Map exploration

Short intro: My players got stranded on an island they know literally nothing about. They've only seen a little part of it. Now my plan is for them to explore the place, but I have trouble to figure out how best to do that. I put a Hex grid over the map, but it would work as well without a grid or square grid. a) Shroud the map in Fog of War and reveal only places they've been to? That works on paper but in reality it means they see a lot of blackness and a tiny spot of light, and don't have any idea where to go to b) reveal the entire map? It kind of takes away from the mystery aspect. They know where paths are or rivers, even though their character shouldn't know these things yet. c) Reveal only parts? That seems to be the way to go maybe. But how much is a good measure to keep the mystery intact and still give them enough info to make decissions on where to go? Or would you handle it entirely different?

On what you described, you could reveal -- for example -- perhaps a thin line of beach around all the coasts of the island (so they have a feel for the island size) and quite a lot of the inconsequential water-ocean borders. You could reveal a small nick for, say, "mountain peak" or "Village over here", or "Everyone says this is deep jungle over here". Another idea (answering issue A), you could give them a parchment-paper pirate map, in the handouts. It would be a hand drawn approximation. They can open the handout graphic whenever they want & as DM you can make it pop up on their screens with "show to players". There would be a certain fun in following a small handout map, comparing it to where you are seeing on the actual background map.

Make a map and show the whole thing, but only reveal locations as they come across thing, basicly have a blank of simple map with only the things they can see, like mountains, oceans, rivers, etc.... then as the stumble upon places (cave, town, etc...) you can update the map or place tokens on the map as they find those places. Just a thought.

Did they circle the island before they got stranded? Did they see any landmarks? If you are going to use hex mapping, I would get some hex tokens for the terrain and when they explore that hex, drop down the terrain token from the GM layer. As for the rest of the map: ocean - for miles. They only get to see what they explore. I asked about them having circled the island because you then could have an outline of an island with: A defined shoreline. The place is now finite. General terrain along the shoreline, beaches, jungles, grassland, ruins, etc Possible landmarks inland like: mountains, volcanoes, plateaus, etc

I am running an OD&D sandbox with a big hexcrawl element. I have a world map that I created on hexographer but I do not show it to the players. I had hoped that they would make old fashioned maps themselves but as has been true in my twenty years of DMing players don't make maps... I quit fighting it, and just laid a large (size 3) hex map over a 75 un by 75 un beige background on roll20. I made vectored/transparent images of the standard terrain types and map symbols and add them to the map as the players discover them much like Casey S suggest. So far the map has a nice "old school" feel. The hexes are 6 miles across. A good rule of thumb is that a human on flat unobstructed terrain can see for 3 miles or half a hex. Here is an image: