How do I make a map that doesn't suck balls?

How do I make a map that doesn't suck balls?

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donjon.bin.sh/world/
procgenesis.com/WorldGen/worldgen.html
mewo2.com/notes/terrain/
watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Núrn
lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Lithlad
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>Monarchy
>historical drawbacks
take a look at that republican cuck

First off, I'd just like to say that I don't find any of the "jokes" in that picture very funny. (They're not even good commentary or satire on fantasy map building, for that matter.) But that's beside the point, the picture doesn't reflect YOU as a poster, and you seem like you're in legitimate need of help. So, I got you family.

Here's some brief tips on how to build a good fantasy map.

>Don't be afraid to borrow from real life geography. The only people that will call you out are the faggots here on Veeky Forums. There's a lot to be learned from looking at our own world's layout on both a small and large scale. A good trick, if this is your first map, is to zoom in on an atlas and pic a random, unrecognizable location and copy the shoreline. You can take a random island off the coast of New Zealand and blow it up, now you have a rough layout of mountains and water for a fantasy continent. My first few settings and campaigns were made using this trick, and it's practically cheating until you get better at understanding how shit is positioned naturally on a map.

>There are plenty of map generators online, a good way to utilize them is to load one up, then carefully examine the map, think about the layout and the different locations, then think about what inhabits each location. By thinking about what would naturally make sense and what would be interesting, you can gradually fill a map until you have a fully fleshed out setting. This is a good exercise and for a while there, I would just do this for fun, coming up with different settings with different themes.

>The most important aspect of your map is not the world it represents, but rather, how it is being utilized. A game map is still a MAP, and you need to keep the scope of the world that's presented to the players in mind when making a map for a campaign. If your campaign takes place in a small area, then you should just map out the area around a town.

Hey look, I also saw that episode of Terrible Writing Advice!

>You have to be a republican to realize no system is flawless
Dumb monarchist

You hire a professional map-maker.

>How do I make a map that doesn't suck balls?
You make it suck something else.

Make what you want.
Fuck the haters.

Make a map about sucking balls.

As with all art, make what you know.

Here's a better mapmaking satire map

>Why are dwarves always in decline?
Their men and women always look the same. They end up thinking they've found a nice bonnelass, only to realize once the clothes come off that it's another lad. The repeated moments of this have encouraged a much more celibate society, which also in turn allowed for a massive improvement in industry since they're combining their uncontrollable amounts of testosterone with their advanced drunken autism.

Get a PhD in geology and become a photoshop pro on your free time

I like the Evil empire, get off our lawn elves, noble kingdom and isandless sea jokes. The rest aren’t even jokes.

Do it through Dawn of Worlds?
That way you have competing ideas warping the landscape

Use real world maps as inspiration.
Avoid Inkarnate.
Practice practice practice.

t. Dago

Don’t be extremely cliche, which it looks like you did.

You could try using a generator as a base or to get ideas and modifying the map
donjon.bin.sh/world/
procgenesis.com/WorldGen/worldgen.html

What's wrong with Inkarnate? It's just an image editing tool that is specialized for small-scale fantasy map making.

How do I make a map for a desert world?

Imagine a city is this

AB
CD

Swap D with A, fix the some of the flaws

>Dumb monarchist
Be patient, he's a Habsburg.

The land is sand. The oceans are also sand.

Make a country:
mewo2.com/notes/terrain/

Make a settlement:
watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

Dont shit the bed with your story.

What the fuck, is that a real mappae mundi? I swear I've seen it before, but how the fuck would they know about what the inside of the Earth looked like?

Yes.

And mostly through hearsay.

God damn, people in the past were way fucking smarter (or atleast better at making educated guesses) than we credit them for.

There's a fun book series about a late 20th century American hick town getting thrown back in time to Germany during the 30 Year's War. The first book is pretty rife with the USA USA USA shenanigans. But over the course of the series the author makes a point of showing the "Downtimers" quickly adapting the Americans' future tech and even outdoing them in some ways, such as figuring out how to make viable brass-cased ammunition before the Americans could. One of the low-key themes of the series is that people in the past weren't stupid, they just lacked the wealth of information modern people have access to.

>they just lacked the wealth of information modern people have access to.
All this information and most people can't repair their own appliances anymore

people literally dont even know how to use desktop computers anymore

I work in schools. Kids these days are damn smart with computers, at least when it comes to dicking around.

the last 18 year old i saw didnt know how to use the address bar as a search bar and did stuff like go to google to search for youtube

Watch them when they're bored in English and are supposed to be working on their reading programs. They're little fuckers, they are.

>bored in English and are supposed to be working on their reading programs.
What?
They don't have books to read anymore, they play through educational games?

>didnt know how to use the address bar as a search bar and did stuff like go to google to search for youtube
This is the kinda shit my mom does on her iPhone

The whole rest of my family makes fun of her for it, too, even my dad

>Wastelands aren't great places to farm
lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Núrn
lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Lithlad

The part of Mordor shown in the movies is Gorgoroth. The region of Nurn held the productive farmlands which fed Sauron's army.

Learn your lore before bitching about it.

They have computer programs in some of the "dumb kids" classes. They're basically a ton of mini-quizzes and tests meant to make the kids learn by repetition.

Reading actual Literature went out when Common Core came in.

>Reading actual Literature went out when Common Core came in.
Then I imagine I dodged a bullet
Though the outsiders and catcher in the rye were pretty lame books
Especially the outsiders, fuck that whiny cunt. I don't rightly remember Catcher in the Rye

This is supposed to be poking fun at fantasy maps but I really want to play in it.

Someone else who hates the fucking Outsiders? I-I thought I was the only one...

>They don't have books to read anymore, they play through educational games?

Some college classes have textbook web-apps which basically make students read a chapter of textbook, then complete a quiz to confirm that they've done it. It's basically a way to try and make people do their readings.

Something something pony boy am i rite or am i rite we aint thugs we the good 'ens

It's bullshit. I actually do my readings. I don't want to take a stupid quiz like I'm a little kid just because some lazy cunt doesn't want to pass his classes.

>babying college students
Sounds par for the course. If they failed out, that's less money going to the college, so handle with care

Learn how to draw.

>he fell for the map meme