Originally Posted by
James Jacobs
Hi there, Scott!
First of all, thanks for sending in a couple of maps for me to check out!
Map turnovers in color are always a bonus; we print all our maps in color, and when we can give our cartographer a color turnover (even if it's a relatively simple turnover with color added in by the fill command in Photoshop) it makes for an easier transition to the final map in print.
Village in the Woods: This map's a bit too realistic, in that a good RPG map shouldn't necessarily look like a satellite photo. The GM needs to be able to see what's in the woods. He needs to see how the exact outline of a building goes. Also, there's no obvious trails or roads here, or any ferries or docks or bridges on the river—I would expect something to be along a river bank even in the smallest village. Also missing is a scale to indicate distance. The map's title is cool; an easy to read font that isn't boring. Adding in roads would be good, because that gives the village a shape rather than just looking like someone dropped a bunch of buildings down on the ground and let them land wherever they may. People don't really build buildings randomly—towns and cities need to look artificial and not random. Finally... while the canvas effect is interesting, it makes the map less precise and more distracting; clarity is key for RPG maps.
Qwinyon Shai: This map's a MUCH better map; the buildings are obvious, there's stuff going on on the river, and the town itself has a definite shape. The crumbling, ruined wall adds a neat element of adventure and danger. And there's a scale bar to help with distances. The two main problems I'd have with this map is the fact that there's no roads. There's places where roads can go, with the boundaries set up by the pattern the buildings are in, but no actual lines or patterns indicating traffic flow... especially once you get outside the city. And even more so once you move off the main obvious tracks and into the clusters of buildings themselves; there's no alleys, really, just a random looking scattering of strange shapes. Again... an RPG map shouldn't look like a satellite picture; we need to see hard, stark lines to show the way roads go. My second concern is the buildings themselves; some of the building shapes look like buildings, but others look like blocks of buildings or just random shapes. Since all of the buildings have the same pattern, we can't tell if we're looking at one building or a lot of them. It's a LOT more work, but drawing in the roof lines for every single building in the map is basically what I'd want to see in this case—that, and a retention of building organization deep in the building clusters where we can have winding alleys and not just a random splatter of building shapes.
Finally... one last thing that's important for maps is tags. What are the names of the streets? Where are the important buildings? What's the name of the river? Names and tags like that go a long way toward helping make a map exciting and interesting.
Thanks again for sending the maps in!
Honestly...
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