The Broken Lands - Current Map

With the party pursuing the first step in their quest to retrieve The Illhiedrin Book, there won't be any additional adventure hooks for a while.

Below is the most recent version of the map for The Broken Lands. It is abstract in terms of scale and does not represent exact locations. Instead it is more about being a visual record of their adventures and exploits and serving as a visual tool to aid in decision making and a reminder of possible unfinished business or adventure hooks.

Additions to the map are made as the party shows interest in various adventure hooks. Before the very first session I roughly knew the locations for the adventure hooks I threw out at that time (Tower of Birds, Monastery of the Iron God and The Tower of Zenopus). For new hooks, I know generally where the adventure will be but don't land on it until the party actually goes there. The party hasn't been to The Hive or Vulture Hill yet, but I placed them on the map from the rumours provided.

I also follow the guideline that the area closer to the Cliffs of Leng are for lower level adventures and the further south one goes the harder the adventures get. Also, more traditional adventures are generally on the east side of the Tartarus Road while more "gonzo" adventures are generally to the west - don't know why, that's just how I'm doing it for now.

Northern Marches Table Map

Here are images of the players' Table Map and how it evolved during my old Northern Marches campaign.

Abstract Adventures

Sham is back and he has been working on a project called w/o Walls.

I love this kind of stuff. I am always looking for/working on new systems for making abstract adventures. A long time ago I made a post asking if maps are absolutely required to play D&D. Sham and I appear to be on the same page about how much gameism can be in D&D.

I am currently working on a post showing how I would use a system similar to Warpquest to make a B/X adventure for PCs searching a forest for a lost temple. Hopefully I will have it up this weekend. The weather in Calgary is frightful so I should have a bunch of time hiding at home to work on it.

Wilderness Maps

With my Northern Marches campaign on my mind, I have been thinking about wilderness maps and their design.

A while ago there was a great thread over at Dragonsfoot about wilderness map design. It posited that a good wilderness map:

1. is for adventure - it had things to find, easter eggs if you will, such as lost valleys, hidden passes, etc.
2. has variety - different types of terrain.
3. has game utility - it is easy to use, has numbered hexes or some type of map key.
4. gives interesting choices - to get from city A to city B do you go through the swamp or around it?
5. provide obstacles to navigation - such as impassible mountain ranges blocking your way.

Most of the discussion there focused on hex maps or free hand maps.

While thinking about my B/X S&S hack I was looking for maps from the Hyborian Age. Some maps that I looked at were from RSI's Hyborian War. I found these interesting in that they took free hand maps and broke the area down into zones.

I found these maps interesting as you could combine the map with the province reports from the game for each zone, develop encounter tables and have a discrete area with its own feel. For example, from the province reports, the section titled Fort Wakla is made up mostly of desert and has a large fort. There is also a small chance of encountering hills or an oasis. It is inhabited by Zuagir Tribesmen. Making an encounter table with Turanian patrols, Zuagir tribesmen and some other desert encounters would be pretty easy.

The Hyborian War maps are similar to the wilderness map from DL1: Dragons of Despair where the map was split into encounter zones.

Another type of wilderness map I have seen is like a flowchart with multiple connections. These are similar to maps for old video games and MUDs. From SSI's Dark Sun: Shattered Lands...
Now, I have often mentioned that I don't mind abstraction and "gameism" in my B/X D&D so I don't have a big problem with this type of map so long as the players feel that they are exploring a wilderness.

I know that the West Marches campaign used a vector map but, as a computer dunce, I wouldn't even know where to start with that.

Are there other types of wilderness maps that would meet the five criteria outlined above?