Map Round Thoughts for Next Year

[Taylor Hubler]

Round 2 is over and we move on to round 3, but while the lessons of the map round are still fresh I wanted to post something that could benefit future contests and contestants. This is not intended to take away from the next round nor is it to pull focus away from the top 16 that made it. Go and congradulate them if you haven't, speculate about the monster round twist and how people do with it, and focus on them. I am just posting this here while the lessons learned are fresh in my mind. I hope to help anyone making a map in any future round of this contest, be it this year or the next.

On This Year's Round

I really liked that there was a map round, and I thought making it round 2 was a great idea. 32 written entries are tough to read all the way through without feeling burned out by the end, and maps are something I can gain a feel for with just a quick glance. I knew my top 16 votes in about ten minutes and top 8 in a half hour. 

Many of the maps are ones I want to use in a game, and I certainly will come back and grab a couple of them in the future. It was clear, however, that many of the contestants have never had to turn in a map to a publisher and as such lacked some of the skills that would have made them shine. There was advice posted to help everyone out, but written advice for a map isn't the same as written advice for a map. It would help if someone did a more visual tutorial post in the future, as well as linking to possible tutorials on how to draw basic elements of a map.

I felt the four day deadline was a bit much, especially because this was such a new addition to the contest and not everyone had the artistic skills to put out a great looking map in a short amount of time. I do not think my own map would have benefitted from a couple extra days (see the thread for my map if you want my thoughts on why,) but it may have helped others. Because voting for the maps can be done much more quickly than other rounds, it may benefit future maps rounds to have one or two more days in the submission deadline and one or two day less in the voting round. 

In the future, the round should also be more specific. Comparing city maps to tavern maps to dungeon maps felt a great deal like comparing apples to oranges. It also created an options overload situation that may have harmed some of the contestants. For example, I was less prone to vote for a city map because of how all cities essentially are just a variation of a theme, even if it was beautifully done. There were greatly unpolished dungeon or specific location maps that I voted for because they had a great concept that only work for that type of map. It would be pretty cool to see very specific requirements, like maping a location that would fit into Korvosa, an unmapped town in a Galt, or mapping out a tavern.

Outside of those two changes, I believe this is certainly a round that needs to be repeated again in future years. 

Advice for Future Contestants

Take time to breath and relax, and start looking at maps. Look at a previous years maps, including the encounter maps. Look for collections of maps online, messageboards for cartographers sharing their work, and galleries. If you have drawn maps for your own games, pull them all out and start looking at those. Looking at all of these will help you find elements and ideas on what to do and how to do it. If you have a map you drew already that you think fits, and it is one you can submit, use that as a starting point. 

Do not try to learn a new skill with this map. If you don't know how to use photoshop, don't try to learn how to use it now. Instead, focus on using those abilities and talents you are familiar with. You can turn in a professional looking map with minimal or no use of a photoshop program. 

Use your space wisely. Don't cram too much into every corner of the page, but don't leave too much space open and untouched. 

Think like a player and a GM. This would apply to encounter and dungeon maps much more than maps of cities or nations. Ask youself if you would enjoy drawing this out on a game mat, and how long your players would have to wait while you do it. How does an encounter work with the space and elements of the map? If things are too cramped or too open you may need to rethink the map or parts of it.

For example, a oddly shaped room with many 5 ft. alcoves and seval halls coming off of it may allow for interesting combat but could be a pain to draw out. Consider how much time will be spent on multiple rooms of that type. Also, if most of the rooms are small the encounters are going to be limited to one or two creatures. Have variety in size and complexity.

Mazes are pain to run. Don't do a maze. 

Linear design has its place but doesn't always work well. Do what you can to have multiple routes to the same key location. City and nation maps also benefit from this advice. Unless the city is a fortress designed to funnel attackers towards a key kill zone, it will have multiple major roads running through it.

There are several places online to find great map symbol sets for map keys. They do not take that much work to add into a map using a photoshop program or by drawing them by hand.

Elevation is tough to work out but some have done a good job by using colored numbers. Pick a part of the map and have that be elevation 0. Everything else will have a positive number (10) or a negative number (-10) to indicate going up or down in elevation.              

Tell a story with your map. This may be hard to do at times, but thinking through a map narratively  can help you decide on what elements need to be present. If a room was once a wine cellar but has been looted and abandoned, try to find ways of showing that. You can also do this through the names of the room. Ask yourself what people do in the room outside of any combats you plan on having there. What lives in that area of the map and what its needs?  What makes this district of the city different, and what effect does it have on the map visually? 

Have something visually different and appealing in the map. If you are drawing a city map, have a large landmark or two that stand out. If you are drawing a dungeon have one or more unusually shaped rooms. Keep in mind that while sticking to a square grid is helpful for combat, people do not often build buildings or plan cities using square grids. Deviating from the grid becomes problematic with smaller spaces, such as narrow passages. Larger spaces are much more forgiving and therefore better candidates for unusual shapes. 

When drawing a city map, think about three things in particular. Why was the city founded in that spot? Why has it thrived in that spot? What is constraining it to the size or shape that it currently is? Cities need a few important elements to be successful. They need water, a traveling route to take people to and from them, and a resource to build an economy on. Not having any of those can spell doom for a city, so keep them in mind as you draw them. If a city is large enough it will also need good defenses. 

Color on a map isn't required but it can help you. Water, for example, if good to call out with a blue color, and if you have multiple materials making up a dungeon you may want to think about greys and browns. 

                                                                                                  

[Jaragil]

Taylor Hubler wrote:

I really liked that there was a map round, and I thought making it round 2 was a great idea. 32 written entries are tough to read all the way through without feeling burned out by the end, and maps are something I can gain a feel for with just a quick glance. I knew my top 16 votes in about ten minutes and top 8 in a half hour.

I think this is an extremely important point. Last year was the first Superstar I followed all the way to the end, and I remember how exhausting it was to read through all the monsters. I felt that the entries near the bottom of the page suffered a lot because my eyes simply started skipping. Sure, I did return to them later to give them their due chance, but my initial impression was still at least slightly coloured. I felt for those guys, especially because I would have been one of them, seeing as how my own last name is near the end of the alphabet.

But this year I could simply open up all the maps and compare without it taking hours and hours.

[Scott LaBarge]

This is a very thoughtful and helpful post, Taylor!
Something else that was obvious to me: The judges' goal may be that this round be about what maps are cartographer-ready, but I don't think that's what was reliably on the voters' minds. Given the maps that made it through the round, it seems clear to me at least that for a lot of the voters it might as well have been the Location round as the Map round, and maybe the Art round too. (I think I myself benefited from this, since I think my map was pretty strong location-wise and top-of-the-middle art-wise, but clearly the judges didn't think it was cartographer ready.) I don't know how the judges feel about my map getting advanced despite their unanimous down-vote, but if they want to make sure that next time they do a map round it has the sort of outcome they want, they might want to reconsider how the round is getting decided. Or they could just make it a Location round in fact, although I think that would test very different abilities. It would be interesting to hear the judges' take on this (even if they end up saying "that LaBarge, he never should have made it to Round 3! Let's make sure that never happens again!")

[Taylor Hubler]

I don't agree. Very little can be done to ensure that the judges comments are completely considered in future map or visual rounds.

I believe the reason has a great deal to do with the perpective of the judges verus the perspective of the voters. The judges have worked in the industry, they have had to deal with creating maps for publication, turning them over to cartographers and developers, or being those cartagraphers and developers. Their experience and knowledge base is going to be more specific and fine tuned, and therefore their comments have been covering and are going to cover elements related to that experience.

Contrast that with the voter commentary. Those that comment are not publishers, developers, and professional cartagraphers. They are players and game masters who, for the most part, only look at the maps and copy them onto play mats. Their knowledge base is different and from another perspective. Their comments have been about how they feel they could use the map, and if the concept is something they would like to use in a game.

Then there is a third group I don't think many people are thinking about, and those are the silent voters. How many of us in the top 32 told our non-gaming family and friends about this? How many of those went and voted just because they knew someone in the contest? If they voted for 8 people, their knowledge base is totally different, and more than likely their criteria for voting is how cool it looks or how pretty it is. Not all of the silent voters are non-gamers, but some of the gaming voters are just entering the hobby or have limited knowledge of the game, and therefore they are going to decide more on looks than anything else. I believe it is these types of voters, the non-gamers and the less experienced ones, that make up the majority of the voter population.

There isn't much that can be done about this. We can, however, start running map drawing workshops in the forums, post helpful links to tutorials, and provide the tools to learn how to do a good looking map. Most people work on magic items all year, but what if there was a broader year-round workshop that covered the whole scope of the contest?

How many superstars would we be able to create then?

[Scott LaBarge]

I'm not saying *I* think the judges *should* change how a round like this gets decided, I'm just curious what *they* think. On my view, the points you make are quite reasonable. And I too wondered how many votes were made by people who were voting for friends and family. For instance, how many votes were made by people who had just created a forum account, and who have never done anything on the forums except submit a vote in this round? I know that in my own case I had some students who knew about this contest and suggested to me that they could drum up a big vote for me, and I told them please not to do it because I didn't want to get through the round that way. But I can easily imagine that these things happen nonetheless.

[Taylor Hubler]

I was hounded by my in-laws to show them how to vote, and I know that I had at least three other non-gamer friends or family members who voted for me.

One change I think should be made that would limit the effectiveness of those votes is going back to 16 votes instead of just 8. To me there was a very clear top 10 or 12 maps, and I could have found 16 easily. I do believe that most voters have some experience with the game, and use that experience in their voting decisions. With only 8 votes, it makes each vote more valuable, especially for deciding the maps for positions 12 through 16. In fact, I believe there are a few maps that owe their position in the top 16 to the decision to only give us 8 votes. I do not believe they are unworthy of the top 16, just that the top 16 would look slightly different if we had more votes each.

I actually told people who wanted to vote for me to use all 8 of their votes, that they didn't have to vote for me if they didn't feel I was in their top 8, and that they should but me Paizo gift cards for birthday and Christmas gifts this year.

[Mikko Kallio]

Taylor Hubler wrote:

I really liked that there was a map round, and I thought making it round 2 was a great idea. 32 written entries are tough to read all the way through without feeling burned out by the end, and maps are something I can gain a feel for with just a quick glance.

I agree, it was much faster to narrow them down to a personal top 8 than in previous years. Also, as a round 3 judge, I'm thankful that I don't have to review 32 monsters; I think my comments will be much more thought out because I have twice the time for each entry.

Taylor Hubler wrote:

I felt the four day deadline was a bit much, especially because this was such a new addition to the contest and not everyone had the artistic skills to put out a great looking map in a short amount of time.

I disagree. From the get-go, everyone knew that round 2 was about maps. Every year, judges and RPGSS veterans advise people to start practicing for round 2 while round 1 is still ongoing. In fact, maps have always been part of RPGSS. There's really no reason not to teach yourself map-making if you're serious about RPGSS. Or freelancing.

Besides, you only had to draw a map in 3 days. Not a map and and a 1,400-word encounter.

[Mikko Kallio]

Scott LaBarge wrote:

It would be interesting to hear the judges' take on this (even if they end up saying "that LaBarge, he never should have made it to Round 3! Let's make sure that never happens again!")

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter how well you did in the previous rounds. While I'm reviewing the 16 entries, I won't be looking at your R1 or R2 entries. I won't be judging you as a person, either. Doesn't matter if you're a new face or someone I've known for a long time. My job is to review the 16 entries, nothing more, nothing less.

The voters, however... they have the right to use your previous entries as tie-breakers or even vote on the whole body of work rather than the individual entries. In fact, I think it's a good idea to consider the whole body of work because that way you'll help the best designers, not just the persons who happen to shine in a particular round.

[R D Ramsey]

Mikko Kallio wrote:

Besides, you only had to draw a map in 3 days. Not a map and and a 1,400-word encounter.

While it's arguably less work, it's a different and possibly more difficult task to make a make that's interesting with nothing more than the map itself and a key.

I spent the last week going through a lot of books and modules, and the vast majority of the maps I saw wouldn't have had a chance in this round. Not to say they're bad maps, it's just that their tasks are different different.

Anyway, I think the short time frame was a good filter, and people who know how to make good maps were able to shine through very clearly.

The short time frame also showed me I personally can't make good maps, I'll post more on that soon. But it's a good thing.

[Mikko Kallio]

Yes, they're different tasks, but the time it takes to learn how to draw a map shouldn't be different. As for making your map design creative, that's another matter, of course. But a Superstar designer can do that in 3 days.

[Taylor Hubler]

I understand what you are saying, and for the most part agree now that I have thought about it, but still think a longer submission deadline with a shorter voting period would be beneficial, especially if the map requirements become more specific in future years.

Yes, a superstar is going to be able to do a map in 3 days, and maps have always been part of the contest, but in the past only the top 8 have been able to do them. By that point we are dealing with contestants that have proven themselves several times over.

In round 2 we have 32 contestants that have only proven they can do a magic item. At this point a tight deadline might not be as effective in testing them as it is in future rounds, and sometimes having too much time is a challenge on its own. I no longer think it would help increase the quality of the maps, though it could, but I do think it would change the type of challenge contestants face.

It also makes the tight deadlines of future rounds more important and significant, this way people are subtly eased into them instead of hit with them right near the beginning. It allows the pressure to be turned up slowly and in a way most won't actually notice. It is still a tight deadline, as all I am suggesting is 5 or 6 days, so we still have early pressure, just not so much that it cant be increased in the next round.

Everyone would benefit from a shorter voting period in map rounds because we are dealing with a visual art. In rounds involving writing, like monsters or encounters, we have a different type of information to process and judge. Reading takes more time, and if we need to review and go over the information multiple times we require even more of it. With visual mediums like maps we can make the same judgements in short amounts of time. Additionally, as judges and voters we risk over analyzing if we have too much time to do so, and the contestants don't really benefit from that long time except to work on future rounds. Shortening the voting period also increases the pressure of the next round as it limits the time people have for practice and preperation.

In short, longer submission deadline and shorter voting period create a differnt kind of challenge and allows the difficulty of future rounds to be increased in subtle ways.