Christopher West's page

Thank you so much for sharing this here, Dudemeister! I definitely had Starfinder's release in mind when I was working on these maps, and that's part of the reason for the rushed funding time. (Just 4 days left!)

I'm trying desperately to have the finished posters at Gen Con, so if any forum members here happen to be in Indianapolis next week, I hope you'll stop by my booth (#666) to say hi and see them in person!

Mosaic: Those were good times! I'm actually hoping to bring back my Maps of Mystery feature as a standalone project on Patreon in the future. Here's a link for that in case anyone wants to see those return: https://patreon.com/mapmaker?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&u tm_campaign=creatorshare2

Happy birthday, Wolfgang!!! :)

Thank you so much, Weren Wu Jen, for helping me to get the word out about this!

As I type this, it's looking very likely that we'll pass the stretch goal to unlock all of the Distant Outposts posters, and that wouldn't have been possible without this word of mouth!

Auxmaulous, thanks for supporting this. It sounds like you have the add-ons menu figured out correctly. I'm sorry for any confusion; I'll try to create clearer reward tiers next time!

Thanks, briguy! I'm honored and delighted to hear that years later, people are still having fun with my first published adventure! :)

I love reading the play-by-play of your experience, too! Thank you so much for sharing!

Thanks for being on top of this, Liz! :)

This is the first Maps of Mastery product that provides an empty floor grid for building new encounters from scratch.

What the description above doesn't tell you is that the Railway Floor lines up with each of my "Mass Transit" posters and the newly revised Railway Station Tiles, allowing you to expand the railway system that runs through all of those products. The sheets of terrain in Deck Space can expand the same maps even further.

Also important to note, since others have raised comparisons in the past: this poster covers a larger area than Paizo's flip mats, but it is not laminated. I do suggest getting this poster laminated if you have the means: the Cargo Bay Floor in particular would be great for drawing out your own maps with dry erase markers.

To clarify for those who may remember my first terrain card set released back in 2009, called "Detention Base & Grav Train": this is the same product, with some special enhancements:

All of the cards have been expanded to 5x8 inches instead of 5x7, and they have all been made double-sided with a set of new artwork for the back. It includes some never-before-seen map locations, two brand new train cars, and some alternate versions based on the original artwork. Also, the front and back covers feature new bonus terrain on the inside covers.

It might!

And in case we can somehow push it to $12K in the next 5 hours, I've uploaded pictures of a fourth product that would go to the printer and be available for backers:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mapmaker/mass-transit-iv-maps-and-more/ posts

Hi, folks!

Overnight, backers on Kickstarter ensured that my Deck Space poster map/encounter-building kit will see print along with the Nova Eclipse starship of Mass Transit IV, and the Alien Starship Tiles! Now it's the final day of the funding drive, and people have until midnight tonight (Eastern time) to participate if they want any of those.

The posters and card sets will be in stores eventually, but backers get them with free shipping (worldwide!), get PDF files of each map, get free *bonus* PDFs of a Passenger variant of the two Mass Transit IV maps, and score a pair of free custom dice!

(And possibly more free stuff if the funding goes higher today...)

Here's an abbreviated link; if you folks in the Paizo community know anyone outside of this forum that would like any of this stuff, please share it!

http://kck.st/zbFWhR

By the way, if you don't care for the Nova Eclipse starship of Mass Transit IV but still want the Deck Space kit to build your own skirmish maps on the fly, or want the Alien Starship Tiles to map out the guts of a giant fantasy creature, you'll be able to choose either of those instead of Mass Transit IV in any of the rewards.

A quick update: One of the bonus rewards has been unlocked, so now every backer who gets a poster or terrain card set will also receive a pair of custom "Nova Eclipse" dice with their maps!

Still working on the goal for the Alien Starship Tiles...

Thanks, Mike! Much appreciated!

Hi, folks!

I'm currently trying to launch a set of three new sci-fi map sets (poster maps and terrain cards) via Kickstarter, and I'm hoping the rest of the Paizo community can help me get the word out. The first goal has been met, but there are two additional products ready to see print if the project really takes off:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mapmaker/mass-transit-iv-maps-and-more

The next big goal is for a set of creepy-looking Alien Starship Tiles that could double as the guts of a gigantic creature, so I'm hoping fantasy gamers might get something out of this as well.

Collectively, this community can reach a lot more people who might be interested in these maps than I can alone, so if you can suggest places to announce it, please let me know or share the link in those places directly.

Thanks very much for any support you can provide!

Much-belated thanks for the plug, Vic! :)

Consider me extremely interested, in both a personal and professional capacity. I would love to lend my cartography skills to the endeavor if needed. :)

Thanks, Heymitch! Mass Transit III should be available here in the Paizo store very soon.

I am planning to make PDF copies of my poster maps available in the near future. I'll post a link here when they're available!

I recently introduced my 9-year-old son to Pathfinder, guiding him through his first-ever roleplaying game experience along with my wife and a couple of our friends. He loved it!

This product will be his next step. His birthday is November 12, and thanks to Paizo, I already know what I'm getting him. :)

I'm really happy to see this up on Paizo, and gratified by the warm reception it has gotten already! Lou and Rone really turned it up to "11" for this thing and put my maps to spectacularly good use!

Thanks, Lisa! I'm thrilled that you like them that much! :)

Thanks, GodsDMit! I'm really proud of these posters, and honored by the support you and others have shown for them! :)

These maps look amazing! So glad I bought them on the preorder!

I wouldn't mind seeing an Osirion-based AP, either. I'd love to do the maps for it, too, for that matter. :)

By the way, there are only 44 hours left to back my Deep Vistas project; if it doesn't reach the funding goal by midnight on Monday, the posters won't see print. If anyone wants to back this project or help me get the word out to other gamers, this is the time...

Thanks folks!

Here's a link to the Kickstarter page: http://kck.st/e9xXaZ

Yes, I've been doing my best to get the word out without being overly intrusive. (I hate spam as much as the next guy.) ENWorld ran a news item and there's a message board thread about it.

Mainly I've been hitting the social network sites; various message boards, Facebook, and Twitter. If you can think of other places to mention this, please, by all means do so!

It's about 70% to the funding goal now, but there are only 44 hours left in this project; if we don't get enough backers by midnight on Monday, these posters won't see print.

Incidentally, I added a new reward tier that lets backers get my adventure, "Fall of the Heretic Queen" as a PDF along with the poster maps, without buying other extra maps they may not need.

Hmm. I hadn't thought of them that way, but I suppose I can see your point. I was going for simple, but that can sometimes come across as modern. I like the alternative metals idea; that's something I'll need to keep in mind for future maps.

I might also do something like that on the terrain card that will come with this poster; maybe swapping the style and treatment of a section of floor.

Thanks for the feedback! :)

I hope "wow" means you like them. :) If so, thanks!

Bullrush is an excellent tactic on a lot of my maps; I'm a big fan of treacherous pits. :)

In this one, the peril can come to you...the numerous floor grates are designed to allow swarm creatures to emerge from the floor and flank PCs without warning. I personally had a kobold ranger in-party NPC skeletonized on this map by a swarm of flesh-eating beetles...

Thanks, guys!

Joey, sorry to hear that. I hope she gets better soon!

Funny you should mention that; one of the projects I'm working on to follow this one is a set of poster maps that present a town with key buildings all mapped out. It should be adaptable enough to be useful in a number of campaigns, and I'm hoping to take a different approach with it than has been done before.

That might be delayed, though, since this Kickstarter drive with the Chapel of Scarabs doesn't seem likely to reach the goal at the present pace. There's only a week and a half left, and we're not quite half way to the funding goal to get them printed.

If you guys can share this link with others in your gaming groups, I'd appreciate it:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mapmaker/deep-vistas-poster-map-set

I haven't actually done anything for Kobold Quarterly yet, though I hope to remedy that in the future as I'm a big fan of--and friend to--Wolfgang.

I have worked for Paizo, WotC, Green Ronin, The Game Mechanics, AEG, Privateer Press, Avalanche Press, and others. Lately I've been doing a lot of maps for Pathfinder Society Scenarios. I used to be known best for my Maps of Mystery in Dungeon magazine, and later for doing all but one of the poster maps for the Star Wars miniatures game (and most of the maps in the SW RPG books).

This Kickstarter project is absolutely on the up-and-up. I did two successful Kickstarter-based launches for other posters last year (which now can be found for sale here at Paizo, incidentally: do a search for "Maps of Mastery"), and backers seemed very pleased with the quality. Plus, with Kickstarter, no money ever changes hands unless a project reaches its funding goal by its deadline, so there's no risk involved.

This is the first time I've tried to launch 6 maps at once, though, and frankly, it's not going as well as the others. We're over half way to the deadline, and not quite half way to the funding goal. If these maps don't get more support from the fantasy gaming community in the next week or so, they probably won't see print.

If you guys could help me out by sharing this link with your friends, I'll be as Eternally Grateful as the Toy Story aliens:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mapmaker/deep-vistas-poster-map-set

Thanks for mentioning this, godsDMit! I appreciate the support! :)

Hi folks,

One of the poster maps I'm hoping to bring to market soon has an Egyptian temple motif, and it has been pointed out that it would feel at home in an Osirion-based campaign. With that in mind, I wanted to get the thoughts of folks in this community:

http://www.mapsofmastery.com/images/deepvistas/chapelofscarabs.jpg

Here's a close-up of the pit crawling with beetles:
http://www.mapsofmastery.com/images/deepvistas/ChapelOfScarabs-beetles.jpg

If my Kickstarter funding drive for the 6-map "Deep Vistas" set is successful, this will probably become available here at Paizo's store, so your opinions are particularly relevant to me. Is this a map that you would use in your Pathfinder campaign? If not, how should I tailor future maps to work well in Golarion?

Congratulations, folks! I very much like what I see here! :)

Christopher West, I love his maps!!!

I'm still around, chopswil! I've been doing maps for a lot of Pathfinder Society scenarios recently, as well as working on my own poster maps and terrain card sets that I self-publish at mapsofmastery.com (Most of which is also available here in Paizo's store.)

My latest independent project is a set of three interconnected posters (6 maps) created with an underground campaign in mind. I'm trying to build enough support to get them printed; if successful, these will eventually appear in Paizo's store as well:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mapmaker/deep-vistas-poster-map-set

Thanks for asking about me! :)

LOL! Awesome!

And thanks for the blog mention! :)

The "House of Broken Minds" had a sort of observatory, as I recall. That was around April or May of 2006, I think.

Issue #135, perhaps?

Thanks for the kind words, folks! Glad you like my work.

Some of the maps mentioned above are on display in my website gallery at www.mapsofmastery.com

I might add others in the future.

I saw Avatar twice in 3D, and once in 2D. In my opinion, it is one the greatest films ever made; certainly the most memorable in my experience. It was a jaw-droppingly realistic presentation of a beautiful world, and a heart-wrenching story of a man's personal journey to become a part of it, and ultimately stand up to fight for it.

The special effects are incredible, and that certainly contributed to my enjoyment of Avatar, but that isn't what made it a great movie for me. I found it to be a profoundly moving story, beautifully told, and presented with an unparalleled attention to detail. There's nothing on the screen or in the script that doesn't enrich the story or the experience. It's crafted with purpose and skill to tell the story in a direct and rewarding way; a way that allows the viewer to experience the main character's journey, step by step.

As an example of how captivated I was by this film: I went into the theater with a box of candy in my coat pocket. When I stood up at the end, after the audience was finished applauding and the credits had come to a close, I was stunned to find it still there; I had not only forgotten that I had bought it, I forgot that something called chocolate even existed. That sort of immersion has never happened to me in a theater before.

(It's also, if I may digress on a personal note, a very spiritual movie for me. The Na'vi reverence for their world and the way life is interconnected on Pandora really mirrors the way real-life pagan spiritualities relate to and perceive our world. It was very refreshing to see that sort of interwoven tapestry of life made literal and vividly presented in a major motion picture.)

Anyway, the story is archetypical, which of course allows people to draw parallels to many other films. It's also told in a classical style, which makes the plot predictable to those familiar with traditional storytelling techniques. But those aren't weaknesses; they make for a strong story.

The problem is, we as moviegoers have become a cynical bunch. We cast scorn on anything presented in a straightforward manner, and condemnation on anything that makes us think too hard. If a movie is popular, were predisposed to dislike it. There's a counterculture at work here that makes it "cool" to criticize anything that's a major commercial success. That's a shame, IMO, because those who choose not to see Avatar because it's too popular, or because the plot has parallels with older works, are doing themselves a huge disservice, in my opinion. Love it or not, Avatar is a defining cinematic experience of our time; it's the kind of film event that comes along very rarely. It really is a masterpiece, and twenty years from now I'm going to talk about the experience of seeing it opening night with the same sort of pride that many people today feel when they look back on the premiere of Star Wars.