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Old 12-25-2019, 11:21 AM   #11
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

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Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
For those using many different scales, how do you decide on turn length and movement allowance on those different maps? (I haven't looked too closely at that part of the new ITL but I suppose it gave some guidelines?)
We started with that ITL says, and eventually developed more detailed things for other situations that eventually came up.

ITL talks about details of using three scales:

* The familiar combat scale

* "Labyrinth" scale where each hex is a combat megahex (and the activities described in terms of time and distance are not combat, but walking, running, searching, mapping, hearing sound at a distance through obstacles, etc.

* Travel scale, where there is a basic system somewhat scattered through ITL where turns are essentially days, and ground speeds per day are based on the terrain type and whether the party is lost or not (which can also make them go the wrong direction), and the threats are exposure, starvation, getting lost, and encounters (with a suggested very basic daily encounter system which GM's can elaborate on when they outgrow it). The Legacy Dran travel map is 5 miles per hex; the original Dran map was 12.5km per hex, and the suggested road travel rates have been increased.

There is also the Bendwyn village map which is now labeled at 10 yards per hex (the same map in original ITL was labeled 20 meters...) or a megahex of combat megahexes per hex. These we found useful for having the sense of what's where in a village, and occasionally doing chases, sneaking about, long-range shots, and figuring out what the combat map should be like when combats happened there.

If you get to a situation in play where you care about how much game time and/or combat turns are occurring while people are moving on a local map like the Bendwyn map, you will want to apply longer turns than five seconds to that movement if you're tracking positions with hexes rather than pencil marks and rulers. Also you may care to take into account at that scale, at least for running down roads, that running people and animals in real life move a LOT faster than their TFT MA when running in a straight line after having got up to speed, so it makes sense if/when you care about that to let straight line running speed over good terrain be higher than MA per five seconds, or the Labyrinth scale running rates.
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Old 12-26-2019, 05:33 PM   #12
ParadoxGames
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: New Jersey
Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

I think 1 hex = 4 feet scale, the 10 yards to a hex, and the 5 miles to a hex are the most practical scales.

Incidentally, Wintertree Software has a new hex font called EasyHex, released just minutes before Christmas Day. This font enables you to make hex grids in any major word processor or photo editor. I find it very useful to make my maps.

You can purchase EasyHex from this site: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...x-utility-font
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Old 12-26-2019, 06:26 PM   #13
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Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

I keep reading this topic as Piratical Mapmaking, so does anybody know of any automated tools to degrid and descale a treasure map so that the distances are not exact?

Players: We avoid the goblin ambush and skip to step 12 on the map and look for the big tree.

GM: Hee, hee, hee.
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Old 12-26-2019, 07:21 PM   #14
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Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

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I keep reading this topic as Piratical Mapmaking
The Carrrtographers' Guild approves, aye.
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Old 12-26-2019, 07:23 PM   #15
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Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

[QUOTE=Wintertree Software has a new hex font called EasyHex[/QUOTE]

I'm partial to Hexpaper Pro from Cumberland Games & Diversions (and its creator). Find it at DTRPG. End of plug.
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Old 01-01-2020, 01:20 PM   #16
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Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

I prefer to make my own hex paper, because my OCD demands multiple layers of megahexes on the same grid.

So My Hex Paper has four layers. The nominal base is quarter-inch hexes, just like the stuff included with TFT Legacy Edition. But then it also has a layer below that ("Tiny Hexes"), and two layers above it ("7-hex Hexes" and "49-hex Hexes"), and each layer is megahexes to the layer below it.

Note that you can turn individual layers on or off however you like in Acrobat.

Also note (just for OCD reference) that the Quarter-inch Hexes layer and the 49-hex Hexes layer are aligned with the paper's sides, while the other two layers are rotated by ~19.11°.

Last edited by FireHorse; 01-01-2020 at 01:23 PM.
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Old 01-02-2020, 04:41 AM   #17
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Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

Fittingly, EasyHex actually has a few styles for nested hexes within several layers of megahexes.
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Old 05-29-2022, 08:36 PM   #18
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Default Re: Practical Mapmaking

So as of May 2022, here are some examples of Map Scale from Legacy ITL p 55:

Basic MELEE combat hex................4 feet.............ITL p 127; Hexagram #5 p 10 = Skargs

Labyrinth Map hex.........................3 yards...........ITL p 52

Village Map hex.............................10 yards.........ITL p 168 Bendwyn; Book of Unlife p 59 Holner Estate

Town Map hex...............................30 yards.........Book of Unlife p 50 Holner Farmhold

City Map hex.................................100 yards........Ardonirane p 23

County Map hex..............................300 yards......?

Barony Map hex..............................900 yards.......?

...Special..........................................1 mile.............Hexaram #8 p 32. Thargi Swamp

Duchy Map hex................................1.5 miles........?

Province Map hex..............................5 miles...........ITL p 171 Southern Elyntia


Does anybody see any examples of County, Barony or Duchy Maps?
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Last edited by JohnPaulB; 05-29-2022 at 08:42 PM. Reason: fix page number
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