An update on recent technical problems and more from the admin: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/250292/on-technical-difficulties-mod-coverage-and-other-things/p1?new=1
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PbP maps for cheap as free (probably NSF56k)
Horseshoe
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi folks,
In a lot of tabletop games minis are essential. They let you know where your character is in relation to the others so you can tell when you're set up in such a way that the DM can't kill you all at once and that sort of thing. Also, maps are cool because when they look good they give you a better feel for where your character is, what kind of environment might be around him and that sort of thing. I like using miniature in tabletop games, and one of the tough thing about play-by-posts is it can be a bitch to replicate sometimes. But I have found a way that works pretty well for me and I like it.
I keep getting questions about how I make maps in my play-by-post threads so I figured I'd work up a little tutorial for y'all.
The basic trick is to make layered maps, so that you can move the little "minis" about easily, and save jpegs to post showing where players and enemies have moved. If you already have photoshop or some other program like that you most likely already know what I'm talking about, and its the end of the story.
I don't have photoshop, and don't really want to fork out the cash for it. And I don't want to spend the time or money for mapping software either. So, this is a more frugal alternative.
First of all, bring out The GIMP.
The GIMP is your friend. It has some pretty good features and the price is right. Just download and install the latest runtime environment and the application, and you're in like a dirty shirt. The site also has information about using the program and that sort of thing too. I'm pretty much a novice at this sort of thing... there's a lot of functions I don't even use.
Next up is the map. Let's say we're doing a DnD game (if you were doing a Star Wars game instead there are plenty of SW Miniatures fan maps available for download on the intertron as well). If you head to the official Wizards of the Coast DnD webpage, they have many maps there for you to download and use in your games... which is danged neighborly of them. Go to the galleries section of the website and then go to the "Map-A-Week" gallery.
Here you'll find plenty of maps in sufficient resolution for tracking a PbP encounter. Vampire Lair will do quite nicely. Save the image to your computer and then open it up using GIMP. You'll want to have a dialog window called "Layers" open at all times.
The next order of business is to make layers for the characters and enemies that are in your encounter. Use the little new layer button in the bottom left (circled in red) to create layers for each character.
Now, you can make a little "mini" of the characters my making a circle with the circular select button (circled in blue). While working in the relevant layer, fill (circled in green) the circle with a different color to help keep your minis easy to tell apart.
You can also use text to stamp the minis for identification too. Use the text tool (circled in red) to create a small text layer in which you can type characters. Then, use "merge down" (selectable by right clicking on the layer you want to merge, or by using the "layer" menu) to merge that text layer into the appropriate character's layer, so the mini and its letter can be moved at the same time.
Next, select the relevant portion of your map that you want the characters to see. In this case, the three PC's are walking into a room, so the room and its exits will be visible. Crop the image (the "crop image" command is conveniently located in the "image" menu) then add the appropriate enemy for the encounter. Maybe those chests in the bottom right corner need to be erased too... wouldn't want to give away where the loot is at right away. I decided to take care of them by copying the bottom left corner of the map, flipping it, and pasting it on the right (as you'll see in the final version).
Now, you can resize your image and save it! In GIMP, you want to save as a .xcf file. This is its default file type that will keep it layered. Re-save this every time you move the minis, which is easy to do because they're layered and you can just move them around individually without having to re-draw them. Then, when you've got them where you want them, use a "save as" to make a jpeg file from them. Voila! Image is ready for hosting at photobucket, imageshack, or wherever you like to host images.
So there it is. One encounter, ready to go. Your PC's will now have a graphical representation of exactly where they are standing when the horrible monster tears them to shreds.
Anyone else with cool ways to do maps to share in PbP games please contribute! I hear google documents is pretty sweet, maybe someone can show us how to do that.
TL;DR - Maps, huh? They're cool and even a less-than-interwebs-savvy person like myself can make them.
In a lot of tabletop games minis are essential. They let you know where your character is in relation to the others so you can tell when you're set up in such a way that the DM can't kill you all at once and that sort of thing. Also, maps are cool because when they look good they give you a better feel for where your character is, what kind of environment might be around him and that sort of thing. I like using miniature in tabletop games, and one of the tough thing about play-by-posts is it can be a bitch to replicate sometimes. But I have found a way that works pretty well for me and I like it.
I keep getting questions about how I make maps in my play-by-post threads so I figured I'd work up a little tutorial for y'all.
The basic trick is to make layered maps, so that you can move the little "minis" about easily, and save jpegs to post showing where players and enemies have moved. If you already have photoshop or some other program like that you most likely already know what I'm talking about, and its the end of the story.
I don't have photoshop, and don't really want to fork out the cash for it. And I don't want to spend the time or money for mapping software either. So, this is a more frugal alternative.
First of all, bring out The GIMP.
The GIMP is your friend. It has some pretty good features and the price is right. Just download and install the latest runtime environment and the application, and you're in like a dirty shirt. The site also has information about using the program and that sort of thing too. I'm pretty much a novice at this sort of thing... there's a lot of functions I don't even use.
Next up is the map. Let's say we're doing a DnD game (if you were doing a Star Wars game instead there are plenty of SW Miniatures fan maps available for download on the intertron as well). If you head to the official Wizards of the Coast DnD webpage, they have many maps there for you to download and use in your games... which is danged neighborly of them. Go to the galleries section of the website and then go to the "Map-A-Week" gallery.
Here you'll find plenty of maps in sufficient resolution for tracking a PbP encounter. Vampire Lair will do quite nicely. Save the image to your computer and then open it up using GIMP. You'll want to have a dialog window called "Layers" open at all times.
The next order of business is to make layers for the characters and enemies that are in your encounter. Use the little new layer button in the bottom left (circled in red) to create layers for each character.
Now, you can make a little "mini" of the characters my making a circle with the circular select button (circled in blue). While working in the relevant layer, fill (circled in green) the circle with a different color to help keep your minis easy to tell apart.
You can also use text to stamp the minis for identification too. Use the text tool (circled in red) to create a small text layer in which you can type characters. Then, use "merge down" (selectable by right clicking on the layer you want to merge, or by using the "layer" menu) to merge that text layer into the appropriate character's layer, so the mini and its letter can be moved at the same time.
Next, select the relevant portion of your map that you want the characters to see. In this case, the three PC's are walking into a room, so the room and its exits will be visible. Crop the image (the "crop image" command is conveniently located in the "image" menu) then add the appropriate enemy for the encounter. Maybe those chests in the bottom right corner need to be erased too... wouldn't want to give away where the loot is at right away. I decided to take care of them by copying the bottom left corner of the map, flipping it, and pasting it on the right (as you'll see in the final version).
Now, you can resize your image and save it! In GIMP, you want to save as a .xcf file. This is its default file type that will keep it layered. Re-save this every time you move the minis, which is easy to do because they're layered and you can just move them around individually without having to re-draw them. Then, when you've got them where you want them, use a "save as" to make a jpeg file from them. Voila! Image is ready for hosting at photobucket, imageshack, or wherever you like to host images.
So there it is. One encounter, ready to go. Your PC's will now have a graphical representation of exactly where they are standing when the horrible monster tears them to shreds.
Anyone else with cool ways to do maps to share in PbP games please contribute! I hear google documents is pretty sweet, maybe someone can show us how to do that.
TL;DR - Maps, huh? They're cool and even a less-than-interwebs-savvy person like myself can make them.
Horseshoe on
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One of mine, I like it on account of the tree needing to be added to a street scene after one of my players threw a feather token for some reason.
Thanks! I am a photoshop ninja, so I can handle all the layers and stuff. I was mostly curious as to where you got the maps themselves.
Thanks!
Planeswalker
Will of the Council - Starting with you, each player votes for death goblin.
sims / tboz do not spoil if you are reading this :P
Ground Floor~
2nd Floor~
Roof~
My process is basically the same as Horsehoe's, but I use a mix of photoshop & illustrastor. There are 2 things I'd point out that might be useful to you:
1) I've built all the levels of this building in the same document on separate layers. This is good because it lets me use the same 'footprint' for the building conveniently for each floor. I've also placed a flood of white in between each level and then made it partially transparent. That way, say if my PC's are on the second floor, they will be able to see down off the catwalk/grating area to the level below, which makes sense since it's open air. They'll be able to see the storm troopers or whatever is moving around down there, all faded out since it's a level below.
2) If you look at some of the pieces in my maps they are pretty well done. There are also a bunch of simpler objects that i dropped in with little attention to detail. You can download "tile sets" which are basically floater objects for things like barrels, speeders, crates, beds, desks, droids etc etc. It's good for piecing a map together from scratch. Additionally, if you put some time in and create detailed pieces of your own you can add them to your tile collection for reuse.
There is a tileset on holocron.com called "101 pieces of stuffs" or something, thats where most of the recognizable bits you might see on my map come from.
And they chose Tattoine. Hopefully my campaign won't suck as much as the Phantom Menace. So here's their ship hangar and their unfinished ship.
Planeswalker
Will of the Council - Starting with you, each player votes for death goblin.
Tell us how you made that map!
And don't sweat it... if Star Wars has taught us anything, it is that all roads eventually lead to Tatooine.
most of those little doodads are available in the tile pack you can get there, though.
Which could have made me look less the ignoramus.
Alas, I cannot hide my true colors.
It prompted me to check out the miniatures game, which is actually kinda fun when it's just you and one of your friends who plays the RPG with you and you feel like having a beer, throwing a d20 and don't have the inclination to get too involved with it.
really Hshoe, you should go to DOWNLOADS ----> TILES on the holocron site, get the 101 tiles pack or w/e its called. lotsa nice flavorful doodads.
the secret to the good looking maps doesnt look as much like skill to me as time, nice doodads/flavor, gradients and ground textures. :P
speaking of maps ~ i made an eweb!
e~ small ;p EWEB!
Just drew the ship on, obviously, with my tablet and the pen tool, and made it transparent so I could see the grid through it.
The ship's a separate layer on the psd file, so I'll be able to copy it and add it to other maps and/or make it it's own map at some point. I'll probably steal those tiles from the holocron to flesh it out. That'd be neat, ya?
Planeswalker
Will of the Council - Starting with you, each player votes for death goblin.
i would also get the version of hangar94 that has the Falcon in it and steal bits of it to plug onto your ship.
E~ what kind of ship? ^___^
Oh, that reminds me... I should post the map I made of that custom YT-2400 tonight.
Hshoe: yes pls!
Fading: That's a good idea.
Planeswalker
Will of the Council - Starting with you, each player votes for death goblin.
you should post some of your hand-drawn maps and what you do to come up with them, the ones you drew for my game were amazing
She doesn't look like much, but she'll do point-five, has two highly illegal blaster turrets, an advanced sensor and stealth package, and engines that can outrun most of your interceptors.
I started with the image of Dash Rendar's Outrider from Wookiepedia, and then I superimposed it with a grid that got it at about just the right length. The furniture and other stuff in there is from a scan of my copy of the RCR Starships of the Galaxy, which I resized to fit the grid size of the current edition.
Planeswalker
Will of the Council - Starting with you, each player votes for death goblin.
Also, when designing the interior of a YT, keep in mind that the thing that made it popular was how "modular" it was... it had a central core, and a variety of different wedge-shaped pods could fit into it. This made it very customizable, as it was easy to sacrifice cargo space for equipment, bunks, etc.
I designed the "Idiot" to carry a small crew (has a bunk, fresher and kitchen in addition to the usual sparse captain's station) as well as cargo and leave plenty of room for a considerable amount of propulsion in the engineering section.
Bear in mind that ships are going to be necessarily cramped too. I've recently been reading Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brien, and it's amazing how much crew and cargo were packed on sailing ships back then. Spacefaring vessels aren't going to be any more accommodating unless they're specifically designed as high-end space yachts.
if you dont want to try to used-book / ebay / hunt etc for the books, the links above include at least some of the material.
i intend to 1942 style top-down scroll my gais through a bunch of these someday
e~ hmmm too big, fiddling now.
e2~ was CMYK, now is fix \( ._.)/
If you guys think it's neat I can post about how I do large-scale maps. It's pretty simple really.
But that's not just a digital thing. I'm cartographically retarded.
What I'll post is how I go about drawing the maps themselves, the digitalics involved are really simple.
I'll have to make a new map for this... and "Odam" doesn't have enough geographical features for that yet. If anyone has a homebrew campaign area or something they would like a regional map of just PM me and I'll draw it up as an example. Won't be able to do it this week though, sometime between now and Christmas depending upon if my work sends me out of town.
I'd serpentine if I were you.
I'd what? Please explain to the uninitiated.
Serpentiiiiiiiiine!
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
I mean, this pretty much should be stickied anyway, so necroposting probably wasn't a bad thing
i accept full responsibility
If this is a tough one, I suggest looking at a lot of real-world maps to get a feel for how mountain ranges tend to move across the landscape, how topography affects rivers, where deserts tend to be, etc.
As far as drawing them...
1) Sketch continent, island or whatever it is. Even if you're only really interested in a small part you need the whole.
2) Place your major geographic features. Mountains and areas of unique geology. Rivers. Deserts.
3) Figure out where things like forests and swamps would occur in the big picture. This has a lot to do with latitude as well as several other factors.
4) Scan in your sketch, and open it in whatever drawing program works best.
5) Focus in on that area. Start making more details, small stuff. Like placing your towns and roads. Where are the settlements now? Where would ancient settlements have been if there was, say, and Ice Age that formed the U-shaped valley you're drawing.
6) Name things, Ink it, Erase your pencil marks.
7) Scan the document. Transform your white tones into transparency, leaving only the blacks from your ink drawing.
8) Add color to your map by painting the layer below your scanned ink page.
9) Bask in your intelligent design.
It probably wouldn't work for giant continent size masses, which would be easily recognizable by everyone, but for town/region sized areas if you just pick a slice of the world everyone isn't already intimately familiar with and use the existing geology/landscape/biome/whatever the hell else.
Just my two bits.
Here's some 8-16MB world maps that could be used (if you get the RAM to load it):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whole_world_-_land_and_oceans.jpg
In this case, it was a custom map that I did for Rankenphile... for a game he never actually got off the ground. It was fun making them though.
But yeah, since I don't tend to do world building or plan shit out (love the "points of light" thing since that's sort of what I tended to do anyway), I would probably use something similar to that method.
I suck more ass with maps than is even imaginable.
http://rpgmapshare.com/index.php?q=gallery&g2_view=dynamicalbum.UpdatesAlbum&g2_albumId=19&g2_page=1
e~ maybe not a ton of stuff there it seems, but some of it is good.
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