Recently I noticed a strange discrepancy in my behavior and after some thought, I have a possible explanation, but I’m sure it’s a fairly complex issue, so that said, feel free to jump into the comments section with your own take.
The issue is this: I love construction based video games. I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into Minecraft, Ark, 7 Days to Die, Starbound and a handful of others. In addition, I love physical building toys like Lego construction sets, and had a large collection of them when I was younger. But on the other hand, I hate sitting down and making maps for RPGs. Strange, right?
If we compare the two activities side by side, it gets even weirder. In general computer game “construction kits” have failings that paper maps or a digital equivalent do not.
- Usually to construct something, you have to go out and harvest the materials to make it, digging up stone for your castle walls, chopping down trees for wood, or even breeding and harvesting livestock. Yes, I know that in creative mode you don’t have to, but my particular OCD doesn’t let me. It feels like cheating and cheapens the end result for me. If you don’t have that limitation, by all means go right ahead. I just can’t do it.
- The end results are usually very limited. Either you have to work with big blocks and all your walls are comically thick, and detail work is right out, or you have a limited number of set pieces to work with and creating something else is impossible. In addition, some games limit the number of items you can place in the world, or give you limited ability to change the world. (I’ve heard that some newer games allow you to build your own set pieces of tiny voxels and thus have the best of both worlds, but I have yet to see one deliver on that promise. Feel free to recommend one if you’ve seen it done.)
In contrast, paper maps require only some paper, a pencil and a few drawing tools or a piece of software. Their results, while abstract, are of unlimited flexibility and variety. It seems like they should be the far superior choice. So why then can I spend hours making a sprawling ranch in Minecraft, a huge anti-zombie fortress in 7 Days to Die, or a complex in Ark, but picking up a pencil and opening my notebook to hand draw a map is a big hassle?
I don’t have a real answer here. I suspect that the answer lies in the fact that while constructing something in a video game I get to see the work in progress and then get to play in it afterwards in a way that’s very different from a hand drawn map. In addition, showing off digital creations is pretty easy if your friends also play or just by taking a screen shot or video, whereas with the map you have to sit and describe the end result otherwise it just looks like an overhead map. Much less impressive.
Of course the “It’s hard to show off” issue is easy to fix in the course of playing your RPG, so with a little faith and some ability to wait for delayed gratification, that can be put up with. Here’s the solution I’ve come up with to the (essentially) “top down vs. 1st person” issue with some success: As I’m drawing the map, I imagine myself or an avatar in the map from the first person view looking at things as I draw them. This gives me a sense of faux immersion that map making is lacking. It also helps to firm up existing details and add new ones that might have been overlooked. Of course too many details have a tendency to become overwhelming unnecessary notes, so deciding which ones need to be written down and which ones can be “re-envisioned” on the fly is essential, but the end product should be richer for the exercise.
I’ve only been engaging in this process for a few days, so I don’t know how well it will pan out, if I’ll find that I’m as eager to spend hundreds of hours filling a notebook with paper maps as I am to build another castle from cobblestone voxels, but so far results are promising.
I’m still looking for further solutions, so please jump in with your take on the whys and the solutions involved. I’m pretty sure that there’s a lot more I haven’t thought of and more solutions out there to try and your insight is as good as or better than mine, so I want to know what you think.
Perhaps it is also that your mind gets more “into” something when it is three-dimensional? I adore Minecraft myself (and Terraria, and so forth). But I also really enjoy making 2-D maps. For myself, part of the attraction of map making is the physical process. I hand draw all my maps with pencil and paper – then scan them and do digital tweaking if needed. I love the physical sensations of the act of drawing and coloring and all that; the smell of paper and ink and pencil dust is all really wonderful to me. If that weren’t true, I probably wouldn’t bother. Digital is much faster and sometimes you can work in far more detail for the players to extract.
However that said: I can totally see where you’re coming from. It often is a lot more difficult to make a top-down map into something “real.” Depending on how you feel about your skills you might try this: elevations.
For those who don’t know that term already, an elevation is a sketch (or more properly a diagram, but sketch will do for gaming purposes) of the “first person” view of a building or a set – something that has floor plans or blueprints, and which is being represented on those plans as top-down and 2-D. The elevation presents the same structure, but in three dimensions, with perspective and scale. Builders would use such a sketch to help them with accuracy in their project: but there’s no reason you couldn’t use a quick elevation sketch for a game, by giving a new view of – say – a town or the inside of an inn.
It doesn’t need to be high art. It can be kind of “cartoony” if that is what is quick and easy for you. The biggest factor is that it needs to be relatively accurate and consistent within itself, so that the sketch gives at least some idea of proper scale.
It could be a fantastic way to illustrate a room just before a fight, giving the players a better way of seeing and understanding “there’s an overturned table and somebody’s hiding behind it.” It might be a really great way to show your players just how awe-inspiring and enormous that castle gate is, because “the gate is fifty feet tall” is not as visceral as the image of a tiny human figure standing in front of a gate ten times his height.
I myself don’t do this kind of elevation often – though I have done it. I’m far more fond of skimming the Internet and finding “close enough” pictures or photos, because I’m rotten at drawing things in proper perspective. Oh, and I’m a wee bit lazy! Heh.
Fascinating problem there, Matthew.
Would you be more interested in making maps if they were made with a more up-to-date computer thingy that followed the model of, say, Populous, a sort of Simcity-like thing in which the player buckled terrain into the wanted shapes and did other God-like stuff to the geography and geology? Where you could see the effects of your terrain choices being played out in the other features like lakes, rives and so forth?
I love coming up with hex maps, I just don’t have the time any more. I used to have a source for card-printed 2×3 foot hexsheets that were spiffy for doing whole countries on. I dunno where I’d source such stuff these days. the last large scale hex sheets I bought were made of the same paper cheap (and translucent) gift-wrapping paper is made from. To fragile for general use, too expensive for throwaway use.
Oh for a three foot wide inkjet printer 8o)
Hey Matthew and Roxysteve, why don’t you try using one of the online ‘Hexcrawl’ style map generator programs? For example, Hexographer has a free demo version. (See http://www.hexographer.com/) It has sort of a construction game feel as you pick hex types, add in symbols etc. It is easy to export and share the results. Plus you don’t need special paper!
It isn’t that I need special paper, I want it. A large map conveys more than just the look of the world. It also conveys the size of it. Get it right and the players’ heads should swim with the sheer adventurin potential.
For me what sold the Tolkien ring books was the presence in each of a large map. And boy, did I want to go look at some of the places they showed.
But I read them before D&D was invented.
Thanks for the digital map steer. I’ll check it out.
Good, I thought I was the only one who hated drawing maps. It just seems tedious sometimes. However, usually the process is good for me. I generally think of something that I wouldn’t have put in there if I just wrote session notes. Just wish I enjoyed it more.
Another option is NOT to draw maps. There are certainly enough out there (though I like custom situations, usually). And even screenshots from Google Maps can often be good enough too.
I empathize with you 100%.
I’m with you. A few years ago, I was gifted Campaign Cartographer. Unfortunately, as soon as it was presented, I knew that I had no desire to master it. I spend plenty of my day looking at building plans; using electronic tools with a different weird set of commands in my off time… would feel too much like work.
Hand drawing maps is different, though I rarely do the world map style “build a whole setting” any more.
Though, you know… for a local map, if it fits your setting, you could build it in Carcassone tiles. Beautiful and as fast as assembly. Hmm… that’d work great for the cities in a small valley, particularly if you borrowed the forests and wilderness from Hunters and Gatherers…
Hello Metthew,
i like to throw my two cents in this too. 😉
I think it may be to you the excitement of pushing a limited environment to the limit. You take from it and you try with your own skills to get the utmost best results from what you get.
In contrary to this is the ultimate (dropping the 3th dimension, and of course the edge of the sheet 😉 )freedom of the pen and paper approach. You don’t have something to take from and you can achieve everything with just a scribble of the pen.
I think you like the challenge that building games present to you. Is it possible? Can I do it with just what i have gathered? Maybe thats what fuels you there and let you run dry when it comes to the sheet of paper.
Okay, so… hope that helps you and you survived my spelling. ^^’
Regards
That’d be my guess too. It’s the game part of map building that kept him interested… God mode and laying out tiles might scratch the same itch as paper maps–or, more accurately, fail to scratch the fun play/resource optimization game of cool map making in his favorite engines.
I would like to add that any source book or rpg setting has a better chance of sucking dollars out of me if it comes with maps. The more, the larger and the prettier the better. I once bought a particular publisher’s wargames only for the maps they included.
Great post Mathew!
We just posted in our blog an article about the 10 best construction simulator games! I recommend that you have a look at it: https://geniebelt.com/blog/10-best-construction-simulator-games