>trying to make a map for my setting>completely paralyzed looking at the blank paperhow the fuck do I get over this shit
>>97109002Your first mistake is trying to start from such a massive scale. Having an entire map of the world shouldn't be step 1 for planning a campaign, because your players aren't going to be astronauts in orbit. They're going to be some dudes in a bar in a random town. Worry about figuring out that town and what's around that town before trying to figure out some random ass archipelago on the other side of the world.
>>97109002I have been a dm for over 30 years. Never made a map. Never had a player say: "Where is the fucking map?"
>>97109035This is the best advice you'll get.
>>97109002Well OP, do you have a single thing? Do you know if you're running fantasy, sci-fi, or something else? Do you have the peoples of the world already made up? What kind of tone are you going for (e.g. Grimdark, High Adventure, Pulp, etc.)? What would you want the PCs doing in this world? If you have no preferences and no preconceptions, you need to find some.
>>97109035What happens when the players ask about the wider world? do i just make something up, write it down and figure it out later?
>>97110222No, you should have an idea what’s out in the world but it shouldn’t be autistically detailed. Make bullet points of major towns, history, regions, that sort of thing. Consider how some 1-2 sentence blurbs about a race or planet in 40k is able to convey so much, that sort of thing.
>>97110222>What happens when the players ask about the wider world? Ask who? The source of the PC's information is going to be the people in town. And the people in town might know a good amount of information about the areas around the town, could point you in the direction of the capital and tell you some things about the nation you're in, and probably knows the names of some neighboring lands, but they're not going to have enough info where you'd need to map all of that out in excessive detail.>do i just make something up, write it down and figure it out later?Also not a bad option. But my point is that it's going to be much easier to start from a small scale and then build outward. The worst case scenario is that you merely have a small local region for your players to explore, but campaigns have been built around less.
>>97109035I feel the same paralyzing fear as OP but designing a fictional modern-day city.
>>97109002>>97110222Draw a shape on a piece of paper, realize that if its only 100 miles wide you'll be fine. You can cram entire campaigns and dungeons into six miles. When populating, start with wind direction, mountains in the way that would block rains and create valleys and swamps and where fertile country would be. Towns would naturally focus upon resources and trade routes, money is king. Also towns and villages were about a day of travel(on foot) from each other.If you make something up that's cool, write it down and save it for later! Another cheat is if a player has a fence or patron, have them "roleplay" at the table their traits and lean into it, it saves you prep and the player is invested into this archetype making a much better and easier game as they'll have that "buy-in"
>>97110466Making encounters and NPCs gets a lot easier if you leave them a bit vague on the organizational side, as you can put them anywhere as the players explore. Another thing is making events that "start" when the players uncover it, that you don't have to keep track of 30 things going on in the background
>>97110466I feel that. Modern cities are rough purely due to how dense they are.I've had mildly more success there recently by running a superhero game, since that sort of forced me to figure it out. And the best answer I've found there is to just chunk out the city into districts, so you can quickly sort out a rough location for a building or business and get a decent guess of how long it would take to get there from where the PCs currently are. It's far less detailed than I like, but it's the only way I've found to do it without going mad.
Rolled 91 (1d100)>>97110265>it shouldn’t be autistically detailed
>>97109002Have you tried just playing games?
>>97109002
>>97109002just bee urself
>>97110590You're the most mentally ill faggot in the whole website you know that?
>>97109002Dump ricePiazza box stainMapgenAsk chatgptFind a map on reddit
>>97110265>Make bullet points of major towns, history, regions, that sort of thing.Or save 1000 notes and just draw a map
>>97109002What do the players need a map for? Why the fuck does everyone set out to make a goddamn world map as their first step. The same with people jotting down an entire goddamn timeline of their worlds before sending the players off to ransack some turd bandits cave for farmer pete.Just steal one from inkarnate or something, your dumbass players will never know. Unless you actually like making maps (you dont obviously from your post) dont make a fucking map.
>>97109002>Launch dwarf fortress>Generate a world >Put paper on screen/make screenshot >Badly trace outlines of the continents
>>97109002Makin the map can be a game too>harry-metcalf.itch.io/fantasy-map-maker
>>97109002>simply take the pen and scribble some nonsense out>make sure to draw at least a couple shapes out there for islandsBoom, done, ez. If worse comes to worse just literally rip off your own state. Faerun is literally just the Pacific Northwest.
>>97109035this is how you get an awful fake world if you ever do end up zooming out
>>97109035>you dont need to make the map>>97110265>you just need to know everything that's around the regionHmmmmm if only there was a quick and easy way to detail something like that... like a jpg showing the outline of the continent or something...
>>97109002Wrong, incorrect first step.First step, for making a map, (which comes after you figure out WHY you want a map) is figuring out places you want to PUT on that map. Who gives a shit about the map until you come up with a few good places to put on it?
>>97110466>pick a real city you want your fictional one to be like>change the name
>>97109002Put your main location in the center. Now think about the story you want to tell. Now draw the terrain between the place they start and the place they're going, giving yourself a variety of terrain along the way to have different encounters with. Now consider what makes sense for the topography of the rest of the map, to support whatever locations you put between points A & B.Your map is just a prop to ground your players in the world and make it feel a little more alive. It's window dressing. Dress it up pretty.
