#ma'adim

[gothmusiclatinamerica]

2020 single "Ma'adim" by Puebla, Mexico-based gothic post-punk act Mausoleo Carve

[audientvoid]

Campaign Maps

This weeks post was inspired by This post on Rob Donoghue's blog, and This post on the Apocalypse World forum. This one'll mostly be a response, to the posts there

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few years ago I was working on a setting I was calling Ma'adim. It was basically my attempt at a game with more of a middle eastern flare... Or, maybe it was my attempt to run a game in a setting where I'd not be the least informed person at the table.. either way. One way I'd set out to give it a different flavor than a standard fantasy RPG was through the types of maps the races chose to utilize. The dwarves used a T and O style map, the elves used a mapping system based on natural landmarks*, and so on. It was part of an attempt to give the world at large a life beyond just what existed in my own head**.

The idea presented in the posts above, was to scale the size of the map to the area the campaign takes place in. If it's limited to a neighborhood, then don't bother drawing a map of the planet. If it's going to stretch up and down the coastline, then the map needs to be bigger than just the town. All of this assumes a map that isn't just a bit of art, but is actually something that will be referred to in play. With that in mind...

The idea that occurred to me, was to alter the way the scale of the map is being described. Instead of miles, or kilometers (or some in-fiction equivalent), have the scale refer to time. So the scale might show the distance on the map that represents a days march, or an hours hard run, or a weeks flight by zeplin. The key determining characteristic is that it should be a common mode of transport in the setting, and be limited to the space between resting periods (i.e, no "three days hard run" marker, unless there's a race capable of keeping up a hard run for three days).

To my mind this would give the map (and by extension the setting) a more exotic flavor. It would also provide a scale to judge the time it takes to travel between two locations (without resorting to a Speed stat). Also, it would add information about the types of travel used in the setting, and a comparison of the speed between them, making the map just a bit more information dense.

*The map was arrayed as a straight line, with lines showing which side of a landmark you would aim for, and what the next landmark you needed to look for was, as well as the distance to the landmark. Not a "world map" by any stretch, but the only "existing" map of the desert on their world.

** Which also included a few religions, a complex lunar calendar, a simplified solar calendar, and several holy days celebrated by various factions.