Monday, April 16, 2012

M is for Maps

On of the goals I have set for the players in my archipelago campaign is to map all of the islands. Mapping is one of those aspects of fantasy role-playing games I love. Armed with only the gamemaster's words, a pencil and some graph/hex paper, a player attempts to craft a workable map for the entire party to find their way through the dungeons and wildernesses of the campaign world. It's a fun way to interact with the players and keep them on their toes. A few sloping passages, teleportation traps or just a simple misunderstanding of what the GM said and the players may make a wrong turn down a path they thought they went down before.

My archipelago campaign is going to have an additional wrench in the works, it's a play-by-post game. So there is the additional factor of not being able to see what the players are drawing as it happens. HackMaster also has a Cartography skill, which is necessary for players to create maps. So now I have to adjudicate a player's map-making ability on a document I can't readily see. And I am pretty sure one of the characters that spent points on the skill does not have a scanner or a good graphics program readily available. It will be interesting to see how we manage to get things worked out.

1 comment:

  1. nice. I love creating maps for my fantasy novels:)
    Nutschell
    www.thewritingnut.com
    Happy A-Zing!

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