large scale maps

[mwiggins]

how do you make a map that covers a large area? Example you want a map that covers a smallish town and surrounding area, of about 1 mile square. Photocopy a bunch of pages with 1/4" hex's then trim and tape them into one big sheet?

 

I'm planning on running a game based on Jumanji at this falls Charcon.

IF I can't find someone more qualified.

www.charcon.org

[Phoenix]

Re: large scale maps

 

Google Maps and/or Google Earth to get the base map, Photoshop your hexes in as a layer. That's the best I have.

[prestidigitator]

Re: large scale maps

 

Wing it.

 

But seriously, if you have a small scale map highlighting major features, use place markers on it to keep track of the general location of things, characters, encounters, etc.. Then use smaller detail maps to show what is going on in an area of interest (e.g. particular engagements in a battle that the PCs are involved in). These detail maps can either be pre-made or sketched on the fly using a little imagination. If you are sketching them on the fly, I recommend wet-erase markers on a battle mat rather than actual paper.

 

A hybrid approach might work well for a convention game: use a small scale map, several pre-drawn detail maps for places you know have interesting/important features, and a battle mat or three for those moments when things happen in areas you haven't detailed out ahead of time.

[mwiggins]

Re: large scale maps

 

Google Maps and/or Google Earth to get the base map' date=' Photoshop your hexes in as a layer. That's the best I have.[/quote']

would be good IF I had photoshop

I could go to a print shop and have a page of hexes printed on clear plastic and just overlay it.

 

Sim City has the ability to print maps. make a custom city

for a national scale you might be able to do the same thing with Sid Meier's Civilization. go into cheat and alter to your hearts content

[Phoenix]

Re: large scale maps

 

would be good IF I had photoshop

I could go to a print shop and have a page of hexes printed on clear plastic and just overlay it.

Paint.net or gimp both do layers, or you could just be like me and use good old fashion MS Paint

 

Sim City has the ability to print maps. make a custom city

for a national scale you might be able to do the same thing with Sid Meier's Civilization. go into cheat and alter to your hearts content

Don't have Sim City.

[Sean Waters]

Re: large scale maps

 

If you plan to hex the map, are you planning to play on it? How big is your living room?

 

When we are playing on large area with superheroes (who can get a right shift on if they want to) we take over a whole room, use piles of books or furniture for buildings and features, tape little cardboard representations of the characters to coins as markers and just use a tape measure.

 

At 1"=2m, a 12 foot square room (in England that would be a living room, in the US, well...) is effectively 288m square. Still not that huge an area, but generally adequate.

[prestidigitator]

Re: large scale maps

 

At 1"=2m' date=' a 12 foot square room (in England that would be a living room, in the US, well...) is effectively 288m square. Still not that huge an area, but generally adequate.[/quote']

 

You don't change your scale to 1cm per hex?! Shame on you! You could be covering more than four times the game-world area anyway!

 

Do British tape measures and rulers/scales even come with inches on them these days, or do you have to special order those?

[Spence]

Re: large scale maps

 

I use Campaign Cartegrapher 3 for my mapping needs

[Sean Waters]

Re: large scale maps

 

You don't change your scale to 1cm per hex?! Shame on you! You could be covering more than four times the game-world area anyway!

 

Do British tape measures and rulers/scales even come with inches on them these days, or do you have to special order those?

 

Tape measures pretty much universally (or UKversally) come with Imperial up one side and Metric up the other over here. Up until 1971, we still used a coinage system that worked on 12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound (or 21 to the guinea), and half the population still insist on using a weight system that had 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone, 8 stone to the hundredweight and 20 hundredweight to the ton. We LOVE archaic and arcane

 

It is actually pretty nice to do a NMC flyby - you get some idea of how fast these people move

[Spence]

Re: large scale maps

 

We LOVE archaic and arcane

 

 

And should stay that way......

 

screw conformity just for conformity

 

 

[prestidigitator]

Re: large scale maps

 

LOL. Well, half is better than all I suppose (all except scientists, that is). The U.S. is still behind there (not to mention in politics and all number of other fields). We don't claim to love archaic; we just do in practice. Would you like a bit o' crite with all of that hype?

[mwiggins]

Re: large scale maps

 

I'm planning on running a game at Charcon 2009 based on the movie Jumanji. With it juiced up a little for "mutant High" characters. example: the spiders will be 2 meters diameter with spiderman web tricks, the stampede will be dinosaurs.

I've going to map out a big area ( trying for 1 square mile) of a small town (lots of bystanders) with the mutant school on one edge.

www.charcon.org

 

I'm not realy qualified, but I'm one of the FEW players in the state

[Sean Waters]

Re: large scale maps

 

I'm planning on running a game at Charcon 2009 based on the movie Jumanji. With it juiced up a little for "mutant High" characters. example: the spiders will be 2 meters diameter with spiderman web tricks, the stampede will be dinosaurs.

I've going to map out a big area ( trying for 1 square mile) of a small town (lots of bystanders) with the mutant school on one edge.

www.charcon.org

 

I'm not realy qualified, but I'm one of the FEW players in the state

 

 

That sounds like a very cool idea, but possibly not the easiest to manage especially if 'I'm not really qualified' means you haven't run Hero too much.

 

A MUCH easier scenario, that people can join and leave easily (if you want to demo the game for a crowd) is an arena match:

 

It is 2424 WorldMetaWrestleMania (WMWM) Championships. The final big event: The Free For All. Everyone grabs a character, jumps into the arena and tries to take out as much of the opposition as possible. It is easy to GM (once you have the arena and characters mapped out) because there's really no plot to speak of - you are more of a referee than a GM. People get to do super things and splat each other. When they drop they can grab another character and jump back in. They get 10 points for a clean KO and 2 points for an assist.

 

Whoever gets most points at the end wins.

 

Woot.

[prestidigitator]

Re: large scale maps

 

That sounds like a very cool idea, but possibly not the easiest to manage especially if 'I'm not really qualified' means you haven't run Hero too much.

 

A MUCH easier scenario, that people can join and leave easily (if you want to demo the game for a crowd) is an arena match:

 

It is 2424 WorldMetaWrestleMania (WMWM) Championships. The final big event: The Free For All. Everyone grabs a character, jumps into the arena and tries to take out as much of the opposition as possible. It is easy to GM (once you have the arena and characters mapped out) because there's really no plot to speak of - you are more of a referee than a GM. People get to do super things and splat each other. When they drop they can grab another character and jump back in. They get 10 points for a clean KO and 2 points for an assist.

 

Whoever gets most points at the end wins.

 

Woot.

 

Hmm. Why is it that for conventions and public games everyone seems to send players against each other? Not much of an introduction to roleplaying. I'd rather see a more positive encouragement and introduction myself, no matter how much work it takes on the GM's part.

 

I'd say go with the Jumanji thing. That sounds excellent!

[Sean Waters]

Re: large scale maps

 

Hmm. Why is it that for conventions and public games everyone seems to send players against each other? Not much of an introduction to roleplaying. I'd rather see a more positive encouragement and introduction myself' date=' no matter [i']how[/i] much work it takes on the GM's part.

 

I'd say go with the Jumanji thing. That sounds excellent!

 

The Jumanji thing does sound excellent but setting players against each other means you don't have to think of all the cunning strategies I suspect the relative lack of work and preparation is the reason that public games get that kind of attention PLUS it can be pretty exciting AND it can be difficult to really get under the skin of a character in a game that is only ever going to last a few hours.

[mwiggins]

Re: large scale maps

 

I might be able to do both, it depends on how things schedule out. I want to be a player in other games also .

I'm mainly doing this for recruiting. I'm having a difficult time finding players. I'll sell it hard.

It isn't till October, I got a lot of time for the prep work.

[Sean Waters]

Re: large scale maps

 

Hmm. Why is it that for conventions and public games everyone seems to send players against each other? Not much of an introduction to roleplaying. I'd rather see a more positive encouragement and introduction myself' date=' no matter [i']how[/i] much work it takes on the GM's part.

.................

 

 

I do this with PC groups too: very often the scenario starts off with a 'training day' - if the PCs are an organised group then they are deliberately pitting themselves against each other, if they are in need of a group origin then some misunderstanding brings them together and causes them to mistake each other for villains

 

It is a great opportunity for the GM to study PC tactics, and make some notes of the more useful ones, and I find that players often like to be able to claim bragging rights on this sort of thing too

 

I'm working ona simplified 'Hero Starter' game where the characters are presented to players without construction numbers, one team being the Cops and on being the Robbers.

[Spence]

Re: large scale maps

 

Hmm. Why is it that for conventions and public games everyone seems to send players against each other? Not much of an introduction to roleplaying. I'd rather see a more positive encouragement and introduction myself' date=' no matter [i']how[/i] much work it takes on the GM's part.

 

emphasis mine

 

Really? I have never seen that at a con (with the exception of arena games of course). I have seen sessions where the players turned on each other, but never a con game that promoted or required it.

[algesan]

Re: large scale maps

 

Wing it.

 

But seriously, if you have a small scale map highlighting major features, use place markers on it to keep track of the general location of things, characters, encounters, etc.. Then use smaller detail maps to show what is going on in an area of interest (e.g. particular engagements in a battle that the PCs are involved in). These detail maps can either be pre-made or sketched on the fly using a little imagination. If you are sketching them on the fly, I recommend wet-erase markers on a battle mat rather than actual paper.

 

A hybrid approach might work well for a convention game: use a small scale map, several pre-drawn detail maps for places you know have interesting/important features, and a battle mat or three for those moments when things happen in areas you haven't detailed out ahead of time.

 

That's pretty much what I do, the big map is more for my reference than anything. Heh, I remember how many of my early RPG games were played with the campaign map being an old Avalon Hill battle map, I think I even have my copy of Outdoor Survival around here somewhere.

 

I'm making up a map now based on the Gaea series, not the actual setting but the 250km wide, 1300km diameter wheel, which allowing for fudge factors comes into 19 small hex maps on 8.5x11" paper using 5km per hex.

 

What is going on it? Rivers, big woods, seas, mountains, cable locations. That's it.