To Have a Campaign Map or not?

[Nolgroth]

I was recently considering the concepts behind most fantasy games I have run. In every one of them, some sort of map has been provided to the players ahead of time. The advantages to this approach are pretty obvious. The players get an idea of where everything is in relation to each other. A visual reference that helps connect them to the setting.

 

But do we really have a mental map of the surrounding towns in our head? For instance, I know Woodland and Redding are north of Sacramento on I-5. I know Stockton is south and you can take I-5 or CA-99 to get there. Could I draw a map? Not really, nor can I picture the roads to get there in map form. I do indeed know the ways to both places and some landmarks between Sacramento and local cities, but I don't know that I have a solid map in my head.

 

In a fantasy setting, I wonder how many characters would actually have a map on hand to see exactly where everything is. I was wondering if it is feasible to describe the locales to the characters in terms of direction of travel along such and such road for so much time. A comprehensive list and they can fake the whole AK: Region skill without having an actual map. Thoughts?

[mayapuppies]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I don't give them a map unless pay for one, and the better the quality the more expensive those handmade, one of a kind artifacts are.

 

I rely heavily on AK's and I'm always chuckling during character creation when all the players leave their AK's at the default Everyman level...and then complain when they fail their rolls later on. But hey, that cool slice through 12 guys at once combat maneuver is certainly far more usefull.

 

heheh

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

Yeah, there are maps, and then there are maps...

 

I think it's useful for the players to have a map. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a perfectly accurate map.

[Vondy]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I think its reasonable to give them a map of the city or area they live in as those are things the characters would know from experience, but the players don't. In a medieval pseudo-anglo saxon or norman setting that would probably amount to the local hundred.

 

For bigger areas I suggest giving them a "rudder" (the notes medieval pilots had for their trade routes, which often didn't amount to maps, either) that contains the everyman knowledge someone of their station, education, and experience would generally know: "Anglburh is twelve leagues north by the king's road as it runs through rottenshire" with little other detail.

 

Then, as the players travel, extend the map to include the specific ground they've covered as a gimme because the characters experienced it and would have some recollection of it whereas the players didn't experience it and will likely forget. Also, once play has begun make them responsible for the rudder (but not the map) as they will add information they hear (whether its correct or not... ).

 

I try not to make players lives too miserable. As realistic as witholding information sometimes is - the players aren't actually in the gaming world and it can impede play. Often characters by dint of immersion would know things, or think of things, the players don't because the players don't live there. Give them enough to keep them moving. Also, it usually helps not to require too many AK/CK rolls for "common knowledge." An 8- Nottinghamshire should be enough to give them the basic location of roads, rivers, woods, villages, fortresses, and the like without a roll (or asking for directions).

 

Rolls should be limited (and increasingly difficult) to situations where the knowledge isn't common.

[ghost-angel]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I think a rough map, not to scale, is a good idea.

 

If they know the hamlet of Garnel is north of the city of Pashendale, but west of the town of Ariel, which is at the southern foot of the Blasted Mountain . . . and suddenly basic knowledge gets muddled - the Characters grew up with the knowledge, the Players didn't.

 

A piece of paper with all those on it, and some notes like "Three days to Garnel from Pashendale" because that's how long the local farmers take to get there when delivering their crops, is pretty much good enough.

 

Those with area knowledge will get more notes than those without. But unless there's both the technology, money and in game reason for a To Scale and Accurate Map With Roads - no the Players don't need one.

 

The GM on the other hand, I've found through direct experience, probably should have a little more detail.

[Nolgroth]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

Good points made, even if some directly contradicted the others. Thanks for the input.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I think you definitely need a map for the campaign setting in a made up land for your own purposes, both for your own sanity and to help the PLAYERS visualize the world since modern people are used to thinking in those terms. I don't think CHARACTERS should automatically have the knowledge by any means. A map...even one we would consider woefully inaccurate by today's standards...was a very valuable commodity in most times within our own history. The same scenario would be fitting to most settings. Its also great fodder for adventures and plot hooks.

[Markdoc]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

What I tend to do is draw a detailed map for my own use, and provide either a log (I've always called it a "rutter") of the kind von D-Man suggests or a map drawn from the perspective of the drawing culture (or person). It's almost always inaccurate, sometimes bizarrely so, sometimes not too bad, occasionally precisely accurate.

 

It's worth looking at medieval maps to get some ideas: they had some pretty weird ideas of maps - the world shaped like cross, for example. I have, in the past, handed out a map in which the empire was drawn as a circle, with the emperors palace in the centre (in "real life" it's on the easternmost side) and the major provinces drawn as the outer quadrants of the circle with major highways as spokes. Numbers indicated days travel. To our eyes it looks totally off the wall, but once you work out how to use it, it's actually perfectly reasonable. It doesn't show you where things are in space, but where they are in relationship to each other - and in a form which is easily memorized.

 

But as a general rule of thumb, my player maps show the area where the map was drawn in reasonable detail getting sparser as you go out. How "accurate" the map is depends on the navigational expertise of the culture that produced it.

 

I had an amusing moment in my FH game a while ago, when I gave the players a new map. Their old map was relatively accurate - but it only showed the principality they lived in plus its nearest neighbors. They suddenly realized that their game world, where they have been adventuring in the last couple of years is actually far bigger than they thought and that their "big principality" where all their adventures so far have taken place is actually one relatively small island in a very large archipelago. The fun thing is that later I'll get to do this to them again - at some point they may well work out that the "very large archipelago" is actually a modest cluster of islands in the bottom left hand corner of the world map.

 

I find it actually adds to the sense of wonder and suspension of belief as the players gradually realize that no, actually they aren't the centre of the world, and that there are many strange and wonderful things out there to explore.

 

cheers, Mark

[Alcamtar]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I always create a map for my own use. Heck sometimes it seems like RPGing is just an excuse to draw maps! But I never show it to the players, if they want one they can buy one or draw it themselves.

[Ocelot]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

Yeah, there are maps, and then there are maps...

 

I think it's useful for the players to have a map. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a perfectly accurate map.

 

Inaccurate maps are the stock of my trade. AK to detect the inaccuracies.

 

I think you definitely need a map for the campaign setting in a made up land for your own purposes' date=' both for your own sanity and to help the PLAYERS visualize the world since modern people are used to thinking in those terms. I don't think CHARACTERS should automatically have the knowledge by any means. A map...even one we would consider woefully inaccurate by today's standards...was a very valuable commodity in most times within our own history. The same scenario would be fitting to most settings. Its also great fodder for adventures and plot hooks.[/quote']

 

Definitely need one of your own. Otherwise, you'd be just as lost as the players. And that just wouldn't do.

[tkdguy]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

Having an "incomplete" map will also provide plot hooks if the players are curious about what lies out there. Maybe they can find out by travelling to a famous library. Or they may be part of an exploration team hired to find out what lies in the wilderness.

[ghost-angel]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

Having an "incomplete" map will also provide plot hooks if the players are curious about what lies out there. Maybe they can find out by travelling to a famous library. Or they may be part of an exploration team hired to find out what lies in the wilderness.

 

The stuff of legends is made of people going off and finding out just what "Here There Be Monsters" actually means . . .

[Fitz]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I always have a campaign map, because I just love drawing maps. The players will have, at best, a very crude approximation of the actual geography. They do have to be constantly reminded that their medievaloid map is a rough guide, and can't be relied on for exactitude like a modern touring map, or else they'll blithely assume that it's actually to scale or that things like rivers and mountain ranges will actually appear. That can be funny, but the expressions of outrage and death-threats against innocent map-sellers starts to get old after a while.

[Cancer]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

There's two different questions here. First (and the one that's mostly been addressed): do you let the players have a map? Second: do you the GM bother to make an accurate map of the relevant parts of your game-world?

 

From my perspective (which is heavily Simulationist), the answer to the first question depends on whether it makes sense in your world for maps to be available and accessible by the PCs, and whether the PCs have the skills necessary to read and use them.

 

The answer to the second ... well ... a Simulationist almost requires that the alternate reality of the game-world have its important features mapped out. Otherwise, how can you hope to answer questions about your game-world "correctly"? You're going to make up something on the fly, and you'll have terrible inconsistency/contradiction problems down the line.

 

OTOH, other viewpoints don't have anything like my priority on consistency, and consider maps to be an annoyance that get in the way of the story. The materials in Seventh Sea were clearly published with this attitude.

 

In a certain sense, the decision to do without maps means that everything goes at the speed of plot. That means that if you get your players into a race condition ("We have to get to the old desecrated altar at Black Marsh before Khargath does, or he'll complete the ritual to bring demons into the world!") the decision of whether the players win that race depends purely on the GM. To a certain extent, then, nothing the players do can affect whether they succeed or not ... that most-accursed fate of canned linear adventures. You might be happy with this, but there are types of players who are driven to frustrated distraction by it and will call you a railroad engineer.

[Nolgroth]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I suppose I wasn't clear in my question. I believe the GM should have a map. That map should be as detailed as the GM (or publisher) can make it. The question was more for the player characters.

 

The "race" situation came up in my space opera game and we were able to calculate just how fast the pcs' ship was in relation to other ships based on a fairly accurate (if two dimensional) map. I would want a similar level of detail in a fantasy campaign for the GM.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

How detailed the info the characters have is dependent upon the type of campaign you want to run/they want to play in.

 

If it's a locally-based game, at least to start, they only need the info on immediate surroundings. Expand as they travel. If the game is going to involve significant travel, political events, wars and the like, giving the players/characters maps and some understanding of the larger picture makes the game go better.

 

So...should they have a map that shows X? If you want them to have the option of going there, probably.

[EvilEmpryss]

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not?

 

I ran a group once where the players asked if they could have a map of the area. Since they were a group of orphans just heading out on a cross-country adventure, I said no. One of them asked if it would be okay if he made a crudely drawn map by copying maps he could borrow from other travelers (the group had no money to purchase one for themselves). I figured that would be okay, and would make for good roleplay, so I said yes.

 

He worked diligently at conning people into letting him see their maps, and made a composite map from local area maps that other travelers had. The "crudely drawn map" he made at the game table (no scanning, no computer modification) wound up looking like a photocopy of the actual map! He didn't even use graph paper, just a blank page and a scrap piece of paper with reference measurements marked out on it.

 

It became a big joke in the group when the characters had to reference their "crudely drawn map"!