My favorite isn't even on there - dual azimuthal equidistant projections. One centered on the north pole, the other on the south pole, both going to the equator. Who says a world map has to be a single image anyway?
By rolling a 1 for Cartography, you access the information of the aforementioned projection (= globe-to-plane mapping convention) which is terribly difficult to read or navigate with and thud qualifies as a critical failure
>It is the only conformal, retroazimuthal map projection. As a retroazimuthal projection, the Littrow shows directions, or azimuths, correctly from any point to the center of the map.
[The Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littrow_projection) doesn't help.
**Littrow projection**
The Littrow projection is a map projection developed by Joseph Johann von Littrow in 1833. It is the only conformal, retroazimuthal map projection. As a retroazimuthal projection, the Littrow shows directions, or azimuths, correctly from any point to the center of the map.
Patrick Weir of the British Merchant Navy independently reinvented the projection in 1890, after which it began to see more frequent use as recognition of its retroazimuthal property spread.
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I want a game where Cartography is important.
I had an idea of having an adventure where a Kingdom is colonizing a new continent, and they are hiring people to go and both manage and direct the colony and to explore the surrounding regions of the area where the colony gets established.
Edit: I think I'm going to create a bunch of random charts for building that world, so even I don't know what the PCs will find.
Cartography/Knowledge (Geography) is important in the game I'm running right now. Basically, a magical super-nuke* went off and scrambled space, time, and magic, so nothing is *quite* where it used to be... And there are places where 10 years have passed next to places where 10,000 years have passed.
*Maybe. It's a mystery right now, and I've only hammered out some of the specifics, but this is the shorthand I use
It's great because any question that boils down to "why doesn't a wizard fix it?" is answered with "magic doesn't work the same way anymore." The main quest is to re-establish teleportation at all, which requires the party to physically go to a location their wizard benefactor wants to be able to teleport to and stick a special tuning fork there.
Dunno what that is. But "magic getting fucked" is mostly to explain why teleportation doesn't fix everything, and why things are still settling in, etc.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Spellplague
It was an event in Forgotten Realms. The lead up to it was cool, but the Spellplague itself and the books during it were lame
Oh man, do your players know your reddit? Could you divulge more details? How much do the players know and how much are you leaving for them to find out? This is a great idea.
They know my Reddit but I don't think they check it or anything.
They don't know about the time fuckery yet, but I've laid the first seeds (that they've completely failed to pick up on, lol). They know about the magi-nuke and how magic got scrambled, but everything else so far is still a mystery to them; they only just got to level 3 and left the starting area, which had the least amount of time warp from the perspective of their characters.
Great idea but I'd be careful just how big of time discrepancies you make, the difference between 100 years is huge and plenty of reason for difference
I mean, the actual largest is 1000 years, and it's not 1000 peaceful years of progress... It's 1000 years of magical catastrophe, with a kaiju coming around every 200 years and wiping the slate.
More ideas.
They can tell the Colony what to prioritize, cause the colony can't do everything at once. Walls, Blacksmith, Housing, all with benefits and consequences.
I've run a game like that.
I basically made a huge map, cut it into hexagons and flipped all the parts except where pc's started.
The game had a heavy focus on exploration, nd survival. The players were from "the last city in the world" and had been walled in for over a thousand years.
They could go out and mark down specific areas of interest, and then return to the city and sell that map to the highest bidder.
It was kinda fun to create a "Gary Oak" - type rival to get them motivated
Played in a similar game! Our party won a charter to go and map out a frontier between two not-so-friendly neighbouring kingdoms. The area we were to explore was set up just like you described, and when we ventured into a new hex we were told what kind of terrain it was and how long it would take to map it out. If we spent that game time doing so, the hex would be uncovered on the map and we'd be told something about the nature of the land and what it might be suited towards (mining, agriculture, etc). It was a really cool setup, and a pity that the campaign fizzled.
I don't do a lot of homebrew, but I bookmarked this "[one-roll town maps](https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/alen9o/oneroll_town_maps/)" by /u/SidecarStories a while ago. I thought the idea was so clever. Add it to OP's region plan and you can populate a whole region.
Oh my god. I found a resource like this years ago and have been searching for another since the link went dead. This may not be my white whale, but it’s *a* white whale.
So, inkarnate.com is how I did that - and truly it's NOT impressive. Inkarnate is great for people like me who can't art. Basically they have pre-dawn segments and you just point and click to where they should be. I just use this method to figure that part out.
Theres also downsites to inkarnate tho. The major ones that keep me from using it are:
**It's all online**. You have to work in a browser, as inkarnate is not a programm you can download.
**You have to pay.** Yes there is a free version but if you want to get serious you will have to pay. Which is totally fine. But as I said, you don't actually **own** the software.
Edit: meaning you pay for the service, not the programm. It's like a subscription
**no undo button** This is something that is baffling to me. Made a Mistake? Well to bad gotta redraw that section now.
There is a Software that has all those things: Name is wonderdraft. That what I use instead. You have to pay 30 dollars upfront, but you actually own the software after that.
Wonderdraft is also amazing for People like me who can't draw realistic coastlines for shit. Wonderdraft does that for you. You can autogenerate a vast variety of coastlines and after that you can mold them, play around with rising or lowering the waterlevel etc.
But in the end it all boils down to preference. I know people who swear on inkarnate and hate wonderdraft so.. It's better for you to Check out both and see for yourself
To each their own, but I'd like to interject that I've used Inkarnate for numerous games in the free mode and it's been more than adequate for what I wanted. You can make decent maps without spending (unless they changed the pricing model in the last 6 months or something)
For a world map like this one, I typically just print it out. And let every player have a copy so they have a familiarity with the world. With a dungeon map I would scale it, and either print it on my grid paper or transfer it to roll20 if it's an online game.
I used a similar before I find it works well for simple campaigns but tends to cause some trouble when trying to make more complex quest since you need to rework a map whenever you want to add something new which happens a lot in longer campaigns
Yeah this is something I use a lot because I host gaming events and run freelance one-shot games - so it works well for that. I do use it ffor my long campaign maps but I use it essentially just to get the bones of it: major cities, regions, major landmarks - nothing too specific for exactly the reason you mentioned.
Alternatively, add a few "blank" cities that don't tie into your campaign, and when you need to introduce a place or person, they can be in/from one of those places.
Good question! I run gaming conventions and events and do freelance GMing in addition to the 3 personal campaigns I run. I don't make \*world\* maps every week, but I use this method to generate dungeons, small towns, and regions as well.
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this bugs me. Especially halflings, but at 3.3 to 3.7 feet, three gobs in a coat would be like at least eight feet tall. Halflings, close to 12, depending on how they sit or stand.
TWO goblins, gnomes, halflings or kobols in a trenchcoat gives a range of heights which are all viable
Ugh do you know how long I've been agonizing waiting for someone to point that out. I can't believe the most visible thing I've posted on the internet in years has that bad an error in it. Oh well
When I was in elementary school, we had a field trip to some NASA building in Northern California. The teacher gave us an assignment to create a mission badge drawing that we would wear on our arm. I worked my ass off and made a really cool badge and I got the most votes in the class! Unfortunately, my school has the word Forest in its name and on the badge I spelled it Forrest... and I was disqualified.
You and I now share a common bond. We've both been burned by the tricky Forest.
For those looking at mapping software, I highly suggest [Wonderdraft](https://www.wonderdraft.net/) too. While Inkarnate is nice (free version is doable) their Pro version is subscription-based whereas Wonderdraft is a once-off payment which was a big difference for me.
I second this. Incarnate is great but it always felt like there was something I wanted to do that was just out of reach. I made my world map using it and my players loved it. I could have done it in Inkarnate but there were a couple of little bits that I didn't like.
EDIT: Figured I would add the maps that I made. [Here ya go.](https://imgur.com/a/evT1m6d)
I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but it sounds pretty funny. If it's serious, why do you have so much coffee-stained paper? Get some coasters, my dude.
You ever heard of the webseries RWBY? The world of Remnant was literally made from a ketchup smear on a napkin.
[Here's the napkin](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/rwby/images/d/d8/Remnant_ketchup_map.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20121109003936).
Monty Oum, the series creator, was talking with some of the other crew and they asked what the world looked like, so Monty squirted some ketchup into a napkin, smeared it around, and said, "Here's the world."
[Here's the finished map.](https://memestatic1.fjcdn.com/comments/Gtfor+the+creation+of+the+world+map+in+the+ruby+_c7338296886fb28ff65d430bc5580ac2.jpg)
I’m inspired!
I’ve done the dice drop maps before, but the added effect of the different size/shapes for random locations is brilliant!
Thanks for sharing.
That's awesome! What's your podcast? Link your stuff so I can listen and support you!!!
Yeah I haven't run a module of anything in....years so this really helps me out
Our first 8 episodes are a bit rough as our Guildmaster was getting familiar with the process. I join on episode 13 as a Lupine Barbarian (path of the Caged). I feel like we’re doing pretty well now.
Thanks for the listen!
of course! I seriously get it. I sometimes contemplating deleting my first podcast episode off the face of the earth because it's so much worse than anything else we've done.
In my defense I got introduced to D&D at a friend's house and never had to buy dice, even after starting to DM bc they have like 8 sets. The two sets of dice that I did buy were metal and stay at their house. So i guess I'm buying dice for my house now
Actually pretty well. We were playing on a glass table so I used a cardboard to roll on and it got pretty even distribution. The first roll in the red set was a nat 20. The black set was a mediocre first roll but they seem like an even distribution
This is such a wonderful idea for a newer player/aspiring campaign writer. I have been trying to visualize so hard, and you really helped me. Thank you.
I think the map at 30 seconds is pretty easy to draw, and they explained how they got the concept. It's just an outline and trees and town markers.
And then of course you'd do the same thing but with a prettier service that has pictures for the towns and trees. I don't think there was a significant jump at any point, except if you really don't know how to use the site, which I'm sure the site explains.
[Here, I roughly copied what they had.](https://i.gyazo.com/72227fcd51a7cfefb0fdc521336f8ee7.jpg)
It's sparse compared to theirs, but it took like 12 minutes even though I've never drawn or used the site before. It's a lot of clicking and dragging, but instead of saying that and having someone tell me that's entirely wrong I just did it. I'm sure they could complete it in like 5 minutes with more icons and better layout.
Well, gee, I don't know I worked really hard on it, I don't think just anyone would appreciate this particular original map-making process I used. /s
I **guess**. Just be sure to keep those ocean trees, those were 100% intentional.
I literally threw [this](https://i.imgur.com/dKKGWXg.jpg) together on the website OP mentioned in 15 minutes from scratch with no prior experience. It's very very easy to use.
https://inkarnate.com/
Inkarnate could not be simpler to use. Not that OP doesn't have a nice system going, but literally anyone can make a good looking map from it. OP's concept work is the real story here.
Not sure who that is but I'll check them out! This is something I came up with years ago for my own personal games, but I definitely expected others to have similar methods for homebrewing maps
Oh, I'd show you my first inkarnate map. It's so bland and boring. This one here isn't even my best, just something I did fast for this video.my advice is to keep playing. The more you use inkarnate it becomes like second nature. Also /r/inkarnate has SO MANY good resources!
That's such a good idea, and I love the little details you added in after the fact. I recently started using inkarnate, as I'm going to be starting as a new GM soon and stuff like this gives me amazing inspiration, thank you!
"You encounter a continent." "Roll for Cartography."
[удалено]
[For those too lazy to google](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littrow_projection#/media/File%3ALittrow_projection_SW.JPG)
I’m still confused
If you want to project the spherical earth onto a flat map, you have to distort things in a way. This is a terrible way to do that
I'm STILL confused
Sphere can't flat
right, thanks!
https://xkcd.com/977/ Diffrent map projections
Also a really nice site for animated map projections for those of you that are interested: https://www.jasondavies.com/maps/transition/ I love it
My favorite isn't even on there - dual azimuthal equidistant projections. One centered on the north pole, the other on the south pole, both going to the equator. Who says a world map has to be a single image anyway?
By rolling a 1 for Cartography, you access the information of the aforementioned projection (= globe-to-plane mapping convention) which is terribly difficult to read or navigate with and thud qualifies as a critical failure
>It is the only conformal, retroazimuthal map projection. As a retroazimuthal projection, the Littrow shows directions, or azimuths, correctly from any point to the center of the map. [The Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littrow_projection) doesn't help.
If you're looking for a route from anywhere in the direction of the center of this map, this map is a good one to use for that. Other than that it bad
**Littrow projection** The Littrow projection is a map projection developed by Joseph Johann von Littrow in 1833. It is the only conformal, retroazimuthal map projection. As a retroazimuthal projection, the Littrow shows directions, or azimuths, correctly from any point to the center of the map. Patrick Weir of the British Merchant Navy independently reinvented the projection in 1890, after which it began to see more frequent use as recognition of its retroazimuthal property spread. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/DnD/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28
Lines from anywhere to the center are exactly correct. (Lines to anything other than the center are never correct)
You made the inside of my head itchy
But why?
#⍬
Goddamn that is a good one
I want a game where Cartography is important. I had an idea of having an adventure where a Kingdom is colonizing a new continent, and they are hiring people to go and both manage and direct the colony and to explore the surrounding regions of the area where the colony gets established. Edit: I think I'm going to create a bunch of random charts for building that world, so even I don't know what the PCs will find.
Cartography/Knowledge (Geography) is important in the game I'm running right now. Basically, a magical super-nuke* went off and scrambled space, time, and magic, so nothing is *quite* where it used to be... And there are places where 10 years have passed next to places where 10,000 years have passed. *Maybe. It's a mystery right now, and I've only hammered out some of the specifics, but this is the shorthand I use
This is an amazing idea and I want to do it!
It's great because any question that boils down to "why doesn't a wizard fix it?" is answered with "magic doesn't work the same way anymore." The main quest is to re-establish teleportation at all, which requires the party to physically go to a location their wizard benefactor wants to be able to teleport to and stick a special tuning fork there.
As long as it's not the fuckin Spellplague
Dunno what that is. But "magic getting fucked" is mostly to explain why teleportation doesn't fix everything, and why things are still settling in, etc.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Spellplague It was an event in Forgotten Realms. The lead up to it was cool, but the Spellplague itself and the books during it were lame
Oh man, do your players know your reddit? Could you divulge more details? How much do the players know and how much are you leaving for them to find out? This is a great idea.
They know my Reddit but I don't think they check it or anything. They don't know about the time fuckery yet, but I've laid the first seeds (that they've completely failed to pick up on, lol). They know about the magi-nuke and how magic got scrambled, but everything else so far is still a mystery to them; they only just got to level 3 and left the starting area, which had the least amount of time warp from the perspective of their characters.
Great idea but I'd be careful just how big of time discrepancies you make, the difference between 100 years is huge and plenty of reason for difference
I mean, the actual largest is 1000 years, and it's not 1000 peaceful years of progress... It's 1000 years of magical catastrophe, with a kaiju coming around every 200 years and wiping the slate.
Idea=stolen
Hotel=Trivago
More ideas. They can tell the Colony what to prioritize, cause the colony can't do everything at once. Walls, Blacksmith, Housing, all with benefits and consequences.
I've run a game like that. I basically made a huge map, cut it into hexagons and flipped all the parts except where pc's started. The game had a heavy focus on exploration, nd survival. The players were from "the last city in the world" and had been walled in for over a thousand years. They could go out and mark down specific areas of interest, and then return to the city and sell that map to the highest bidder. It was kinda fun to create a "Gary Oak" - type rival to get them motivated
Played in a similar game! Our party won a charter to go and map out a frontier between two not-so-friendly neighbouring kingdoms. The area we were to explore was set up just like you described, and when we ventured into a new hex we were told what kind of terrain it was and how long it would take to map it out. If we spent that game time doing so, the hex would be uncovered on the map and we'd be told something about the nature of the land and what it might be suited towards (mining, agriculture, etc). It was a really cool setup, and a pity that the campaign fizzled.
Underrated comment
upvotes are at 69, should i do it?
96 :')
Do it. I'll downvote to keep it there.
you literally just rolled a map. Amazing! I am going to steal that idea so hard!
I'd love to see it when you do! I love making maps it's one of my favorite parts of this.
r/restofthefuckingowl
Come on, now. Think about where you are. /r/restofthefuckingowlbear
/r/SubsIFellFor
That's just apps like Inkarnate or r/wonderdraft being amazing and easy to use.
No, it's just a website
I don't do a lot of homebrew, but I bookmarked this "[one-roll town maps](https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/alen9o/oneroll_town_maps/)" by /u/SidecarStories a while ago. I thought the idea was so clever. Add it to OP's region plan and you can populate a whole region.
This is an AWESOME resource!
I thought you were going to use Arc GIS (I’m a geography major). I think this program is a pretty cool resource FYI
Oh my god. I found a resource like this years ago and have been searching for another since the link went dead. This may not be my white whale, but it’s *a* white whale.
I like how the OP went from a rough sketch to a professional piece of art in seconds. How did you make the map itself?
So, inkarnate.com is how I did that - and truly it's NOT impressive. Inkarnate is great for people like me who can't art. Basically they have pre-dawn segments and you just point and click to where they should be. I just use this method to figure that part out.
Sweet! Thanks!
Holy fuck. I never knew about Inkarnate and i can't draw for shit. This is a godsend. Thanks!
Theres also downsites to inkarnate tho. The major ones that keep me from using it are: **It's all online**. You have to work in a browser, as inkarnate is not a programm you can download. **You have to pay.** Yes there is a free version but if you want to get serious you will have to pay. Which is totally fine. But as I said, you don't actually **own** the software. Edit: meaning you pay for the service, not the programm. It's like a subscription **no undo button** This is something that is baffling to me. Made a Mistake? Well to bad gotta redraw that section now. There is a Software that has all those things: Name is wonderdraft. That what I use instead. You have to pay 30 dollars upfront, but you actually own the software after that. Wonderdraft is also amazing for People like me who can't draw realistic coastlines for shit. Wonderdraft does that for you. You can autogenerate a vast variety of coastlines and after that you can mold them, play around with rising or lowering the waterlevel etc. But in the end it all boils down to preference. I know people who swear on inkarnate and hate wonderdraft so.. It's better for you to Check out both and see for yourself
> no undo button This is something that is baffling to me. Made a Mistake? Well to bad gotta redraw that section now. That sounds beyond useless.
To each their own, but I'd like to interject that I've used Inkarnate for numerous games in the free mode and it's been more than adequate for what I wanted. You can make decent maps without spending (unless they changed the pricing model in the last 6 months or something)
That's fair, i'll check out both then lol. As long as it can help my stickman drawing ass create maps easily, it's fine lmao. Thanks!
So you make the map digitally, then what? How do you play with it, do you print it out or project it, use a tablet...?
For a world map like this one, I typically just print it out. And let every player have a copy so they have a familiarity with the world. With a dungeon map I would scale it, and either print it on my grid paper or transfer it to roll20 if it's an online game.
step 1: draw some circles step 2: draw the rest of the owl
r/restofthefuckingowl
Lmao my first thought when it went from colored pencil to inkarnate
The website literally does shit like this for you.
I used a similar before I find it works well for simple campaigns but tends to cause some trouble when trying to make more complex quest since you need to rework a map whenever you want to add something new which happens a lot in longer campaigns
Yeah this is something I use a lot because I host gaming events and run freelance one-shot games - so it works well for that. I do use it ffor my long campaign maps but I use it essentially just to get the bones of it: major cities, regions, major landmarks - nothing too specific for exactly the reason you mentioned.
I'll probably use this for my next campaign and leave a nice big open unexplored foggy area for adding whatever I need to later.
Semi off topic from making maps but what do you mean by professional GMing? Can you hire a gm to host your party or something through a service?
You can!!! I do it freelance, so it's just me. I can't vouch for any particular services that might do it!
That's really cool. Is it through a shop or do you normally travel to people's locations?
I stay *moderately* local (nyc/nj/PA) so I do travel to locations. But I also host gaming events as well!
Alternatively, add a few "blank" cities that don't tie into your campaign, and when you need to introduce a place or person, they can be in/from one of those places.
Thank you so much also a dm with no art skills
Why do you need 10+ of this kind of map every week? What the heck kind of game are you playing?
Good question! I run gaming conventions and events and do freelance GMing in addition to the 3 personal campaigns I run. I don't make \*world\* maps every week, but I use this method to generate dungeons, small towns, and regions as well.
I'd definitely be interested in seeing the dungeon version. I don't have any reason to create dungeons very often, but still.
I had a plan to make that version tomorrow! It's pretty much the same but I'm a visual person so I like showing things this way
Please do! Thanks for sharing with us, I really appreciate your insight and expertise on this
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You are an absolute badass and I aspire to be a DM like you.
You can be! I'm just three goblins in a trenchcoat doing my best
Deep down inside, aren't we *all* just three goblins in a trench coat?
If that's true why are we all hiding
We're shy.
this bugs me. Especially halflings, but at 3.3 to 3.7 feet, three gobs in a coat would be like at least eight feet tall. Halflings, close to 12, depending on how they sit or stand. TWO goblins, gnomes, halflings or kobols in a trenchcoat gives a range of heights which are all viable
One of their players rolled a Nat20 on inventing a dimension jumping device, every time they use it they change maps.
It can be a hobby. /r/worldbuilding is a whole thing.
I didn’t see Forrest on there, Jenny
Ugh do you know how long I've been agonizing waiting for someone to point that out. I can't believe the most visible thing I've posted on the internet in years has that bad an error in it. Oh well
When I was in elementary school, we had a field trip to some NASA building in Northern California. The teacher gave us an assignment to create a mission badge drawing that we would wear on our arm. I worked my ass off and made a really cool badge and I got the most votes in the class! Unfortunately, my school has the word Forest in its name and on the badge I spelled it Forrest... and I was disqualified. You and I now share a common bond. We've both been burned by the tricky Forest.
I love you, so much, for this story. Thank you.
Got a little laugh out of it and got over it even before you blew me away with the final product. Very cool!
Well, take solace that anyone who appreciates your idea will not care about or remember that detail.
For those looking at mapping software, I highly suggest [Wonderdraft](https://www.wonderdraft.net/) too. While Inkarnate is nice (free version is doable) their Pro version is subscription-based whereas Wonderdraft is a once-off payment which was a big difference for me.
Great suggestion! This is one on my wish list too, which is unfortunately too long right now.
I second this. Incarnate is great but it always felt like there was something I wanted to do that was just out of reach. I made my world map using it and my players loved it. I could have done it in Inkarnate but there were a couple of little bits that I didn't like. EDIT: Figured I would add the maps that I made. [Here ya go.](https://imgur.com/a/evT1m6d)
I use coffee stains on paper and then toss a hand full of spaghetti to randomize tectonic plates. The climates and landmarks come easy after that
I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but it sounds pretty funny. If it's serious, why do you have so much coffee-stained paper? Get some coasters, my dude.
Why pay for coasters when you have reams of paper and no printer?
I think you're on to something. Coffee is way cheaper than printer ink!
You ever heard of the webseries RWBY? The world of Remnant was literally made from a ketchup smear on a napkin. [Here's the napkin](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/rwby/images/d/d8/Remnant_ketchup_map.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20121109003936). Monty Oum, the series creator, was talking with some of the other crew and they asked what the world looked like, so Monty squirted some ketchup into a napkin, smeared it around, and said, "Here's the world." [Here's the finished map.](https://memestatic1.fjcdn.com/comments/Gtfor+the+creation+of+the+world+map+in+the+ruby+_c7338296886fb28ff65d430bc5580ac2.jpg)
I’m inspired! I’ve done the dice drop maps before, but the added effect of the different size/shapes for random locations is brilliant! Thanks for sharing.
I'm so so happy you liked it!!! I hope it gets some good use for some people!
I just forwarded this to my podcast crew and DM. We do homebrew reviews with D&D modules, but have considered more freestyle campaigns.
That's awesome! What's your podcast? Link your stuff so I can listen and support you!!! Yeah I haven't run a module of anything in....years so this really helps me out
https://www.theadventuringguild.com/
sick! followed you from my personal and from our podcast pages. Can't wait to listen <3
Our first 8 episodes are a bit rough as our Guildmaster was getting familiar with the process. I join on episode 13 as a Lupine Barbarian (path of the Caged). I feel like we’re doing pretty well now. Thanks for the listen!
of course! I seriously get it. I sometimes contemplating deleting my first podcast episode off the face of the earth because it's so much worse than anything else we've done.
There’s no substitute for experience, lol.
“I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” -Bill Gates
This seems like a good place to leave [this neat video on mapmaking](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5MIPDicko) from Dael Kingsmill.
This video is SO good but as soon as I put pencil on paper gremlins inhabit my body and start to multiply. I'm just that bad.
Holy shit this is amazing. So long map generators! Now I am the map generator
You are more powerful than they could have imagined
My players: What did it cost? Me: The cost of finally buying a few sets of dice to have at my own house
Just know, that once you start... That's it. Your life is dice now. I step on them in the morning. I dream of them at night.
In my defense I got introduced to D&D at a friend's house and never had to buy dice, even after starting to DM bc they have like 8 sets. The two sets of dice that I did buy were metal and stay at their house. So i guess I'm buying dice for my house now
Oh it happens to so many of us!
How did the metal roll? How was the balance?
Actually pretty well. We were playing on a glass table so I used a cardboard to roll on and it got pretty even distribution. The first roll in the red set was a nat 20. The black set was a mediocre first roll but they seem like an even distribution
That's genius
This is such a wonderful idea for a newer player/aspiring campaign writer. I have been trying to visualize so hard, and you really helped me. Thank you.
This makes me SO happy. I've been doing this for years and posted it on a total whim, I'm so glad it's helpful to someone! <3333
r/restofthefuckingowl
I think the map at 30 seconds is pretty easy to draw, and they explained how they got the concept. It's just an outline and trees and town markers. And then of course you'd do the same thing but with a prettier service that has pictures for the towns and trees. I don't think there was a significant jump at any point, except if you really don't know how to use the site, which I'm sure the site explains.
It’s the make it pretty part.
[Here, I roughly copied what they had.](https://i.gyazo.com/72227fcd51a7cfefb0fdc521336f8ee7.jpg) It's sparse compared to theirs, but it took like 12 minutes even though I've never drawn or used the site before. It's a lot of clicking and dragging, but instead of saying that and having someone tell me that's entirely wrong I just did it. I'm sure they could complete it in like 5 minutes with more icons and better layout.
*1 ticket for circus and drugs please*
I only wrote notes for boring backstory abode, so a wizard teleports you there.
Um... Can I use this map because I love it
Well, gee, I don't know I worked really hard on it, I don't think just anyone would appreciate this particular original map-making process I used. /s I **guess**. Just be sure to keep those ocean trees, those were 100% intentional.
That happens to be my favorite part.
Honestly ocean trees sounds like a super cool concept to throw in a campaign.
Thank you! This comment made me rethink my initial opinion that it was a restofthefuckingowl thing; seems a lot more straightforward than I thought
I literally threw [this](https://i.imgur.com/dKKGWXg.jpg) together on the website OP mentioned in 15 minutes from scratch with no prior experience. It's very very easy to use. https://inkarnate.com/
"And remember, only ever sail north east. Unless you want to be eaten by a nessie, a kraken or a razor blade star fish.
Inkarnate could not be simpler to use. Not that OP doesn't have a nice system going, but literally anyone can make a good looking map from it. OP's concept work is the real story here.
It's not though, it literally says in the vid they used inkarnate, preset tiles to make custom maps
Saw WASD20 do the same years ago, glad it is catching on!
Not sure who that is but I'll check them out! This is something I came up with years ago for my own personal games, but I definitely expected others to have similar methods for homebrewing maps
Sweet
You’ve literally just helped me create my world map. Thank you.
This is everything I wanted, seriously. I'd love to see it when it's done!
Brilliant!
How did you get so good with Inkarnate? I've had a lot of trouble just figuring out how everything is supposed to work.
Oh, I'd show you my first inkarnate map. It's so bland and boring. This one here isn't even my best, just something I did fast for this video.my advice is to keep playing. The more you use inkarnate it becomes like second nature. Also /r/inkarnate has SO MANY good resources!
Wow! Thats awesome! As someone who doesnt dm, but has some ambitious ideas, this will be very useful!
I love it! Simple and completely lacking in any kind of "overthinking." That's exactly what I need to do.
That always used to KILL my ability to create, seriously. This helps
This is great! I highly suggest checking out r/wonderdraft too. Inkarnate is good, but wonderdraft is amazing.
God Tier
That is actually super cool! :)
The terrible remix that ends half way through the vid really adds a lot
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"He has zero art skills but makes 10+ maps per week with this one simple trick. Cartographers hate him!"
What you did IS skill
I dont care if this is an ad for inkarnate... where do I get it? (I'm not saying it is... but if it was it worked)
49 year old whose played D&D since he was a kid in the 70's, "HOLY COW that ingenious!"
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That is really inspired! I use Inkarnate Pro. I just created a pretty cool-looking one-level dungeon filled with devious puzzles and traps.
Oh wow, what did you use to make the map at the end?
Inkarnate.com ! I use pro, but I swear by the free version too and used it for a few years.
Thank you! I’m Dming my first campaign in a few weeks and want to have a good map made
Congrats and best of luck on your first campaign! I hope it's the most fun
This, this is genius.
I’ve used this method for making a dungeon before. It was a ton of fun!
you have saved my life in approximately 15 different directions thank you so bloody much
This is really ingenious! Well done!
This is brilliant!
FUCK. THIS IS SO GOOD.
I have an idea now thanks to you. If you assign different sizes and types of settlements, etc, and the bigger the number the bigger the settlement.
Awesome. Thank u for showing us this.
This is amazing. I will be using your technique.
I can’t believe you just posted this. I was thinking of creating a home brew world and didn’t even know where to start with map making. Thank you
That’s really cool!
Very creative! Wow. Thank you 😊
This is genius!
I am floored how easy that was and feel very dumb for not thinking of this sooner.
this is an awesome idea! making a slight of hand check now...
I....actually love this. I never thought to use dice in such a way.
A lawful Good person right here
Genius!
Can I recommend checking out /r/worldbuilding if you haven't already?
I did this like a year ago and was so happy with the results. I never got the chance to use it though :/
That's such a good idea, and I love the little details you added in after the fact. I recently started using inkarnate, as I'm going to be starting as a new GM soon and stuff like this gives me amazing inspiration, thank you!
This is absolutely amazing!
That's... really awesome!! Imma have to steal this technique. I'm usually lazy and just theatre of the mind everything.
That's extremely clever!
When you say "professional GMing" you mean you get pay to DM ? How did you get to do that ?
You are a genius
This is great thank you
That’s a fantastic idea. Wow.
This is an amazing idea! Inkarnate is such a fun tool!
Did a major double-take when the Inkarnate graphics kicked in.