The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
The map is a little too symmetrical for my tastes, but that's probably just me.
The Lost Leagues / The Shadow Pearl
- Thread starter Two orcs
- Start date
The map is a little too symmetrical for my tastes, but that's probably just me.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Totally readable, but I have to go with Heritic's assessment --- it's too symmetrical.
To be honest, it's not my cup of tea for a few other reasons:
To be honest, it's not my cup of tea for a few other reasons:
- the colors are too "loud" (for me) even though they do harken back to the Greyhawk map
- I am blown away with your GIMP brush skill, but my eye generally does not like icons that fit neatly into hexes. I know that many people do, but I prefer a (irregular) map image of forest, mountains, etc., with a hex lightly laid over top.
- There's nothing that screams "explore!" because of its strangeness, weird topology, or inexcessibility
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
I don't mind the symmetry. Nature is often just off symmetrical, and that does that. Also, this is an "escape" scenario, not a "clear" scenario, so the player's will likely never see the whole map. A little symmetry will allow them to make guesses about the landscape which they may need to survive.
For the same reason I don't think there needs to be terrain features that scream "explore", although there may need to be features tat scream "hide".
I like strong colours so that terrain changes are immediately apparent. I don't like the Greyhawk colours for hills or mountains. That brown always makes Greyhawk hills look like badlands, or the really rocky, arid hills you see in Westerns. It is so strong I can't get it out of my head even if I know the hills are supposed to be grassy downs or heather-covered moors. And mountains always look gray, or gray-blue to me, except near the equator where they are covered in forest.
I feel like the colour-icon combination isn't used to good enough effect, not just in this map but in pretty much every hex map I have ever seen. Like, there is no valley symbol for highlands, but what if you used your "hill" or "mountain" colour with your "grassland" icon? Or used the occasional "hill" icon in grasslands along with the "grassland" colour to indicate this is a low grassy hill and not a change in the overall terrain? Or a lone patch of trees in the plains using the "tree" icon with the "grassland" colour? Then your grassland gets interesting terrain features without losing its "grassland" quality, and there may be obvious places for the PCs to try to hide.
I also feel like there needs to be a hexmap notation to show the natural flow through terrain. Unlike hexes, where travel in any direction is apparently equally easy or difficult as long as there is no change in terrain type, IRL one direction may be easier than another. One side of a hill may be steeper than another, or there may be a creek, or patch of bog or scrub or trees, or a small ridge, that makes it harder to travel in one or more directions. Hexmaps are too large a scale to convey changes in microterrain (zoom in to a 1 mile or 6 mile sections of the Rocky mountains in Google maps and you will see what I mean), but it would be nice if there was a way to hint at it, or naturally channel PCs in a given direction.
I have considered coloured lines on hex borders to show natural barriers between hexes, but that again implies you need to have strong colour differences to indicate terrain types. It would be a lot of work to do each hex on a whole map, so maybe a notation that the DM can add when running a crawl, combined with a set of tables to determine how many "exits" there are likely to be in a hex of a given terrain type, and what the barriers would be?
Two orcs
Officially better than you, according to PoN
In a finer grained map like this it would be easier to just make flow directions: going sideways along a mountain is easier than going up. If I was doing very detailed terrain I'd simply not use hexes and have every movement be measured directly on the map (either by players or DM depending on transparency of terrain).
Here is the same map in black and white, what people who play at the table will print and use:
Here is the same map in black and white, what people who play at the table will print and use:
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
This is probably me just being a perfectionist, but is it realistic to have a mountain fit in an 880 yard hex?
I should make sure that I got the scale right before posting. Damn trigger finger. Didn't mean to press Post reply.
I should make sure that I got the scale right before posting. Damn trigger finger. Didn't mean to press Post reply.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
Yes, but on the other hand I think he's more concerned about symmetrical dungeon maps.
I think the thing that doesn't work for me, personally, is the Y shaped mountain range.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Ranges often have "fingers" like that, although you would expect the central range to be thicker.
It depends on how you interpret the map. Is each hex a separate mountain, or does a line of mountains represent a ridge?
For an example of both things, check out this Google Maps image (make sure you look at the satellite image), and note the scale and how wide the mountains actually are. The "fingers" near Castle Mountain are less than a mile wide, and the mountains arrange themselves into ridges. From the ground it looks like a series of individual peaks, but aerial shots show the relationships between them. But even looking at the peaks, there is only a little over a mile between Castle Mountain and Helena Peak.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
I'm going to have to go Squeenish and say this is why this board is awesome! This has bugged me for a while. Thanks for the data!
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
Fascinating. Where was it ripped from?
(again, I'm mainly just saying that it isn't aeshetically pleasing to me, I feel guilty even saying so but since you asked for input I thought I'd offer it)
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Here's a little half-baked map of a side-trek my players never went on.
I could go into long boring details about the keyed content...
...but instead I'll stay on topic and just mention how it ended up having that very shallow (3 shade) color palette that I dig.
Serendipity, I assure you --- not artistic skill.
EDIT: Here's a kickstarter adventure link I just got --- similar color design. (Clicked on it because of the demon amulet! Hmm...is there an AI reading my posts?)
I could go into long boring details about the keyed content...
...but instead I'll stay on topic and just mention how it ended up having that very shallow (3 shade) color palette that I dig.
Serendipity, I assure you --- not artistic skill.
EDIT: Here's a kickstarter adventure link I just got --- similar color design. (Clicked on it because of the demon amulet! Hmm...is there an AI reading my posts?)
Last edited:
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Detail hexes like that are nice, the problem is you need up to four or five of them a day. This is why I think there needs to be a simple notation to show the path of least resistance in a hex, even where there are no roads or paths. The detail hexes clearly show it, but you need too many of them to be practical.
I suppose one could publish a series of hex geomorphs, but you would need a lot of them, considering there are up to 5 sides which might have barriers (assuming you endured the sixth side and there was none), the variety of potential barriers (river/creek, change in elevation up or down, scrub, trees, wetlands), the fact that a given hex can have more than one kind of barrier, and the fact this would have to be repeated for each major terrain type. Maybe it would work with a bunch of overlays that you could rotate.
I suppose one could publish a series of hex geomorphs, but you would need a lot of them, considering there are up to 5 sides which might have barriers (assuming you endured the sixth side and there was none), the variety of potential barriers (river/creek, change in elevation up or down, scrub, trees, wetlands), the fact that a given hex can have more than one kind of barrier, and the fact this would have to be repeated for each major terrain type. Maybe it would work with a bunch of overlays that you could rotate.
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
There isn't much in the world of D&D that would act as a "barrier" against the travel of a determined enough party - I've had groups scale miles of sheer rock wall and trek through volcanic geyser plains for days on end.