As a cartographer my self, I must say this is exactly how you would build a map. Obviously when drawing the map though, you let the features of the land tell the story of how the land looks the way it does ie; Rivers come from mountains they start as many points then flow down hill to the largest body of water it can get to always coming to a singular point never re branching. Also they avoid hills, which Are created due to the tectonic plates making the mountains so your hills are normally around the mountains. This of course tells the story of where your people set up shop. life tends to pop up around food and water, then by major routes in the land that are goo trade spots ect ect. You nailed it on the head sir. Great content as always
+robert goodwin Many thanks! It's amazing what a smattering of geography 101 and an imagination can glue together :) And good descriptor on the details like rivers etc.
Just an update. I started the tutorial on Map Making. Will upload part one tomorrow. It's gonna be a long series of videos guys... I takes about 8 or 9 hours to make a map. And although the videos won't be that long I promise, it will take me that many hours to make them. So I'll send them out piece at a time and I challenge you to start making your own map at the same time. That way - each video I release will match your own progress! Then we can see your handy-work and be amazed! Sharing is caring. Who is with me?
+How to be a Great Game Master I'm a professional cartographer and although I don't have any problems creating my own worlds for role playing, using Autocad to create modern maps is wholly different than creating visually striking maps for table top games. My maps tend to be very boring and to the point, although extremely accurate. I will be following your videos on how to use Photoshop to create a map that not only is functional but looks like a proper fantasy map! Thank you for your tips and tricks, after 15 years of being a GM I still find that your tips put to words the lessons I've been learning for a long time. Keep the videos coming my friend :)
Just wanted to thank you for this incredibly helpful and well-made series of videos. You've done an amazing job explaining what exactly you are meant to be doing as a DM and how to go about doing it. You've helped me become a much better DM. Thanks, and I look forward to your future videos.
+Lucas Rozendaal Awesome man! If we raise the bar of GMíng across the globe we raise the bar of fun and enjoyment we are all having. Glad to have helped!
Bit late to the party, but my gosh are you a fantastic teacher! I've been developing a fantasy world for a book I've been drafting and I plan to use it in my first proper time GMing come this summer, after I've finished my GCSE exams (I'm 16) and your videos are superb at explaining how to GM. I played a simplified version of 3rd edition with my friends before Christmas, GMing a maritime campaign with pirates, rum and all sorts of naval nasties like a version of the Barbary pirates. Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly good at first and I made the game a bit boring for my friends so they gave up on me. After feeling blue and wanting to give it another go I found your video on "Dick GMs" and realised that I was one. Since then I've made a sincere apology to all involved and some are willing to have another go with me. So now I've watched a great number of your videos and learnt what I was doing wrong (mainly I "Let the book run the game", being too unforgiving and a bit too railroad-y with the players). I've had a chat with the 4/6 remaining of the old group and we've decided on a new post-colonial campaign, based on the civilisations of the failed setting. It's style is much akin to the old one (Political-Adventure-Mercenary kind of thing, like solving mysteries for the Kings of the world and seeking out ancient relics), but now I've had some time to write some actual short stories and history to flesh out the world. My friends enjoyed that, and those playing are pretty hyped for it as am I. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for the obvious effort you put into your videos and let you know that in my opinion you're the best GM tutorial guy (Or if I'm not mistaken, Guy, :D) on TH-cam. You've enabled me to do something I enjoy and that isn't something I get from many TH-camrs. (Oh, and an extra question if I may. How fluent do I need to be in the rules of a D&D edition to run a game effectively? In 3rd and 5th I'm fairly familiar with the Role-Play side of things, and how some of the basic combat works, but when it comes to magic I'm clueless. Should I just learn as much of the magic as possible or make up that sort of thing on the fly? Of course, improv would be for the NPCs only. Thanks again.)
I'm really glad I mostly did this right, even though I hadn't watched some of these yet. I decided on the components I wanted the world to have: Ruins of a really ancient technologically advanced civilization, and less ancient, but still pretty old remnants of a medieval/traditional fantasy empire now gone as well, coupled with churches with military power and a world of mostly city states or small empire-kingdoms. It's an early Final Fantasy games (Snes) style setting with some religious institutions. Then I created the story of how the world got to be that way. That all justified those things I wanted and also created a narrative of behind the powers and things I wanted to use to drive the adventures. Finally I drew the map incorporating all those things. It's a nice little sandbox that I can use to start building my player's story arcs. But building the story first really helped make the other elements fall into place.
15:01, I'm guessing you meant the Welsh, but I laughed out at the mental image when you asked if it could have been the whales that kept the Irish from crossing and invading England. Actually might even be a more interesting game if it included huge invasion-spoiling whales. Great video and series, really enjoying it.
I would be really interested in a map making tutorial, like you mentioned in the video :), please continue this awesome work, it gives me a lot of inspiration :)
A question for you to consider making a video out of: Is there a life cycle to being a DM? For example, the modern male human starts as a baby and overcomes the challenges of crawling, then walking; learning to eat; learning to speak. During childhood, the challenges are beginning to understand social interactions. During adolescents body changes lead to an increased desire to investigate reproductive urges. There are more life stages, but I think you get the point. Are there stages of development for a DM? Does the DM go through a mid life crisis?
+wizard1399 Hahaha! I would have never considered this a million years - and yet I have gone, and go through periods of 'DM Mid life' where I run off to find 18 years to play with. I've added it to the list!
"We're always going to have war because people are basically distrustful and xenophobic" checks out from the guy accused of having too many lawful evil npcs. :p
"Why do the Elves have an alliance with the humans when humans live so much shorter than Elves?" Maybe the Elves just think humans are cute, the way humans think of puppies.
+Justin Carpenter Your words my hands. I'll do a map video. Can't promise when - as I do have a list of other videos just waiting to go out, but I shall do one. Sadly I've only been in London for 2 days but through books and movies I feel your statement. When I took the tube at Victoria Cross - the tiles on the walls are over 100 years old. How many Cthulhu adventures ran past those tiles? I was in love!
How to be a Great Game Master What blew my mind was Stonehenge. As an American I look at London like "oh my god this is so old". Stonehenge was to the romans what Roman architecture is to us. 5000 years of history at our finger tips.
How to be a Great Game Master Super Henge ya. We visited stonehenge it's incredible. It's funny I'm starting a new campaign this weekend. The entire time I'm walking around London/Bath/Stonehenge I was just thinking "Oh that'd be a cool setting for an encounter!"
+Alroc123 I will be honest and say I have not watched a huge amount of Critical or Matt. I think he has an amazing voice, and some of his tutorial videos are good starting points. I seldom pass comment on other peoples GM'ing unless they ask for my opinion. Personally I love people telling me my weak points and strong points. How else can I improve? Having said that Matt is the one true dark overlord of GM'ing on TH-cam so he's gotta be doing something right!
+SuperSpells If I can get the software to work correctly I'll make it tonight for you guys as it won't be an official Tut video on how to be a great gm... just how to make great maps ;)
Guys I am working on my own world right now and I came across problem and i dont know how to handle it.I want dwarfs to be a main race in world there is no humans and other humanoid species so calling them dwarfs is incorect coz its their normal size and calling them humans creates incorrect expectations.What to do guys ?do i need to give them some strange name that will be alien to players and then explain it?
The first race were dragons, who dwelled in the world before even the gods arrived. The gods came from the darkness beyond reality and created animal and plant life in the world, until they discovered that the world was already inhabited by the dragons. The trickster god, always happy to take his brothers and sisters down a peg, tricked them to lay with the beasts of the land, coincidently causing the creation of sentient races, human in the cold tundra in the north, gradually growing their empire; goblins in the hot swamps, hunting in competing tribes; and lizard folk in the scorching rocky wastes, aligning themselves with the dragons, with whom they found kinship. Respecting life in all forms, the gods did not just correct their mistakes. To watch over the young races, the gods created their pure-blooded children and impressed onto them the law to never abuse their divine heritage for personal gain, but the angelics did not listen and they pitted the mortal races against the dragons, whom they perceived as blasphemous for having been there before the gods and nearly caused all sentient life to end in a cataclysmic war. As punishment, the angelic children of the gods were stripped of their power and thus were reduced to being mere elves. In shame, the elves withdrew from the world and hid in the high mountains and inaccessible jungles to the far south. The gods and dragons agreed to leave the fate of the world to itself and disappeared after the cataclysmic war, believing they could put an end to religious jealousy and fanatics by removing themselves, the cause of religion, from the world. All races accounted for, along with where they live in what kind of biome: empire building humans in the cold tundra, wearing tribal gobbos in the hot swamps, lizards in the arid and rocky wastes, elves in mountain peaks and jungles. There is more, but I ain't telling...
As a cartographer my self, I must say this is exactly how you would build a map. Obviously when drawing the map though, you let the features of the land tell the story of how the land looks the way it does ie; Rivers come from mountains they start as many points then flow down hill to the largest body of water it can get to always coming to a singular point never re branching. Also they avoid hills, which Are created due to the tectonic plates making the mountains so your hills are normally around the mountains. This of course tells the story of where your people set up shop. life tends to pop up around food and water, then by major routes in the land that are goo trade spots ect ect. You nailed it on the head sir. Great content as always
+robert goodwin Many thanks! It's amazing what a smattering of geography 101 and an imagination can glue together :) And good descriptor on the details like rivers etc.
Just an update. I started the tutorial on Map Making. Will upload part one tomorrow. It's gonna be a long series of videos guys... I takes about 8 or 9 hours to make a map. And although the videos won't be that long I promise, it will take me that many hours to make them. So I'll send them out piece at a time and I challenge you to start making your own map at the same time. That way - each video I release will match your own progress! Then we can see your handy-work and be amazed! Sharing is caring. Who is with me?
+How to be a Great Game Master I'm a professional cartographer and although I don't have any problems creating my own worlds for role playing, using Autocad to create modern maps is wholly different than creating visually striking maps for table top games. My maps tend to be very boring and to the point, although extremely accurate. I will be following your videos on how to use Photoshop to create a map that not only is functional but looks like a proper fantasy map! Thank you for your tips and tricks, after 15 years of being a GM I still find that your tips put to words the lessons I've been learning for a long time. Keep the videos coming my friend :)
Thank you! Glad to perhaps be of some help here and there :) Next map tutorial goes up tonight. Sadly there is no fast process sigh. Enjoy!
Just wanted to thank you for this incredibly helpful and well-made series of videos. You've done an amazing job explaining what exactly you are meant to be doing as a DM and how to go about doing it. You've helped me become a much better DM. Thanks, and I look forward to your future videos.
+Lucas Rozendaal Awesome man! If we raise the bar of GMíng across the globe we raise the bar of fun and enjoyment we are all having. Glad to have helped!
keep up the great work ! I love refering to other DMs as I build my campaign setting and adjust it to be just as great as anyone elses.
+VundalI Thank you!
Bit late to the party, but my gosh are you a fantastic teacher! I've been developing a fantasy world for a book I've been drafting and I plan to use it in my first proper time GMing come this summer, after I've finished my GCSE exams (I'm 16) and your videos are superb at explaining how to GM. I played a simplified version of 3rd edition with my friends before Christmas, GMing a maritime campaign with pirates, rum and all sorts of naval nasties like a version of the Barbary pirates.
Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly good at first and I made the game a bit boring for my friends so they gave up on me. After feeling blue and wanting to give it another go I found your video on "Dick GMs" and realised that I was one. Since then I've made a sincere apology to all involved and some are willing to have another go with me.
So now I've watched a great number of your videos and learnt what I was doing wrong (mainly I "Let the book run the game", being too unforgiving and a bit too railroad-y with the players). I've had a chat with the 4/6 remaining of the old group and we've decided on a new post-colonial campaign, based on the civilisations of the failed setting. It's style is much akin to the old one (Political-Adventure-Mercenary kind of thing, like solving mysteries for the Kings of the world and seeking out ancient relics), but now I've had some time to write some actual short stories and history to flesh out the world. My friends enjoyed that, and those playing are pretty hyped for it as am I. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for the obvious effort you put into your videos and let you know that in my opinion you're the best GM tutorial guy (Or if I'm not mistaken, Guy, :D) on TH-cam. You've enabled me to do something I enjoy and that isn't something I get from many TH-camrs.
(Oh, and an extra question if I may. How fluent do I need to be in the rules of a D&D edition to run a game effectively? In 3rd and 5th I'm fairly familiar with the Role-Play side of things, and how some of the basic combat works, but when it comes to magic I'm clueless. Should I just learn as much of the magic as possible or make up that sort of thing on the fly? Of course, improv would be for the NPCs only. Thanks again.)
Ha, didn't realise this was so long. TL:DR - You make good videos, how well do I need to know the rules before I can get my hands dirty as a DM?
I'm really glad I mostly did this right, even though I hadn't watched some of these yet. I decided on the components I wanted the world to have: Ruins of a really ancient technologically advanced civilization, and less ancient, but still pretty old remnants of a medieval/traditional fantasy empire now gone as well, coupled with churches with military power and a world of mostly city states or small empire-kingdoms. It's an early Final Fantasy games (Snes) style setting with some religious institutions. Then I created the story of how the world got to be that way. That all justified those things I wanted and also created a narrative of behind the powers and things I wanted to use to drive the adventures. Finally I drew the map incorporating all those things. It's a nice little sandbox that I can use to start building my player's story arcs. But building the story first really helped make the other elements fall into place.
15:01, I'm guessing you meant the Welsh, but I laughed out at the mental image when you asked if it could have been the whales that kept the Irish from crossing and invading England. Actually might even be a more interesting game if it included huge invasion-spoiling whales. Great video and series, really enjoying it.
In fairness the Irish did invade Scotland, the Gaels.
This helped alot love this channel!!
I would be really interested in a map making tutorial, like you mentioned in the video :), please continue this awesome work, it gives me a lot of inspiration :)
+Trogzul Cool! Happy to inspire!
Awesome!! I feel rather inspired! However I'm new to GM'ing and running the D&D starter module soon. I'll try and use some of your ideas.
+Sean ossu Good luck! Let me know how it goes!
A question for you to consider making a video out of: Is there a life cycle to being a DM? For example, the modern male human starts as a baby and overcomes the challenges of crawling, then walking; learning to eat; learning to speak. During childhood, the challenges are beginning to understand social interactions. During adolescents body changes lead to an increased desire to investigate reproductive urges. There are more life stages, but I think you get the point. Are there stages of development for a DM? Does the DM go through a mid life crisis?
+wizard1399 Hahaha! I would have never considered this a million years - and yet I have gone, and go through periods of 'DM Mid life' where I run off to find 18 years to play with. I've added it to the list!
"We're always going to have war because people are basically distrustful and xenophobic" checks out from the guy accused of having too many lawful evil npcs. :p
This is awesome
+Timothy Myers Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of the episodes! :)
"Why do the Elves have an alliance with the humans when humans live so much shorter than Elves?"
Maybe the Elves just think humans are cute, the way humans think of puppies.
I was just in London 2 weeks ago. Man the stories that city has are incredible.
And please do a how to make a map video!
+Justin Carpenter Your words my hands. I'll do a map video. Can't promise when - as I do have a list of other videos just waiting to go out, but I shall do one. Sadly I've only been in London for 2 days but through books and movies I feel your statement. When I took the tube at Victoria Cross - the tiles on the walls are over 100 years old. How many Cthulhu adventures ran past those tiles? I was in love!
How to be a Great Game Master What blew my mind was Stonehenge. As an American I look at London like "oh my god this is so old". Stonehenge was to the romans what Roman architecture is to us. 5000 years of history at our finger tips.
Oh exactly. And I don't know if you're aware they have found MORE to Stonehenge than just the henge. They've found whole avenues nearby. Mind blown!
How to be a Great Game Master Super Henge ya. We visited stonehenge it's incredible. It's funny I'm starting a new campaign this weekend. The entire time I'm walking around London/Bath/Stonehenge I was just thinking "Oh that'd be a cool setting for an encounter!"
Exactly! But what setting? Cthulhu? Modern d20? A fantasy setting? So many possibilities.
Woot thank you ! hey quick question what do you think about Matt Mercer as a GM ?
+Alroc123 I will be honest and say I have not watched a huge amount of Critical or Matt. I think he has an amazing voice, and some of his tutorial videos are good starting points. I seldom pass comment on other peoples GM'ing unless they ask for my opinion. Personally I love people telling me my weak points and strong points. How else can I improve? Having said that Matt is the one true dark overlord of GM'ing on TH-cam so he's gotta be doing something right!
finally, it has come....
+Pe Wee Panda And was it worth it? I hope so?
'twas
Pe Wee Panda Yay!
Please Map drawing tutorial! I could really use some help with doing things like that!
+SuperSpells If I can get the software to work correctly I'll make it tonight for you guys as it won't be an official Tut video on how to be a great gm... just how to make great maps ;)
i'm also interested in seeing a map making tutorial.
Who are those mystery chanels that help me determinate the age of my world and where do I find them?
As what seems like a master storyteller, do you write books?
Guys I am working on my own world right now and I came across problem and i dont know how to handle it.I want dwarfs to be a main race in world there is no humans and other humanoid species so calling them dwarfs is incorect coz its their normal size and calling them humans creates incorrect expectations.What to do guys ?do i need to give them some strange name that will be alien to players and then explain it?
The first race were dragons, who dwelled in the world before even the gods arrived. The gods came from the darkness beyond reality and created animal and plant life in the world, until they discovered that the world was already inhabited by the dragons. The trickster god, always happy to take his brothers and sisters down a peg, tricked them to lay with the beasts of the land, coincidently causing the creation of sentient races, human in the cold tundra in the north, gradually growing their empire; goblins in the hot swamps, hunting in competing tribes; and lizard folk in the scorching rocky wastes, aligning themselves with the dragons, with whom they found kinship. Respecting life in all forms, the gods did not just correct their mistakes. To watch over the young races, the gods created their pure-blooded children and impressed onto them the law to never abuse their divine heritage for personal gain, but the angelics did not listen and they pitted the mortal races against the dragons, whom they perceived as blasphemous for having been there before the gods and nearly caused all sentient life to end in a cataclysmic war. As punishment, the angelic children of the gods were stripped of their power and thus were reduced to being mere elves. In shame, the elves withdrew from the world and hid in the high mountains and inaccessible jungles to the far south. The gods and dragons agreed to leave the fate of the world to itself and disappeared after the cataclysmic war, believing they could put an end to religious jealousy and fanatics by removing themselves, the cause of religion, from the world.
All races accounted for, along with where they live in what kind of biome: empire building humans in the cold tundra, wearing tribal gobbos in the hot swamps, lizards in the arid and rocky wastes, elves in mountain peaks and jungles. There is more, but I ain't telling...
That's a pretty awesome creation myth! It's a good teaser to be sure!
Yo! You mentioned the map behind you but I can't seem to find where I can actually SEE it!
(I checked all of the links in the description too...)
This nigga sounds like Alistair Grout from VtM: Bloodlines
Heaven
+JdR Ludiste - Paul Artwork Glad you like it
Merfolk growing legs does not make sense.