Community world building

[Redrobes]

For me if people mapped to a grid of any ppi or pixels per grig (ppg ?) then thats cool. I dont need to have anything specific but if people wanted to specifically map areas between other peoples finished dungeon bits just to enhance their challenge for it then cool. Grids are easy to cut up and dead easy to scale the image if the grid is on it. The only issue for grids would be if the grid was warped ! Yeah that would be a challenge but otherwise anything on a grid is no problem.

We could do caves too but we might have to have a little coordination on the interfaces like have exits either 10' or 20' or make sure you exit caves in nice gridded corridors - or you can leave the grid off and I can scale the caves up and down so that they fit the best I can make them.

I think it would be cool if people made quite small maps of dungeon and finished a lot of them and made more than one bit. Then it offers more opportunity to put it together in interesting ways. Maybe people could post on a thread as to where some of the finished maps could be placed.

I also think that doing regional maps into the guild world is a good idea but I am usually on my own with it. Its not such a popular choice for people to have to fit their map into a bit of someone elses country map. Personally I like that challenge but judging by the number of other peoples maps made for the Ansium CWBP1 stuff it wasn't hugely popular. I think my next lite challenge will be to try and map something in someone elses style because I have noticed that I stick to the same old thing too much.

[J.Edward]

Ah, you meant a region 'inside of a country' map... not a larger region 'of several countries'
that makes more sense Red. I often misunderstand people, or so I am told.
I could maybe do some region stuff... idk. But, if there is a ton of stuff done for Nahadua and not much for anywhere else...
it'll be less Guildworld and more J.Edworld or more specifically Nahadualand

By the way, do we have any stats for number of people who view the community projects?
Like, how useful is it to people? are people using it? viewing it?

[DanielHasenbos]

Mapvember made me discover the fun of dungeon maps and I like the idea of a massive dungeon a lot! I also like Redrobes' idea of everyone doing small maps like one or just a couple of rooms and make as many as you like.

If necessary I'd also like to volunteer for connecting pieces like T- and Y-junctions ;D

I could maybe do some region stuff... idk. But, if there is a ton of stuff done for Nahadua and not much for anywhere else...
it'll be less Guildworld and more J.Edworld or more specifically Nahadualand

I believe the idea was to do regions of other peoples Guild worlds? So for example you'd do a region of my 16 Duchies map and I'd map a region of Nahadua. Or that's how I understood it.

[Mouse]

Well that's three of us making connectors.

If it turns out that no one else wants to play we could get together and maybe do a maze sometime?

[DanielHasenbos]

That's another idea rights there! A Guild Maze! Haha

[Falconius]

I believe the idea was to do regions of other peoples Guild worlds? So for example you'd do a region of my 16 Duchies map and I'd map a region of Nahadua. Or that's how I understood it.

I was thinking it was more like a province in one of those countries.

As for the dungeon:

A massive dungeon complex is a fabulous idea, IMO, but may take an immense ruleset to keep everything coordinated. However, if we could pull off some Undermountain style dungeon and get someone to write an adventure to go with it, we could distribute it on the DM's Guild with whatever proceeds going to support this site.

Well as always I tend to prefer uncoordinated because it increases the variety and strangeness of things, like the Guild World for instance. And since the dungeon is somewhere in such a world it'd make sense for it to be... let's say multifaceted. If people want to go a more coordinated route though we could do that too, based on my experience here however, it's like trying to herd cats.

That's why I prefer to keep it to bare simple rules like (keep in mind these rules are only exemplar and based off of my preferences):

1. Dungeon requires at least one tunnel leading into it but no more than 2 per side.
-Edge/entrance tunnels must be 10ft across, (or 20ft across? or both options?)
-edge tunnels must leave the map at horizontal or vertical angles parallel to the edges of the document.
-edge tunnels must be at least 20ft apart from the wall of one to the wall of the other (tunnel edge to tunnel edge)

2. The maps must have a scale increment of 5ft
-doesn't necessarily require a grid, but if it had a grid it would be 5ft x 5ft

3. The maps may be of any size above a 20ftx20ft square (counted from the document edges)

4. There may be verticality in the dungeon but if a vertical floor has an edge tunnel that needs to go to the edge of a map
- this can include entrances above and below the dungeon [editors note: I'm not sure this is a viable idea at least not for linking them together its easier to lay everything out flat on one level]
- a dungeon may have a surface entrance/interaction as per the mappers wishes

5. The projection has to include a top down inclusion of the whole thing (or things in the case of multiple levels)

Alas, @J.Edward is the most correct in all of this: Gotta let more people weigh in. Can't do it all ourselves. Well, I guess we could, technically speaking, but it's hardly a community project with 5 people.

This is true to an extent, but also true is that people also like to join a thing once it's already set and started. Obviously though we should allow a few days for people to see the thread and participate with their ideas of what they'd like to see.

Sort of neutral junction pieces a bit like this - really simple stuff that's not going to jar with other people's work by being too brightly coloured.

Something like that is what I was thinking. Or it could be doorways off of a underdark highway, or both.

I think it would be cool if people made quite small maps of dungeon and finished a lot of them and made more than one bit. Then it offers more opportunity to put it together in interesting ways. Maybe people could post on a thread as to where some of the finished maps could be placed.

I was thinking about that, but I was also thinking that there would be a fair amount of size variety, so that ideally no one would have to make connecting pieces and you could use the smaller dungeons to link the larger ones together into one huge rats nest. Or people could also make "joining" dungeons that have two or three entrances on different edges and instead of generic filler pieces the joining dungeons could be used (and repeated if necessary). Of course no one would be limited to one dungeon so a person could make a plethora of smaller dungeons for you to scatter around.

For "joining dungeons" rules could be (again just and exemplar of my opinions):
1. Must include at least 2 entrance tunnels
-edges may only have one entrance
-edge tunnels/entrances must leave the map at right angles parallel to the document edges
-edge tunnels have to leave the map at either 10 ft across or 20 ft across.
2. Size must be at least 20ft square from map edge to map edge, and no bigger than (60 or 80 ft square?)

Edit: It took me so long to write this thing I got ninja'd twice...

[Voolf]

Um... i will go with wathever you decide, just leave me a section

By the way, do we have any stats for number of people who view the community projects?
Like, how useful is it to people? are people using it? viewing it?

I think those community projects are more for our fun than for others to benefit from them... i may be wrong, but that is my impression.

[Greg]

Count me in too please if anything happens. I'm not particularly fussy whatever is decided be it sewer, dungeon or what have you.

I agree with Voolf though on these projects being more fun for us involved than others using it. Either way it's always cool to see these things build up and I think others would enjoy seeing that process on Twitter, Facebook, etc.


On a side note, I was hoping to continue on my Guild City as part of Mapvember and even though it might not have happened yet, the cogs are once again turning...

[J.Edward]

Maybe Red can run this one and I'll just assist if needed.
Then I can just focus on mapping.

I am generally opposed to 'rules' per se, as I feel they often get restrictive quick.
I tried to run the last two with almost no rules, just the layout as guideline.
That's just how I am though.

There's no reason there can't be some maze action 'inside' the overall dungeon.
Level changes may be problematic for the zoomy map I would think.
That is one reason a layout can be helpful, but i think it might feel restrictive for something like dungeons.

Anyways, I'm ready for some mapping action.

[- JO -]

I've never done dungeon map since the late 80' and early 90' (when I was actually playing dungeons), but I would be glad to join such a project (even if I have no particular idea about the way to do so... I just like guild projects )
Count me in too ü