Map Discussion to Kill Time

The Superstars should all have their maps in now and the judges are busy making their initial comments for Tuesday's next big reveal...In the meantime tell us about your favorite RPG Map.

One of my recent favorites was the city of Cauldron. Sure we all knew how that was going to end from the start but that was half the fun.

One of my favorites was Christopher West's "Guildsport" from Dungeon's "Maps of mystery." Itgot me hooked on his art-I-mean-maps. I plan on using it as a Sci-Fi frontier town.

I think my favorite map has to be the classic Castle Ravenloft from the original model. It was the first one I ever saw using the isometric map style and I loved it. I am still amazed at the detail and how all the levels and towers fit together and the grand gothic feel of the castle. It was such a better castle then the one in the first model I purchased as a kid, Castle Caldwell.

One map that's always stuck with me is the Vanderboren Manor from Dungeon 139? 140?

I think I tend to like maps of more basic locations, since I'd yank them for my own campaigns, and that one just always called out to me. I think it's a great example of a good map that doesn't have to be a super exotic locale.

I second the original ravenloft map. That thing was awesome

The map in the first module I ever bought. The 25th anniversary edition of "Return to White Plume Mountain."

Also has my favorite magic items in it.

I loved the shrine to Blibdoolpoolp in the Kuo-Toa fortress in Shackled City. I made a 3D version of that to play in, and it was one of the most interesting and challenging spaces to run an encounter (series of encounters, really) that I've ever used. Here's a link to it if you want to see a giant statue to Blibdoolpoolp in all her glory!

And another Paizo map that I had a great time with, and had tons of fun turning 3D: The Stag Lord's Fort at the end of the 1st Chapter of Kingmaker.

I loved the shrine to Blibdoolpoolp in the Kuo-Toa fortress in Shackled City. I made a 3D version of that to play in, and it was one of the most interesting and challenging spaces to run an encounter (series of encounters, really) that I've ever used. Here's a link to it if you want to see a giant statue to Blibdoolpoolp in all her glory!

That is absolutely AMAZING. How long did it take to make the temple and the giant statue?

Scott LaBarge wrote:

I loved the shrine to Blibdoolpoolp in the Kuo-Toa fortress in Shackled City. I made a 3D version of that to play in, and it was one of the most interesting and challenging spaces to run an encounter (series of encounters, really) that I've ever used. Here's a link to it if you want to see a giant statue to Blibdoolpoolp in all her glory!

That is absolutely AMAZING. How long did it take to make the temple and the giant statue?

Me, or the kuo-toa? ;-)

Just kidding. Actually, it's a few years back now, so I don't remember clearly. I think that the statue took me about two days, though there was a lot of waiting in between steps. You can see the stages in the earlier pages of that thread; it really wasn't all that hard to do. (And my daughter still gives me grief about the horrible fate of that Barbie doll -- and no, it wasn't one of hers!)

The build itself -- by which I mean all the architectural elements -- probably took me three or four days of pretty steady work. But if you really want to see a build that took a lot of work, that would be the Lucky Monkey Inn, also a favorite map from Paizo's Shackled City campaign. That's the most ambitious terrain project I've ever completed, and you can see it here. Though you'll have to read a few pages further into the thread to see it completed, with the 2nd story and roofs added. I need to find more excuses to bring that build out and play with it.

And you know, there are a couple of great things about having 3D builds of stuff: for one thing, players will try more crazy maneuvers and do more creative movement when they have a visual sense of how everything is related to each other in space. But also, stuff that you have to decide more or less by fiat when you're adjudicating 3D mechanics on a 2D grid can be resolved decisively on a build like this. At one point when I ran an encounter in that space, a kuo-toa whip unleashed a lightning bolt at a player who was near to him, and I then said, "Oh, and look, these two other PC's a floor below are also in the path of the lightning bolt; make Reflex saves!" The players protested that no, they weren't positioned all in a line. So we took out a string, ran it between the relevant two points, and voila! Two more Reflex saves were made. Very satisfying.

That AP had some amazing/crazy maps.

Still, I think my lesson from them was don't go *too* nuts on your maps. They were just all HUGE and I remember my players getting really sick of them. I think the Kua-Toa lair had like 60 rooms, right (or am I getting it confused with the Ebon Triad map; I can't even remember now if they were the same map or not)? They just kept going and going. And the downside is the maps were so nice I didn't want to just cut parts off of them.

You're probably thinking of Jzadirune in the 1st module, which really was massive, and the Kopru ruins in the 3rd adventure. The bugbear/goblin caves in the 2nd adventure were pretty extensive too. But the Kuo-Toa fortress was actually pretty reasonable, with just 3 fairly confined levels.

I had to cut that campaign short in order to draw to a close before my players all graduated and left town, so we never got past the Fiery Sanctum (which I did in 2D only :-( And I'm kind of glad I never tried Shatterhorn; that was another big, big dungeon. But I would have liked to try my hand at building the final tower in the last chapter (can't remember its name offhand.) I've also contemplated trying to build Ravenloft in 3D, since that is indeed such a beautiful map, but I've never found the time or willpower, and my wife would want to kill me to boot o.O

But if you really want to see a build that took a lot of work, that would be the Lucky Monkey Inn, also a favorite map from Paizo's Shackled City campaign. That's the most ambitious terrain project I've ever completed, and you can see it here. Though you'll have to read a few pages further into the thread to see it completed, with the 2nd story and roofs added. I need to find more excuses to bring that build out and play with it.

Hats off to you, wish I could play in your game.

I would love to see Ravenloft in 3D...that would be spectacular.

Andrew, man, I wish you could play in my game too. If you're ever in Santa Clara, drop me a line.

Temple, Goldeneye.

Power Weapons, No Camping.

...I feel so much younger, RPG-wise than most of the contingent.

Put me in the young camp. I know very little about what's come before besides the few recent things I've played.

And another Paizo map that I had a great time with, and had tons of fun turning 3D: The Stag Lord's Fort at the end of the 1st Chapter of Kingmaker.

** spoiler omitted **

Both of those 3D layouts are awesome!

One of my favorites was Christopher West's "Guildsport" from Dungeon's "Maps of mystery."

Christopher West has several maps I really like. I ran a Star Wars campaign where the PCs flew around in one of his space ships and I have a map of mystery from Dragon somewhere I still want to use as the starting town for a fantasy campaign.

I think my favorite map has to be the classic Castle Ravenloft from the original model.

I can't believe I didn't think of the original Ravenloft map. Especially since we were just talking isometric maps the other day.

The Pyramid of Amun-Re from Desert of Desolation was great.

I really like the maps from the D&D second edition book Dungeoneer's Guide. That is the first place I had ever seen isometric style maps. At the time I had never seen anything like them.

The Superstars should all have their maps in now and the judges are busy making their initial comments for Tuesday's next big reveal... In the meantime tell us about your favorite RPG Map.

One of my recent favorites was the city of Cauldron. Sure we all knew how that was going to end from the start but that was half the fun.

Cauldron is my favorite as well, it was so cool. I also have a fondness for the Ruins of Undermountain maps as it was the first major published adventure I ran. We also use the Christopher West ship maps more than any other in my Star Wars game. I also just got the full set of the space station that I have been dying to fit in somewhere.

The Map of Cauldron still hangs in our gaming area and across from me, it still has the post-it tags on it so we knew where we were in relationship to the other important locations. That map is of one of my many homes that have now been destroyed by some cruel game designer. We'll always have Cauldron.

It really is funny that we could get so attached to that city even though you just new what was going to happen to it, isn't it? I remember that in Ch. 2 one of the examples of goblin graffiti that the PC's could find around the city said something like, "Who builds a city in a volcano? Stupid humans."

A map-related story: When I ran that campaign, one of my players ran a cleric of an obscure Greyhawk deity named Mayahene. (It was all about getting a bastard sword as a deity's favored weapon, sigh.) Anyway, Mayahene tasked him to open a temple for her and grow her worship in Cauldron. During one session he wandered around the city looking for a property to purchase for that purpose; I had several buildings picked out in different districts, with individual costs, backstory, and everything. But I knew which one he would go for, and I specifically chose it because of its location on the back, post-destruction side of the map. When the disaster finally struck, and the party was trying to rescue people in that district, I had Mayahene do a direct intervention to rescue the area immediately around the cleric's new temple -- which just so happened to be in the southeastern quadrant of the city where a part of the city stayed intact with collapsed parts on either side of it. Totally blew the players' minds that they had "chosen" a building that ended up intact on the second map. It's a testament to the brilliance of the Cauldron maps that they inspired that bit of DM legerdemain on my part.

You spent perhaps a hundred hours or more in a place, it becomes like a home, like reading a book.

My favorite anecdote about Cauldron was that just before we ran it as a group, Andrew wanted to do a dry run of the introduction and we took it with us to a weekend get away at Ravenwood Castle, back when they had a Ren Faire weekend, since we knew there would be downtime. The first night there was a magnificent flame throwing exhibition after dinner, so everyone was walking back to their cabins together late in the evening and chatting. I was getting cold and ready to get back inside. I turned to Andrew and asked without thinking "Ready to go back to the cabin and play some 'Shackled City'?" in front of a several people. Oh, we did not live that down for the rest of the weekend.

You spent perhaps a hundred hours or more in a place, it becomes like a home, like reading a book.

Yeah, I know what you mean. And I have to say, that AP had one of the best non-combat-centered stretches I've ever seen in published adventures, namely the Flood Festival. I added in lots of events of my own design and used it to build in all sorts of material centered on each character's personal plot line. And we must have spent 4 long sessions just on the Demonskar Ball, as lovingly expanded by Delvesdeep on these very boards. My players weren't earning any xp to speak of for those sessions, but they were having so much fun they didn't care. And that whole festival grew out of the geography of the city too!

I'm seconding the classic Castle Ravenloft* map. That thing is both beautifully drawn AND easy to use. I even used that map for the 3.5 remix of that adventure instead of the included one.

* I can be very easily convinced to run Original Flavor or 3.5 Remix Castle Ravenloft in just about any edition. Ahem. Heck, you could drop it right into Ustalav and no one would notice (though I prefer running it in Eberron, for reasons).

Found this article on io9 the other day: 10 rule for making better fantasy maps.

In the tradition of Castle Ravenloft, the fortress of Scarwall from the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP was a pretty impressive map.

Great advice, Jeff! Except for the "don't rush" part. ;)

Great advice, Jeff! Except for the "don't rush" part. ;)

Well, there are always exceptions to every rule. Though I suppose you could modify it for this contest to say: Don't turn in your map as soon as you think you're finished. Take a little extra time if you have it and go back to it later to finish up details, maybe make some changes to things that look wrong, etc. Just don't wait until the last minute in case your email goes down right before the deadline.

Yeah, that's a great take on it!

Neat 3D map models, Scott!

I'd especially enjoy seeing a 3D model of Dana Huber's Tree Fort map. :)

Also, although I've never played Shackled City, I just looked up the Cauldron map online, and I love it! It would definitely be a fun city to play around in for a while.

It took me a moment to remember, but the map from 3-26 Portal of the Sacred Rune is the Paizo map that sticks out in my memory. Such a great location.

Also, although I've never played Shackled City, I just looked up the Cauldron map online, and I love it! It would definitely be a fun city to play around in for a while.

Even if you don't run the AP (which was really good), the setting material on the city itself is almost worth the price of the HC IMO.

I have a suggestion for Owen for next year:
Since the main part of the Round 2 rules is to map an unmapped region of Golarion, perhaps one of your judging criteria questions in the comments you put on each map should examine how appropriate the map is (or isn't) for Golarion.
Just a thought! :)

My two favorite RPG maps are Schloss Caromarc, from Carrion Crown chapter 2, and the Wreck, from one of the later Savage Tide AP chapters.

I really dig multi-level stuff connected by bridges, apparently.

I loved the Wreck. I had to build a 3D map with twigs & kite string to impress the scale on my players. My players immediately flew to the top & took out the BBEG with their full resources.One of the maps of mystery had a dragons court. It had stairs in human scale, rooms in human and dragon scales. Which was just awesome! :)