Evolution of The Sinking Village Map and Some of My Mapping Techniques

I didn't take a picture of the outline of the map.  This was the first picture I took after thinking of doing a map progression series.  I asked my patrons for some map ideas, they gave me a lot.  The one that stuck out the most was a village sinking into the sea.  Love that.  So I sketched out a preliminary map, liked it, and began mapping.  

I started shading with some of the trees and buildings.  I want to find another technique on how to draw buildings from this perspective.  

Just a note on why I am using a newsprint magazine beneath.  I use the magazine to give myself a 'soft' surface to color on.  The reason I do this is it help to blend the colors and soften the harsh lines of the pencils.  Some of the outer shades I do on a hard surface to get it to pop.  

 

This shows part of how I try to add texture or shading to my map.  I use two colors not far off from one another.  For the trees I randomly color the area, leaving blank spaces for the second color and then blend in the two colors at the edges.  For the water, I use a lighter blue where it touches something or where it's shallow.  

You can see the finished color of the water.  The main color is too purple for my tastes.  I will claim doing this outside in the fading light as my reason, but I often do this with blues.  I need to find a better blue, a more blue color to go with the light blue edge/shallow water color.

Like the trees and water, when I am coloring in the grass or mud areas I try to give it a texture using a two color system.  But with the muddy area I kept it one color and allow the rock features to define the lake shore and give it texture. Plus, it is mud.  

All the photos before this were taken with my phone camera.  This picture is scanned into my computer.  In the northwest corner, there are a pair of round buildings.  I figured they were dovecotes.  And to give the map a little different color, I surrounded the dovecotes with a yellowish color.  Maybe it's hay.  Maybe it's dead grass from the pigeon poo.  

Here is what the final map.  I import my scanned map into a program called Xara.  I bevel the edge to give it depth and a frame.  Then I add the numbers and names.  I take two sets of numbers, turn one set white and bevel the edge to expand it.  ThenI nest the black numbers into the white set, it allows the eye to easily read the numbers and words.  Even when I use a weird font (I believe the one I used for this one is called BLOBS).  

Then I have to get writing.  Wrap my head around what kind of adventure I imagine could be found in The Sinking Village.  

Developing A Plan on the Go

As a player you are often called upon to develop a plan...to do something.  I use a variation of the Marines motto: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.  Sometimes the plan is dictated by the adventure, but there are many times when the goal is clear, but the tactic is left up to the party.  In my most recent sessions, the party was given the task to inform a thieves guild that they needed to earn their units (a specialize form on currency used by the Consortium) not steal them.

Another night it was a simple fetch mission, grab the DNA and bring it back and get paid, but it got more complex when we were attacked as we left.  With a new (what we thought might be new) buyer we could choose to sell it to him for more.

Both of these situations we were going in blind.  So you make stuff up as you go. Sometimes it actually works.  Most of the time it fails in various degrees.  And the way I tend to roll, my average of level of failure is quite spectacular.

First thing as a player I try to define the goal.  The basics.  What is it we need to do?  In the examples:

• Let the thieves guild know they needed to earn the credits.
• Steal DNA bring it back.

Next thing I attempt to do is assume possible problems.  I know assume is bad, but more often than not that's all we got.  

• The thieves guild might not like that.  Be ready for an attack.  Not sure how many there are.
• Its in a crashed spaceship so expect other looters, integrity issues with the ship and of course returning with stolen DNA the possibility to getting caught.

So with the goal defined, assumptions we prepare for, we head in.  At this time we assess the real situation.  This is about when everyone's plan goes to shit.

• It is not just a thieves guild, it also an assassins guild.  Yipee.  We meet them at their private base of operations so them letting us leave alive has decreased drastically.  But the leader is talking to us.  So maybe, just maybe, we return with limbs intact. 

• There is someone watching us.  It appears that there are looters in the ship before we arrived.  Those watching us are waiting for us to leave the ship.

We have what we prepared for and what we have what is actually there.  Now is the time to adapt.  Use what we have come with to solve the problems we face.

• Fairly simple, while they talk, I shoot them in the chest.  Take out the lead guy and the meatheads usually go away.  Not head guy, no pay.  
• Since they aren't killing us they are interested in what we have to offer.  I play that angle up and stay calm.  Going gorilla will only get us killed.  Let them know if they agree lots of shiny things will follow.  

And lastly is to overcome and succeed as best you can.  Not all victories are black and white.  Sometimes getting out with your hide intact is the best you can expect.  And there are times when a situation presents itself where you can improve the outcome.

• I was able to convince the guilds that it was in their best interest to join the Consortium.  It helped that I dropped a situation where an entire village was consumed by a volcano overnight.  That fact, along with the promise of allying with someone who could gain them more money made their decision easy.  The original goal was just to get them to stop stealing the units.  So this was a win+.
• Found a number for the buyer for the DNA.  I figure we could double cross that bastard and then sell it to our original buyer.  Turned out to be the same buyer.  We extort him for the full pay because we offer him not only the DNA he wants, we offer all of them that we stole.  Instead of getting 1000 credits we scored 3500 credits.  Win+

Yeah, I realize in both these situations that we ended up exceeding our goal, its probably because I've blocked out all my failures.  It helps me to break it down in these steps especially if a goal or situation is stretched out over a few sessions.  My memory sucks so breaking it into smaller parts helps me keep focused.

Time to roll some dice.  I'm feeling lucky.  No 1s will be rolled.