Live Mapping: Herwin Wielink Isometric Dungeons
Loopysue
ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
Hi Everyone :)
This week, Ralf will taking another walk through an older Cartographer's Annual issue: the Herwin Wielink Isometric Dungeons style from the 2012 CA, by creating an isometric floorplan without using Perspectives 3.
You can watch it here:
Or you can join us on YouTube and join in the chat:
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Hurrah ! I don't have to make one of these.
30 minute shout :)
I'm looking for inspiration from GMs: Did anyone use an isometric map during a game? and if so, how? Just as a handout/visualization tool for the players? or during an online session as a battlemap? Or in a different way?
I'm occasionally a GM for my group, but I'm not really good with using maps. I mostly make/use battlemaps, but I never made other maps, so I'd love to hear about ideas from you
I don’t GM but I’m working on a set of maps for a guy at work and will use this style to help him understand how the escape route maps go together. It will be a series of maps for his party to leave the dungeon they will be in with stairs between each encounter area.
Personally, I've just used them as visual aids and planning aids (but then again, that's what I use most of the maps for). Isometric isn't the best for battle maps, but at least in my world, battle maps are in the minority anyway, illustrations and planning tools are much more important, and for that, isometric gives a very nice easy to understand view of the place.
One I used recently was an outside view of a ruin
I learned a few new tricks. Unfortunately, I'll have to download the video as I got distracted.
I've used them as battle maps before, for combat areas with tricky elevation changes (stairs & multiple levels, low walls that could be used as cover or to stand atop for higher ground, etc).
I may still be half asleep as still on my first cup of coffee this morning, but is the youtube video up yet? Was just going to settle in and watch. 😊
[Edit] Nevermind, clicking the link in the first post gets you to the video, but not showing up in my subscribed channels yet. Happy days!
[Edit 2] spoke too soon, it is buffering a lot, so guess it is still uploading to yt. :( I will need to come back later.
Did anyone use an isometric map during a game? and if so, how? Just as a handout/visualization tool for the players? or during an online session as a battlemap? Or in a different way?
The only real use I've ever made of iso maps is as visual aids, although a lot of the earliest were really illustrations of buildings/locations, not true maps anyway, and done in a fully artistic style. The first actual iso maps I recall were from the original Castle Ravenloft maps from TSR, which also included some iso drawings. This concept followed through into the original "Ravenloft - Realm of Terror" boxed set, which had both maps and building diagrams done in an iso projection, as well as more traditional top-down maps. That would be in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
I really wouldn't want to use these as tabletop battlemaps though, as the whole point of those is to show exactly where everyone is, and as iso isn't the easiest projection on which to visualise such things, I always found it better to avoid that.
This is all from many years ago though, and only as in-person visual aids, so things, and people's expectations, may have moved on. I know some of the VTT set-ups allow you to visualise layouts in a mobile fashion, almost like real-world settings, so anything from top-down to side-on, or even from below, and that can be useful for helping people visualise what's on walls or shelves and in cabinets, for instance, as well as judge angles of slopes better. That though only really works if you're either online, or have a large enough screen that people at a table can all see equally what you're trying to show.
Did anyone use an isometric map during a game? and if so, how? Just as a handout/visualization tool for the players? or during an online session as a battlemap? Or in a different way?
Yes, I did use it during an online game with my now-defunct VTT.
In fact, it was one of my early CC3+ maps and I used just this style. Though I only used the cave features (part of an underground traverse).
I tried using the VTT's hex grid so the players could align their tokens to one iso-"square", but in the end I also disabled snapping to the grid, so they could fine-tune the position. Another thing I did was replace the background parchment in the map with a solid deep purple in order to give that feeling that they were underground.
Most of my maps like this don't have a floor or wall below/behind the rooms, passageways, and stairs.
I'll look at making such walls and floors for future iso maps.
Thanks for all your insights! Seems as if I'd have to step up my GM game a little bit then. I only make maps to spice up the battles I'm planning for and only very occasionally I make a map for illustration purposes. I once made a map of a town but we didn't do much with it. That's probably my fault, as I don't really get how to use illustrative works as a prop in game. It's just a lot of work for me with the result that everyone says: "oh, nice!" and then putting it into their handout folder and never looking at it again...
To be fair, most of the maps I've used in games are not made by me. But I have been trying to keep doing something in CC3+ as often as I can.