I just started GMing a new game this week, using the Alternity rules and based in the world of Elite/Frontier First Encounters.

For some fun reading check out the campaign in-game news blog: http://frontier.whrpg.com.

The adventure has started with a prison break, the federal prision facility in the Ross128 system to be precise. So first off I sketched a quick outline in my big notepad of maps.

Pencil sketch of Ross128 map

Evidence that I just can’t draw without a computer! So then it was into flash and illustrator and 20mins with my quick Modern Mapping technique and I was ready for the session.

Ross128 Modern Map. Click for bigger!

So now my players are spending the rest of the week working out a plan of escape. They have two rather nasty bio-grenades and enough explosives for 2, maybe 3 door locks, or one wall.

How would you escape? Let me know in the comments.

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Tags: Cartography, Hand-drawn, Sci Fi

Here’s an interesting handout I did for our now paused/retired Luquin Sea campaign.

The whole handout simply didn’t mean anything, it was one huge red herring! I used a Wacom tablet and pen to spend part of my lunch break scribbling as much nonsense as humanly possible.

Click to see all the nonsense in detail.

Excuse the blood but it came from the corpse of someone that had just tried to kidnap the party’s Dragonborn fighter.

The background, paper, blood and shadows account for about two minutes of time. A half hour of scribbling later and I’ve got a handout that my players keep coming back to. They were convinced that there must be something in it, why would I have spent time drawing it otherwise?

I would recommend the odd red herring now and then for your campaign. Never before have I had a handout that has been discussed more, it was hard to keep a straight face at times. Well they know now if they are reading!

Has anyone else had fun with an evil red herring?

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Tags: Hand-drawn, Handout, Ideas, Photoshop Tips

Continuing the series focusing on what it’s possible for a busy GM to get done in very little time.

Today a bit of a cheat, this is actually a lunchbreak job rather than a coffee break.

A well spent lunch time

Time saving photoshop tips in this map are the repeating patterns used all over the map. There’s a pattern for painting the forest, and the majority of the buildings, as well as the swamp. Other buildings are drawn with the thick line technique I mentioned earlier. The roads, walls and mountains are just drawn with a round brush.

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Tags: Cartography, Hand-drawn, Map, Photoshop Tips

Hi my name is Iain and I’m a mapaholic. Or should that be cartographaholic?

I like drawing maps, both with paper and pen, and digital tools. To that end I’ve decided to publish a series of maps, all done in a coffee break.

I can’t promise one a day, that would be foolish, but I’ll try for one from time to time.

Here’s one for today, as a quick test I’ve been attempting to replicate a hand-drawn style in Photoshop.

It’s rather reminiscent of the style of maps I would draw in class at school, 25 years ago. There’s a definite Tolkein influence at work.

There’s really no digital shortcuts involved, to replicate this hand drawn style I’ve  hand-draw it with a stylus. Once it’s done certain elements could be reused, a mountain here, a hill there. Certainly if I was to include forest elements then they could be repeated with a pattern.

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Tags: Cartography, Fantasy, Hand-drawn, Map