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i take coffee. and spill/splash it on the paper and wait for it to dry. i take the shapes that actually work and use them for continents. the land on the continent is up to me after that.

Wow good video thank you bro

Are these just for your reference or do you show the players these when they enter the dungeon?

Great episode thanks! Looking forward to some Star Borg content! 🤘

Of all the places I thought my philosophy classes might come in handy, a video about writing D&D adventures was pretty low on my list.

You know I've drawn maps like this a lot but in pencil and for some reason it never looks right or even nice until it's done over in black marker. I don't understand.

My first session was today and I was the dm, I had spent the last month crafting a adventure for my sister (and last minute our cousin) and I used google slides and ms paint to put it together, they loved it and we had the whole thing over a zoom call. That is what I think when I hear "drawing your dnd map"

This is so hands on

I love this! all the factions and peoples and faiths in my setting are tied to interests, beliefs, and concerns of my PCs. Then I make a character they *could* like and a character I am pretty sure they'll hate in each faction. Each PC has multiple potential point of buy-in. And if they throw me a total curve ball and decide they all love Burpin' Joe the tavern barstool-polisher, then Burpin' Joe will have at least one strong opinion about what's going on, perhaps one he says too loud in the wrong company(!).

My main pantheon for the area is based on the wet and dry seasons, and the balance between the two. mlthere are many minor gods who may be seen as aspects of the big three or members of their "courts"

Thank you so much for this! I have recently split my nomads into two groups that herd different animals. They mostly coexist and there are marriages between bands, but there is also friction and some towns respect the rauschenia herders but not the cattle herders or vice versa.

Display your world map on a wall/easel in sight of the table and number each hex on it. Next, draw a map for each important location but restrict yourself to the terrain presented by the larger, complete world map.

I like the ideas - thx so much!!

SUPER COOL!!

This is awesome! We build all kinds of TTRPG's and love seeing how others in the community manifest their creativity!

was listening to random dnd tips and tricks videos until this auto played. the kefka laugh in the intro certainly got my attention XD

I mean going with that wargamming terminology the "Spawner" is really the Commander. A few war games have commander units or radio guys that can call in reinforcements.

Gods aren’t characters gods represent how a culture sees a world they come from a group trying to rationalize world phenomena

What can i do to slowly reveal the map to the players?

Fantastic video! Anyone who wants to design adventures could benefit from giving this a watch!

Can you tell me more about the thing around your pencil?

Bro that map looks glorious. I don't think ill ever be able to make something that nice. Just look at the mountains! The details are just wow.

I’m late coming to this, but maybe I can get an answer. Would this iron-on work on a chamois or leather?

love this video thanks

I do my maps different. I write the names of what i want and draw it out first and then write my story. I usually do start out with drawing it out by making a mythology of how the world came to be and draw the maps begore i figure out where to put the continents together before i plan my story. Im even still planning my story to this day for 2 years now as i want to write a story lf how the world is coming. I just got to find the maps i drew

The players aren't supposed to see the map at all!

Automatically liked on 0:11, 10/10.

what in the hell is that pen fleshlight

Hey, you can see Italy, hi! Carta Marina is pure Chaos, makes me feel every step will be exhausting, also to be honest i used to draw hex or square maps only for segments of the map where the players are or can go, (right now I'm working on a non-euclidean solution), the map you drew at the end would be good, but I prefer to draw a normal map, put a transparent film on top and then add stickers i prepared as players explore the map or get news about something, or know about a place from their origins etc.

This playlist is a gem. Thank you..

what is the hex grid contributing here?

I'm surprised how many comments are about the (incredibly awesome) art instead of the content itself. Anyway, this playlist is a true gem, and I'm happy I found it. Ironically enough (..I guess..), I do wish that in the future, you will have a drawing/painting workshop playlist. That will be amazing as well. Anyway... thank you. Shine on!

This is a brilliant video and I appreciate it a lot! Charming art style by the way!

As someone who gets overwhelmed and distracted easily, this has been a godsend. Thank you

damn man i already subscribed holy shit i didnt know you were THIS based

Great overland encounter table! Can someone give me advide in making a localized encounter table that works in a similar fashion?

Excellent content, thanks for taking the time to share!

This is a greatly resonant video for me in particular, at this time in particular. See, recently ive been really getting into fantasy ttrpgs, and by extension the fantasy genre as a whole, but the thing is, my background is from a very science fiction-y, paleontology/biology and various other sciences focused creative mindset. the very premise of so much of what makes fantasy is so...utterly beyond my comprehension in so many ways. the sort of worldbuilding and writing solutions i often see fantasy come to are just...unfathomable to me. my mindset up to this point has been built around my sort of habitual need to find some kind of explanation for every aspect, no matter how small, in no small part due to the fact that i view this world very much having an explanation for every possible thing. this is, however, incompatible with what i find to be so fascinating, special, and fittingly enough, magical about fantasy as a genre. the whole conversation about what taxonomy does to that...ineffable "magic" to mythological monsters and creatures is so immensely fascinating to me for this reason. as im still learning how to work with this genre, this video will most certainly stick out in my mind. i happen to particularly love your content so much because you manage to strike that gold of what really makes storytelling so magical. in this video specifically, you really touch on a view of monsters that i honestly REALLY resonate with. see, being that i also sort of live with the belief that all things are beautiful, its kind of strange to consider a party im dm'ing just sort of mowing down whatever being i bring before them, meanwhile every time i even THINK about implementing some sort of creature monster or npc, im thinking about how a non hostile encounter could go, what sort of interactions i would have if i were a solo party member, what sort things ID try. call me a bit of a pacifist, but ive always found the idea of befriending some kind of big fantastical monster, and understanding them far more interesting than just the process of ending its life. idunno, maybe it has something to do with how i approach most concepts and situations in life, my sort of deep rooted instinct to learn and understand and adapt and such, but i find it interesting. anyhow i doubt youre gonna see this let alone read it but i really just wanted to drop my thoughts on this whole topic because its so immensely fascinating to me, and really struck a chord with me creatively.

I have always hated hex grids for map making. You have just made them interesting for me. I’m going to make some time to do a local map for the game I’m running for my niece and daughter in a very old homebrew world of mine (literally been playing, writing, and drawing in and about this place for like 25 years). Any new game tends to be in an area that isn’t well fleshed out; so the players’ experiences, and needs of the game can flesh it out. This is going to be a great guide to doing so with me having to pull less out of my rear end when the time calls for it. Thank you. Subscribed.

I noticed you took on a Bob Ross tone for the narration

Looking forward to this stage in my world.. great video 😀👍

Having a lot of enjoyment for my own ability to craft works I very much care about how my pantheons work. Though I'll always have them based around some things that are extremely unnecessary to the overall story I'm rolling with, the idea as to how they're there and why is a good way to portray how the actual order of the world operates and the reason the gods are existing to begin with. Such a form that gives way to having themes expressed in their wholeness, their purity. And how much they collide with each other pending on not merely the individual god's ambitions, but the reasoning behind those ambitions and the drive they exude using the god as a tool

Love the naration highlighting the "mistakes"

i took that one step further and made the map look like an advertisement for a specific tavern, cause that's what it canonicaly was, it even had a legal disclaimer on the side saying that it shouldn't be used for traveling

I’m so glad I found this! I’m building my hexcrawl for a Mausritter campaign and this video articulated what I’ve been working out in my brain. Thank you for this 🥰

The entire premise of this advice hinges on the idea that a map is something you present to your players as a bunch of options for where to go or what to do, but that's not how I use maps at all. I wouldn't likely give my players a detailed map like this, because it's unlikely their characters would have access to one. Mike's maps do pretty much everything I'd want them to do. They show me as the DM the general terrain layout, what the scale of the world is, and the names of locations which I can research individually as needed. And if am showing this map to my players, that's all the more information I want them to see too (and I may even remove some locations). I wouldn't put plot points on the map. I'd introduce those in other ways. Of course, that's not to say something like you created couldn't be useful for a certain type of game, but it's not an inherently better map. It really depends on what you want to use it for. If you want it to tell a story about what adventures are to be had throughout the world, then it's great, but if you just want to document the terrain layout and points of interest, then a map like Mike's is much better. And a downside of trying to use a map like yours is that you kind of have to plan ahead at the start of the campaign what sort of adventures lie where, and it's harder to add things later where and when you need them. You may find that one of the things you initially drew is no longer very useful or interesting for the campaign, or you may come up with another really cool idea to fit the evolving narrative, but have no room for it on the map. It's much easier to adjust or repurpose points of interest on a map that only has location names, and isn't trying to tell a story before it happens.

Ive got an obsession with encorperating ancient dragons into my world. Terra, electrum dragon and ruler of the ringed city in Titan's grave. Red death, an ancient red dragon and tyrant king of the norhern mountains. All must pay tribute or it shall be taken ten fold. Artor vias alucium. Paladin of the platinum dragon. The slumbering forge under the Dwarven city of dargrough. Golden fang. Grey dragon and guardian of the singing mointan, othia. I have more, but this comment is already long.

FYI: A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, and capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures are usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence. Commonalities between dragons' traits are often a hybridization of feline, reptilian, mammalian, and avian features. Some scholars believe large extinct or migrating crocodiles bear the closest resemblance, especially when encountered in forested or swampy areas, and are most likely the template of modern Asian dragon imagery.

One class of units that BG3 couldn't do very well, at least from my perspective, were Chaos Seeders: Sappers, Assassins, Skirmishers and the like and their ability to dissolve a battle line from the inside and make less disciplined PCs/NPCs panic. I dont think its too mean to remind PC's that they aren't the only ones capable of tricks, especially if they're careless. We might differ on that.

Ooohhh! A WereYak vs WereLlama throwdown. That’s gold! 😶