Day 2 already?!
Well it’s hardly unexpected considering the day 1 catch up post that just went up.
Ok let’s get on with the main reason you are here, today’s theme for #RPGaDAY2021…
I enjoyed creating my first ever dungeon map the pirates lair for my homebrew D&D campaign. It was used in the very first session. As were my first ever town/village maps in the second session. I’ve not given up creating my own maps. I just decided to work smarter!
By smarter I mean using other peoples hard work to lessen the work load I have to do. Below are some of the giants shoulders I stand on when it comes to maps.
A good source of maps to use in your own adventures is the Dyson Logos blog. He has a load of maps on there that a free to use (non-commercially). You can get even more by supporting him on Patreon.
Sly Flourish (who along with Matt Colville I mention all the time) talked about having a go to map that you could use at a moments notice for those unexpected moments thrown at you by the players.
I’ve used town/city maps from published adventures (something Matt Colville suggested in a video). I used the map for Alhaster (from an old Dragon magazine issue) as Mintarn in my campaign.
I keep the Lazy Dungeon Masters Workbook handy because it has 10 generic map locations that can be used in any campaign. I’ve used the docks map for a session, and had another couple lined up if the players followed particular plot hooks.
I have a couple of the Battle Map books (a fantasy one and a cyberpunk one) that I can use. These are generic enough that they can be used with any system. Always handy to have a round.
Map & Dice Playing Cards, and the Deck of Many Dungeons are great for generating dungeons on the fly. Especially if you don’t have the go to map to hand.
I also have a couple of maps of real life locations that are local to me to hand also. In my home town there are some underground tunnels in the town, and an underground part of the “castle” (more town house) known as the vaults (iirc). I thought these would be fun to use in a campaign at some point.
Plus in the DMG Appendix C: Maps you have maps you can use! There are also 7 monster lair maps in Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
I like that what I have above allows me to save time when preparing for a session. But that also if the session goes off in an unexpected direction that it doesn’t matter because I can cover it with at least one of the above.