Magical Maps For Greater Immersion

Choosing The Right Map For My Players

I am a sucker for any rpg book that has a map. I think the right map can set the tone for your adventure or campaign. In my last post, I shared about how much I like the map from Keep on the Borderlands because of it’s scarcity and offers players the opportunity to forge their own path.

I this issue, I want to share my thoughts on more populated maps and how they can also invigorate exploration and player agency. I look at 7 different maps and whether they are maps I would hand to my players or break out from time to time to see where their imagination roams based on the map.

Allow me to roll out my map of maps and share my thoughts on each.

This is the map of the “known world” pre-Forgotten Realms from the DND 1e adventure Isle of Dread. I like this map. It’s interesting in all the right ways with evocative city names and capitals as well as names that define the kind of location you are in and what kind of adventures you may have like The Broken Lands and The Principalities of Glantria.

Isle of Dread

This is a map of Vilhon Reach from the Forgotten Realms. It’s esthetically pleasing, it’s well organized and has a clear map legend. It’s also in color which gives it a more high fantasy feel where the Isle of Dread map, in black and white, gives a grittier vibe.

Vilhon Reach

This is a map of the Inner Sea Region from Pathfinder 1e. Like Vilhon Reach, it’s esthetically pleasing and well organized. I could see myself taking this map out every few months and asking my players, “where do you want to go to today or for the next months?”.

Inner Sea Region

This is the map of Midgard, a 5e setting from Kobold Press. The lore, the world book and the player guide are all excellent, the map, not so much. The city/country print is really small as is the legend which makes the map hard to navigate, so for those reasons I would not make this my map of choice for my players.

Midgard

This map comes in the Dragonbane starter set and is beautiful and great for framing but there isn’t a legend or points of interest on the map. Like the Midgard map I would reserve this map for players who have played a few adventures in the setting.

The Misty Vale

This is a map of the Gemthrone Wilderness from In The Shadow of Tower Silver Ax. What I love about this map is, well many things, 1) it’s a perfect balance of scarcity and populous 2) it has an inspiring legend 3) it’s compact and I’d hand this to my players to mark up and track their journeys.

These are my thoughts about the kinds of maps I am looking at to inspire my players and almost use it as another character in our game play, but I’d love your thoughts,

Do you give your players a map or break out a map of the setting you’re using from time to time?

Do you prefer that your maps be scarce or populated?

Do any of these maps inspire you? Which one(s)?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Oh, and you can watch the video of all this, here