Do any of you create maps for your campaigns? And what tools do you use?

[Antarius]

I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my draft for a homebrewed Necromunda co-op/RP game where you play as a team of bounty hunters. As I was thinking up ideas for campaign events, travel in the underhive etc. I got to thinking about campaign maps and exploration as an interesting possibility for Necromunda in general.

 

So far, all the campaigns involving territories and the like have only had maps in the most abstract sense (as far as I know), so I was wondering if any of you have experimented with making actual maps for your campaigns, and if so, what tools, if any, you have used?

 

Right now, I’m toying with the idea of making an almost blank map and then adding in locations as we go along. It’d be cool to feel that our battles take place in a “real” location, even if it’s just a question of “yeah, so this set of tunnels are north of that set of ruins we fought in last week”.

 

I’m curious to hear about your thoughts, ideas and experiences, whether for regular Necromunda or what you think would be cool in a more exploration focused campaign.

[Lysimachus]

It's perhaps not exactly the same thing, but for maps for running play-by-post rpg games, I find Power Point very useful?

 

You can add pictures (all sorts of maps online) as a backdrop, and then create shapes and text, etc, etc to represent things specific to your game, but what is most useful is you can then move those bits around or alter them as the game/campaign progresses?

 

 

[Maximus]

My son and I started a campaign back in 2020 (plenty of freetime during lockdown!) for which he designed the map. I think he used a drafting software for it, but that's his strongpoint so might not be suitable for you, or it may be. I have used hexagonal graph paper in the past to draw out "futuristic" looking maps. They can interlock, or be separated by tunnels etc. as you choose. If you want to go down the blank map route I would suggest having a master map which only you have eyes on, and a second map which is revealed step by step to the other players. This will help to keep things on track, and speed up the "what terrain are we encountering next" process.

What ever you choose, have fun.

[Antarius]

I ended up springing the 15 bucks for Hex Kit and it seems to work well with a few (free) tilesets for more sci-fiey options.