). The place is also crammed with grave goods, making motion even harder. Lastly, there is some architectural trickery, again based on the idea of keeping the bodies hidden.

So, all of these needs combine into some simple maps. When you actually draw the maps, you inevitably discover things like "this would be a cool room to fight in" or "the dawn won't be able to use his grand daiklave in this tight space; how will he handle that?"


Sometimes, of course, its the exact opposite: you have a great idea for a set for scene ("they must fight on a rickety rope bridge over a yawning chasm!"), and just need to fill in the context around it. Same tricks work there, too.

 

[Sherwood]

There is a series of computer programs named "Campaign Cartographer".  The first one I got is the Castles disk.  It has a bunch of historical castles mapped out.  Very nice.  The main Cartographer disk is a map making set.  I'm still figuring it out, but it is fun.  


Plus, if you go online to their website, there is tons of submitted stuff of maps, castles, and ships of many kinds.  Give me a minute and I'll see if I can put up an example of their work.

 

[illenvillen23]

I use a mapping software called Dunjunni right now. Before that I just used plain old graphing paper and a trusty pencil, with a good eraser.

 

[Persell]

Dungeon Crafter is free, has tons of fan-made tile sets, and is about as easy to use as MS Paint. While I tend to use maps that others have made, I've made several dungeon and building maps for arenas using DC.


There's also some decent random map generators online.


This one builds dungeons of al sorts of shapes and sizes. This one too.


This one does towns.

 

[Sherwood]

Lets see how well these pics come out:

 

[Lord Ben]

Here is one I did in Campaign Cartographer 3.  It's 1.5mb so I'll just link it instead of posting it.


http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb257/bendolfin/LunarArea.jpg

 

[Sherwood]

Campaign Cartographer has some very sweet stuff to it.  

 

[Persell]

Okay, the ship is cool, what proggie did that one?


As far as helping out, most everyone touched base on how to get maps if you need them.  I've also found that sometimes free forming an event and describing the scene incredibly well sometimes forgoes the need for a map.  To state an example we had on of the typical Throne Room Battles once.  The players really didn't have time to stop and look around, taking in everything around them.


I wrote down only what the room looked like and a few notes about what was lying around (suits of armor to throw, knock over, or replenish a disarmed weapon from, tapestries, vases, etc...).  By keeping the action fast paced and accurately describing where everyone is in relation to each other there was no need of a map.

 

[Sherwood]

True.  On the other side of the coin, in an old DnD game I was in, our Dm had a large map he had made for the city we were in, along with maps for many of the buildings we went to.  It gave us a better sense of 'knowing the city' by being able to see where the restaurant was in comparison to the warf.

 

[Sherwood]

Okay, the ship is cool, what proggie did that one?

I downloaded it from the website.  I think it's profantasy.com.  The last time I looked there were several hundred pages of stuff that had been submitted.  Some stuff were just icons for people or trees, but much of it is great material.

 

[Lord Ben]

I own CC3 and they have lots of add-ons and other software.  I self-taught myself but it's not that tough.  I'd be glad to exchange pointers with anyone else who has it.  Help on doing certain things, etc.  But I love CC3.


The ship was probably one of those add-ons.  They have programs for dungeons, cities, and others as well.


If anyone has a map idea in their head and wants to see what it looks like in Campaign Cartographer let me know, I'd be glad to quick make a simple map up based off a few descriptions or MS paint scribbles.

 

[Arthur]

Unfortunally, everything in profantasy.com costs something. Some cost much. It's just a shame that they don't create freeware, their stuff is so good!


As for helping, I usualy print an image of a squared diagram in A4 size like  this one, create a pattern for measures and start drawing the place with pencil, ereaser, compass and a ruler. It works well, one can create just about anything, from The City of 1000 Golden Pleasures to a manse in The City of the Mad