How to make a World Map USEFUL
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2024
- In today's episode of Game Changer, we talk about world map - not about how to make them realistic or pretty, but about how to make them useful.
World Canvas: worldcanvas.vercel.app/
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💬 DISCORD: / discord
📘 MY HOMEBREW: trekiros.com
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PNGTuber avatar by KoffeineYT [ / koffeineyt ]
Music: Adventure by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
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#dnd #gamedesign #worldbuilding
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00:00 intro
00:20 Form Follows Function
02:20 The Freedom Fallacy
04:08 When to Reveal Map Markers?
06:10 Location vs Quest Markers
08:12 Paths & Areas
09:25 The Tree-Shaped Map
11:40 World Obstacles
12:43 Evolving Worlds
13:10 Map Scope
14:40 World Canvas - Hry
Dude, the amount of work you must put into these must be insane. Not just the production, but the research and advice is way more useful than most advise on these topics.
"I did the next best thing and made an entire website" 😂
And it's free, have a great week! :D
I can't believe you made an entire map editor app for a single video giveaway. Insane!
This miiiight have been the reason this video took twice as long as the others
Oops
At first I thought you were trolling about Google maps. 😂
@@fullofmyself1 which is an amazing map resource, though. It's served me very well over two post apocalyptic, one urban fantasy and one Call of Cthulhu campaign
I had a really fun experience recently with maps. I am developing my own ttrpg system with a modern setting. I asked a friend to act as DM for a playtest and he literally just had us pull out google maps on our phones to track locations and possible paths. It was so perfect because you already have an idea what kind of things to expect in different cities or different parts of a city. Managing expectations is so important for mapping
I'm currently planning a Fallout campaign set in post-apo New York, and I am THIS close to doing this to my players :p
@@Trekiros My favorite moment using Google maps was a mission to intercept a civilian vehicle going from point A to point B. We found 6 possible routes and narrowed it down by travel time and avoiding toll roads. We collaborated with police to cover our top 3 routes and went to the most likely one in person. It was by far some of the coolest puzzle solving and map usage I've ever experienced in a game
It's kind of incredible the feeling I get watching these videos, it's almost the same feeling I got from being in my favourite University courses!
Not only do I feel like I'm learning a lot, but I get this strong feeling like my teacher has so many interesting things to share!
Keep up the incredible work Trek, in less than a month you've become one of my DnD Idols 🙏
tbf, faeruns massive amounts of markers is probably a product of it being iterated on in different editions, source books, and resources over the past few dozen years. If someone played a campaign world for 40 years collaboratively with a good proportion of the player-base, I bet they have an enormous amount of places of interest too!
OH YEAH, even just searching on the wiki I find locations with cool BBEGs but the wiki says "but a party of adventurers put an end to that in 13XX DR", meaning that the location was from a canon module.
I Love finding smaller channels that are hidden gems like this one you have great content here is to quick growth of your channel. This proved you can even make the basics intresting and insightful. Great video as always.
I'm planning a spell jammer campaign. I've adapted a star system generator for the crystal spheres.
It's fun for me but I'm not developing 99% of these worlds, and I know the players wont see all of the worlds and the nuggets of lore they contain.
Doesn't mean that I havent put at least 1 intrigue or a safari/kill quest on each world.
This mad mage campaign is taking forever to finish.
I think what the map markers should represent (types of places vs. actions available there) also depends heavily on density of those things. In a city based modern or sci-fi game you have probably hundreds of stores but only a small percentage of those will be relevant to your story. On the other hand in a medieval game you probably want a city map marker because there are only going to be half a dozen of large cities in your entire world and so each of those is much more relevant even if the player might not visit all of them all the time.
I stumbled upon this Channel via the, "I fixed CR, You're Welcome Video", and LOVE The Content! Your Presentation is Excellent, and Metaphorically Calorie-Dense, Fantastic Work, Sir!
Same. This is my second video. So glad it's made a second recommendation because I am surprised I didn't subscribe after the first
That "Vive la Revolution" sounded so french I almost dropped my croissant.
So instead of giving us a map you just make the thing I've needed for a while and been frustrated by how options available are too finicky or have to pay. Bless your kind soul
"Missing out on some of the... lore of all time." This killed me.
Commenting to appease the algorithm gods, this channel deserves to explode. Keep up the good work!
I have been building my world for 6 years AND COUNTING. But it has really become a universe of its own
This absolute madlad has made multiple highly useful tools for running ttrpg's and given out tons of great advice in like 4 months on the platform. Insane
As I ran my campaign, I had my continent map, which is functionally the world map. It's certainly "their" world as in the world of the PCs, the rest is terra incognita (sidenote, in times of sattelite images, we tend to think about maps as way more complete than they probably should be given the setting). But then, as they travel to new regions, I make a map of that region and hand it to the players when they take a quest and need to be pointed to a place to go.
That gives me two advantages. 1) broad strokes are enough at the beginning and I can flesh most regions out later. 2) the maps are actually made by people of the world. And historically, people put a whole lot of bs on their maps. So if I want something to be at a place where previously nothing was marked, I can just say the map was incomplete.
PS: The second advantage is especially great for treasure maps. Hand out a map with a bunch of "hand skribbled" markers. Some of them lead to kick ass treasure and graves of legendary heroes, some of them are blanks. Genuinely proud that I had that idea.
Duuuuuuuuuuude that's wild ! Just stumbled over there and JEEZ WHAT A GEM THIS CHANNEL IS ! Keep up the good work ! You're crushing it !
Just found your feed and man is it incredible. So much value packed into each video. Subscribed and been liking videos like crazy. Not too many channels where I’m happy to just play all and consume as I work
Amazing. Thank you for this. I started my own Homebrew campaign a few months back, with a world-map and it's been interesting to see how it evolves. Lot's of inspiration here. :)
I shouted out loud with that reveal at the end. Exactly what I need!
As for the topic: I’m yet to start this campaign but I’ve made kinda difficult choice regarding the map - I threw it out. I *love* making maps and I have this really detailed map of the playable region (with elevations and stuff) just for myself, but I believe no map and “I heard there’s a dungeon north of here about three days travel” will only enhance the feeling of “you’re in a dangerous world where people don’t tend to travel far from safe havens”. No cartographer is crazy enough to traverse the whole region but you’re welcome to make your own map based on descriptions. It won’t be accurate but it will be functional and engaging.
And even then I still plan to show the players something I call the mood map - a collage of landscapes, creatures and cultures in a vague approximation to one another. But now I will also add those short kinda-meme descriptions like “vikings” and “Game of Thrones”.
make your players buy a bad map with inaccuracies, maybe it's even a straight up scam. Could be fun :D
Truly someone helping out the TTRPG community by all the advice and tools in the videos! Trekiros forever has my thanks
Wow thank you so much. So many of these tips we'll make great additions to my game. I'm very surprised you're not more popular.
this channel really is a game changer
I am simply amazed by how much work and dedication there is behind the videos you make. The advice is amaing and very helpful, but you went a step further and made a fkn website ?! Amazing
I got the inspiration for my world map by watching a 2 hour long video essay on the world design of Pokemon regions. They're honestly all (except gen 7) such amazing world design, super underrated.
Oh god yes, those world maps are so good
Great video! Thank you!
Love your videos ❤ thanks for all your thoughts and work! Keep on! 🎉
awesome points and thanks for the map site!
thank you so much for your hard work you are going above and beyond for all of us
dude your videos are AMAZING omg
Great video. Keep up the awesome cross pollination of video game design and TTRPG design. Very helpful stuff.
Great video and great tool. Thanks for everything you do.
All good points I'll share this with my group
Another awesome video. Thank you for putting so much into these.
Great video. Thanks.
So glad I discovered your channel ! Very interesting and amazing free content !
Great content!!!
The dedication!! Love your channel already and this is only your 2nd video I've watched
Very insightful, and excellent examples!
I find you very inspiring and thank you for your content. I'm really impressed how much effort you put into your content and what you make available for free.^^
Damm dude at least put ads on the side of the web or something. Such a hard work behind every video. The channel is going to blow up, be sure of it
This may be my favorite dnd channel of all time and it literally hasn’t even hit a dozen videos yet. Please please please keep the uploads coming!!!
I made an item of varying rarity called an auto map that attunes to a specific area and automatically updates based on the information the players have and what they consider important and what the map itself can gleam on its own. Being very sparse and barebones on its own but the longer a person or group of people keeps it and uses it the more detailed the map becomes.
Said maps have varying rarity depending on the size of the place it's attuned to. Rare being a city or similarly small place. Very rare being an island. Legendary being a country. Anything beyond Legendary goes up to continent sized and these are artifact level items.
If none of your players wants to have the fantasy of being a cartographer this is the magic item to give your party so they don't have to deal with the logistics of mapkeeping.
Fantastic video, and great website, thank you! I love this a lot, very insightful
I've only just recently found your channel and you're amazing.
You Are A God! The map marker tool is incredible!
wow, dude, you are so cool. I'm running a campaign that's all about exploring a new region of the continent, but was starting to get worried about the players only running into what I put directly in front of them. You helped me realize I need to put in more hooks to direct them to different parts of the region
Just found your channel and I couldn't be more happy I did
Woooow, the map tool is good thanks!
This is fantastic, i have been conceptualizing a tool that would work in exactly this way. Other tools ive found are never this simple, quick and easy to use to achieve a usable explorable map tool. Thanks!
Great video, very usefell!
This is amazing!
Commenting for engagement- this is a great channel 👍
Looking forward to your next content.
Great stuff! I'll be sure to check out your web app!
This is amazing. I was trying to pull something similar with Obsidian, but this website helps so much. Thanks
WOW the website is super useful for any kind of map in a ttrpg, thank you so much!
I love what you make! This reminds me so much of pointy hat who had a similar amount of following when i found them, keep up the great work!!
World Canvas needs some refinements, but it's a very cool idea. Very close to what I've been looking for: zoom in for more detail like, you know, every real-world map software these days.
You, Sir - have earned yourself a Subscriber. Well Done!
Thanks for all your incredible resources and good advice! I’ve started using a lot of your tools (especially Battle Sim!) all the time at our table. You’re doing great work! Thank you! I really appreciate your help!
Great video
Awesome resource
Scale bars. Always include a scale bar for context. (Too many maps just assume a player can guess a map's scale which is an unreasonable expectation. Your pretty map has no game value without context.)
for figuring out travel times this is especially important to have
Jay-sus I want you to have a patreon, buddy
this is seriously amazing
This is so cool
One of the best channels
Damn good video, sir! You're a very wise floating eyeball!
Love the content, but my immediate response to seeing the thumbnail is "Faerun's problem isn't its map".
How many map markers do I need?
ALL OF THEM!!!
If you can still see the map, you haven't worldbuilded hard enough
Glorious.
LEGEND
Feed the algorithm. Make this channel growtg
I love your content, I just found your channel and I am binge watching
I came here to also share my world's approach to a map, in my world the players visit the North Continent that has the whole premise being, no one should be here, this plays hates you, 1/100 people are worth good in their lives, so I decided that a more interesting way to symbolise that this place is hard to move around because except kings/rich lords or Tribal "Jesus" type characters no one has a full map, locations have the part of the map that it matters to them and tbh most of the world just knows "Oh yeah, this city is 2 days by horse back towards the east", I have a full map and it's giant but the players only are looking for stuff from pieces that some time funnily enough Don't have anything, some times players do stuff in the hopes that they can find a part of the map they care about.
Comment for engagement. Just discovered your channel. I wish you the best of luck with it.
Love this ❤
Have a very metaphorical map. My world does not conform to our laws of physics... why would in world maps not focus on magical landmarks over scale when visual wayfinding is a can trip ability most caravans would have. Ie: if you're at the singing stones you need to head towards Y mountain to reach X destination. It's also a bloody massive world (hence less curvature and further horizon) so you can see landmarks from many miles and navigate by walking at one of them that's near where you want to go.
Commenting for the algorithm throne
I don't see your Zelda Dungeons in D&D video? O.o That looks interesting.
A modron??? What a creature to find!
excellent
The way I see it the value of the FR map is for GM's to estimate travel time within a pre-existing setting, and what's on the way there. It's like buying a north american highway map for the whole continent. Are there times it's useful? Yes. But probably not all the time as a campaign map like you're describing here. As you said, the players don't need to see all the map markers and minor roads all the time.
But that no detail map isn't the one they can easily sell to GMs.
Annoyingly, the 5e map is missing half the cities I'd want to be on it (I just use the 3e map)
By curiosity if it isn't unproper to ask, are you french ? That pronunciation of Vive la Revolution was heartfelt haha (also showing France as exemple ^^)
I love hose video's the quality is amazing !
Yup, I am!
Cheers
Honestly I think maps mainly for function over form, political maps are a decent option, where you only detail borders and terrains. (EDIT: I'm going to use fire emblem as an example for this, most of the games use political maps, showcasing landmarks of locations where battles took place, but otherwise drawing territory borders and not showing much else (makes sense, these games are about war) the only two games that didnt do this and did maps depicting all the terrai are fates and engage, engage gets a pass since the world is designed cartoonishly into 4 quarters which is each a separate country so its very easy to follow, but fates has the worst map in the series where you never have any clue where anything is or why it matters because teh screen is just a sea of trees most of the time.)
I just make em for fun. Usefulness is secondary.
Where did you find that full world map of Faerun? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before!!
I always hated the "Realistic Map" rageing. It was always weird seeing someone rant about how some mountain range in a fantasy novel "would never develop in real life" when the second novel of the series explained that the offending mountain range was artificially created through world shaping magic of some kind. So, I guess. . . they're right?
But what would it matter.
Devil's advicate, why do you think the 2nd novel explained how an unrealistic mountain range came to be? To add believability for all of the people frustrated by fantasy's tendency to abuse their fan's suspension of disbelief. Magic isn't a blank check to do whatever with. Sure some fantasy fans will let it be but a lot of us need some consistency and believability to work with.
good good
May I ask : Can you share the maps you annotate with your website ?
You can download the map file and share that with a friend
I don't save anything on my server because that's how I get to make the website free 😅
Okay great ! And does the annotations will follow ? Didn't looked too much in details about the map files yet 😅
Either way, the fact that you hand over all or those websites, PDF, ressources and stuff is just so cool ( and surprising at the same time tbh ) !
Where do I find this Toril world map? o.o
The map tool looks promising, but how do I add a different base map? Some image url won't even show up in the preview and those that do won't show on the actual map.
Edit: Never mind, it suddenly works. Well at least for most pictures, some still won't load at all.
Why should a river never split? Could it not have its path altered by rock density or humanoid interference?
He meant downstream. Rivers do split downstream and they are called deltas and are pretty rare. River deltas happens when they river is wide enough that the stream runs too slow to carry certain sediments. These sediments are then placed, accumulated, and over time splits the river in two.
But yes, humanoid action is a viable reason for a river to be split in two.
I don't even care if my world building becomes relevant or not I will stile world build to world build
Excuse me, you made ANOTHER interactive website just for your viewers?
This metal ball is clearly insane
This is a really cool idea but the website seems totally useless. It's asking for either an attachment or a link but it won't accept anything for either. I tried JPG, PNG, and JSON folders with multiple different converters and literally no documents on my entire computer seem to be able to upload to this thing. I even tried tossing in a PDF to see what would happen, completely non functional. Fix that and the website would be amazing though! Let me know if anyone knows any workarounds or anything I might be doing wrong!
Rivers don't split in two? That's basically all rivers do.
No. Name one
@@mixter1257 So I was being silly, as I realize now they meant downstream. Rivers very rarely split downstream, but they split upstream all the time - which is what I was referring to.
There are examples of downstream splits, which are called river deltas, but they are very rare.
Edit: River deltas happens when they river is wide enough that the stream runs too slow to carry certain sediments. These sediments are then placed, accumulated, and over time splits the river in two.
The more you know :D
@@XxjazzperxX *he.
@@oz_jones Either is correct.
That's an orc camp, not a Ruin.
...This easily avoidable mistake I should go play another stealth archer, clearly
@@Trekiros surely you only implemented this to raise interactions and comments, when the out of content redditors get wind of this Fiasko.
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