World Mapping in Roll20

Below is a partial view of the world map I've created for a Roll20 campaign. Most maps put the points of interest on the map itself in some other software. I decided to try and make the map without any features like that and instead am using tokens in Roll20 to indicate points of interest like town, cities, dungeons, etc. It will make it very easy to change things around based on events in the campaign setting and you can use status icons for various things like if a town is suffering from disease. Since the Roll20 forums fuck up the quality of images posted... here's a direct link to a copy of this map on my gplus profile: <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fnu4l9OC09w/VDWDNXfw-fI/AAAAAAAAUEA/_7U2D8wMNJw/s0/New%2BCambria.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fnu4l9OC09w/VDWDNXfw-fI/AAAAAAAAUEA/_7U2D8wMNJw/s0/New%2BCambria.jpg</a>

That's actually an interesting idea!

I've done something similar with the town map for the campaign I'm currently running. The only permanent fixtures are the players' houses.

I really like this idea. I am building a story arc that this would work really well for. A couple of questions I have though. First what did you use to create the actual map and terrain, it looks very nice and seems designed for hexes? Second where did you get the cool town tokens? Third it looks like you are using dynamic lighting in an interesting way, can you describe the intent between bright and dim light? I assume that it is simply configured so that all players see the light just to give them the idea of showing what areas they have explored?

+1

I've been thinking of doing something like this for a while. Honestly, drawing the world map is what generally slows me down! =D In particular, I want to make cities as characters, with token macros that activate an API script to move all the players there and place them in a given starting location. =D I agree that using the dynamic lighting is a great way to do a reveal of a world map they are exploring. Very Very VERY Cool! Thanks for sharing!

The hex terrains were created by someone named ghostgurl over on the MapTool forums many years ago. I used maptool to create the map sans landmarks like the city icons, which are part of the Campaign Cartographer 3 suite. Bright light represents settled or "safe" areas... but even then, there are still some dangers present. Dim light areas are more dangerous obviously. The map icons can be configured to show only light for certain players, so each player can have their own vision of what their character has explored .

HoneyBadger said: The map icons can be configured to show only light for certain players, so each player can have their own vision of what their character has explored . How are you doing that?

I have to say that I had not considered using tokens for representing cities and such on an overland map. It's an extremely clever idea and I'll definitely be stealing it at some point in the future. Thanks for sharing!

I like this, and yeah I'll be stealing the idea. This would work great for a space based map, where the players are exploring but don't know the names of everything ...

The Aaron said: HoneyBadger said: The map icons can be configured to show only light for certain players, so each player can have their own vision of what their character has explored . How are you doing that? Adding controlled by to the tokens? City A is controlled by Badger and Arron. City B is controlled by Badger and Brian. City C is controlled by Arron and Brian. Right?

I'd think that would allow them to move the cities around, which might be annoying...

Put them on the map layer? You can see but can't touch? I am just guessing here... I have no idea.

Oh, that's a great idea, I bet that would work!

I was thinking about this thread at work and realized I could load all my hex tokens into rollable tables and have a random map generator :) My overland map

OldSchoolChris said: I was thinking about this thread at work and realized I could load all my hex tokens into rollable tables and have a random map generator :) My overland map I created a Settlers of Catan token in Roll20 and created numerous random boards. Better to use a deck though with set amounts of cards or you might end up with a half dozen deserts and no wheat.