I find the discussion on Using city maps in gaming to be interesting. The Omnipotent Eye asks its readers: How do you do it? The answers range for map required since every combat needs to be grounded with street and shop names to no map required except for the common places the party wants to go to.
Hakone My own maps are rudimentary.
You see the castle standing in the river, the caves in the mountain to the south-west, the rapids, the docks, a shabby area, an alley of orderly shops, a big temple by the river, a small temple at the east end, and the city square with four bigger houses. That’s it. All of these were important to the players, but most of it was in my head.
I can’t imagine my telling my players “you turn into Snailfishroad, walk past Prioran the alchemist, Rock On Inn, and the Temple of Small Things, heading for the Crimson Curtain.” Unless they already had several adventures involving all these locations already. Ordinarily, there will be no adventures in getting from A to B.
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My maps are usually even less detailed then that. I typically create a overall city map as colored zones, with ’ward’ labels upon them. I might place a dot indicating a place the players have visited, but I find that detailed cities to be a waste of my time typically. Adventures rarely if ever stay in a city like TSR’s Ravensbluff.
– J. P. Mullen 2009-08-27 01:50 UTC
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Agreed. While I love detailed maps as a prop (I’m a huge fan of the classic Lankhmar 1e supplement), the map is there to add verisimilitude when we just “teleport” from one part of the city to another, with the occasional commentary on the regions in between. The maps basically serve to keep the players from being too confused about the city proper when they whisk their way from shop to temple to the king and back again. It gives them a common ground to set hteir experiences in so they don’t each have a wildly different mental image of the city.
– Dyson Logos 2009-08-27 03:32 UTC
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Hmm; ...
I just never really got into city “adventure.” 🙁
Maybe if I played thieves rather than wizards, it would mean more to me.
– LionKimbro 2009-09-01 22:44 UTC
