Making maps and using maps

I'm an Old School gamer so number 2 pencil on 1/4 inch grid, 8.5 inches wide and 11 inches long is my favorite medium when making maps. Mapmaking is one of my all time favorite things to do regarding rpg's. I love mapping cities, and dungeons and castles, and even entire worlds. When I get an idea for a great new setting, I start with the places, then I develop the Organizations based on the places, then the key NPC's come about as parts of the organizations.

When I run my game I use a 1 inch grid 22 inches by 25 inches battlemat. I put a sheet of PVC over that to preserve my mat. This allows me to put really cool full color maps and dungeon tiles under the PVC, then mark the plastic to show additional features, spell effects and fallen creatures who become difficult terrain.

To facilitate use of my prepped maps, I draw the encounter areas at 1/4 inch = 5 feet. Then during play that becomes 1 inch = 5 feet. This allows to me scale quite simply to use old school maps (1/4" = 10 feet becomes 1/2 inch = 10 feet). Also I don't create maps that will render larger than my play area. I keep the action on the battlemat. None of my encounter areas will be larger than 22 inches by 25 inches. However, I can fit a lot of encounter into that limited space.

As the Heroes headed west from Greyhawk, they eventually found a traffic jam of several dozen wagons and carts as well as nearly a hundred humanoids all styimied by a bridge that washed out in a recent thunderstorm. Furthermore, they're told by a helpful bard that a band of kobolds are holed up in caves beneath the wreckage of the bridge. As the heroes navigate the muddy bank, they fall under fire of the kobolds. The heroes, however, quickly identify their targets and press the attack, first at range then in melee.

The heroes fight the kobolds, a troll and eventually a band of Hobgoblins representing a local thieves' guild.

These are the map symbols I learned when I was playing D&D out of the original Red Box. These are also the map symbols listed in the most recent Dungeon Master's Guide.

Let me know if you have any questions.

May all your Hits Be Crits!!

Prepping for the game; D&D 4e / Vampire: the Masquerade re-skinned

I have accumulated a sizable gaming library through the years. Though my current group of players are pretty much genre purisits, I can sneak in a cross-genre reference or two without breaking the suspension of disbelief - if I carefully reskin the presentation and hide the origin point.

Two weeks ago, our brave Heroes of Greyhawk fled from the dragons invading the town of Dyvers; they fled because they knew they could not defeat an entire flight of hundreds of dragons. They went to a place near Dyvers, called the Halfling Warrens; a third of which is on the surface, the other two-thirds are below ground, a series of subteranean rooms, meeting halls, warehouses, dormatories, printshops, etc. Now the heroes are bravely fighting Argentum the Werewolf Lord. One hero is down and has failed two Death Saves already. I anticipate about 50% casualties, but a win for the surviving party members.

They don't realize it yet, but they are in the Shadowfell and having decided against hiring a guide to get them back to the surface... they are lost! Now the fun begins.

While perusing my old game collection I happened upon my worn first edition copy of Vampire: The Masquerade. And I thought, yeah, vampires in the Shadowfell, that's exciting - an entire fortress of vampires, and ghoul servants and several pens of surface dwelling "cattle" captured as they fled from Dyvers. I decided to create several vampires in D&D 4e stats. First, I created a list of all the clans in that book a paltry seven clans, if you don't count the Caitiff. And really, who counts the Caitiff anyway? Then broke down a list of the Disciplines most closely associated with each of those clans. Working from that list, I crafted an undead creature, using a Monster Builder vampire as my template.

While listening to Pandora last night, I discovered Molok, and named the vampire fortress after them. I'm putting finishing touches on the map now and still have stat out the Gangrel and Brujah defenders as well as the Toreador Prince and his entourage. I think this will be a good time.

"Gary's World" - Greyhawk

According to the Wikipedia article about the World of Greyhawk the world began "as a simple dungeon under a castle that Gary designed to entertain family and friends." Greyhawk is the world I most associate with AD&D, the game my friends and I played throughout high school in the 80's. Many of the non-campaign specific adventures of the era were by default set in Greyhawk. To me Greyhawk feels like "home." So when our group started to think about a setting for our brand new Essentials campaign, naturally, I pitched Greyhawk.

The campaign began as the heroes returned to Highport, a fortified trade city on the wooly bay. They had been aiding a merchant sailing ship, whose route had been under attack by pirates for some time. The ship they were paid to protect was robbed and sunk by pirates, but the heroes were pulled from the water and safely taken home. Their patron, a wealthy merchant with ties to Greyhawk's leading council - the Circle of Eight, explained that he had a friend - a powerful artificer, who needed a highly trained band of retainers for a sailing voyage to the city of Greyhawk. The catch was that the artificer in question had crafted an elementally driven sailing ship (a side wheeler steam ship essentially) that could reduce the sailing time to Greyhawk from two weeks to just five days. The prototype called the Lady Marian, needed protection against possible theft, while the passengers, nobles from along the Wild Coast, needed to be protected from each other. To keep his noble passengers entertained, the artificer devised a dicing tournament, with a massive blue diamond as the prize.

Along the way, a handfull of sidetreks taught the heroes that the Wild Coast was a politically volatile place. As they began to settle in to a regular watch and sleep cycle aboard ship, the nobles started turning up dead.

Once I had the players' attention and they were headed toward Greyhawk, I kept the tension high. There was a hidden assassin somewhere on the ship, a mishap lead to an explosion in the engine room, then tiny piles of colored dust started appearing whenever someone went missing.

Once the ship arrived in Greyhawk, several sessions later, I reviewed the character backgrounds and really started to play up their plothooks.

Old School 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Campaign

I mark my return to the blogosphere discussing my ongoing 4th edition D&D campaign set in Greyhawk.

For various reasons my players (Angie, Brian, David, Edd and Mike) wanted a new campaign and they wanted to "try-out" Essentials. So I decided to give them an old school campaign with the newest D&D rule set available.

My Greyhawk campaign was originally set to be a swashbuckling escapade of high seas adventure, then through conversations with my players, I discovered that they don't really like pirate adventure. I was a bit crestfallen by this unfortunate change. However, I pressed on.

Collectively we have more than 100 years of gaming experience at the table on Sunday evenings. That being said, it is imperative for such a discerning gaming group that a) I do not railroad the story by means of a linear plotline, b) I include plot elements from all the playercharacter's (PC's) backgrounds and c) I keep the challenge level high (we have a mantra at our table: "go hard or go home!") all while offering a good mix of encounter types (skill challenge, combat and roleplaying).

The heroes started at 3rd level and they had already been adventuring together six months of game time. These two pieces together allowed us to sidestep the often painful process of getting PC's to trust eachother in life and death situations when absolute strangers really don't have a real-world (RW) reason to do so.

I'll be using this space to post maps, story ideas and even full encounters as the campaign progresses.