Tutorials: drawing maps for tabletop roleplaying games

Niklas

Hi everyone,

I've put together a series of tutorials on how to draw different types of maps for tabletop RPG:s like D&D.

How to draw basic dungeon maps
How to draw isometric dungeon maps
How to draw maps of villages and small settlements

By following these tutorials, you'll be able to draw maps that looks like these:

SmokeStacks

These are pretty great, I've got a friend who wants to start DMing so I'm gonna pass these along to him.

Darkewolfe

Do you have a recommendation on how to slowly reveal these to players?

I've been getting to have my players draw the maps themselves but we don't explain well which results in odd mapping.

webguy20

For towns I'll just show a map of the town and any buildings they would find without any searching. If there is any hidden stuff I keep a copy with that kind of stuff notated on it. For dungeons I keep a map of everything noted on it, and only have player facing stuff drawn out for potential encounter areas. Otherwise it's all theater of the mind. I also don't run mega dungeons either. On some bigger dungeons I'll have them draw it, allow it to be general though. Like "the hallway is 30ft long, and halfway down is a door on each side" and then just make sure they draw something similar. I try not to make exact distances important except for encounter rooms which are drawn out already.

I love Isometric maps but don't find them useful beyond art resources. As maps I don't find them terribly functional as a tabetop resource.


Also for those who are making large scale maps. I gotta recommend the software https://www.wonderdraft.net. It's super easy to make good maps in it. It took me about 2 hours the first time to make a map I'd be happy to show at the table.