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Session Zero University - Intro to Mapmaking with Chip Watchorn · Session Zero Heroes | TTRPG Actual Play Adventures & Improv Storytelling

• 0:15
  >> Skylar: Welcome students, to Session Zero
• 0:18
  University. My name is Professor Rainier, one of the
• 0:21
  many teachers here at the university. But for right
• 0:24
  now, I am your orientation
• 0:27
  representative. Here at scu. You will
• 0:30
  find a variety of professors well versed in the realms
• 0:33
  of tabletop role playing games, offering you
• 0:35
  their insight on every facet of
• 0:38
  TTRPG's. Perhaps you'd like to
• 0:41
  take a homebrwing class with our potions
• 0:43
  professor or join in on a role playinging
• 0:46
  class put on by our theater department. Be
• 0:49
  sure to take all your required general education
• 0:52
  classes like Character Creation 101,
• 0:55
  Intro to World Building, and NPC
• 0:58
  Voices for Beginners to help round out
• 1:00
  your education. There are also plenty of electives
• 1:03
  and intramural opportunities to add some fun and
• 1:06
  diversity into your everyday schedule. So get
• 1:09
  out there and learn. Whether you'hoping to
• 1:12
  graduate with a degree in DMing or playing, it
• 1:15
  matters not, there is always room to
• 1:17
  grow at Session Zero University.
• 1:24
  >> Skylar: Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Session Zero
• 1:27
  University, special series here at Session Zero
• 1:30
  Heroes. today is an extra special episode
• 1:33
  where I'm going to be sitting down with long term TTRPG
• 1:36
  content creator Chip Watchhorn, and he is going to be
• 1:39
  talking to us all about his experience with
• 1:42
  cartography for TTRPGs, MapKing,
• 1:45
  filling those maps, everything like that. So it would be really
• 1:47
  exciting for those of you out there that are interested in
• 1:50
  creating maps for your own games, to see how
• 1:53
  somebody who's been doing it for a long time does it and
• 1:56
  maybe some tips and tricks along the way. So, Chip, welcome to the
• 1:59
  show.
• 1:59
  >> Speaker C: Thanks. yeah, I'll do what I can. it's hard to talk about
• 2:02
  map making without also hitting on world
• 2:05
  building a little bit. And I know, you recently did a podcast
• 2:08
  on world building, so I'm not planning on
• 2:11
  getting into it too much, but it, like I said, it's kind of hard
• 2:14
  to talk about one without the other.
• 2:16
  >> Skylar: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you got to create stories and stuff
• 2:19
  within your, within your locations and within your map. So, yeah, we'll
• 2:21
  definitely do that. So, Chip, just kind of starting off from the
• 2:24
  beginning, how, how did you first get into map making when
• 2:27
  it comes to TTRPGs? What really sparked that interest and what got
• 2:30
  you going with that?
• 2:31
  >> Speaker C: I, you know, I don't know exactly.
• 2:34
  I've always, I've always liked maps. When
• 2:37
  I was a kid, I used to have just, maps open
• 2:40
  and, and play little fantasy games in my
• 2:43
  head, you know, with armies on the maps that I
• 2:46
  was just, you know, Messing around with.
• 2:48
  But you know, when, when we started playing
• 2:51
  Dungeons and Dragons when I was a kid, it was, I sort
• 2:54
  of morphed into one of the
• 2:56
  main people that was running games,
• 2:59
  in my group. And you
• 3:02
  know, we need a map. So I just started drawing them.
• 3:05
  M. And it was by hand at first. O.
• 3:08
  Nice. And so it's. Yeah, that's just basically how
• 3:11
  it started.
• 3:12
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely. And it's really cool that. Yeah. See
• 3:15
  those like hand drawn maps. It's like, it's just mind blowing
• 3:17
  to see like the detail and the
• 3:20
  artistic capability that, that people have
• 3:23
  so.
• 3:23
  >> Speaker C: Well, I don't know that I had that much artistic
• 3:26
  capability, but they were maps.
• 3:27
  >> Skylar: They were maps.
• 3:28
  >> Speaker C: I actually still have some of my old, you
• 3:31
  know, some of the stuff from. Yeah. 25, 30
• 3:34
  years ago.
• 3:34
  >> Skylar: Wow, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well,
• 3:37
  and I'm sure everybody appreciated to having some
• 3:40
  visual opportunity within the D and D campaign.
• 3:43
  >> Speaker C: Yeah, a lot of what we did back then was, you know, theater of
• 3:46
  the mind. when we first started playing Dungeons the Dragons,
• 3:48
  it was pretty much excusensive theater of the mind.
• 3:51
  Although we would try to map out dungeons,
• 3:54
  you know, as you're going through them.
• 3:55
  >> Skylar: M. Yeah. So did you focus a lot more on. On
• 3:58
  dungeon stuff at back then or was it a mix
• 4:01
  of dungeons and like full world maps
• 4:04
  or what was kind of the.
• 4:05
  >> Speaker C: When we first started playing, it was mostly. You were
• 4:08
  mostly just running dungeon crawls and. Yeah,
• 4:11
  yeah. And you know, you would say, well, we're going back
• 4:14
  to town and you know, wherever that was at.
• 4:17
  Sure. but yeah, it was mostly dungeon
• 4:20
  crawls.
• 4:20
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:22
  >> Speaker C: So for our group anyway.
• 4:23
  >> Skylar: Well, yeah, no, I mean, absolutely. So with your
• 4:25
  opinion when it comes to map making within
• 4:28
  ttrpg, Stu, what how does
• 4:31
  it add to the experience? How would you say that it adds to the
• 4:34
  experience or how has it added to the experience in games that
• 4:36
  you've run or how can it add to
• 4:39
  the experience?
• 4:40
  >> Speaker C: Well, you know, it really depends
• 4:43
  on what you put on on the paper. But
• 4:46
  I think it's easier to help people
• 4:48
  visualize you distances
• 4:51
  and you know, particularly nowadays
• 4:54
  when there's much more of a focus on using
• 4:56
  miniatures, and then, you know, having, you know, battle
• 4:59
  maps, those things. It's
• 5:02
  so much nicer to have you
• 5:05
  because you have a lot less arguments with players. Well, that's not where I was
• 5:08
  standing that, you know.
• 5:10
  >> Skylar: No, I wanted to be closer. Wanted to be outside
• 5:12
  of.
• 5:13
  >> Speaker C: It's right there.
• 5:14
  >> Skylar: Yep, yep. Exactly. Exactly. No That's a good point. And with battle
• 5:17
  maps, for sure.
• 5:18
  >> Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, you know,
• 5:20
  in that direction, I think it is certainly en.
• 5:24
  enhanced play. and, you know, it's
• 5:27
  a lot more black and white when you can see it on.
• 5:29
  On paper. Although, you know, it
• 5:32
  also takes away maybe some of the
• 5:34
  imagination.
• 5:35
  >> Skylar: Sure, that's true. Yeah. When you kind of put things into
• 5:38
  perspective of just like a 2D on paper,
• 5:41
  yeah, I can see how that would pull away from the imagination because you get a little bit
• 5:44
  too focused, especially when it comes to battles on, like, I'm trying to
• 5:47
  strategically, you know, oh, I got to be this many
• 5:50
  squares. Or if you use, like, the
• 5:52
  polygon shapes, away from this
• 5:55
  dragon, because if he spews another fire,
• 5:58
  it's gonna be a cone this big, and it's good. Yeah. So I can. I can see
• 6:01
  how that could kind of take away a little bit. But also, like
• 6:04
  you said, reduces arguments
• 6:07
  of where you were or where, you know, people, their
• 6:09
  abilities would be hitting or not be hitting or whatever the case.
• 6:12
  So. So let's, Starting from the kind of the beginning of
• 6:15
  the process, when you make a map, where. Where do you
• 6:18
  start? Is it something that I kind of need to get
• 6:21
  into my campaign planning a little bit first and then go to
• 6:24
  maps, or should I use maps as kind of a stepping stone to kind
• 6:27
  of help me plan my campaign? Where do you usually begin?
• 6:30
  >> Speaker C: It really depends on what I'm doing. I've
• 6:33
  made several different worlds. I've
• 6:35
  started with a village.
• 6:37
  >> Skylar: Oh.
• 6:38
  >> Speaker C: You know, and, you know, I've
• 6:40
  started a world with just a village and a general idea of
• 6:43
  what was around that village and where they were going to.
• 6:46
  And those are the only spots I really started with.
• 6:50
  and I have started with a
• 6:52
  whole world. Not just a continent,
• 6:55
  a whole world that was. That
• 6:58
  had all of the continents, you know,
• 7:01
  at least the outlines of the continents mapped.
• 7:05
  and it really. Like I said, it really depends on what you want to do. I
• 7:07
  mean, you're a lot more free when you start
• 7:10
  smaller because you're not locked into
• 7:12
  whatever you've already. You've already
• 7:15
  done. And it really depends on
• 7:18
  the demands of my players.
• 7:19
  >> Skylar: If.
• 7:20
  >> Speaker C: If I'm running a campaign that has players
• 7:23
  with multiple races, you got to
• 7:26
  figure out, where did they all come from?
• 7:27
  >> Skylar: That's a very good point.
• 7:28
  >> Speaker C: And, so a lot of times I'll get input. If I'm. If I
• 7:31
  have some ideas like that, I'll get input from my players and say
• 7:34
  Listen, give me a little background on your character.
• 7:37
  Now, I don't like, you know, I don't
• 7:40
  want a five page.
• 7:42
  >> Skylar: Right, right.
• 7:42
  >> Speaker C: Backstory. If you write one, great. But
• 7:45
  I just want to hate, you know, my character came from
• 7:48
  here. And this is why, you know, or
• 7:51
  something like that, or. And, you know, I've had people say, well, I don't really
• 7:54
  have much of a backstory. And then I'm like, all right, well,
• 7:57
  then you're gonna be from this town.
• 7:58
  >> Skylar: I'm gonna decide your backstst.
• 8:00
  >> Speaker C: You're gonna be from this town and you're gonna be friends with the other
• 8:03
  guy because he's also from that town.
• 8:05
  >> Skylar: Perfect.
• 8:05
  >> Speaker C: So, you know, he kind of creates.
• 8:07
  >> Skylar: Connection with your players and that helps.
• 8:09
  >> Speaker C: the part, but it also gives you ideas on what you have
• 8:12
  to develop to begin with. Because if
• 8:15
  you have a guy that, you know, comes from
• 8:17
  a Dwarven kingdom and another guy that comes from a Helven
• 8:20
  kingdom, and they're both, you know, not right
• 8:23
  next to where everybody else is at, then, you know,
• 8:26
  you have to have something, you don't have to develop the whole
• 8:29
  thing, but you have to have a little bit of background information
• 8:32
  on, ah, this is where it was at, at least.
• 8:35
  Because unless they got plucked out of there
• 8:38
  and have no idea of, you know, and I've
• 8:41
  seen campaigns start like that, unless they got plucked out of
• 8:44
  wherever they were at and don't know how to get back there, or don't know
• 8:47
  where they're at in the world, then, you know, you
• 8:50
  have to have some kind of a, relationship with
• 8:53
  where things are at.
• 8:53
  >> Skylar: Exactly. Exactly. Somebody from the elven village has probably
• 8:56
  been to the Dwarven or vice versa or whatever the case,
• 8:59
  there's a relationship there, or maybe a lack of relationship
• 9:02
  there. And then you can stem off of that as the DM
• 9:05
  and.
• 9:06
  >> Speaker C: Yeah, and my style, when
• 9:09
  I'm building things, I typically do
• 9:12
  more of a, I guess you would say Earth,
• 9:15
  like physical properties and things
• 9:18
  like that. you have to certainly take into account. I
• 9:21
  know they mentioned it on your world building thing,
• 9:23
  whether, you know, when you do
• 9:26
  political borders and things like that, you know, you
• 9:29
  take a look at the geography because that's how
• 9:32
  it was decided. And you know, before modern travel and
• 9:35
  everything, political borders really were
• 9:38
  mountains and rivers and oceans,
• 9:40
  because that was a big physical barrier. Now
• 9:43
  in your world, if, you know, flying
• 9:46
  or something like that is ridiculously common.
• 9:49
  >> Skylar: that's a good point.
• 9:50
  >> Speaker C: It makes those borders, you know,
• 9:53
  much more negligible. That's a good point. I o.
• 9:56
  Always, you know, I've always leaned
• 9:58
  towards, you know, the natural
• 10:01
  like geopolitical stuff when I'm doing you
• 10:04
  borders and things like that. So you know, mountain
• 10:07
  ranges, things like that become the
• 10:10
  areas that you're. That you're stopping at.
• 10:12
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:13
  >> Speaker C: Region. But I've also my worldilling.
• 10:16
  I tend to have You wouldn't necessarily call it
• 10:18
  low fantasy, but. And I've played in Forgotten Realms and
• 10:21
  I've played in know a lot of other commercials.
• 10:25
  I don't think I have ever had a place where
• 10:28
  somebody could go into a town and go into a shop and
• 10:31
  buy magic items. It's just
• 10:34
  never been that common in any of my stuff.
• 10:37
  >> Skylar: Got it. Okay.
• 10:37
  >> Speaker C: now that's not to say that you know, somebody couldn't develop
• 10:40
  that, but it's just,
• 10:43
  it's more like, I don't know, Lord the Rings kind of
• 10:46
  magic style where people know it's out there,
• 10:49
  but it's you know. And again this, you know, try
• 10:52
  to relate this back to world building. It really
• 10:54
  lends itself more to more Earth.
• 10:57
  Like because you don't have any
• 11:01
  giant magical things that you have to
• 11:04
  contend with that, you know, break all of those rules.
• 11:07
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely. And it can kind of create a more.
• 11:10
  Almost more accessible enemy. Right. Where like a big bad.
• 11:13
  Right. It's some individual managed to get their hands on one of
• 11:15
  those very rare magical artifacts and now they're
• 11:18
  causing all kinds of chaos and havoc because
• 11:21
  they have something that not. Is not accessible. There's not
• 11:24
  enchanters out there that are just mass producing these
• 11:27
  magical weapons all over the place. But I like what, that's a really
• 11:30
  good point. and tip for those that are trying to get into
• 11:33
  mapk making. Right. Is kind of having this understanding
• 11:36
  of. Especially if we look back like in medieval
• 11:39
  times. Right. How are they establishing
• 11:42
  this is the extent of the township, this is the extent of the
• 11:44
  settlement or city or whatever the case. And
• 11:47
  like you said, using those natural areas,
• 11:50
  those natural like sort of regional borders that you
• 11:53
  can kind of use to create a little bit of
• 11:56
  limitation within those towns. Right. Keeping it,
• 11:59
  keeping it and making rules and such that that would apply
• 12:02
  to it. I guess you could say so.
• 12:04
  >> Speaker C: And when you're doing, when you're designing
• 12:06
  worlds that relate much more closely
• 12:09
  to Earth.
• 12:10
  >> Speaker C: People accept it.
• 12:12
  >> Skylar: Right, right.
• 12:12
  >> Speaker C: It's, it's a lot more acceptable now if you're gonna. You can
• 12:15
  have rivers that run uphill if you want.
• 12:17
  >> Skylar: Sure.
• 12:18
  >> Speaker C: You know, I Would suggest you have a reason for it.
• 12:20
  >> Skylar: Right, right. and you know, people understand like the
• 12:23
  natural laws. Right. We see it every day when we're
• 12:26
  walking around. So it helps to kind of put your players into the
• 12:29
  perspective of things to just, to use those,
• 12:32
  those rules. And like you said, you can go outside of those.
• 12:35
  Why? What's the reason? And that kind of helps you create all kinds
• 12:38
  of, again, world building elements and things like that.
• 12:40
  >> Speaker C: yeah. When I look at stuff like, you know, continents
• 12:43
  and I start looking at placing mountain ranges and things like
• 12:46
  that, I actually, you know, think back to
• 12:49
  when I took geography and high school and college and
• 12:52
  you know, plate tectonics and things like that. Mountain
• 12:55
  ranges tend to run in where plates are
• 12:58
  getting pushed together. and maybe
• 13:01
  there's volcanic activity or where plates
• 13:04
  are coming apart or you know, things like that.
• 13:07
  That's what I think of in my mind because I want it to
• 13:09
  be something that when people look at it, they're like, oh,
• 13:12
  yeah, I get it.
• 13:13
  >> Skylar: That makes sense. You know, it's logical. Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah,
• 13:16
  absolutely.
• 13:17
  >> Speaker C: When you look at. I love J R Tolkien, but when
• 13:20
  you look at the map of Middle Earth, you know,
• 13:23
  he drew it, but I don't know that he had anything in
• 13:26
  mind like that.
• 13:27
  >> Skylar: Right.
• 13:27
  >> Speaker C: When he drew it.
• 13:28
  >> Skylar: Sure, sure.
• 13:29
  >> Speaker C: And there's, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 13:30
  >> Skylar: Yeah.
• 13:31
  >> Speaker C: It's just, that's my own personal thing
• 13:33
  is, I tend to look at the logic of things and how they
• 13:36
  work together or work apart. And I also think
• 13:39
  of, you know, when you're placing forests,
• 13:42
  or deserts, a lot of times you have deserts on one
• 13:45
  side or another of a mountain range simply because
• 13:48
  all the moisture is pushed out of it before it gets to one
• 13:51
  side or the other.
• 13:51
  >> Skylar: The laws of nature.
• 13:52
  >> Speaker C: yeah, yeah. And that, those are the kind of things that I look at.
• 13:55
  And there are exceptions to those rules and sometimes they're
• 13:58
  magical exceptions. But, you know, when you're
• 14:01
  looking at placing all of those major things and
• 14:03
  then, rivers, you know, I typically
• 14:06
  try to place them where it, you know, when you look at
• 14:09
  a map, where it looks like you think they should go
• 14:12
  you after you get.
• 14:13
  >> Skylar: Everything drawn out, mountain runoff that leads down and then
• 14:15
  ideally goes into a larger body of water.
• 14:18
  >> Speaker C: Right.
• 14:18
  >> Skylar: Things along those lines.
• 14:19
  >> Speaker C: And then when you're placing settlements, you
• 14:22
  have what? Why are they there?
• 14:24
  >> Skylar: huh?
• 14:25
  >> Speaker C: Are they out in the middle of nowhere? Because.
• 14:27
  >> Skylar: Why?
• 14:28
  >> Speaker C: Why? Yeah, you know, there has to be some accessibility.
• 14:31
  Either there's trails or there's roads or there's
• 14:34
  rivers and back. You know, I always think
• 14:37
  of medieval times. A lot of things were along
• 14:40
  some m. Kind of a waterway, because that was the fastest way to
• 14:43
  move things.
• 14:43
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. And you need water to survive, too.
• 14:46
  >> Speaker C: Right. And in a magical world, you can have other thingsah.
• 14:49
  But, you know, I look at those kind of things when I'm placing.
• 14:51
  Placing settlements and, all of that.
• 14:54
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely. There's. There's logic to it. So if
• 14:57
  nothing else from this, from this episode, there's nothing else
• 15:00
  that you take away from it. It's for those out there that are
• 15:02
  in school, pay attention in your geography class, and
• 15:05
  that'll help you a long way is when it comes to creating
• 15:08
  your maps and creating your cartography for, for your
• 15:11
  campaigns. Because there's a lot that you can garnish from that and
• 15:14
  garnish from reality that can help inspire
• 15:17
  things within your campaign.
• 15:18
  >> Speaker C: Yeah. And like I said before, you can break
• 15:21
  any of those rules and, you know, because of
• 15:24
  some magical thing. But when your players ask you, why is this
• 15:27
  like this? Have a reason for it?
• 15:29
  >> Skylar: Absolutely.
• 15:30
  >> Speaker C: Or, you know, you could just say, well, nobody knows.
• 15:32
  >> Skylar: Nobody knows.
• 15:33
  >> Speaker C: You know what? That's something you're going toa make up because they asked.
• 15:36
  >> Skylar: That's a good point. And it opens up opportunity for them to be like,
• 15:39
  well, let's explore this. I want to figure out, is there a
• 15:41
  magical stone underneath this waterfall that causes it to
• 15:44
  go up instead of down? Let's get a hold of that. That sounds
• 15:47
  powerful. You know, so. Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of which, when
• 15:50
  it comes to your players, you've mentioned this before,
• 15:53
  where you can use their backstories as an opportunity
• 15:56
  to kind of help you build your map. are there other
• 15:58
  opportunities or other ways that you might use
• 16:01
  players to kind of help develop the world as they go along?
• 16:04
  >> Speaker C: yeah, I've, you know, mostly it's through the
• 16:06
  backstory thing. Ah. But if they have some idea
• 16:09
  of, you know, a little more of an idea
• 16:12
  of, well, what kind of a society is, you
• 16:15
  know, your characters at?
• 16:17
  Ah, an elf. What kind of a society was,
• 16:20
  you know, was it a traditional elven society or.
• 16:23
  Or was it something different?
• 16:26
  >> Skylar: Maybe it's more, kind of like we see the elves in Lord of the Rings, where they have
• 16:29
  these, like, big spires and they've built all of this,
• 16:32
  you know, ornate stuff. Or is it more of, like, a wood elf type
• 16:35
  thing where they live in a more natural environment amidst the
• 16:37
  trees, you know, things along those lines.
• 16:39
  >> Speaker C: I had, one time I had you an idea
• 16:42
  for an elven society that was really based
• 16:45
  on feudal Japan. you know, I
• 16:48
  didn't rob so much of it that they thought it was feudal
• 16:50
  Japan, but it was. That's kind of how I
• 16:53
  based everything off of. And you know, when you're looking at
• 16:56
  placing societies, you also ask yourself,
• 16:59
  what are their strengths? What resources do they
• 17:02
  have available to them from the maps that
• 17:04
  you're making? So like I said before, there's got
• 17:07
  to be a reason that they're where they're at.
• 17:09
  >> Skylar: Yes, absolutely.
• 17:10
  >> Speaker C: And that reason is. Has to be something on the map.
• 17:13
  >> Skylar: Yep, that's right. Absolutely. I like how you mentioned the feudal
• 17:16
  Japan too, because it also suggests take
• 17:18
  inspiration from history. Right. Pay attention in your history
• 17:21
  class. I know, there's a lot of authors out there, George R.R. martin, who
• 17:24
  did all the Game of Thrones stuff. He
• 17:27
  talks about how a lot of the characters in there are inspired by,
• 17:31
  past figures from various history. You've
• 17:34
  got one of my favorite authors, Brian Jacques
• 17:37
  from Redwll, he did all the Red Wall stuff. He's talked about how a
• 17:40
  lot of his characters are inspirations from either,
• 17:43
  like historical biblical stuff, things along those
• 17:46
  lines, which is really cool. So, yeah, absolutely. Use,
• 17:49
  use history. Use kind of some of the
• 17:51
  conflicts people fight over land. Why are they
• 17:54
  fighting over land? That can help you inspire a little bit of your map making
• 17:57
  too. What, this area has been taken over by
• 18:00
  this, this group or something like that. and how has
• 18:03
  that affected things in the meantime?
• 18:05
  >> Speaker C: Yeah, because, you know, just like modern day, I
• 18:08
  mean, every society has resources
• 18:10
  that they're willing to fight for. And those
• 18:13
  resources are typically natural resources that are available
• 18:16
  to them. You know, do these dwarves
• 18:19
  have a silver mine that, the orcs want or
• 18:22
  do they have whatever
• 18:25
  those are the kind of resources that you're looking for. Or is it
• 18:28
  some kind of a magical crystal that they're mining, which
• 18:31
  you. Again, you can make up whatever
• 18:34
  you want. Again, there just has to
• 18:37
  be something there that, you may have
• 18:40
  a random small settlement because, hey,
• 18:42
  they started, you know, cutting down lumber here and
• 18:45
  they just figured, you know what, let's just start processing,
• 18:48
  adhere to, you know. And so they have a small village
• 18:51
  there, and it focuses primarily on
• 18:54
  lumber.
• 18:54
  >> Skylar: But there's a resource associated with it which is logical.
• 18:57
  Right. Like you had mentioned before, having the river, it makes
• 19:00
  it easier to transport things. And then on the other hand, it's
• 19:03
  also, you know, great for survival. And you can have
• 19:06
  There's a silver mine. We know, we've been in this m mine, we found
• 19:09
  silver, we're going to mine it. That's a valuable
• 19:12
  resource. So we're going to stick around here and we're going to mine this silver. So
• 19:15
  yeah, I like that. There's, there's logic to.
• 19:18
  There's a resource logic to that. Of course, like we
• 19:21
  said before, you've got people that might want the resource somebody
• 19:23
  else has. So that starts a conflict. That's an
• 19:26
  opportunity to start to create story and world build as well.
• 19:29
  >> Speaker C: So yeah, and sometimes it can be something as simple
• 19:32
  as well, we have an in here because
• 19:35
  you know what, it's halfway between. You know, it's a two day journey
• 19:38
  from this place to that place and this is halfway in between.
• 19:41
  And there aren't a whole lot of resources there at all. But
• 19:44
  the inn is successful because it's the halfway point. It's
• 19:47
  the halfway point, absolutely.
• 19:48
  >> Skylar: People want to stop and arrest and then they'll continue on the next day.
• 19:51
  >> Speaker C: Might have a few supporting services because of that.
• 19:53
  >> Skylar: Right, right, Absolutely, absolutely. So there's a lot of opportunity
• 19:56
  to sort of take one point and say this is something that's
• 19:59
  here answering whyyat's here and then kind
• 20:02
  of following that up with what else needs to be here
• 20:05
  for that to make sense.
• 20:06
  >> Speaker C: Yeah.
• 20:06
  >> Skylar: Awesome. So, let's dive
• 20:09
  into the creating the map itself. So
• 20:12
  what are some of the favorite tools or techniques or whatever the
• 20:15
  case that you use? whether that be like I prefer to do
• 20:18
  it on pen and paper or maybe even digital resources that you like
• 20:21
  to use.
• 20:21
  >> Speaker C: You know, like I said before I started just doing pen and
• 20:24
  paper and I still have some of those. but
• 20:27
  I went started using digital tools.
• 20:30
  I'll be honest with you, I think I bought Campaign
• 20:33
  Cartographer in I want to say it was about
• 20:35
  2001. So I've been using that for a long
• 20:38
  time. and that was their first edition of it. And
• 20:41
  I've tried a couple of other tools. I tried I think Dungeon
• 20:44
  Draft and Incarnate.
• 20:46
  >> Skylar: Oh, okay.
• 20:47
  >> Speaker C: And they're fine. Frankly they're
• 20:50
  easier to use. I mean a
• 20:53
  lot of the newer tools are more point and click. Campaign
• 20:56
  Cartographer has a steep learning curve
• 20:58
  and a lot of people don't like
• 21:01
  it because of that. But if you put some time in,
• 21:04
  I'm on the third edition Camping Cartographer 3
• 21:07
  and I now have every resource
• 21:10
  that they have available and the amount
• 21:13
  of styles that
• 21:15
  available for you that you don't have to design. On your own
• 21:18
  are just. It's ridiculous the amount of stuff that they
• 21:21
  havesolute you can use. It can. With that, you can make
• 21:24
  anything from a fantasy world to, you know,
• 21:27
  spaceships, whatever you want. And
• 21:30
  I don't know, I like it. I'm not by any
• 21:33
  means, you know, a professional with
• 21:35
  it. I just have a decent understanding of how it works.
• 21:39
  And honestly, if I spend.
• 21:41
  If I'm away from it from too long and
• 21:44
  then go back to it, I have to spend,
• 21:47
  some time, you know, reorganizing myself and
• 21:50
  kind of. Yeah. Relearning. Oh, yeah, I need to do
• 21:53
  this.
• 21:53
  >> Skylar: Like riding a bicycle. If you stop doing it for like a whole
• 21:56
  year and then you come back to it the next summer and you're like, ah, man, I
• 21:59
  gotta refill this out and get used to it
• 22:02
  again.
• 22:02
  >> Speaker C: But, but, but that's. That's what I primarily use now as
• 22:05
  Campaign Cartographer 3.
• 22:07
  >> Skylar: That totally makes sense. You know, with anything that's got
• 22:10
  more customization to it and more capability to
• 22:13
  it, there's going to be a steeper learning curve because you're going to have to figure out how all that
• 22:16
  works. So.
• 22:17
  >> Speaker C: And one thing I should mention, when you're looking at different.
• 22:20
  I do. I like to do a lot of writing too. And so
• 22:23
  I do that based on, you know, the worlds that
• 22:25
  I've.
• 22:27
  >> Skylar: I do want to write along while you're designing the map, because I
• 22:30
  want to know, like, if I'm making this city here, what does it
• 22:33
  do? Because I need to be able to reference that. Otherwise my players are gonna
• 22:36
  be like, hey, this is a cool city. Let's go here. What are they all about? And you're like,
• 22:38
  oh, I don't remember.
• 22:40
  >> Speaker C: Yeah. And the tools you're using to make
• 22:43
  those maps you want to own.
• 22:46
  I mean, you want to own that simply because.
• 22:49
  Do I have a fantasy that someday it might be published?
• 22:52
  Yeah, I do. But, it's not realistic. But
• 22:55
  I.
• 22:56
  >> Skylar: You never know.
• 22:57
  >> Speaker C: Yeah. But yeah, I would love to have some of my stuff
• 22:59
  published. However, some of those
• 23:02
  tools that, you know, some of them
• 23:04
  require monthly subscriptions, some of them require, you
• 23:07
  know, and some of them, you. Whatever
• 23:10
  you make up, you don't actually own.
• 23:12
  >> Skylar: Right.
• 23:13
  >> Speaker C: so that's something to look at when you're looking at purchasing one.
• 23:16
  And that's part of the reason I use what I use, because
• 23:19
  when you. Whatever you make is yours.
• 23:21
  >> Skylar: Is yours. Yep. Absolutelyso nowute.
• 23:23
  >> Speaker C: You know, sometimes you can find deals on it. I. They've.
• 23:26
  They've been running a humble bundle deal on that
• 23:29
  that they, I've seen them do something similar
• 23:32
  before, but not to the extent that this one was
• 23:34
  right. There's no way you're ever going to get that much
• 23:37
  stuff for the prices that they were
• 23:39
  ask five bucks or something like that. Yeah, I actually used
• 23:42
  it to get, I had, there were several
• 23:45
  annuals that I had. Hadn't purchased yet
• 23:48
  and I did not have the Cosmographer,
• 23:50
  which is a program that goes
• 23:53
  along with it that will put your world on a
• 23:56
  planet in a star system. I didn't have that because I
• 23:59
  was doing fantasy stuff and I didn't really need that. Sure, yeah,
• 24:02
  for 35 bucks I bought everything
• 24:05
  that was, that I still didn't have because mostly
• 24:08
  those annuals. I subscribe to the annuals every year and it's
• 24:11
  about 30, 35 bucks for one annual.
• 24:13
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely. And then there's the software too. Cost I think
• 24:16
  a good like $40 or so.
• 24:18
  >> Speaker C: So yeah, normally that stuff I paid full
• 24:21
  retail for most of the stuff. And so yeah,
• 24:24
  it's a lot of money. But again, if you, you know,
• 24:27
  if you're patient and you wait around, you can find, find good
• 24:30
  deals on some of that, some of that stuff. But I, you know,
• 24:33
  my recommendation is use what you're comfortable with.
• 24:36
  Just know what you're getting into. Because you don't want
• 24:38
  to get into something and design this
• 24:41
  fantastic world and then find out,
• 24:43
  hey, I can publish it. And then all of a sudden, oh, this company wants
• 24:46
  a piece of it because it's not actually yours.
• 24:49
  >> Skylar: Exactly. Yeah, definitely make sure to check the terms of
• 24:52
  service, be able to understand like exactly how it
• 24:55
  all works and what's, yeah, what's yours or what's pre
• 24:58
  created assets that you can or cannot publish in
• 25:01
  your own name and things like that. So yeah, that is always kind of
• 25:04
  the tricky and scary thing. I know people like on
• 25:07
  Reddit will ask all the time like, is this mine? Can I use
• 25:10
  this? Can I publish this? Can I make money off of it? And then of course
• 25:13
  everybody gives the response of well, just to clarify, I'm not a
• 25:15
  lawyer, so I can't technically give you the correct
• 25:18
  answer here. And so yeah, it's, it's always kind
• 25:21
  of a bit of a mess. But yeah, if you check their terms, obviously you
• 25:24
  should be able to discern whether or not. And yeah,
• 25:27
  ironically, a lot of those more complicated, more
• 25:30
  customizable services are us obviously more
• 25:32
  expensive, are usually the ones that you
• 25:35
  own full rights to anything that you create
• 25:38
  which is always good. That's always what we're looking for.
• 25:40
  So I guess for anyone out there that's trying to make
• 25:43
  their first map, they listen to this episode and they're really
• 25:46
  inspired and they say, okay, I'm goingn. I've got a campaign coming up that I'm working
• 25:49
  on. I'm go going toa make my first map. What tips
• 25:52
  or tricks would you recommend to them?
• 25:55
  >> Speaker C: I would say you honestly start small,
• 25:58
  start with wherever your players are starting
• 26:01
  out and don't make any more than you
• 26:03
  absolutely have to. Unless. Unless
• 26:06
  you really have a great idea of, well, this is the way
• 26:09
  I want it to be because your players are going to change
• 26:12
  things and they. Anybody
• 26:15
  who's ever mastered a game will tell you that
• 26:18
  your players are going to change things and they're going to want to go
• 26:21
  places that you didn't want to go. Now you can have
• 26:23
  ideas for adventures and even have adventures ready
• 26:26
  and just pop them in where they're convenient. Oh, you know
• 26:29
  what? They're going to go over here. Well, this would be a good place to
• 26:32
  put that dwarven mind thing that I wanted them to run
• 26:35
  into. And now they're going to run into it because, hey, guess what? They're
• 26:38
  walking right by it.
• 26:39
  >> Skylar: That's right. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. Let the
• 26:42
  players kind of guide. But yeah, pre write some stuff,
• 26:45
  but don't slap it into a specific spot and say this is
• 26:48
  where this is going to happen. Because yeah, you can bust it out whenever you need it.
• 26:51
  Have the map be kind of a living document
• 26:54
  that's being created on the spot. We've talked a lot about
• 26:56
  kind of the world building and how the map can affect
• 26:59
  the world building, which is really good. What are some ways
• 27:02
  that you can kind of create, maybe some
• 27:05
  hidden clues or secrets within your map
• 27:08
  that might intrigue your players. Maybe like
• 27:11
  a location that doesn't already have something associated
• 27:14
  with, but something that you can kind of draw your players in and then
• 27:17
  create further.
• 27:18
  >> Speaker C: Oh yeah, you. I make player handouts all the time
• 27:21
  and you know, sometimes there are a, a, rougher
• 27:23
  version of a map that I have or
• 27:27
  really those are the only things I use typically that
• 27:30
  will do that. Unless, you know, you plant
• 27:32
  a story hook and you know, and they're wondering where
• 27:35
  that's at and then you're like, well, you know,
• 27:38
  according to local rumors it might be over in this area.
• 27:41
  You that'that's what I've done with it. Yeah.
• 27:44
  >> Skylar: So when you give them these, these handouts,
• 27:47
  what I Mean what would all be kind of included on that?
• 27:49
  >> Speaker C: Depends on who they get it from.
• 27:51
  >> Skylar: And oh, so you're saying like in game
• 27:54
  likeh yeah, o o on who.
• 27:56
  >> Speaker C: They get it from. And I'm not going to give them something where everything is
• 27:59
  named on it. And you know what, sometimes,
• 28:02
  sometimes they're not exactly right. They might have stuff in there. You
• 28:05
  know, depending on the ability of the mapma maker that
• 28:07
  gave it to them. You know, it might
• 28:10
  not be a two day journey. It might be a four day journey or it
• 28:13
  might, you know, or you.
• 28:15
  >> Skylar: Could say like with elves maybe they're known to
• 28:18
  be faster or something like that. It'like to them it was a two day
• 28:21
  journey but for your group it ends up being a week
• 28:23
  long expedition.
• 28:25
  >> Speaker C: Or you know what something there could have been a
• 28:28
  natural catastrophe that out wip out a road
• 28:30
  between here and there. So you got to find your way.
• 28:33
  So you know, it really depends on what
• 28:36
  purpose are you giving it through them.
• 28:38
  >> Skylar: For sure.
• 28:39
  >> Speaker C: This lends itself well to putting them
• 28:42
  into places that you kind of wanted them to go
• 28:45
  without them feeling like they're getting railroadd.
• 28:47
  >> Skylar: Exactly.
• 28:48
  >> Speaker C: Because they don't necessarily
• 28:50
  know what the terrain is gonna look like. They might
• 28:53
  think they do right, because they're looking at a map that was
• 28:56
  given to them. But you know, ah, they get to a certain point
• 28:59
  and you tell them what's on the map or what
• 29:02
  they're seeing and it's not what's on the map. So then,
• 29:05
  then they start having questions.
• 29:06
  >> Skylar: Well, absolutely.
• 29:08
  >> Speaker C: Why, why was't it? Why isn't this right? Well, I don't
• 29:11
  know. Maybe.
• 29:12
  >> Skylar: Or like you said, like there's a natural disaster. Like you can see exactly why
• 29:15
  it's not right anymore.
• 29:16
  >> Speaker C: Well, it looks like there'a big flood.
• 29:17
  >> Skylar: Y now you got to figure what are you going to do?
• 29:20
  >> Speaker C: landlide, whatever.
• 29:21
  >> Skylar: Yeah, I like that. That's our. Really? Because like you said you
• 29:24
  DMs always use railroading is always kind of like a
• 29:27
  curse word almost when it comes to dming. But
• 29:30
  you can railroad in such a way that doesn't feel at
• 29:33
  all like railroading. You're not the DM saying. All right, so
• 29:36
  you guys go to the next city and they're like well I didn't know we weren't even
• 29:38
  done here. Or there were other things that we wanted to do whatever.
• 29:41
  Like that's the bad railroading. Right. I'm just
• 29:44
  going to slap you guys into this next location because I want to move things along or
• 29:47
  Whatever the case. But yeah, sort of using
• 29:50
  in game, in world situations that kind
• 29:53
  of manipulate them into these different twists and turns that
• 29:55
  you want them to take. That's, that's where like the, the
• 29:58
  real skill the dungeon mastering is.
• 30:00
  >> Speaker C: And you can use things, you know, props for that.
• 30:03
  >> Skylar: Yeah.
• 30:03
  >> Speaker C: Roll some dice. Oh, hey, there was a landslide
• 30:06
  here. you know and you know, maybe you'd already
• 30:09
  planned it, but rolling dice makes it look like it's
• 30:12
  random.
• 30:13
  >> Skylar: It's also a good point. Yeah, absolutely. Y.
• 30:15
  >> Speaker C: You know those kind of things you just throw in there when you need
• 30:18
  to.
• 30:18
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely. That's a, that's a really good. That's
• 30:21
  a key tip right there. That's just DMing tip.
• 30:24
  Fantastic DMing tip right there. So
• 30:47
  what about when it comes to things like
• 30:49
  simulating travel and kind of doing the
• 30:52
  scaling of a map and things like that? I mean I guess that
• 30:55
  probably goes into well, how far do they want to go or anything like
• 30:58
  that. But when it comes to sort of that journeying
• 31:01
  aspects, they're going from one place to another. How do you kind of
• 31:04
  make that interesting that in between time
• 31:07
  overland stuff.
• 31:08
  >> Speaker C: Can be kind of a slog depending on what you're
• 31:11
  doing. I ran some people through u.
• 31:14
  I can't. I can't think of the name of it. You're going through an island for a
• 31:17
  lot of your journey and the mechanics that they
• 31:20
  have are really pretty good about. they have weather built
• 31:23
  in, and what happens there. There's chances
• 31:26
  that you might get lost and you
• 31:28
  know as a dm you're keeping track where
• 31:31
  they're actually out of the map and they're
• 31:34
  keeping track of where they think they're at. Okay.
• 31:37
  And those kind of things can add some random stuff in
• 31:39
  there. you, you keep them when you're
• 31:42
  going all the way across country. It's
• 31:45
  not just we spent 15 days doing
• 31:48
  this and nothing happened because things are going to happen.
• 31:50
  You'renna how are you getting food? How are you.
• 31:53
  You know.
• 31:54
  >> Skylar: Ah. Probably one of the most neglected things that, that
• 31:57
  DMs have a tendency to forget about is. Yeah. Are you
• 32:00
  eating and drinking as you.
• 32:02
  >> Speaker C: Need the survival stuff? I don't know. I
• 32:04
  haven't done a lot of the overland stuff but
• 32:07
  if you intersperse smaller
• 32:10
  ye. I guess you'd call them one shots or just you know,
• 32:13
  smaller. combat or interactions or
• 32:16
  whatever within those and that you have
• 32:19
  ready to go. I mean it livens that stuff
• 32:22
  up quite a.
• 32:22
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So,
• 32:26
  when. I mean, in a situation where you had
• 32:28
  a full map, right, maybe of the continent that they're on
• 32:31
  or an island or something along those lines, how do you kind
• 32:34
  of mitigate an idea of players
• 32:37
  able. The players are able to look down, they see the map, they
• 32:40
  see everything that's on it, versus, well, this is what your characters are
• 32:43
  know. Right. Like the metagaming of it. How do you keep them
• 32:46
  from. How do you kind of juggle that idea?
• 32:48
  >> Speaker C: you know, I don't know. I guess I really don't worry about it too
• 32:51
  much. The people I've played with
• 32:54
  mostly, they don't tend to get
• 32:57
  too locked up in the
• 33:00
  mechanics of their characters and how everything is
• 33:03
  working. They're just going by what you know, what
• 33:06
  you're feeding them. But there certainly are situations
• 33:09
  where you, where the person may know something.
• 33:12
  Like, for example, if you're running, you know,
• 33:15
  Forgotten Realms stuff. Well, you know, it's
• 33:17
  fair. It's fair to expect that the
• 33:20
  guy playing the character knows a lot more about the Forgotten
• 33:23
  Realms than their character does.
• 33:25
  >> Skylar: Right.
• 33:25
  >> Speaker C: Right. however, you know, you just. You're just gonna have to deal
• 33:28
  with it the best you can.
• 33:30
  >> Skylar: You like? Yeah. Whenever they. They pitch an idea or something like that, you're
• 33:33
  gonna be like, well, how would you. How would you know
• 33:36
  that? Would you know that? Are you sure? You know, kind of thing.
• 33:39
  Som. yeah. Or maybe it's a situation
• 33:42
  of like, you don't know that, but you might know somebody that might be
• 33:44
  able to give you more details, which would lead you to
• 33:47
  understand things a little bit more. Yeah, it's always kind of a trick. Anything. I
• 33:50
  know some people, of course, use, like the Fog of War, where even
• 33:53
  if you have like a physical map or something like that, digital is
• 33:56
  really easy. I know they put that in just about any,
• 33:59
  where you can play online. Pretty much every map, you can do
• 34:02
  some kind of a cool Fog of War effect. But even in a physical map,
• 34:05
  you can just, you know, take some pieces of black construction paper or
• 34:08
  something and set it out so that they can't see particular sections, and
• 34:11
  that can kind of help mitigate a little bit. But of course, you have that.
• 34:14
  That situation where maybe this player knows
• 34:17
  about this place or this place
• 34:20
  and nobody else necessarily does, and he hasn't
• 34:22
  talked to the other players about it yet. So it's like, do I
• 34:25
  block it out with the fog, Aw, war. Do I just kind of leave it open or. I
• 34:28
  don't know, something along those lines. But I Mean, I guess it's a kind
• 34:31
  of case by case basis too. Whatever.
• 34:34
  >> Speaker C: Again, are they working from a map that you
• 34:37
  gave them that was part of you know, something that they got
• 34:40
  in game? And some. Like I said,
• 34:43
  sometimes those maps aren't terribly accurate. It kind of
• 34:45
  depends on what you're doing.
• 34:47
  >> Skylar: Sure, sure. It actually be kind of a neat mechanic to do to
• 34:50
  give each player a blank. Just outline kind
• 34:53
  of like what we have here with the coffee stay map. And
• 34:55
  then you take like almost like cut out pieces
• 34:58
  of paper and put some tape on, like two sided tape on it and
• 35:01
  work like stickers. And then they would stick on.
• 35:04
  Here are things that I know about based on my character.
• 35:07
  And each players of course would be a little bit different. And then
• 35:10
  when they go into town and they, you know, ask for some information,
• 35:13
  they get like handouts kind of like you said. and those could come
• 35:16
  with more stickers because it's like, oh, now you know that this exists
• 35:19
  over here or at least you think it does or something like that.
• 35:22
  That'd be kind of a be. I might have to keep that in mind because that'd be kind of a fun.
• 35:25
  >> Speaker C: That'be interesting. Yeah. Or you could even
• 35:27
  have just given pieces of the real, you
• 35:30
  know, your map just. Yeah. At a time.
• 35:32
  >> Skylar: Yep, absolutely. So then they all have one big one because I mean they're a party after
• 35:35
  all.
• 35:36
  >> Speaker C: It depends on the people you're playing with. So you know,
• 35:39
  I've played with people who honestly
• 35:41
  I know I played with groups before that nobody really
• 35:44
  wanted to map.
• 35:45
  >> Skylar: Oh sure.
• 35:46
  >> Speaker C: And you know what, somebody got stuck with it
• 35:49
  and you know they're just doing it because
• 35:52
  they don't want to get lost in the dungeon or whatever, you know.
• 35:54
  And so it really depends on. You got to
• 35:57
  feel your group out and plan accordingly
• 36:00
  because if it's going to be something that they don't
• 36:03
  enjoy, then obviously you know, you don't want
• 36:06
  to. You don't want to do it just because boy you
• 36:09
  want it to be realistic or whatever for them
• 36:11
  it's, you know, in the end it's got to be a fun
• 36:14
  game, right?
• 36:15
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. Yeah. We've all got like one player that
• 36:18
  we all know we can trust to take notes
• 36:21
  and everything else. And then you've got like the entire rest of the players who they
• 36:24
  just want to like go kill stuff or. Yep. Whatever
• 36:27
  the case. And they don't really care that much. But yeah, that's always kind
• 36:30
  of a tricky, tricky toss up. Were there any
• 36:33
  just kind of along the way of your journey within
• 36:36
  caryptography, within TTRPGs, were there any particular
• 36:38
  fictional maps that really inspired you, to
• 36:41
  want to get into it and to make the maps that you've
• 36:44
  made?
• 36:45
  >> Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I. Well if you look
• 36:48
  up there above my desk, I have O Absolutely. A
• 36:50
  huge map of Middle Earth up there. I still
• 36:53
  have the original set. The very
• 36:56
  first world that I bought. World, of
• 36:59
  Greyhawk.
• 36:59
  >> Skylar: Oh, okay. Sitting right there on the shel.
• 37:01
  >> Speaker C: Yep, I still have that.
• 37:03
  >> Skylar: Nice.
• 37:03
  >> Speaker C: Now this isn't my original set
• 37:06
  because my original set I used
• 37:09
  carpet tape to tape it to my
• 37:12
  bedroom wall. O And it did not come off
• 37:15
  well.
• 37:15
  >> Skylar: No, no, it's not meant to.
• 37:17
  >> Speaker C: My mom wasn't very happy.
• 37:19
  >> Skylar: O I bet. But that's cool. Like yeah, that's the classic.
• 37:21
  >> Speaker C: So I still have it. I still have the original books and I
• 37:24
  did get another this the map back. I bought
• 37:27
  it off of ebay. But you know. Yeah, those things were
• 37:30
  all inspirational as well as I've read a lot
• 37:33
  of fictional, you know, fantasy. That's kind of my guilty
• 37:36
  pleasure and absolute. I love to see
• 37:39
  fantasy books that have a map in them. Right now I
• 37:42
  have. There are some series that I really like that have
• 37:45
  no maps. And it's on purpose because the author, you know,
• 37:47
  they've even asked the author about if you've ever read the Black
• 37:50
  Company series, there's no maps in that.
• 37:53
  >> Skylar: Right.
• 37:53
  >> Speaker C: They talk about things and they even
• 37:56
  asked the author about it and he did that on purpose. He did not put
• 37:59
  a map in their. On purpose. Because what it come
• 38:02
  down to is he didn't want people coming back to him later
• 38:05
  and asking him a bunch of questions about why didn't they do this
• 38:08
  or because this is what the map says.
• 38:10
  >> Skylar: Right, right.
• 38:11
  >> Speaker C: You know, I certainly respect that.
• 38:13
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely.
• 38:14
  >> Speaker C: Because it, you know, in a certain ways it does constrain you.
• 38:17
  What you know, once you have a map and that's your in. You
• 38:20
  know, I mean, yeah, you can change things. I mean there can
• 38:23
  be natural disasters or unnatural disasters or
• 38:26
  whatever. But u. one time I wanted to
• 38:29
  change year. This has been a long time ago. I had a
• 38:32
  basic world that my group was adventuring in
• 38:35
  and I really wanted to change some stuff in
• 38:38
  it. And so what
• 38:40
  happened was they had found
• 38:43
  this powerful artifact and they were going to.
• 38:46
  They decided that they wanted to use this teleportation
• 38:49
  circle at. You know, there was a very
• 38:52
  limited number of them in the world that I had and they decided they
• 38:55
  wanted to take this powerful artifact
• 38:58
  through this teleportation circle.
• 39:01
  And I thought, well, there's my opportunity.
• 39:04
  They. They screwed up the whole.
• 39:07
  You know, it screwed up a lot of things. And they ended up like
• 39:10
  a thousand years in the future. and it was still a
• 39:13
  fantasy setting, but all of the geopolitical stuff had
• 39:16
  changed. Some of the terrain
• 39:19
  had changed. And I brought in the new map that I
• 39:21
  really wanted to use.
• 39:23
  >> Skylar: That's amaz.
• 39:24
  >> Speaker C: I never told them. That's why they. That's why
• 39:27
  that was.
• 39:27
  >> Skylar: Magics didn't mix.
• 39:28
  >> Speaker C: Yeah.
• 39:29
  >> Skylar: That's pretty cool. That's a key opportunity right there.
• 39:32
  That's kind of fun. And they have no idea. They don't know
• 39:34
  anything. No.
• 39:35
  >> Speaker C: It was their fault. They shouldn't have taken that artifact through that.
• 39:38
  >> Skylar: Fair enough.
• 39:39
  >> Speaker C: portal.
• 39:39
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. That's another wide one of those.
• 39:41
  >> Speaker C: Are you sure that's what you want to do? They.
• 39:43
  >> Skylar: Yes. actions have consequences. And.
• 39:46
  Yep. Sometimes if you don't. If you don't think through them. But. But
• 39:49
  it's also a unique opportunity for you. Right. To get to
• 39:52
  run something ele.
• 39:53
  >> Speaker C: And if you want to change your maps, there's plenty
• 39:56
  of opportunitiessoute that the characters will give
• 39:59
  you.
• 39:59
  >> Skylar: Right.
• 40:00
  >> Speaker C: that. That allow you to change things.
• 40:02
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. It comes back again to. Yeah. Use. Use the
• 40:05
  choices your players make to change things. Don't
• 40:08
  over. I always say that too. And it's a struggle for me for
• 40:11
  sure. Which is don't overwrite when it comes to your campaign, because
• 40:14
  I know I am 100% guilty of, like, got this whole
• 40:17
  big plan that's coming. And if there's one thing that our
• 40:19
  current, current series, Criminals of Violetumis is teaching me,
• 40:22
  it's that, like, kind of along what you're saying, which is
• 40:25
  use the players's decisions to kind of weave
• 40:28
  the story that you've created into what they're doing
• 40:31
  and where they're going. Vers trying to force them to
• 40:34
  obviously go where you want them to.
• 40:36
  >> Speaker C: When I've written a lot of stuff extensive
• 40:39
  for campaign or things that I've done here in the last
• 40:42
  10 years, most of it has been the history
• 40:45
  of how they got to whatever they got to. Because
• 40:48
  it allows me to write stuff about that because I really enjoyed
• 40:51
  writing stuff the campaign. But it also
• 40:53
  maintains that the present is fluid.
• 40:55
  >> Skylar: Right. Yes.
• 40:57
  >> Speaker C: You're not writing all of the relationships that are
• 41:00
  right now because you don't know that, you know, until the players make
• 41:03
  some decisions. But. And some of you have to make up as you go along
• 41:06
  Absolutely. But if you find yourself wanting to write
• 41:08
  more, you know, a lot of characters do
• 41:11
  appreciate, hey, there's some history here. And when
• 41:14
  you, when you can immediately tell them what it is,
• 41:17
  if you enjoy doing that sort of thing and writing those kind
• 41:20
  of things, then you know, by all means,
• 41:23
  use the maps. And what were they fighting over? What
• 41:26
  were they, you know, what was the cause of all of this?
• 41:29
  And, and write yourself some history.
• 41:31
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. Because. And granted, with
• 41:34
  magic being kind of an element of it, or maybe
• 41:37
  some kind of sci fi element, sometimes
• 41:40
  time manipulation can affect some of these things. But
• 41:43
  for the moment that they're there, you've got that
• 41:46
  background or that history to a situation that's not going
• 41:49
  to change unless they do something like that. But
• 41:51
  then you're going to figure it out with the players after that.
• 41:54
  Right. If they're going to go back in time somehow with some artifact and
• 41:57
  change history, that's something that you'll have
• 41:59
  written out and then you'll have them explore
• 42:02
  as they go into it. But yeah, absolutely, write more background, write more history,
• 42:05
  and then you're going to be a lot more confident when they get to those
• 42:08
  spaces. So that makes a lot more sense. what's
• 42:11
  probably one of the most rewarding aspects
• 42:13
  of creating maps for your, for your
• 42:16
  sessions?
• 42:17
  >> Speaker C: I honestly, I like,
• 42:20
  frankly, I like making maps in world building
• 42:23
  almost more than I actually like playing. And,
• 42:26
  and that's pretty obvious right now
• 42:29
  because I don't have an active group right now. you know, we've
• 42:32
  had, you know, life things come up and it's been
• 42:35
  probably a couple years since we are. The group that I had been
• 42:38
  playing with has been active. But u,
• 42:41
  you know, I'm hoping to get started something,
• 42:44
  something started again. Maybe this summer we'll see how things go.
• 42:46
  >> Skylar: Sure, yeah, absolutely.
• 42:48
  >> Speaker C: I, I just, I just enjoy the
• 42:50
  creative process of it.
• 42:51
  >> Skylar: Oh, absolutely. Building worlds and writing
• 42:54
  content and everything like that. Like it's getting ideas out
• 42:57
  onto the page and creating these, these crazy,
• 43:00
  awesome, amazing things.
• 43:02
  >> Speaker C: Yeah. And I like, I've written some short
• 43:05
  stories and stuff about some NPCs that I've
• 43:07
  made just because it gives me
• 43:10
  an opportunity to flesh them out a little bit.
• 43:13
  And you know, and it gives
• 43:16
  you a source of, you know, stories and
• 43:18
  rumors that you can feed your
• 43:21
  characters about, you know, different things that are going on,
• 43:24
  the different NPCs or the things going on in the
• 43:27
  world that you're in. Again, like I told you when they
• 43:30
  started, it's hard for me to separate the
• 43:32
  cartography out from the world building because to me
• 43:35
  it kind of goes hand in hand.
• 43:37
  >> Skylar: I think it should. I think it should. Absolutely. I think it has to.
• 43:40
  Awesome. What, so just kind of final, final
• 43:43
  words here before we jump into our intramurals, but
• 43:46
  what would be your advice to experience
• 43:49
  GMs who are like, who have never really messed with
• 43:52
  maps before, but they're thinking, I want to enhance
• 43:55
  the experience for my players. I think I want to try
• 43:58
  making maps for the first time. What kind of
• 44:00
  advice would you, would.
• 44:01
  >> Speaker C: You give them depend on what you want to do? If you're an
• 44:04
  artistic person and you want to do it by hand, by all
• 44:07
  means, do it by hand. I prefer the
• 44:09
  digital stuff because I mean I can draw
• 44:12
  some basic things, but my
• 44:15
  digital stuff looks a lot better.
• 44:16
  >> Skylar: I'm the same way.
• 44:17
  >> Speaker C: And really what it comes down to is
• 44:21
  what kind of an experience you want to have doing
• 44:24
  it. If you just want point and click stuff
• 44:27
  and you just want to do generic, you know,
• 44:30
  if you're happy with having more generic
• 44:33
  stuff, then, you know, you don't have to spend a ton of money.
• 44:35
  >> Skylar: Sure.
• 44:36
  >> Speaker C: You know, to get some of the, some of the online
• 44:39
  tools.
• 44:39
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely. There's some free ones out there. So yeah,
• 44:42
  you can jump. Right.
• 44:43
  >> Speaker C: There's a lot of them have trials, height. You know, when
• 44:46
  I knew I was going toa have this conversation with you, I started
• 44:49
  looking at some of the older stuff that I had tried
• 44:52
  different times online and, and you know, some of it
• 44:55
  is, has a monthly subscription with like a
• 44:58
  14 day free trial or things like that and you
• 45:01
  know, take advantage of those things and see if it's something you're going to like
• 45:03
  doing. But again, some of some of
• 45:06
  those things, you know, the campaign cartographer in
• 45:09
  particular does have a steep learning curve.
• 45:11
  >> Skylar: Sure.
• 45:12
  >> Speaker C: And you just got to know that going into it that it's
• 45:14
  not. You're gonna have to put some time in,
• 45:17
  watching some videos and learning before
• 45:20
  you can just sit down and hammer something out.
• 45:23
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. Yeah. It kind of just depends on what level of commitment you want
• 45:26
  to put into.
• 45:27
  >> Speaker C: How much time do you have and how much do you enjoy it.
• 45:29
  >> Skylar: Right, exactly.
• 45:29
  >> Speaker C: That's what it comes down.
• 45:30
  >> Skylar: So yeah, use those free or you know, low
• 45:33
  cost, options first. See if you kind of like the
• 45:36
  feel of it and if you think, hey, I love this, this is really
• 45:39
  fun. Maybe look at some of the more expensive and the
• 45:42
  more, you know, professional level, softwares and things like
• 45:44
  that. So awesome. Awesome. Well, Chip, thank you so much
• 45:47
  for Sharing this incredible expertise on
• 45:50
  everything, map making, everything, cartography. When it comes to
• 45:53
  TTRPGs and like you said a couple of times now, you know,
• 45:56
  it really ties into the world building and there's a really
• 45:58
  cool sort of ratio of if
• 46:01
  the cartography helps the world building and the world building helps
• 46:04
  the cartography. It's, it's really a hand in hand situation.
• 46:07
  So and there were some fantastic tips and tricks in
• 46:10
  there too, of creating the maps using
• 46:13
  geographical logic, you know, things that we learn in school, things that
• 46:16
  we, we see in our everyday, and using that
• 46:19
  and helping us to inspire our
• 46:21
  cartography within our fantasy sessions. So thank you so
• 46:24
  much for being on the show and we will jump over to our
• 46:27
  intramural game.
• 46:37
  Alright, so welcome back to our intramural game.
• 46:40
  So today what I did was I found online this
• 46:43
  really nifty. I wanted to do something that was map making related,
• 46:46
  right? And as you know, for those listening, you know, we
• 46:49
  usually play one of these intramural games. We try to keep it thematic to whatever
• 46:52
  the topic of the episode is. So I found this really
• 46:55
  cool sort of mini RPG called
• 46:57
  Cartograph. it is by Brandon Lee. You can
• 47:00
  find it on Itch IO and I can post the
• 47:03
  link for you there as well. but the idea behind it is that
• 47:06
  it's a TTRPG that's entirely centered around
• 47:09
  developing a map. You are playing as
• 47:11
  cartographers and as you're developing the map
• 47:14
  you're having kind of little mini adventures throughout where
• 47:17
  the locations that you're finding along the way. so
• 47:20
  looking over the rule set for this, which is actually a pretty
• 47:23
  impressive little booklet that you get, I figured we would
• 47:26
  do kind of like a mitigated mini version this. We're not
• 47:29
  going to play through a whole ttrbg but what we are going to do
• 47:31
  is create this map. So I did the
• 47:34
  old coffee method where I took a nice big 11
• 47:37
  by 17 sheet of paper and I spilled some coffee on it
• 47:40
  and let it dry out and then outlined
• 47:43
  what will essentially be our continent or
• 47:46
  island, maybe something along those lines. And we're
• 47:49
  going to take some turns. I guess we're going to do one turn each
• 47:52
  technically to kind of fill in this map a little bit.
• 47:55
  I'll be sure to take a picture of it and be able to post it on
• 47:57
  our socials. So if you're listening to this episode, you can be able to look
• 48:00
  at that once this comes out. So do you want me to go first?
• 48:03
  >> Speaker C: Sure. Yeah, go ahead.
• 48:04
  >> Skylar: Sounds good.
• 48:04
  >> Speaker C: If you could see this to the microphone. I looks pretty good.
• 48:08
  >> Skylar: I was pretty happy with how it turned out, for sure. So,
• 48:11
  each player starts out with three biome
• 48:14
  dice and one landmark
• 48:16
  dice. And so what you're going to do is you're going to take all four
• 48:19
  dice and you just roll them onto the
• 48:22
  map. And I think we'll go one at a time.
• 48:25
  I guess I'm taking this side for the most part. and then
• 48:28
  based on what you rolled, you're going to get a prompt.
• 48:31
  So once, the dice are rolled onto the map, you're actually going to
• 48:34
  use where they land as kind of your.
• 48:36
  Yeah, your spot for whatever it is that you're going to put there. So,
• 48:39
  we'll start with my biomes. So my
• 48:42
  first biome I rolled.
• 48:44
  >> Speaker C: Is that a one on that? It's a one.
• 48:46
  >> Skylar: It's a one. Ok. Okay, perfect. So it's one on the
• 48:49
  biome, which is a forest. And then
• 48:52
  what I'm going to do is I'm going to hop over to the
• 48:55
  forest section of my
• 48:58
  booklet here. So the game creates a
• 49:01
  massive amount of tables to kind of help prompt.
• 49:04
  >> Speaker C: And that's something actually that's handy to have when you're
• 49:07
  trying to navigate things in your own world
• 49:09
  is, you know, there are several different publishers who make
• 49:12
  books of tables for towns or
• 49:15
  inns or whatever. There's just tons of different ones.
• 49:18
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. So now that I'm at the prompts for
• 49:21
  forest, I will draw a card
• 49:24
  and then from there I take that card. It's
• 49:27
  a black jack. There we go, is a
• 49:30
  black jack card. So I go over to the black
• 49:32
  forest prompts, I go down to jack and it will
• 49:35
  tell me what a little prompt about my
• 49:38
  forest to kind of help me create a little bit of the world building that surrounds it.
• 49:41
  So this sparse and grassy effigies
• 49:44
  mark these trees here. What message do they convey? What
• 49:47
  people created them? And then of course I get a
• 49:50
  benefit from that, moving forward. So I'm going
• 49:52
  to, take my pen, I'm going to draw like a little tree
• 49:56
  area here. I'm going to do something real
• 49:58
  simple.
• 49:59
  >> Speaker C: Watching you draw these reminds me I just saw something not
• 50:02
  too long ago that there's a company that came out with
• 50:05
  stamps for making your own world. So,
• 50:08
  you know, like, Yeah, little tree stamps and stuff like that. Yeah.
• 50:11
  >> Skylar: And it'll make it look nicer than, than I did by far.
• 50:13
  >> Speaker C: No, I didn't mean that. No, I know. I'm just like hey, that
• 50:16
  would actually be handy to have for playing this.
• 50:19
  >> Skylar: Yeah, absolutely. so let's see. It
• 50:22
  said, there were effigies. So I'm kind of imagining almost
• 50:25
  like, in Pocahontas where the trees have like, faces
• 50:28
  carved in them.
• 50:28
  >> Speaker C: Yeah. Or like, like maybe totem.
• 50:30
  >> Skylar: Like totems. Yeah, kind of like totems. And I like the idea that
• 50:33
  they see, kind of like the ants of Lord of the
• 50:36
  Rings. Right. These trees aren't just trees. These are like people. These
• 50:39
  are things that whoever the natives are in the area,
• 50:42
  maybe they're, they're obviously very naturally driven. So
• 50:45
  maybe some kind of elves or something like that. some sort of
• 50:48
  Druidic group that sees these trees as
• 50:51
  sort of humanistic figures. And it's hard to say
• 50:54
  whether or not they carved them originally or if the
• 50:57
  trees sort of like grow these faces naturally. But one way or
• 51:00
  another, these trees are certainly more than just
• 51:02
  trees. So that's my, that's my forest. it also
• 51:05
  does have a section in here for name. I'm gonna call it
• 51:08
  the, bark face
• 51:11
  forest since they have faces. And I would say
• 51:14
  that this is probably more of like the
• 51:17
  other people when they come through this forest. That's what they call
• 51:19
  it'not the. The technical name or what have you.
• 51:22
  So, next up on kind of the
• 51:25
  southern section of my map, I
• 51:28
  have a five and that
• 51:30
  is a same as
• 51:33
  closest biome. So it says another forest. I
• 51:36
  guess another forest fore. I guess. Yeah. So I will
• 51:39
  draw. I'm just gonna do one tree here this
• 51:41
  timeke maybe it's a smaller forest. It is getting a little close
• 51:44
  to the coast and usually things don't like the kind of
• 51:47
  salt water of the coast. So we're gonna draw a card. It is
• 51:49
  a two. Two of diam.
• 51:51
  >> Speaker C: Diamonds. Ye.
• 51:52
  >> Skylar: We'll go with red. So we have a two of diamonds. This one
• 51:55
  says occupied and guarded. You see
• 51:58
  watchful eyes. You pass through the area. How do people here
• 52:01
  confront you? For a bo forest, it's
• 52:03
  occupied and guarded.
• 52:06
  That's interesting. Why is it
• 52:08
  guarded? Who's guarding it? Why are they
• 52:11
  protecting these trees? I'm going toa assume
• 52:14
  that again. Another Druidic. Maybe
• 52:17
  Druidic circle over here and
• 52:20
  there's maybe a local settlement nearby which kind of goes into what you
• 52:22
  talked about, where you kind of start with a point and you expand
• 52:25
  outwards into why things are the way they are. you have
• 52:28
  this, A, group of Druids.
• 52:31
  And they've dealt with Some nearby
• 52:33
  settlers who have been chopping down their trees and they're not
• 52:36
  super happy about that since they see nature
• 52:39
  as a very important, element. It's not just a
• 52:42
  resource. So this group over here is
• 52:45
  not happy. I'm going to call this
• 52:47
  thenrial
• 52:49
  forest. That's just something that came to mind. Not the
• 52:52
  best.
• 52:53
  >> Speaker C: Find me Allri.
• 52:54
  >> Skylar: Right. So it's the balenial for is being guarded by these druids. Apparently
• 52:57
  there's a lot of druids in this campaign. This is kind of a very
• 52:59
  druid heavy. my last region or biome
• 53:02
  dice is a three, which is a lake, which is
• 53:05
  interesting since it's right next door to the
• 53:08
  ocean here. So I'm going to say that the lake
• 53:10
  is right here. Maybe I should have looked
• 53:13
  at the prompt before I started drawing it. But we'll roll with that.
• 53:16
  there's probably a good, good likeliness that maybe water
• 53:19
  is probably coming into it from the coast.
• 53:22
  Just from.
• 53:22
  >> Speaker C: So it could be. It could have some salt water slash
• 53:25
  fresh water.
• 53:26
  >> Skylar: Like a salt water lake. Yep, exactly. So then
• 53:29
  we jump over to lakes which thankfully is right
• 53:32
  next door. I'm going to draw a card. We'll see what it is. We got a five
• 53:35
  of hearts. So that is a red. So
• 53:37
  red lake. Five hearts. we got
• 53:40
  vessels passed by on the water frequently here.
• 53:43
  What makes this place so well traveled?
• 53:45
  >> Speaker C: I mean I. To be a natural harbor.
• 53:48
  >> Skylar: It would be a natural harbor. Absolutely. I'm going to draw like a
• 53:50
  little, little ship here. and it says
• 53:54
  why is it so well traveled? Well, I would
• 53:57
  imagine there's got to be a big city.
• 54:00
  There's a big city right around here. So I'm gonna call
• 54:03
  this. This right here is the settlement that I was talking about
• 54:05
  earlier. And I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna put a dot there. But
• 54:08
  this is an entire,
• 54:12
  city that's kind of built around
• 54:15
  this lake. And I'll just
• 54:17
  put some houses here along the side.
• 54:20
  >> Speaker C: This. What I find interesting about this is we
• 54:23
  haven't talked about a scale for this map.
• 54:25
  >> Skylar: That's true.
• 54:26
  >> Speaker C: So I, you know, I might have.
• 54:28
  >> Skylar: Drawn a really big city.
• 54:30
  >> Speaker C: That city might be freaking huge.
• 54:33
  >> Skylar: That's a very good point. Awesome. And then finally we have
• 54:35
  my locate our landmarks which I rulled. Oh. All
• 54:38
  I rolled a one. Which is just nothing. There's nothing here.
• 54:41
  >> Speaker C: My turn.
• 54:42
  >> Skylar: Absolutely go.
• 54:43
  >> Speaker C: It matters where they fall, right?
• 54:44
  >> Skylar: Yep. That's right. Cool.
• 54:45
  >> Speaker C: Okay.
• 54:46
  >> Skylar: Where do you want to start? Do you have a preference?
• 54:48
  >> Speaker C: What is now? What does this Mean to for four.
• 54:50
  >> Skylar: Yeah. So that's your landmark dice. That'll actually be a
• 54:53
  city.
• 54:53
  >> Speaker C: Okay. It's go. Goingna be probably, I would say right on the point
• 54:56
  there.
• 54:56
  >> Skylar: Point there. Okay. Okay, awesome. So we'll put there's a
• 54:59
  city right.
• 55:00
  >> Speaker C: About here and that might be, you know, a
• 55:03
  good point of trade. You know, the reason is there is
• 55:06
  because it's close to the, where the druids are
• 55:09
  and that settlement and they can ship stuff out
• 55:12
  from the other, settlement there.
• 55:13
  >> Skylar: Absolutely, absolutely. I can, let me get you
• 55:16
  city prompt if you want to draw a card.
• 55:19
  >> Speaker C: Oh yeah, four of hearts.
• 55:20
  >> Skylar: So all right, so you've got
• 55:23
  a bustling merchant city. This fits
• 55:26
  perfect. Fits well, bold colors and decorated
• 55:29
  buildings line the streets. What does the city trade in? What diverse
• 55:32
  people do you find here?
• 55:33
  >> Speaker C: Well, it's going to be trading, I would say probably in lumber
• 55:36
  from some of the local locals. And it's also going to
• 55:38
  be probably trying to trade with some of the druids too.
• 55:41
  So, you know, maybe some foodstuffs. but, I would
• 55:44
  say mostly lumber would probably be the resource because
• 55:47
  you'd mentioned that they were taken it out of the forest there.
• 55:50
  >> Skylar: Yep.
• 55:51
  >> Speaker C: and it would trade with the other city that you have going on
• 55:53
  around the lake.
• 55:54
  >> Skylar: On around the lake. Awesome. Fantastic. You got a name for the city?
• 55:57
  >> Speaker C: You know what, let's just call it something basic.
• 56:00
  We'll call it Druidville.
• 56:01
  >> Skylar: Druid ##v they got here and
• 56:04
  they.
• 56:04
  >> Speaker C: How about Woodvilleville? Because it's probably not
• 56:07
  gonna be a major city.
• 56:09
  >> Skylar: It's just, you know, it's just for trading.
• 56:11
  Yepille.
• 56:12
  >> Speaker C: you know your city, was your city named?
• 56:15
  >> Skylar: No, I didn't name it. I forgot about that.
• 56:16
  >> Speaker C: you know, maybe they're using that wood for building ships or something like
• 56:19
  that.
• 56:20
  >> Skylar: Sure. We'll call this Harbor Lake then, which I also forgot
• 56:23
  to name. And then we'll call this.
• 56:25
  >> Speaker C: It depends on what you want to do. I mean we could call it
• 56:28
  Harborville, but then Harborville.
• 56:30
  >> Skylar: With Harborve, you've got, some
• 56:32
  people. The people that came to this town.
• 56:35
  >> Speaker C: Are not particularly literate.
• 56:37
  >> Skylar: Yeah. Which is scary thinking that they're building
• 56:40
  ships. Right. Awesome. All right, which one,
• 56:43
  which one do you want to handle next?
• 56:44
  >> Speaker C: what's this island up here?
• 56:46
  >> Skylar: Yeah. So that was a five, which I believe that
• 56:48
  also. And that's your biome dice. So it says
• 56:51
  same as closest to biome.
• 56:53
  >> Speaker C: Oh, well, we're gonna have to determine one of these other ones first.
• 56:55
  >> Skylar: Ok. So we'll jump to one of the other ones for the moment.
• 56:57
  >> Speaker C: Well, it's gonna have to be the two here.
• 56:58
  >> Skylar: Two? Oh, you got.
• 56:59
  >> Speaker C: Because we have another five.
• 57:01
  >> Skylar: Oh, okay. Oh, this is gonna be interesting. So two is actually
• 57:03
  mountains.
• 57:04
  >> Speaker C: Oh, wow. There's a lot of mountainsuntain.
• 57:07
  >> Skylar: If you have two of the same, you can create a mountain range.
• 57:10
  All right, so who might just do that?
• 57:11
  >> Speaker C: I'm gonna say, you know, it looks to me like there's go goingna
• 57:14
  be a mountain range going this way. And you know
• 57:17
  what? Actually this map lends itself to it because this
• 57:20
  point it points out here and, and there's got
• 57:23
  to be a reason there's an island up there. So there's
• 57:26
  a little mountain on the island.
• 57:27
  >> Skylar: Sure. Do you think maybe it's a volcano?
• 57:30
  >> Speaker C: That's why not.
• 57:32
  >> Skylar: Sure.
• 57:32
  >> Speaker C: Your mountain range could come like this and.
• 57:35
  >> Skylar: Oh sure.
• 57:37
  >> Speaker C: And go that way.
• 57:38
  >> Skylar: Okay, so you've created kind of like a
• 57:40
  point and then there's some hidden land kind
• 57:43
  of behind those mountains.
• 57:44
  >> Speaker C: And so. Yeah, I, I mean I like that. That's what I would
• 57:47
  do. I mean that takes care of all our dice. But it'd be a
• 57:50
  very large mountain race probably.
• 57:52
  >> Skylar: Absolutely. You want toaw we can get, we'll get a little bit of
• 57:55
  information on these islands.
• 57:56
  >> Speaker C: Five, diamonds.
• 57:57
  >> Skylar: Five diamonds. All right, so it says ancient and
• 58:00
  dilapidated ruins of a long dead people litter these
• 58:03
  peaks. What story can you glean from their
• 58:05
  architecture? And you could do this for either one.
• 58:08
  >> Speaker C: You know, this would be a great opportunity to rip off
• 58:11
  Skyrim and you know the ancient
• 58:14
  dwemer in Skyrim. You just name them something else
• 58:17
  and put it, drop it in here. Sure, absolutely.
• 58:19
  >> Skylar: Take inspiration from anywhere.
• 58:20
  >> Speaker C: Y ###eah I mean if they're mountains, if I
• 58:23
  was doing it, I would probably do some kind of a
• 58:26
  giant. Like there used to be giants and
• 58:29
  they'they've you know, had quite a few
• 58:31
  dwellings throughout those throughout those mountains
• 58:34
  and you know, maybe giant home in over years. You
• 58:37
  know, they, you know, in a lot of D and D stuff
• 58:40
  or RPG stuff, giants and dragons battled each
• 58:42
  other and they are on the downswing. So there
• 58:45
  may be a few giants here and there, but you know, most of
• 58:48
  their civilization lies in ruins. Throughout those mountains you got like
• 58:51
  the.
• 58:52
  >> Skylar: Surviving hermits almost in a sense. Very cool.
• 58:54
  Very cool. So with that being said, I mean what,
• 58:57
  what should we call this big giant, sort of triangle
• 59:00
  of. I would mountains here.
• 59:02
  >> Speaker C: You know, they've gotta be big mountains, and
• 59:05
  they'renna be volcanic up there towards the top.
• 59:08
  Let's go with, I don't know, sky
• 59:11
  range.
• 59:11
  >> Skylar: Ooh, the sky range.
• 59:13
  >> Skylar: Awesome. Anything. Anything improve. You want to draw
• 59:16
  another card for that? That final one over there, that sort of
• 59:18
  island mountain?
• 59:19
  >> Speaker C: We can. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:21
  >> Skylar: Jack spades. Jack of spades. All right, so,
• 59:23
  this is for your mountain, or your island mountain.
• 59:26
  It says colossal and timeless. The peak of this mountain stretches
• 59:29
  high above. What do you spy hidden at its
• 59:32
  peak?
• 59:33
  >> Speaker C: You know what? That'd be a great place for the ruined
• 59:36
  giant city. Maybe it was there capital, and
• 59:39
  it just lies in ruins and it's, you know, it's a
• 59:41
  source of, like, local legend and it's
• 59:44
  pretty much, I mean, nearly impossible to get to.
• 59:47
  >> Skylar: Oh, absolutely. But not for a giant.
• 59:49
  >> Speaker C: Right.
• 59:50
  >> Skylar: But for. For the normal. Even for a giant, I think there'd be a
• 59:52
  challenge it a big mountain you got to go up, even
• 59:55
  compared to them.
• 59:56
  >> Skylar: So.
• 59:56
  >> Skylar: Very cool. Very cool. What would the capital of a
• 59:59
  giant city be called?
• 1:00:01
  >> Speaker C: how about.
• 1:00:01
  >> Skylar: Oh, I almost said Biggsville, but that's kind of just
• 1:00:04
  goofy.
• 1:00:04
  >> Speaker C: Yeah. If we're going to continue with the same thing.
• 1:00:07
  Ginggenheim or something like that.
• 1:00:09
  >> Skylar: Genheim. Yeah, I like that. I will
• 1:00:11
  do my best to spell.
• 1:00:14
  >> Speaker C: I hope that's not a German swear.
• 1:00:15
  >> Skylar: Word or something, but you never can tell.
• 1:00:18
  Awesome. Geiggenheim. Awesome. So even with. And
• 1:00:21
  that's just one round, or kind of one round per
• 1:00:24
  se of the game. So, it's really cool how much kind of
• 1:00:27
  can be created here, just in that little course.
• 1:00:30
  So I'll take a picture of this, like I said, and I'll post this on social media.
• 1:00:33
  But, we've already created, you know, we've got a lot of druids that
• 1:00:36
  we've kind of established that have, homes here,
• 1:00:38
  and we've created a conflict where they're battling with
• 1:00:41
  settlers over here. we've got this
• 1:00:44
  sort of ancient almost mythology, I'd say, where you
• 1:00:47
  have these giants that existed at one time and people have found
• 1:00:50
  these remnants of giants. But have people seen giants
• 1:00:53
  in years? Who knows? Will the players eventually
• 1:00:56
  run into, one of these giant hermits?
• 1:00:58
  Possibly. so we've created a lot of
• 1:01:01
  world building just sitting here and rolling dice on a
• 1:01:04
  coffee spill map. And I think that's pretty cool.
• 1:01:07
  >> Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:08
  >> Skylar: Highly, recommend everybody checking that out. And once again, Chip,
• 1:01:11
  thanks for being on the show and thanks for sharing your expertise. Really
• 1:01:14
  appreciate it.
• 1:01:14
  >> Speaker C: Yeah, thanks.
• 1:01:17
  >> Skylar: Thank you so much for joining us for today's class.
• 1:01:19
  We hope you gained some new knowledge and ideas from our
• 1:01:22
  incredibly knowledgeable professors which you can take with
• 1:01:25
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• 1:01:28
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• 1:01:31
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• 1:01:34
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• 1:01:37
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