Beginner D&D Map Making | Step-by-Step Fantasy Maps
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ค. 2024
- Here's a step-by-step tutorial for drawing a simple fantasy world map, for world builders or RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons! ▶️ More below! ⏬
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00:00 the most important part of a fantasy map
00:32 simple tools and steps for drawing dnd maps
02:03 inspirational fantasy maps! (sponsored)
02:44 how to define your landmass
04:14 how to draw rivers and coasts
05:29 plotting points of interest
07:36 don't ruin your map with roads!
08:27 how to draw forests and grasslands
09:27 what every gets wrong about wetlands
#dndmaps #fantasymap #dungeonsanddragons - เกม
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Gesundheit!
I was going thru some boxes and discovered a number of old high-school and college notebooks. Contemplating why the hell I saved them i cracked one open. Half of the note book was d&d session notes, ideas doodles and most important MAPs!!!. Glorious campaign maps and dungeon layouts I drew! Me thinks it's time to draw up a map soon. I used to do it just for fun and I think it's time to revisit the lands of my imagination 😊
Lost treasure!
@@BobWorldBuilderlost no more.
I keep all my journals. Great to look back on.
That´s an awesome map!
Hollow Hill seems like a cozy place, perfect for birthday parties and to begin raids on ancient dwarven fortresses..
Thanks! And Hollow Hill definitely throws the best birthday parties haha
Better a simple map that conveys information than a beautiful drawing which leaves the viewer uncertain. Bravo!
Conveyance is key.
I love all Bobworldbuilder videos, but I especially love these. Drawing physical maps is a lot of fun, definitely better than generative softwares I've used in the past.
I’m imagining an RPG art show where JP Coovert, Map Crow, and Bob draw maps while narrating their thoughts and then go around and comment on each other’s maps…
Maybe I narrate while those two actual artists draw :P
Awesome stuff, Bob. Brings me back to the early 80’s, when we were too broke to buy much D&D stuff, and had to hand draw our own maps and adventures. Fun times.
4:22 This misconception reminded me of how the names of the ancient Egyptians Lower and Upper kingdoms were named, with Lower kingdom being in the north and the Upper kingdom being in the south. This might seem counter intuitive if you look at them on a map today, but it makes sense if you consider they were named relative to the flow of the Nile rather than a compass direction.
Love those kinds of details!
Yeah, if I remember correctly, the ancient Egyptians actually drew maps with the north being down. Because water flows down, the direction the Nile flows should be down too. So for them the naming wasn't confusing - Lower Egypt was at the bottom of the map.
I guess that must be the same for Upper Canada (modern eastern and especially southern Ontario) and Lower Canada (modern eastern Quebec). As a kid I thought it was because the English considered themselves to be better than the French, lol!
Yeah, I just colored in a 8x8 grid so I can use a chess board as a world/battlemap :)
A bit small in my opinion, but it could work for a small region. Chain these together and you can get whole continents or big islands.
"The most important part of any creative endeavour is to Just. Get. Started."
- Bob World Builder
Thanks for the video, Bob! Super inspirational and encouraging. Would love to see one on dungeon maps, as I've always found those even more intimidating than world maps!
Thanks for watching! A dungeon video will be fun!
There’s that Bob Ross of D&D/RPG showing up! 👍 Great video!
"And there's a happy little mountain of molten lava behind your lake."
It's been too long!
Thanks. You've inspired me to take another crack at making a map for my homebrew world. Gotta figure out how to do it at various scales though. I'd like to have different maps. One at "here is the entire continent" and a few at "here is this particular area."
Yes more one maps! Both more detailed world or city maps as well as building dungeons
I love all Bob world Builder videos
Nice subliminal plug for JP. 😂 Love his zines.
Early in my GMing days I home-brewed world and loved drawing the map of the region and the starting town. That campaign fell apart very early, sadly. For the last couple of years, I've mostly been running pre-written adventures, so the need for maps like this has been slight. But I miss it. I think fondly of those maps and this video made me want to get back not only to cartography, but running my own world! Thanks for that.
I have also dabbled with several digital map-making tools, and while I enjoy that they make things look pretty and uniform, I find they aren't much faster to use because of the learning curve, and besides, there is something way more satisfying about a hand-drawn map.
Bob World Builder is really channeling that Bob Ross energy for us RPG nerds :)
We love you Bob
Solid advice. For anyone that is daunted by the task, draw your map twice. Practice makes perfect. Also, I see that JP zine behind you Bob! (A useful resource).
Please do a dungeon map video!
A mentality I've developed about creation is that it's iterative.
The first version is never the final version. You are meant to go back over it again and again, refining, tweaking, redoing, etc.
Almost never is anything good created all at once, but by a process of iterating on the idea again and again. Much as a basic story idea, or character, or anything else, starts off as a simple, but hopefully compelling, idea, and gradually expands over time.
Often I find that in the process of following this I've added "too much," and whatever I'm creating has lost it's identity a bit. That's when I know it's time to split it into multiple things. That could be multiple maps, settings, characters, stories, whatever.
I can't tell you how perfect your timing is with this video!
Glad to hear it! :)
For fun, go to a hardware store or big box store, and ask if they have any big sheets of paper used as packing material. I worked at a True Value and we got 4 foot by 4 foot sheets of rough, grey paper as stabilizers between bags of grass seed, if we ordered a pallet. Get some magic markers, and create a great map to pull out at the table. Best of all, there's usually 20 sheets in a pallet, so you can practice, or even tear one in half, and leave one part in a treasure haul.
Excellent excellent work. Definitely think this is the first time in a long time i've actually seen a "Anyone can do this!" that actually made me feel like anyone could in fact do it. Instead of being riddled with "oh yeah and just pull from your 12 years of art knowledge to just make this look really good"
Thanks! The secret is that I stopped gaining art knowledge in high school lol
@@BobWorldBuilder I genuinely and actually fully want more "hey I haven't drawn excessively since 2010, but here's some DND related drawing things!" Kind of videos. Certainly makes the game cheaper to just draw the things yourself instead of investing in minis!
I've seen lot's of mapmaking tutorials but this is rare in that it's both comprehensive and actually easy to follow.
Would love a whole mapmaking series from you following how to make dungeon maps, battlemaps, city maps, and other such things.
I would also like to note, for the people want a little more politics or trade/war, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a video discussing how different things like natural disasters and wars can affect maps and borders.
A burnt forest between two cities perhaps, where a battle recently took place between them. A fort belonging to one side of a war being placed in a particular forest to stop invasions. A store being placed in a spot in the city because it's close to the high paying nobles.
Maybe I'm asking a bit much, but adding sections to videos for advice on the placement of things would really help people I think.
Thank you! Interesting idea to include those kinds of story details in a map. Like a twist on the 'here be dragons' with a monster drawn somewhere
@@BobWorldBuilder using story details will inevitably make the map feel like it matters too. It becomes more than just a visualization of where places are in relation to each other, it becomes something that helps affect the story in turn. For instance, if your players leave bandit corpses in a river, it can become a problem for the villages downstream. Maybe theres no villages near a lone mountain because it houses a dragon. A map tells a story. It becomes incredibly useful to know how to represent that story in the map.
I'm sorry. Trying not to get preachy or anything. Just excited to finally see an effective and not overly complex map tutorial
Loved your map and just the video concept as a whole :)
Makes me long for the days when my group played in person.
First thing I saw was the JP Coovert zine in the back lol
Awesome video, really makes one want to get started drawing those maps by hand!
That's the goal haha, go do it!
Can we get a video where you explain the differences between various marshes/swamps/wet forests? That’d be very helpful
I would enjoy that! It's a decent part of what I studied in college haha
@@BobWorldBuilder yeah I think you’ve mentioned/implied that in some past videos. I figure it’d be useful information, but also fun just to watch you nerd out as you explain the differences.
Another great episode Bob. For me, another significant point to remember is who the map is for. As a DM, my maps are significantly different from those that i give to the players...
I've been drawing my map for our Kickstarter in Wonderdraft, I'm a 58 yr old game designer and this video was ABSOLUTELY NOT A WASTE OF MY TIME!
Love all Bob does.
Thank you for your contribution to the community! 😊🫡
Thank you! Have fun with your map!
Yes! To all the questions you posed for future episodes, yes, please. Bob World Builder, I genuinely appreciate your content. Keep up the fun work.
This was great! I would love a dungeon video. Also, for those of us a little artistically deficient, throwing a pdf of the basic items you drew up on your Patreon would be a huge help!
I love maps, so keep the videos coming 😊
Glad to hear it! :)
Nicely concise, but still pretty comprehensive. Thanks!
I always love the pages of map icons such as the one in Heroes Of Battle from 3.5e that give you map making icons. I've never made my own map though.
I literally *JUST* hand panted a map on a large canvas!
Wow that's awesome!
Bob World Builders work is always informative and entertaining.
Great idea for a video. I wouldn't want too many of your videos to focus on this but there is more I would love to see about it and perhaps a series where you throw in one every 3 or 4 videos would be perfect! Keep up the great work.
Thanks! Yeah unfortunately it's not getting a lot of attention, but this was fun so I'll probably do another one down the line
this was your best video ever bro
Thanks very much! :)
I am interested in more map advice! This was great. ❤
Thanks!
That part about the players discovering stuff gave me an idea. As DM, draw a map that's about 50% to 60% finished, Xerox it, and that's your player's map. Finish your copy with the weird stuff they have to discover (vampire's lair, buried treasure, forgotten temple to a player's god, secret passage to the other side of a mountain, etc.), and let them draw those features in as they wander and explore. A grid or hex map would work best, as a freehand might be too imprecise for placement of the symbols or icons.
Perfect timing. I've just started on a new map lol
I love ALL Bob World Builder videos!
Thanks for commenting!
Just the inspiration to get going on my new campaign prep. Id be cool to see how you manage dungeon maps or settlement and ruin maps
I needed this kind of video. Thank you
Excellent intro. I love the little towns and villages. They do look cozy and inviting.
For future development, maybe something on how the map helps to tell your story?
Back in the early days, I loved using how I.C.E. did their maps and map symbol legends. When Harn released I definitely incorporated how they did maps and and their symbols as well into what I was already stealing from Iron Crown Enterprises maps. Good stuff, I think most will appreciate your mapping video. :)
Great inspo to help me start my post apocaliptic/adventure time-ish world map!
Always fun to see a map building video. Please create a video for dungeon maps!
Drawing maps is quite possibly my favourite part. Thinking about city placement really helps build up the history of the place. Is it there because the soil is rich, did it start as a stop off for traders, what is the fresh water access like? It can really get immersive.
Cool map. Nice helpful video. Always on point. Thanks Bob
Very cool tutorial for getting people up and going with making maps! I've used several techniques like these making my own just based on looking how fantasy authors like Tolkien have their maps drawn
Loved this. Thank you!!
This was a great video! I love all your stuff!
Thanks for the tutorial, Bob. I haven't drawn a paper map in ages! It's been 84 years...
I love all Bob's videos!
This was amazing, would love to see a timelaps of you making a map
Great tutorial. I bookmarked it for future reference! 🙂
Man, amateur tutorials are such a treasure; getting people to think "hey, I could do that!" is often such a difficult thing to do, and the awful thing is that the people who feel qualified to make such tutorials often have too much conspicuous skill to achieve it.
Personally, I start with coastlines (if there are any), then I locate mountain peaks and volcanoes (again if there are any) and determine what their elevations are; I also typically use topography lines to show gradation. That way I can establish a baseline about where the other features are on the map: rivers always flows downhill in the path of least resistance, pooling in some areas as lakes and wetlands; forests have a treeline (an elevation where the trees stop growing) as well as growing near water sources; deserts and other arid regions typically sit on the lee side of mountain ranges as the higher elevations might stymie precipitous currents; and so on. And then I work out where settlements, cities, and roads would be.
Then as I keep those in mind, I can establish any fantastic features I might have come up with. For instance, I once placed an inland sea atop a great plateau basin. Rivers would fall from the surrounding mountain ranges and pool along their bases. Eventually, as your ship sailed the sea, the water current would take you to the edge of a mountain range on one end of the sea. There it cut into the face of the mountains there and cascade into the crevices, caverns, and depths below. Dwarves, making use of the natural power of the waterfalls, had built a massive trade settlement there with waterwheels, aqueducts, and other features supplying for the cities' needs.
However, I do have difficulty with mapping out cities, villages, dungeons, ruins, etc. My biggest problem with that is deciding where everything goes and how it all fits. I would like to see a video about that.
Great video!
This is great, and works - probably better for making general fantasy maps than any of the stuff I tend to use. There are a few more things you can use if you want a medieval-ish feel for your map/world that aren't covered in the video, that I thought I'd share:
- Volcanoes are a lot more common than people tend to think, and if you include _extinct_ volcanoes in that count, your map could almost certainly use a few. The shape and mineral composition of a volcano makes it a point of interest for anyone with an interest in rocks, mineral wealth, or twisting cave systems - prime adventuring ground
- Wells feature in a lot of Gothic and Romantic tales _about_ the medieval period, as well as in some genuine medieval stories. Settlements could be abandoned, walls fall to ruin, and earth and regrowth totally reclaim the site - but depending on the place it's been dug in and what kind of water source it's tapping into, a well could last considerably longer (also, they'd often be the last thing to be abandoned by people in an area, since water's important, so people would keep the well functional. But ignore that part for now; the Romantic and Gothic writers did). Hence mysterious, abandoned wells in the middle of nowhere.
- Medieval roads mostly weren't well-maintained highways (notable famous exceptions all across the world in large, urbanised societies set aside), and could be much more of a path through the countryside people tended to follow because it was slightly easier to move goods overland along that particular track, owing to the incline of the landscape and crossing-points of waterways. Just because there's a road, doesn't mean the path is going to be safe or easy to follow.
- Likewise, watch-towers. Tended to be built in places where a watch needed to be kept; the main reason to keep a watch is because of other people, and the sorts of people you set a watch for tend not to stick around if there's somewhere they can go where they _won't_ be watched. Thus, you could (and did, and do) find the abandoned remains of small fortified overlooks along pathways and at points in the landscape that were strategically important at some point in time; for trade, for war, for tax assessment purposes - lots of reasons to have a spot where you can look out and keep track of what people are doing. Equally, lots of reasons it might cease to be important to keep that spot manned and in good repair, leaving a potential landmark and/or adventure site.
- Border fortresses (I don't have a better specific name for these, but - think Byzantine, Sassanian, and early Andalusian fortified outposts) and acropolises. These are sort of 'use only in emergencies' (as opposed to 'also has a use in normal times', like a castle would, before anyone takes issue with that statement) types of fort, intended for the protection of large urban settlements, and important strategic outposts of large, centralised states, and were more common in iron-age societies than (at least European) medieval ones, as societal and economic patterns were quite different. But being fort-type structures, their ruins were often in very good condition, and the remains of these places were very striking, noteworthy features of the landscape in the areas where they existed. Between these and ruined temple complexes, you've got the vague outline for the sorts of places that evolved into the 'dungeon' archetype as fantasy developed into the familiar forms of today. (Citadels and cannon-redoubts are also a sort of re-emergence of these sorts of landmarks in European-style settlement planning, and _do_ inform the contemporary idea of a fantasy dungeon - but unless you're running a swashbuckler or post-apocalyptic campaign, calling your site an 'acropolis' ruin or similar is still a safer bet to retain that medieval-esque feel)
'Mysterious, abandoned well (maintained by mysterious, abandoned peasants, who use it for their mysterious, abandoned baths)' isn't as striking of a story idea, unless you're Lovecraft or similar.
Really cool video, it's just fun watching people draw maps. I like your letter style also, which has a sort of rune-like quality.
As someone who CANNOT DRAW I really appreciate this and your approach. I'd love a dungeon map video as well.
Yes more details! Give me details! Deserts! How does one draw deserts?
I appreciate the enthusiasm! Perhaps I'll expand on this in another video, but desert icons would be like mountains that look smooth, round, and soft (dunes) or just tiny dots and horizontal dashes (sand, barren ground), maybe a dead tree or big cactus for flavor :)
can't help it that every time you say "I'm Bob" I expect to hear "the necromancer and today we are doing an unboxing"
love your videos.
I plan to try this over the weekend! And I would like to see the dungeon maps video.
Awesome! Gonna have a bunch of dungeon themed videos coming, so maps will probably be one of them :)
Nice job!
I would like to get your take on making a series of maps that will eventually overlap each other. I am currently in the process of developing maps for a campaign where a once whole world was separated and the landscape and inhabitants of the world change with each season. Most of the creatures in each season don't remember the split and therefore don't know about the other seasons. The eventual goal of the party will be to reunite the world, at which point all of the maps are rejoined.
Sounds fun to me :)
This was a fun video. Every gamer worth their salt needs to draw at least one map.
Great video! Would love to see a dungeon map version as well.
DnD is merely a pretext to indulge in my map making obsession.
Hahah whatever works
Part 2 could be some randomization tricks for distribution
Always looking for videos to help with making good maps
thx
I'd be interested in starter city maps
Great idea!
Hey, Bob? ... Your "World Builder" is showing. 😉✌️🤘🖖
This was cool. I would watch more map videos.
I’d love to see a video on making city maps specifically! I’m planning a penny dreadful inspired campaign taking place entirely inside the gates of one large city, and I’d really like to hand draw a big map for the table to use
I would enjoy seeing more cartography ideas!
The north South river missunderstending is a north emisphere effect that happens because of polar glaciers that are commun river nascents
Thanks. Getting ready to start dnd this summer. I know the rules ao now it's time to make some maps. I have a few books for adventure ideas.
I'll have to try this for my homebrew world map.
And the continentthey are on.
I just need to get better at figuring out scale & travel time
This past year I have started map making and it has been so enjoyable. I have never been skilled at sketching. But I’m amazed at what I can create. It also helps my games as it gives me time to think. JP Coovert channel and books are awesome
I will totally use this new video Bob! Keep up the great job
Glad to hear it! Thanks :)
This video came out at the perfect time, I was just about to start my map for my new campaign this weekend! Thanks Bob.Would really like another video about dungeon maps - never made one by hand.
Happy to hear it!
You suggested that I let you know if I'm interested in more on outdoor maps. I am. Do you have ideas for differences in Marshes vs swamps vs. Moors vs. wetlands vs. jungle vs. savannah grasslands?? Id really appreciate more icon differentiation PLEASE. THANK YOU! 😊💯🎉
Also, Where did you acquire that map Of Middle Earth you displayed, with The Shite to The Grey Havens.. That Is AWESOME!!
The LotR map is from The One Ring 2e Starter box. I love it! I could definitely talk about the differences between those types of wetlands IRL, but most of their symbols would be similar. I short version: wetlands are a general term, marshes are wet grasslands, swamps are wet forests, some bogs/fens/peatlands will have trees but mostly moss and grass. Savannas are grasslands. Jungles are thick forests. Hope that helps!
@@BobWorldBuilder Would you be willing to share a copy of your world Map? It would be a big help in upgrading my maps of my World Of MIDORIS 🌍...
Yes dungeon maps please!
"...Rivers always flow North to South."
*Stares in Nile River*
"Just because it's on the map doesn't mean it's still there." There's a major plot moment in "Dragons of Winter Night" that revolves around a map showing a feature that is no longer there.
More mapping please! A little more on the wilderness would be cool actually-you mentioned the differences in wetlands, for example, and maybe some ideas for scaling maps in and out would be really cool for when that starts to matter.
Dungeon mapping would also be a cool thing to cover. Most dungeon maps are overhead views, but I saw a great one page dungeon that the dungeon was the map in an isometric view that really made relationships between spaces and elevation changes really apparent. Professor Dan showed something similar back when he was doing his design notes for Caves of Carnage, but he just said it was something he learned how to do and he likes the way it looks on the page, no details on how it's done for people who haven't done it that way before.
Some of the above I want to see videos on because … I can always use tips, artwork isn't my thing really. Some of it because I want videos to hand other people and say Go! You watch! Learn skill!
Is that the making maps boom from j.p. coovert I see in the background? Before your computer monitor?
Yep!
I loved this video! I started playing D&D when I was 13 and creating maps was one of my favourite things to do! Still is, although I now play mostly online and I use other tools. But the basics are all the same, I wish this video existed 30 years ago! 😂
Better 30 years late than never!
That is true!
Hype! Thanks as always for the great tips!
Happy to help!
I've always had the biggest problem drawing trees and forests. They become so time consuming. I don't know why I never thought of tiny mountains. Those work Bob, you've done it again! Made my life easier!
Haha happy to help! :)
Show us your finished map Bob! You have a cool drawing style.
I'd also be interested to know who is the artist that made the Lord of the Rings map, is it from the One Ring RPG? Google has not been helpful.
Is your computer wallpaper the plains encounter screen from The Adventure of Link?
This idea of rivers flowing north to south for sure comes from america/USA (where I think this is generally true for many rivers) but if you look at Europe (e.g. Germany, where many rivers flow from the Alps (mountain range in the south) towards the coast (north) - just needed to say that :D
What map of middle earth are you using as a reference? It's super cool
Simple and practical! Very cool. I definitely would like to see you tackling a dungeon map. Maybe a city map, too?
Thank you!
Hi Bob. Great Vid!
A bit off topic question- on a video, some time a ago you talked about a random encounter book you recommended. It had something with an escort mission that in the end the players discover they were delivering a box of rusty nails. I cant find it. Can you tell me the name of the book?
Thx
I enjoy all of Bob World Builder videos
Thanks for commenting!
Okay, who else instantly thought of Earthsea when he said, "Oops, all islands"?
Where is that Middle Earth map from? Love the detail.