2/12/2015

Map Work In Progress: Which Way to Go?

Map Work In Progress: Which Way to Go?
I actually have about five different projects in process that I'm skipping back and forth between. Some of this is due to a couple being larger projects (which need more resources than I currently have available) and some is because I haven't quite figured out the end-game (pardon the pun) for these efforts.

Example of a good country write-upWhen I was cleaning out my desk a couple weeks ago I came across a couple game world maps I had created twenty years ago. At the time I had found what I thought was a cool RPG resource and I was in the process of translating it into my own campaign world. IIRC the "resource" was a book detailing a number of cities and countries that some series of choose-your-own-adventures books was set in. What really intrigued me was that each entry was quite abbreviated and no more than a page per country. Really just the highlights, but with just enough crunch to satisfy. In many ways I think this early exposure is why I liked the Garweeze Wurld Gazetteer from Kenzer & Company (now bundled with the Atlas to form the World of Aldrazar)

Anyway I found these old maps and some were heavily marked up on tiny hex paper and others were relatively unused. Sine I no longer have that earlier reference material I just tossed out most of the maps and scanned in the best copy I had left. While I have some memories of working on those other maps, the nostalgia didn't outweigh my desire for a cleaned out file-cabinet desk drawer.

My immediate question is what to do with this map now. Obviously I'm going to share it, but how much work do I want to put into it? Do I want to just update the map....do I want to start another game world guide with it? I'm half tempted to make the map the best I can (within reason) and then start to "drill-down" in a series of small products. If I did so I'd obviously want to leave everything a bit fast and loose so enterprising GMs can work their own particular magic.

Do I want to write to a specific game system? I'm starting to come around to maybe using Labyrinth Lord as my default "OSR" stand-in, but really I'd prefer to make it as usable as possible. Of course I really have to have fun doing this however I do it because I'm going forward with the assumption that very few would be interested.....unless I made everything completely free and then most who express interest would just download it and barely look at it.
Cleaned-up scan of my old emerging game world

At any rate, I'm of the opinion that I'll take this base map and start working on it, releasing the tweaks as I go along.



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