Do You Use "Store Bought" Map?

[greentongue]

Does anyone else find this inspirational?
www.random-generator.com/dungeons/index.php

Do you use "store bought" maps for your games or are all your maps hand drawn?

If you use "store bought" maps, which are the best?
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[Finarvyn]

In the old days, I hand-drew everything. I avoided modules (1) because I liked making up my own adventures, and (2) because some of my players of that era had read them. Now I'm more time-crunched and default to using a module as my starting point but winging it from there.

When I want neat maps these days I just use Google images. There are lots of neat maps out there, and I can just add some encounters and have an adventure.

I haven't bought maps, so I can't answer that part of your question. :-(

[irdaranger]

I find it inspirational, but I'd probably never use it. The chances of a map being 100% what I am looking for seems slim, and there's no way to alter it ...

Finarvyn, what sort of search terms do you have good luck with?

[Finarvyn]

Sept 21, 2009 12:11:43 GMT -6 irdaranger said:

Finarvyn, what sort of search terms do you have good luck with?

I find that "+map +dungeon" works pretty well for Google, when I'm searching for images instead of web pages. (Most of what I'm looking for would be dungeons for quick throw-together adventures.

I've also had a lot of luck with "+map +fantasy" for wilderness type places.

[noburo]

For me, drawing maps is one of the biggest pleasures of being a DM, so I wouldn't really know... but if I were to use a ready-made map, I guess I'd snag one of Tim Hartin's excellent creations:

paratime.ca/cartography/index.php?cat=2

I sometimes just browse the archives to get inspiration for my own maps.

[irdaranger]

Thanks!

Noburo, that link looks awesome.

[greentongue]

I agree. Nice selection of maps.
I will likely decompose them and create tiles for Dungeon Mapper. I like tile stampers in case you hadn't gathered. Fast mapping is a plus to me.
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