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Dear editor,
Hey, isn't it about time we see a full page map in each issue of Pathfinder?!
Now, since the books are sequential and thematic, the new "Maps of Mystery" couldn't be "mysterious" (completely random/ generic), but each book should have a map of a city or town or village or region.
Come on, guys, what gives?
Please consider adding a full page map in each issue of Pathfinder.
The Map Folio Companion product seemed like the answer, but, frankly, they aren't what it seems they should be. One city map in CotCT -- one (Korvosa). Another in SD (Riddleport). Okay, sure, presumably 2 in RotRL (Sandpoint and Magnamar -- admitedly I didn't purchase that one because the critics said the paper quality was quite low.) The other maps in the Folios are just pics of individual encounters -- good stuff, to be sure, but not maps.
A full page map of some city, town, village or region -- heck, even a full page of quality artwork on occassion, I have faith in you; you can do it.
Do it.
-W. E. Ray
Dear editor,
Hey, isn't it about time we see a full page map in each issue of Pathfinder?!
Is it time that we start adding to our AP outlines that - on top of the tens of thousands of words and half dozen maps our writers already turn over for their adventures - that they also include a fully mapped mega-locations? Well we kind of do. But not for every author. In fact, just about once an an Adventure Path.
Let me preface this with a semi-short version of what I'm sure you can already imagine. Artwork is very expensive and maps are art. (Words, however, are comparatively cheep, which is why there's so many more in the books than pretty pictures.) Maps are especially tricky pieces of art too because while you can go to an artist and say "Do us a picture of a dragon" and expect to get something pretty cool, saying "Do us a map of the ruins of a flying city that meshes perfectly with this adventure you haven't read or that otherwise meshes with our world's style of what such a place would look like" just leads to heartbreak and wasted money. As such, before we send any map to a cartographer, we have to draw it first and, for the detail we expect from an expensive full page or poster map, those map "sketches" are sometimes about 5 feet by 5 feet in size - no, this is NOT something you do in an afternoon on photoshop. In addition, as these maps often have to mesh PERFECTLY with the words to make an adventure usable, every map ends up going through several rounds of revisions and changes as we make sure everything syncs up - and still, the place you're probably most likely to see errors in RPG products is on maps. Remember, one misaligned compass rose can make every direction in an adventure wrong, one missing door makes the dungeon unusable. And still also, if one of our few qualified cartographers is working on an insanely detailed full-page bonus map, that also means that he's not working on the smaller maps vital to another book or adventure. So, tricky tricky stuff those maps.
So, all that being said, every Adventure Path has at least one megalocation, mapped out in detail and thoroughly described. Could we present just a huge map and gloss over the details? Not really. I can't see that going down real well around here. So each one of these ends up taking up a sizable footprint in each volume as we explain what the map is all about or go over it thoroughly in a series of adventures. And personally I think the sites we have done thus far are pretty cool - Sandpoint, Magnimar, Korvosa, Zirnakaynin, Kelmarane, Katapesh. But expecting that sort of treatment in every adventure, it would end up not just hedging in what each author can do, but would take up a sizable chunk of every volume just to warrant the cost, effort of our freelancers, and drain on the artists.
Even should we somehow manage to get an awesome "Map of Mystery" for free with no effort, take a close look at Pathfinder. Have you ever seen a 1 page anything besides the next month's preview? Pathfinder is built in spreads - the two pages you look at when you open to any given part. To include a full page map even divorced from an adventure or article would mean at least one more page of content would have to be generated, which means cutting two pages from the adventure, bestiary, or another AP relevant article.
As for full page art. Again, very expensive, and given the choice between illustrating one spread of words or two, illustrating more pages of the book makes it look like a better quality product in my opinion.
So, as for "Maps of Mystery," we love them, but Pathfinder is not Dungeon magazine and it's main goal is to provide and facilitate playing our Adventure Paths. Is that to say that you'll never see awesome maps in Pathfinder that you can use for your home games or allow you to do your own development - heck no, and I think we've proven that in the past 23 volumes. But is it the place for "Here's a Big'Ol Random Map" not so much. Could we perhaps do something like that in another product sometime down the road when we've got the staff and budgets to do so, certainly and we'd love to, but right now it's just not feasible. Nobody, from the writers to the artists to the staff, is slacking off at Paizo right now, and as the monthly path of least resistance is pretty daunting we try not to add any extra hoops.
I like gravy and frosting as much as the next guy, but sometimes you don't want them in the same dish.
You know, all of that being said, Cities of Golarion, or more aptly, the associated City Map Folio might be right up your alley.
Remember, one misaligned compass rose can make every direction in an adventure wrong...
Agreed, which makes me wonder why you guys don't stick to orienting maps with north at the top as a general rule, with very limited exceptions. It seems like it would be an easy way to make things a lot less confusing for yourselves, your contributors, and your fans.It's especially confusing when different parts of the same building have maps oriented in different directions, like with a certain drow house recently featured in one of your products.
Agreed, which makes me wonder why you guys don't stick to orienting maps with north at the top as a general rule, with very limited exceptions.
If you take a look a the majority of our maps I think you'll find that we do. The only time we tend to change it is when we notice an error or need to fix something at the 11th hour. Recalibrating the compass rose our art directors can fix, more significant changes where we have to send a map back to our cartographers has the potential to delay shipping a product several days - which can have unfortunate financial and logistical trickle down effects. In even those cases where you can't make the "North = Up" assumption, as long as the compass is right and the directions match the text it's a largely unnoticeable change. If a map's presentation in a volume bugs you, printing out the map's page from the PDF or photocopying it lets you align it however you're comfortable.
Agreed, which makes me wonder why you guys don't stick to orienting maps with north at the top as a general rule, with very limited exceptions.
Layout can also make this tricky. Not all maps are square, and layout demands might require that the narrow edge be oriented a certain way.
Sometimes, you need a different compass alignment. If a building is aligned to a intermediate direction, you'd have a map that's all diagonal if you stuck to north. That would mean that a lot of rooms had half-squares.
And, of course, if you're playing this in 4e, you can suddenly walk down the hallways 41% faster than otherwise!
Sometimes, you need a different compass alignment. If a building is aligned to a intermediate direction, you'd have a map that's all diagonal if you stuck to north. That would mean that a lot of rooms had half-squares.
I'd argue that not aligning buildings to intermediate directions is a better idea. This is a game, and a clear and useable map is an essential enough feature to suspend disbelief and simply have all buildings of note face on of the four cardinal directions.
And even in the extremely unlikely situation that the building absolutely had to be diagonal, the grid could just be rotated to be diagonal while still having north at the top of the page. The grid just needs to match the most common directions of walls/hall alignments, and therefore movement.
Creative Director
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Yeah; periodically we'll do a map where we don't have the luxury of building lines that follow a north-south, east-west alignement. Especially if we're doing a close-up view of a building that's got an outline on a larger map. In this case, we reorient the building so its lines match up to the compass directions as best we can, and then rotate the compass; the map of Castle Korvosa in Pathfinder #12 is a great example of this.
I'd argue that not aligning buildings to intermediate directions is a better idea. This is a game, and a clear and useable map is an essential enough feature to suspend disbelief and simply have all buildings of note face on of the four cardinal directions.
I largely agree. I think the only time when something like this might happen in Pathfinder is if we we're syncing building map (or a map depicting multiple buildings) to match up with a larger overview map. And even then we can usually come up with some tricksy work around. I can't think of any time where's we've done a sizable map with a "diagonal" grid.
[[Scooped!]]
Yep, you guys have always got that right as far as I can recall, I was only addressing that one since it was brought up.
I'd argue that not aligning buildings to intermediate directions is a better idea. This is a game, and a clear and useable map is an essential enough feature to suspend disbelief and simply have all buildings of note face on of the four cardinal directions.
I don't think this is big enough to warrant suspending disbelief. Because always having maps that conveniently adher to arbitrary directions makes it feel like a game. And that should be avoided unless you really, really get something out of it. Saving the (in my opinion very minor) confusion of whether things go north or west by northwest just isn't worth it.
4e did that sort of thing way too often. The players need to know they just play a game, but the characters should never suspect.
And even in the extremely unlikely situation that the building absolutely had to be diagonal, the grid could just be rotated to be diagonal while still having north at the top of the page. The grid just needs to match the most common directions of walls/hall alignments, and therefore movement.
Beyond all sorts of extra problems while applying the grid while the artist paints the thing, that will not exactly help mapping programmes. The kind you use as virtual tabletops. Better rotate the rose.
Beyond all sorts of extra problems while applying the grid while the artist paints the thing, that will not exactly help mapping programmes. The kind you use as virtual tabletops. Better rotate the rose.
Well sure, if you are recreating maps for virtual tabletops that would make more sense.
Beyond all sorts of extra problems while applying the grid while the artist paints the thing, that will not exactly help mapping programmes. The kind you use as virtual tabletops. Better rotate the rose.Well sure, if you are recreating maps for virtual tabletops that would make more sense.
Recreate? I just take the picture from out of the PDF and put it into map tool.
Just for the record: if Paizo ever does have a product that they feel would benefit from a map feature similar to the "Maps of Mystery" from Dungeon, I'd be delighted to provide them. :)
You guys know where to find me. :)
I would not complain if this happened either. Due to the Maps of Mystery from Dungeon and other maps Christopher did, I actually mark West rather than north on my maps while GMing.
Just thought it might be worth mentioning that the Map of Mystery lives on with the (edition neutral!) Map of Fantasy slot in Kobold Quarterly. They also come unlabelled at 5'=100px for the VTT crowd.
As for stretching freelancers, I think Chris has amply answered that one - I think there are quite a few freelance cartographers (myself included) that would like to get their hands on a full page of Pathfinder space :) The other issues are very relevant though and it's interesting to hear an editor's view of the tricky areas around maps and layout.
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Just for the record: if Paizo ever does have a product that they feel would benefit from a map feature similar to the "Maps of Mystery" from Dungeon, I'd be delighted to provide them. :)
You guys know where to find me. :)
MORE CHRIS WEST MAPS!
I don't care if you have to come up with a whole new line called the "Chris West Awesome Maps of Golarion" or something.
MORE CHRIS WEST MAPS!
I'm going on a hunger strike until I get more Chris West maps *nibbles on some cheese bread* No more food for me until I get MORE CHRIS WEST MAPS! *nibbles on a slice of apple*
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More maps from Chris! It's been far too long.
Hunger strikes all around!
I swear I have gained five pounds since I started this hunger strike! *nibbles a chunk of cheddar*
Actually I was thinking it would be a VERY cool idea to have Chris West do a Maps of Mystery product line. Personally I would prefer a PDF only product that included a map and legend. The reason for PDF only is because it would have a very small page count, and could be printed easily as needed.
In fact it could be called the Pathfinder Cartographic Edition, a handy addition for every Pathfinder.
Or just as well, Chris if you are listening... just go ahead and make the maps like you used to and just sell them online here at Paizo.
I'm going back on my hunger strike now *BURP*
