This was a topic that came under discussion a little while ago, and I thought I'd get the communities take on it. What do you guys charge your players for maps?
For my own campaign, I treated it like a video game: I gave them a national map, with the major cities, that I updated as they encountered new town and roads, and forests. If they spoke to an NPC that knew of a location, I would update it, as well as "quest locations" on the map. Never did I charge them for a map. I have photoshop, so I didn't mind leaving a lot of the nation unpolished, and just filled in as I planned or as was relevant.
Another DM I spoke with recently didn't believe in having maps, even theater of the mind "let me tell you where things are" maps. None. Not even city maps. By contrast, another DM i met only lets his players buy "regional" maps: just the city they're in, or the one road from location to location. Nothing larger than a singular city. He'd charge about 5GB per map. We found a post somewhere that suggested charging as much as 1,000 Gold for a "well made map," but it didn't specify WHAT the map was of, or how big.
My map is just a free resource for the players to get bearings as to where things are and distance travelled. It also will act as a trigger for them to go, ooooo that city on that mountain in the middle of a huge plane looks cool, let’s find out about it.
My map is also full of blank space with TBC filled in, the way I see it the map is a collective endeavor, I rely as much on the players making up stuff about backstory or where there characters grew up as I do in making stuff up myself. I also like to have to grow as I come up with cool adventures, so I slowly fill in the surrounding area of the map as we go.
I feel that DM’s often forget that sometimes “the map,” other media, and even sometimes what we think of as meta gaming, are there to provide context and fill in some of the blanks that are inevitable because he players aren’t actually physically in the world we are creating. They often fill the same role as mechanics in a video game that compensate for lack of smell, full field of vision, physical interaction, the ease with which we can glance around in real life, and so on. They help talking about the world and represent the characters’ knowledge. No charge for that.
So, in short, it depends on what a given map you are presenting is for. Is it a treasure map with rare and important information or is it a tool to represent your characters’ understanding of the world they live in.
Like any resource, if it’s to be charged for, it depends on the value to the party and the seller. Only your world can tell you that.
This was a topic that came under discussion a little while ago, and I thought I'd get the communities take on it. What do you guys charge your players for maps?
For my own campaign, I treated it like a video game: I gave them a national map, with the major cities, that I updated as they encountered new town and roads, and forests. If they spoke to an NPC that knew of a location, I would update it, as well as "quest locations" on the map. Never did I charge them for a map. I have photoshop, so I didn't mind leaving a lot of the nation unpolished, and just filled in as I planned or as was relevant.
Another DM I spoke with recently didn't believe in having maps, even theater of the mind "let me tell you where things are" maps. None. Not even city maps. By contrast, another DM i met only lets his players buy "regional" maps: just the city they're in, or the one road from location to location. Nothing larger than a singular city. He'd charge about 5GB per map. We found a post somewhere that suggested charging as much as 1,000 Gold for a "well made map," but it didn't specify WHAT the map was of, or how big.
What do you all do?
My map is just a free resource for the players to get bearings as to where things are and distance travelled. It also will act as a trigger for them to go, ooooo that city on that mountain in the middle of a huge plane looks cool, let’s find out about it.
My map is also full of blank space with TBC filled in, the way I see it the map is a collective endeavor, I rely as much on the players making up stuff about backstory or where there characters grew up as I do in making stuff up myself. I also like to have to grow as I come up with cool adventures, so I slowly fill in the surrounding area of the map as we go.
I feel that DM’s often forget that sometimes “the map,” other media, and even sometimes what we think of as meta gaming, are there to provide context and fill in some of the blanks that are inevitable because he players aren’t actually physically in the world we are creating. They often fill the same role as mechanics in a video game that compensate for lack of smell, full field of vision, physical interaction, the ease with which we can glance around in real life, and so on. They help talking about the world and represent the characters’ knowledge. No charge for that.
So, in short, it depends on what a given map you are presenting is for. Is it a treasure map with rare and important information or is it a tool to represent your characters’ understanding of the world they live in.
Like any resource, if it’s to be charged for, it depends on the value to the party and the seller. Only your world can tell you that.