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Mapping the Path

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

I’ll be honest with you. I love maps. I always have, so when Erik, Wes, and Jason asked me if I wanted to start designing the Map Packs and Flip-Maps for the GameMastery line, I just yelled, “Gimme!” Then I ran away, laughing manically with my new toy.

This is a section of the “artwork” I sent to Jason for Flip-Mat: Pirate Ship. It’s ugly, but gets the point across, which is the purpose of the sketch.

By designing maps, I don’t mean that I actually do the cartography. That’s a job for far more artistically savvy folk, like the talented Jason Engle, who is currently doing the artistic heavy lifting for these products. But before we can have Jason do his magic, there is a lot of work and planning that goes into each of these products. This week, I’m going to hijack the blog to shed some light on the process of designing a GameMastery Map Pack or Flip-Mat product.

Each map product starts out as a vague concept on the product schedule. I say vague concept, but there is actually a lot of thought that goes into the concept phase. A few of us sit around the table, look at the current map products we have available, determine which ones sold well, which ones didn’t, and rifle though the Paizo messageboards about such products and see what kind of things the fans liked, what they didn’t, and what kind of things they would like to see in the future. Often, a Map Pack or a Flip-Mat is meant to complement Pathfinder products set for release around the same period of time.

For instance, both the upcoming Map Pack: Ship’s Cabins and the Flip-Mat: Pirate Ship were expressly designed to complement the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. Sure, each of these products features cool ships that you could use in any campaign, but each one also details ships that the PCs actually use in that Adventure Path. Because of this dual purpose, I worked closely with Rob McCreary (Adventure Path developer extraordinaire) to make sure that each map product would have everything that he and the AP designers would need for that project. This give-and-take started with Rob giving me preliminary information about the AP adventures, particularly encounters taking place on the various ships. From there, I put together rough sketches of the maps and had Rob give me feedback on them. That feedback often forced me to go back to the drawing board, create a new round of rough sketches, and then we would start the process all over again, iterating until everything was right.

Jason Engle’s final product using my rough sketch and area descriptions as direction. The final product is beautiful and spot on. Jason rocks!

While the maps connected to the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path were a little more cooperation-intensive than most map projects, every early map product process starts with brainstorming, rough sketching, and making sure all the stakeholders are happy with the initial map design. Once that’s achieved, the next step is to make those rough sketches something more concrete—more than just a bunch of pencil scribbles on graph paper. They have to be something that an artist can understand clearly and easily. This involves cleaner maps sketched with my set of gaudy-but-striking colored pens and a map order that lists all the important details of the map. These refined rough sketches and the map order then goes to the art department. The art director, Sarah Robinson, then takes a look, makes sure it is as clear as possible, asking me questions about things that seem vague or somewhat questionable, revisions are made again if necessary, and then she sends it to Jason for beautification.

The process does not end there, though. Jason sends us his preliminary work on the maps, usually in the form of a black-and-white “sketch,” which is nearly complete, except for the color. We then take a look at his work, making sure that all of the details presented in my initial drawings and map order are all there, and take a critical eye at the often wondrous details he provides. Once that’s done, we either send a list of small changes or—more often than not—just let Jason know that his work is spot on and then move on to the next step: final or nearly final turnover by the artist.

With the color maps in, we look over them carefully, making sure everything looks gorgeous and the details are correct, and then move on to last-minute approvals from all the stakeholders and the business team. On rare occasions, the map goes back for some last-minute tweaking. When we are all happy with the final result, packaging is designed, and the files get sent to the printer. Lastly, the product gets shipped out to subscribers and distributors. It’s final journey ends with the “ooohs” and “aaahs of players” as GMs everywhere plop the finished product on the game table before uttering that magical phrase, “Roll initiative.”

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

DM_aka_Dudemeister

Jan 17, 2012, 01:25 PM

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Tales, Comics Subscriber

Cool, I quite love the maps, it's always good to have the right tool for the job.

Tinalles

Jan 17, 2012, 01:38 PM

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Interesting.

Since we're on the topic, can I put in a request for some environmentally themed map packs? A pack of Forest sites, a pack of Plains sites, a pack of Swamp sites, and so on. My kingmaker group has been using the Campsites pack, but there's only one forest site, and there is no "plains" camp site (we've pressed the swamp camp site into service for that). Either way, it gets kind of repetitive after the third or fourth random encounter on the exact same camp site. Some variety would be welcome.

Martin Kauffman 530

Jan 17, 2012, 02:05 PM

Perhaps sets of random paths, trails, obstacles, and small sites that could interlock to form different maps/sites.

Carl Cascone

Jan 17, 2012, 03:10 PM

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I love the map packs.

How much research goes into making them? For the pirate ships as example it is tough to make a map of, without a descent knowledge of seamanship.

It seems to me that a good amount of research goes into these maps.

GeraintElberion

Jan 17, 2012, 03:38 PM

Pathfinder Campaign Setting Superscriber; Pathfinder Comics Subscriber

Stephen Radley-MacFarland:

I love your blog posts the most but...

4th paragraph
2nd sentence

That 'what' should be a 'which'.

[/pedant]

cibet44

Jan 17, 2012, 05:20 PM

Good blog post. See? That wasn't so hard.

I love when the maps packs and flip-mats match actual AP encounters. Awesome.

In the future:
Map Pack: Random Terrain
Map Pack: The Planes
Flip-Mat: Weird Planet

Laithoron

Jan 17, 2012, 11:28 PM

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Adventure Path, Modules, Pawns, GameMastery Maps Subscriber

Really like this blog entry. It's cool to get a glimpse into the design process, and it's also nice to know that feedback from the boards influences product decisions.

I'm really hopeful that the trend of complimentary Flip-Mat and Map-Packs releases continues. IMO the best use of the tiles is when they can just be overlaid atop an existing map. I'm really hopeful that these tiles will fit over and replace the decks and cabins of the pirate ships to enable us to change up their layout or see down into the interior.

One reason I like such an approach is that it allows battles to take places on multiple levels of a "dungeon" at once without having to scratch your head over how to represent it. People fighting in the captain's cabin while raiders are atop the poop-deck above the ceiling? No problem! Just pull out a map tile for the cabin and set it to the side.

I'd love to see a similar 'modular' approach taken with a castle, cathedral, or civic courthouse at some point.