Been using Gitzman's maps to run my campaign (Cheap Tickets), and I'm just writing up the move from home-grown scenario to The Gathering Storm. Only problem is that the 3e maps seem to leave out loads of things; in fact the whole town of Lachenbad where my players had been living (and dying) for some time! Luckily my players are not that interested in the wider world, but I'm wondering if others have similar problems with using stuff from other editions, and how they get round it.
Maps and mistakes
There is fun to be had with map discrepancies.
First, what player you expect accurate maps??? Do you know what age you are in?
Then even so town not on map, did cartographer omit it and of so do did they omit other things that pop up. Is there a story of the grudge cartographer has or the noble who forbids recognition town exists, or is it a ghost town that doesn't really exist.
Must admit my first thought was it was a huge tax dodge, like one of the nobles (not-so) super secret superannuation fund, or maybe a weird Imperial grant. You're right though, a bit of a fudge with different names for rivers when speaking to locals, similar sounding towns etc and my players could be really lost
My approach is to cross check problem map with the Gazetteer in 2nd Ed Sigmars Heirs and Andy Laws maps on his site.
I put absences and inconsistencies down to the unreliable nature of Old World maps. Which is often mentioned in the cannon.
The empire is very old, and many towns and cities have been razed and rebuilt during the many wars. Entire Provinces have been subsumed and the Empire forests are notorious for reclaiming land left untended.
Two towns may very well have the same name, be considered located on one bank or the other as expansion favours, regularly be renamed or return to an older name. Be lost and reclaimed, deserted due to plague, wiped out in excessive witch purges or civil war.
Or just plain ignored be the cartographer. All maps have a particular purpose defined by what they omit as much as what they include.
In my Old World Gitzmans map is LAW.
In the grim world of GM's big fat MagicmarkerHammer! No town is safe...
It is one thing to have in-game inaccuracies, but another to have to wonder where something actually is in a metagame sense.
I ran into similar problems you guys are discussing when compliing the big map. There are a lot of different versions of similar maps, many of which have common data which we all adhere to. Many maps also have inconsistencies, such as a town showing up on one map, but not another, or mispellings, or unmarked rivers, etc.
When making the big map i chose to always follow a similar set of guidelines since i've taken all the maps i've found and folded them into a single map.
- Whenever a town shows up on a map, it gets placed into the big map.
- If a river or mountain range is meantoned it gets included.
- If a town is so small as to not leave breathing room for other map icons surrounding it, it will be omitted (unless there is a specific adventure or story which references it in which case it takes priority)
- If a future edition overrides a location/name or region, it takes precidence.
This has suited me quite well to date. Many regions have been revamped, and have undergone some significant changes, most notably The Moot and Sylvania.
Law's map is an amazing piece of art. It also includes many, many towns or villages which are not on my map purely because they are too small and would bunch the town/village icons too close together to be legible. Also i have no reference to the existance to some of these towns as i can only find most of them on his map. In order to include some of these (which i'd love to do) i'd have to increase the resolution of the map by quite a bit. This however is no longer an option as i have reached the maximum width of a JPEG file (30,000 pilxles).
Gitzman
Gitzman said:
This however is no longer an option as i have reached the maximum width of a JPEG file (30,000 pilxles).
Callidon said:
Gitzman said:
This however is no longer an option as i have reached the maximum width of a JPEG file (30,000 pilxles).
You have not, however, reached the maximum level of love that I have for the SHDMotWOW
And that love, Callidon, is what keeps me going.
Callidon said:
Gitzman said:
This however is no longer an option as i have reached the maximum width of a JPEG file (30,000 pilxles).
You have not, however, reached the maximum level of love that I have for the SHDMotWOW
I second that.
Thirded resoundingly
Got my players to draw themselves a map of the world as they know it - no books etc used, and then got them to use it for planning their routes etc. They actually update it with npc's they meet, adding details (not always correctly!) and it adds quite a bit to the game play They have a compass, and now think they know where they are, (the fools) and how to get places. I can't wait for them to try to go 'off-road'
Heres hoping the map below publishes. (How on earth do you get it to work?)
reg said:
Been using Gitzman's maps to run my campaign (Cheap Tickets), and I'm just writing up the move from home-grown scenario to The Gathering Storm. Only problem is that the 3e maps seem to leave out loads of things; in fact the whole town of Lachenbad where my players had been living (and dying) for some time! Luckily my players are not that interested in the wider world, but I'm wondering if others have similar problems with using stuff from other editions, and how they get round it.
IMO running off a 100% accurate map for an entire country leaves little room for the GM. I mainly use Gitzman's map as a loose guide on placement and to guage a sense of scale. This way I can place a town and tell the players thats it's between Ubersreik and Kemperbad without them worrying about that it's not canon "It's not on the map? Chaos cults live there!!!!!" , players look up Kemperbad and Ubersreik and they get a relative position which they can relate back to the world without me having to worry about exact details.