Maps from the Past: Grade School Project

Among the many remnants of my past recovered from my family's storage unit awhile back was this map of an island that I did for some long-forgotten grade school project. It has a grade on the back (it's good), but I had no idea this map even existed until I pulled it out of a musty old folder. I have no idea what the assignment was, but judging by the thoroughness, I suspect I took to cartography with gusto.

The map is clearly contemporary, with airports and railroads. All of the major features are named. Yet the islands are nameless... Spooky... It might be fun to set a modern adventure in this little world, or re-skin it for Eberron or something similar. Also, my childhood spelling was clearly not as good as I remember it being.

Make-its of Days Past: Map, Ulrich's Pass

Life came on pretty strong this past week. The Wife has been down for the count with a wicked cold, and I have been doing my best to keep up with the weekly chores so she can rest. Of course we didn't actually get much resting done, as we just put an offer on a house this weekend and had it accepted! Holy crap, now we're in the inspection and Escrow scramble.

The point being, I didn't have time to really make anything new this past week. That's not to say I didn't put time into keeping my make-it resolution going. I did put an hour or two worth of work into figuring out an approach to making SketchUp videos for gamers, and I am cultivating ideas on that front, but I didn't end up producing anything worth sharing from the effort. The Wife also got into the make-it act after getting bored with lying around, watching TV (and buying houses). She picked up a paintbrush and applied a base coat of grey paint to an entire set of the Dwarven Forge tiles that I started recently.

So, as a consolation prize for not finishing anything new this week, I give you another map from my very first DM binder. I don't even remember what Ulrich's Pass was supposed to be for, but I definitely dig the topographical feel. Also, hex paper! I found a whole huge sheaf of the stuff in the binder. I distinctly remember struggling to form my opinions on the usefulness of hex vs. square paper back in my 2e days. I definitely dig hex for regional maps like this one, but still prefer quad-rule for dungeons or other tactical maps.

SketchUp for Gamers

The landing at Fenwatch from my last campaign

I've been seeing an increase in the use of SketchUp lately for game mapping. The most common technique seems to involve importing a hand-drawn dungeon map and pushing/pulling it out into three dimensions. You can check out an excellent example of this by mapper, Kevin Campbell here.

Now, I am a huge fan of SketchUp. I deal with it regularly in my day job as a museum exhibit developer. I even teach an annual introductory seminar on it for my former grad school program. So, I like to think of myself as being relatively skilled with the software. Yet in my several attempts to adapt the program for game mapping purposes, I always wind up faltering and leaving a half-produced model waiting to be finished. Why is that?

Hey Geoff... why you no finish Wayshepherd's Guild?

Using SketchUp well takes time. 

I think the name SketchUp is a bit of a misnomer, because if you use the program like a sketch pad, simply drawing in your maps, your model can quickly become cumbersome to work with. The program should really be called "ModelUp", because, as I tell my students, it works best if you "group early and group often". To translate for mapping, each bit of the map should be "sketched" as its own unique group or component. Every doorway, pit trap and blood-soaked altar should be set up as a discrete building block and then plugged into the model. The downside to this technique is that it adds steps, which adds time to the process. If you are in a hurry to get a map done for next week's game, you might want to run with pen and paper. Heck, even at work, we use pencils and sketch pads as much as any software, especially when pressed for time.

Because I'm running an active game, and leaning towards the Lazy DM model for most of my planning, cracking open a SketchUp file for my location-based encounters just hasn't been practical of late. If I were focused on mapping for maps' sake, or making something for publication, it might be a different story, but when in a hurry, it's best to stick with quad ruled paper and pencil.

That being said, SketchUp can offer some definite advantages in certain circumstances such as:

• Dungeons with overlapping levels. The ability to view models from all angles is a powerful visual tool when dealing with twisting ramps, balconies and other vertically layered environments.
• Recurring locations. Recurring environments in your game, especially those that might be modified over time can really benefit from the SketchUp treatment. If you set things up well, it can be quick and easy to expand the kitchen on the party's keep, or add battle damage to the mage's tower. If set up poorly, however, such changes could be a nightmare.
• Established Settings. This is a bit of a Catch-22. SketchUp can get more efficient as you use it, but it can take a while before it is efficient enough to be worth using for a game. Why is this? Well, again, if you are building your models well, you will start to accumulate a library of components that can be quickly plugged into other models as needed. If you don't need to create a creepy statue for your 2nd or 3rd creepy statue dungeon, you can save a lot of time if you slogged through the work in the 1st one.

So, perhaps the best way to start using SketchUp for a game is to build game-like things for fun... without session prep deadlines, or real requirements. Once you have your system down and a library built up, then take the plunge to work it into actual game mapping.

Of course, all of this rumination on SketchUp has both given me an idea and gotten me tempted to try my hand at game mapping in it again. I think that I will take a stab at creating an online version of my intro to SketchUp seminar, but with a focus on creating things for use in RPGs. I don't have a schedule for it, so it will likely be slow to roll out. Nevertheless, I think it could be helpful for those game mappers who want a leg up to use SketchUp well.

In the mean time, if you are currently using SketchUp for fantasy mapping purposes, you can find some furniture and other dungeon/castle elements (along with a couple unrelated projects) for use in your models in my SketchUp warehouse here.

It's like some sort of kobold-filled Ikea

Across the Third Dimension!

Admittedly, I'm about a day behind on my posting, but for good reason! I had an idea all set to go for yesterday, but then got distracted by the ultimate love/hate of my gaming experience --map making. My love for dreaming up new worlds and putting them on paper has been going strong ever since my 5th grade bestie, Jim and I acted the part of two bizarre deities and dreamed up the world of "Boink"... because what else is a 9-year old going to name his penultimate creative act? We had countries, and creatures, and political drama and drew it all out on a giant, poster-board world map.

Not good enough! At full res, some moutains overlap the lakes!

Well, my love of mapping never went away, it just ran face first into my perfectionist adult self. THEN, I discovered the wonder that is the Cartographer's Guild and Perfectionism wedded Competitive Nature to become the ultimate tiger-parents to my creative inner child... I want to please them, but I also want to play video games and make out with my girlfriend! GAH!

So, anyway, I ended up spending much of my day off rummaging through the tutorials over at the CG in an effort to come up with a satisfying world map for my current game. The image to the right is my previous attempt from several months ago, which my tiger ego (or would it be superego?) finds completely lacking in merit.

Sudden shift of subject!

My basement apartment

In happier news, I saw this TOTALLY AWESOME blog post by the new contributor over at NewbieDM.com. SheDM lays out a how-to for building clear, elevated, stackable grid mats for taking tactical gaming into the third dimension!
I too have toyed with similar construction projects, with varying degrees of success. While I love building multi-level sets for my players, I often run into problems because overhead lighting does not adequately penetrate elevated sections made from foam core and cardstock. Also, I have a bad habit of trying to make the elevations to scale (1" = 5').

She DM's penthouse

Given 10' ceilings, that's not a lot of room to get your hands in to push pieces around.

SheDM's use of cake pillars and glass/plex just might solve both of those problems!

So, it looks like my tiger-ego has signed me up for yet another task that I must now strive to be the best at... sigh...