Lestrades_Game

This is going to be a links post rather than a detailed explanation. The reason being is that there are a lot of good explanations already out there. There are a lot of programs on the internet you can create rpg maps with, I'm just going to talk the ones I've used. Lets start with the easiest Pyromancers http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/ This is a flashed based website embedded tool that allows you to draw grid based dungeon maps. Its wiziwig, just click on the style of tile you want, select rectange, eclipse, custom polygon etc and draw some shapes. Its a very quick and easy way of producing room/dungeon layouts. The end result isn't very graphically distinct and creating unconventional shapes can be a bit of a pain but it works. You can export your creations as image files. I used Pyromancers quite a bit at first, as it was a very easy way to create excessively large dungeon maps. http://www.hexographer.com/ Hexographer comes with a free ware

Other than AFS magazine, Chris over at the Hill Cantons blog is a big proponent of point to point rpg maps. http://hillcantons.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/pointcrawl-series-index.html Another point to point map I created was for a climbing session. There is a 'flare' at the top of a column in the great cave that switches on and off irregularly. The players are sent to fix it. At the top if an ancient structure / device that is essentially a light house. A lot of the adventure involves climbing the column and choosing different paths up it. Makes more sense to use point to point for such a map. Hexes give granularity but sometimes it's too much. Some modern games like Dungeonworld recommend point to point maps / flowchart campaign structures. This got me wondering a bit. There are a lot of forum threads along the lines of; How do I actually run an rpg session? Part of the cause of these threads is in my view the move of rpgs away from something simulated and structured

Working on a new session/mini campaign for Hyperborea. I am creating a hand drawn style map for it. This cartographers guild post is a great help http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=10655.  Here is the progress so far. The Season of the Wolf. The concept is to bring together a number of ideas that have been kicking around in my mind. I intend to create a point to point style map and have the world simulated to a limited degree. Normally in rpgs stuff happens when NPCs show up, otherwise it does not. I plan on putting a time track into the game and having the werewolfs that the players are hunting move around and do things through time. Depending on how much time the players loiter things might happen ahead of them. A lot of the inspiration for this has come out of AFS magazine. http://hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.co.uk/ Issue 3 (i think) talks about using point to point maps over hexes, Issue 6 includes a new huntsman class and a great adventure by