Map-making for new DM

Mapmake, not world build, my bad. Also, To directly answer your question, I say draw if playing person, and something like Inkarnate if playing over the world wide web.

fucking ingenious

civ 5 using a tectonic script is a nice means, but if you don't have thta, learn geology

HEX O GRAPHER

also come hang out in /wbg/ when tis not dead as deadshit

>tfw you spend 2500 on a tablet and $30 a month for adobeshit and use it to make fucking gay ass maps for fags

and memes

now that is a fucking tight idea

way to sell it.

I used spreadsheets for my map.
Whether I was a fool to do so, I have no comment.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W4G0IVyqjnmTWe6XumF481Pq_pAmiDKIb11YUTWXAUY/edit#gid=0

>So, I am about to run my first campaign, and I wish to build a concrete world first before starting my first session. I got all the important stuff down, except for the regional/world map. I have been looking online, but I can't seem to find a working, free map making software. So, what kind of software would Veeky Forums recommend to me? Or shall I just draw my maps?

If you're brand-new at map making, I recommend cheap paper, preferably spiral bound, and a 0.7 mechanical pencil.

The analysis is:

If this is your first time mapping, you are going to make mistakes. You want the re-do process to be as fast and simple as possible. That means either you need to be able to use a rubber eraser or you need software with solid undo functionality.

If this is your first time mapping, you should be learning to map, not learning to use some piece of software. That means you need to use a tool (pencil, paper) that is already familiar to you, or you need a piece of software with a great learning curve.

If this is your first time mapping, you want to be able to do a 100% do-over because you may change your mind fast as you get new ideas you've never considered before. This means you need to go from an unsatisfying map to a blank one where you are able to do the first broad-strokes steps (continents, major features) fast. This means either you need to flip a page and put down the ten first strokes fast, or you need software that starts new maps fast and has good broad-strokes design support.

If you are mapping, either for the first or the fiftieth time, you want to be able to actually create what you want to map. This means you need the flexibility of either a pencil, or a piece of software with a large symbolic library and broad customization ability.

Summing up:

This software:
>Has solid undo
>Has great learning curve
>Has fast broad-strokes design support
>Has good specific design support.
>Doesn't exist.

Pen and pencil:
>Exists.

Now once you're getting used to mapping, you can decide what aspects are more and less important to you and pick software that supports this.

For example:
>Photoshop or Paint.Net
support a large undo history and lets you work in layers so you can do water separately from land separately from symbols, but it has zero symbolic support and starting new maps takes a while.
>Hexographer
*Great* symbol support but doesn't understand the concept of undo, and doesn't have a lot of broad-strokes design support.

But start with paper and pencil. I've been mapping for twenty years and I still start my projects on paper.

I recommend a spiral bound block because that lets you keep all your maps together - loose leaf paper easily becomes disorganized - and if you get dissatisfied with a map and flip to a new page, you can flip back to the old ones for inspiration (or to see how far your skill has grown) whereas with loose leaf, you (or at least, *I*, ) get tempted to crumple up and throw out the maps you are dissatisfied with.

I recommend a mechanical pencil because you're doing craftsmanship. Maps are tools, not art.* Mechanical pencils are superior over normal pencils for fast consistent precision work.

I recommend grid paper over blank paper because that'll make many things easier later. Again, tool, not art. If you're doing art, use blank paper. I recommend, if you can find it, grid paper with a pale grid. The grid should not stand out prominently on the final map, it should just be available when you need it.

I recommend a 0.7mm tip because the thicker lead is less likely to break and leave blemishes on your work, and the thicker lines will stand out more against the grid. This removes some of the precision of a 0.5mm tip, but I find the advantages to be worth it.

*Maps CAN be art. If you want to do that, great. But that's not where you start, and not where you should focus.

Mipui is also great FYI, though not perhaps for world building.

I saw your survey required registration to avoid repeat askers - good call!

But I'm not going to create a google account just to make three feature suggestions, so I'm making it here instead, just in case you're around:

1) I don't know how hard this would be to implement, but angled walls that start from the center of a wall instead of the corner (pic related)

2) Resizing that doesn't require me to press 17 buttons in a row if I want my map to be 5 wider and 12 taller.

3) Scroll bars at the bottom and right hand side of the map.

None of these are critical - I'm using your work without these features already because it is straight amazing - but they're all things I'd really love to have.

That's cool.

>there are people on this board that still don't use hexographer
Free
Easy to use
Looks great
Hexs > freeform
Come on Veeky Forums

>*Great* symbol support but doesn't understand the concept of undo, and doesn't have a lot of broad-strokes design support.

>*Great* symbol support but doesn't understand the concept of undo, and doesn't have a lot of broad-strokes design support.

I use Hexographer, but it is by no means perfect software.

>hexographer

>*Great* symbol support but doesn't understand the concept of undo, and doesn't have a lot of broad-strokes design support.

I use Hexographer, but it is by no means perfect software.

That's pretty good.

>3) Scroll bars at the bottom and right hand side of the map.

I'm an idiot. What I meant was "scrolling the mouse wheel shouldn't zoom in/out because everybody is used to the mouse scrolling up/down."

>Lost my folder of Hexographer maps
Fug

Definitely my favorite map-making tool

GIMP is pretty featureful, but has the worst workflow of any image editor, and the UI just won't. get. out. of. the. way.

Paint.NET, Krita and Pinta are probably much more comfortable for mapmaking with a tablet.

experilous.com/1/project/planet-generator/2015-04-07/version-2
donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/

oh hey that's almost Enroth

>didn't pirate it
wew

Related to map making: What's a good program to use to put together session maps for use on roll20? I have access to a load of basic elements for map making, but I don't have any Adobe programs to use. Any good alternatives for putting stuff together that has good object tracking, or am I asking too much from free stuff?

>I wish to build a concrete world first before starting my first session.

seems painful but you'd probably fucking love hexographer

>2017
>having pen and paper
also undos are limited because the paper is only so thick.
honestly this is terrible advice. use software, just not GIMP. follow a tutorial for learning and don't expect to bang out yoru masterpiece.

also
wbg thread up
you're welcome lazy cunts

>scrolling the mouse wheel shouldn't zoom in/out

in 1999 maybe

>GIMP is pretty featureful, but has the worst workflow of any image editor, and the UI just won't. get. out. of. the. way.

this. GIMP is so busy being not windows that it's impossible to work if you have any experience with actual workflow in EVERY OTHER IMAGE EDITING SOFTWARE, and if you learn on it you're screwing yourself for more mainstream programs (aka every other one on the planet).

Thank goodness someone else actually gets this normally I just get shouted down when I point out how bad GIMP is.

>You're not DMing properly unless you improvise any new information about your world on the spot and your setting is nothing more than a mess of session notes crudely cobbled together.

>insist on concrete worldbuild
>spend 3 years on maps and culture
>man lets just run Hoard of the Dragonqueen

there is such a thing as overpreparing. I mean some people worldbuild for fun, others run games- several of the first think they're going to be the second one day after just one more thing maybe.

Or some people do both and you're just projecting your own opinion of world-builders. But I guess I'm bias, as most games with improv GMs I've been a part of have been awful and it's always been incredibly obvious when the GM hasn't put any effort in and is pulling the game out of his ass.

Don't draw a map, just figured out the major landmarks of your world and approximately where they are in the cardinal directions. This gives you a good outline to work with, but the rest you let be filled in by the sessions. The roughed in aspects become more concrete over time.

It doesn't on Veeky Forums

It doesn't anywhere at all, actually, where there is an up/down scroll functionality.

>honestly this is terrible advice. use software, just not GIMP. follow a tutorial for learning and don't expect to bang out yoru masterpiece.

>use software
>doesn't recommend any
>doesn't engage with the reasons pen and paper were recommended over software

sure thing son

>just figured out the major landmarks of your world and approximately where they are in the cardinal directions.

This. This is exactly what I do. It helps if you jot them down on a piece of paper visually lay them out, you know kind of a sketch to see if they make sense. Don't forget to note major obstacles like a mountain range, coast or large body of water between things and where roads go, divide and join. Make your notes for rivers blue so you don't confuse them with notes for roads. Forests are also a good thing to note, use green. Use tan for notes about the desert just to keep your random encounters biome appropriate. There you go, absolutely no need to make a map.

Whatever helps you sleep at night kid.

Yeah, the continuity of things is all that's really important. With this in mind you have much more control over pacing.

I have an interesting concept:
Could you put in an insanely difficult item to get that basically gives you god powers? Like a ring or artifact that allows you to change the rules of the game or give you god powers? It could be protected by an extremely overpowered enemy that is difficult to defeat. If the players did manage to defeat it and get the item you could give them the choice to either destroy the item or one of the characters nabs it and uses it against the other characters, ultimately becoming the villain of the game.
I feel like it would be an interesting concept but I also feel like it would piss people off.

Don't feel too much pressure to create world maps. Generalization can be as effective as making exact locations. only intend to make high quality maps if you are giving it to your players or if you really want to. Don't go too overboard crafting a whole world, it will probably be a wasted effort, but I usually end up building an in-depth world because I want to.

I'm sorry Chad did I not engage you?

Here is your reasons, feel free to pen and paper me a witty retort.

>reach level 20
>use wish to get artifact
>make Chad level 1 and the villain all hits crit him he rolls everything at a disadvantage has a 2" cock and str 2 so he can't even wear armor a -20 constitution but cannot die even though he only has 1 hitpoint and needs 1 million XP to reach the next level also I'm DMing next game because this idea was fucking terrible.

10/10 reply

Drawing has a nice novelty to it but if you are going to make more than one copy, just draw it in gimp.

>Here is your reasons, feel free to pen and paper me a witty retort.

Haha fuck, alright that's a top tier response. You're still wrong but I will concede that you are not a faggot.

Hey, thanks for the feedback!
If you want to send me some feedback but don't want to create a google account, you can just send me an e-mail (my e-mail address is on the site).

Regarding (2) - that's already implemented, there's a shiny new "resize" button in the map menu.

Regarding (3) - scroll bars are already there. I saw what you wrote below regarding mousewheel, but I think that in contexts where (a) there's zooming and (2) there's horizontal scrolling, it's more intuitive and more common for the mousewheel to be a zoom function.

Regarding (1) - thanks for the informative diagram! But I'm not going to do that :-) mostly because I have never seen maps drawn with this kind of angled wall, and adding it will be a considerable effort.

It's not free, but once you learn how to use it Dungeon Painter Studio really helps put together pretty decent dungeon maps really fast. Some of the props kinda clash and there's something of a entry barrier as the program is not quite intuitive enough, but once you understand why everything is the way it is you can do some really good stuff.

Plus it can import donjon random dungeon files to get you started, which really helps me out since I work a lot better when I have a couple rooms to build off of.

>Regarding (1) - thanks for the informative diagram! But I'm not going to do that :-) mostly because I have never seen maps drawn with this kind of angled wall, and adding it will be a considerable effort.

>considerable effort.

Yeah I thought it might be. I work server dev myself and looking at it I could just tell this was a deep-core architecture request but I figured I might as well ask, hey, maybe I'd get lucky and it'd be something you wanted to do anyway.

It's easy to believe you've never seen walls angled like that before, it's not very common but while I don't remember where I originally saw it, I definitely know I didn't invent the idea.

Thank you for answering my questions. I completely missed the resize button, I'll go look for it immediately.

The problem is that one of the players start asking for a world map. I plan to lead them through the world, faction by faction, but they seem to prefer having a world map to reference

>The problem is that one of the players start asking for a world map.

Ask him "where are you buying it?"

top fucking reply

Just make a little regional map showing the local towns, roads, rivers, etc. Make it as basic as you like, and say 'this is what you know'.

Do you know the precise details of the Bolivian river network? Can you articulate the precise shape and distribution of the Polynesian islands? Could you put the major cities of central Africa on a map? Unlikely, but you do know the way to the next town over, or how to get onto major roads from your house. You know where major landmarks are. If you found yourself a couple of miles away, you'd probably be able to find your way back home.

So that's all your players are going to get -- for now, at least.

pic related is a good example of what i mean stolen from the cartographersguild.com

So this is what I made for the local region, it's good enough for the time being, but I am gonna be using paint.net to make more sophisticated stuff.

Meanwhile, any comments besides how shitty the roads look?

Just use a map of earth.
From now, triassic, or whatever

What is the middle ground between those two?

There is no middle ground, user. You're either a virgin or a chad, and the fact you're even asking the question is a sure sign that you're not the latter.

I was actually worried that I was too much like the chad, but whatever.

draw, scan, make pretty on computer
start with small area, with faint details of surrounding area
don't lock anything in yet, though
it's okay to leave large parts of your map blank, even adding to it midsession
keep notes of shit you make up in game so you can add it to your map later

This is as good of an idea as the macaroni maps!

>literally just modified Westeros

Rate my map

It's good.

Why is it that most fantasy maps seem to follow the same criteria?

>Desolate bullshit area, so don't go here! (but you totally will)
>Evil forest of anal rape.
>Lands controlled by non elaborated upon power structure
>Monster area
>Boring towns
>Boring rivers
>Boring ocean
>Magic forest of wonderment
>Conflicted area
>Evil area controlled by X monster.

>Boring rivers
>Boring ocean
I can understand all the others but how could you make a river or ocean exciting?

Looks like Inkarnate, but isn't Inkranate? Haven't checked it out for ages, so maybe they've added new bits and pieces.

Looks good nonetheless; I only have a few suggestions:

- Connect the mountains on the right a bit more. Realistic mountainous regions form long, roughly straight lines of peaks and valleys in between. You can do this by either drawing them as such (look at professional fantasy maps for some ideas), or by putting some shading at the base of the mountains. Just get a small brush and draw lots of faint, short horizontal lines to get the right idea.
- The text is a big hard to read due to the low contrast with the background. I recommend adding some sort of glow effect (or solid outline). Pic related is an example of what I mean. Was quite hard to get it to work with the low resolution and antialiasing, but it's good enough.
- The southern forest looks a bit regular; try to draw them in a more chaotic, variable distribution!
- The river edge is a bit hard; perhaps add some blur to that?

All of the above can be done on GIMP or Photoshop if you did use Inkarnate. If you can, though, try to export a larger image! The larger it is, the easier it is to manipulate. You can always scale it back at the end.

Keep in mind that maps in medieval times were extremely expensive and mostly bullshit. People had an understanding of where things were in close relation to other things, but that was about it.

Like, the king might have an Atlas, but that thing is also likely to be nonsense, and if he wants to buy one from a wizard that scried a world map, well that shit is expensive.

Its kinda empty and doesn't have alot going on. You might wanna try adding small patches of forest, hills, and maybe some small towns and villages between the cities. Also there should be some geographic feature between you and the orcs, after all if there's nothing between you and the orcs then why haven't they overwhelmed you.

Thanks for the tips, it's made in Inkarnate. Pretty handy software. Very simple to use, but very effective results

Hey! I like Rhapsody of Fire and Luca Turilli

Dwarf Fortress, make a few worlds and pick one you like. Export the maps and shit, pit it in GIMP, and follow the hand-drawn map-making tutorial from The Cartographers Guild. DF also makes sitemaps, which are good for towns. Actually sized kind of appropriately, none of that Skyrim "Whiterun has 30 residents" shit.
Or just use something like what this guy has to offer, like a bitch who doesn't have 20 hours to draw a giant map like me: donjon.bin.sh/

Literally just use a setting you or your players know.
Play a campaign in Azeroth.

>I can understand all the others but how could you make a river or ocean exciting?

>Cross on the bridge that the king's men guard or dare the ford where the bears catch fish for their druid masters?
>River spirits charge a toll when you cross
>Oh sure you can sail across on that floating wreck called Red Dawn but I've heard my competitor's ship might be a bit... flammable. No, you should sail with us on the Swift Starling.
>pirates
>Listen if you don't travel up to the source and find out why our water has gone sour, we'll all die from thirst, our wells are almost empty and the rain doesn't fill our barrels but a third of the way!
>RELEASE THE KRAKEN
>has no one…has no one considered the matter of fishing rights?
>This is water from the holy river Raman. Yeah sure it's impure, I didn't say the *clean* river Raman, I said the *holy* river Raman.
>Bit of a shame really, how the Tax Ship sank where nobody dares dive for its contents.

These are actually some great ideas I'm totally gonna steal for my setting, but how do you depict them on a map? I think that's what the was trying to get at.

Random stains are definitely useful for making seemingly chaotic landscapes.

I almost tore my hair out trying to make Gimp not shit, it paid off way more to just get a shitty crack of PS.

...

Nani?!

Honestly have zero idea why they ship the software with single-window mode off by default. I know no one at all, either on here, /g/, or Cartographer's Guild who uses it as multiple windows.

That still doesn't really fix it for me dude

Is this the ultimate chad map?

Well, then, there's usually two other reasons people don't like GIMP.

If it's because you can't draw a circle or rectangle with one button press, then it's because you're using the wrong software. It's the GNU *Image Manipulation* Program, and it's designed for editing images. Shape tools aren't necessary for that. However, you can still easily make any shape you'd need by just tracing the a selection (three clicks), or by getting an extension to do it for you (which there are many).

If it's the way it's all laid out... what is there to not like? Photoshop is basically the same, honestly. You've got a tool panel, a layer panel, an options panel, and the menu bar to select specific things. You can move all of these (except the menu bar) about to suit your preferences. You can combine tabs or have them floating. There's no restriction at all. What people forget is that EVERY software has a learning curve due to it being a fundamental different piece of software. Try opening up Blender; it's not the same as Autodesk Maya, but that doesn't make it worse. It just means that you were willing to learn one but not the other. If you're starting out with no experience of either, you may as well choose GIMP because it's free forever (both libre and gratis), supports Photoshop files and brushes (the inverse is not true I believe), and has a vibrant and active community.

The only thing GIMP lacks are a few niche things like the brush designer, but these can all be accomplished easily with a bit of know-how. And I don't mean 'spend hours looking through help forums' know-how, I mean just thinking about an alternative way to achieve it and then doing it through some elementary operations.

>Looks great
It really doesn't
>Hexes > freedom
Except software like SAI, photoshop, paintNET has so much freedom that you can make hexes in it.

>The X Ys

THE ASIAN COMMONWEALTH, THE BLACK PEOPLE EMPIRE, THE IRISHMEN CONFEDERATIONS

Why would anyone make fantasy swiss?

Though Mad Max gnomes are a cool idea

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

>Dark age of Camelot
>not Dank Age of Chadelot

By God that man had a family!

Because the creator of this map is Swiss.

Is good. Some mountains and trees really need to be denser. Secondary and tertiary paths would help.

*roads, secondary and tertiary

The one thing hexographer doesn't is look great, I agree. But it's held fun to play with and just pound or random ideas. Is great if you want a high level map of that detail, or a base for ideas. I'd rate

Photoshop > sai, paint.net, etc > hexo > that one guy who uses excel > not making maps > giving up being a dm > suicide > using pencil and paper > GIMP

Good points. There is a peace treaty between the orcs and the halflings so I kinda ignored natural barriers

also it's only the map of a small region in the halfling kingdoms, so I don't include much in the map