Mapvember

Early in November, I stumbled across an Instagram hashtag that I’d never seen before: mapvember. The idea was simple, to post a roleplaying game map every day for a month. I’ve been doing some experiments with designing D&D maps with LEGO, so it seemed a perfect excuse to see what I could do with the concept.

I wasn’t in a good situation to turn out design and build that many maps on such short notice, so I opted to build them in Studio 2 and post renders. This allowed me to build sizable maps and keep up with the daily schedule.

Building digitally also allowed me to build in parallel. Since my goal was to develop modular tilesets, that is how I build each map. I designed modules in one file and then combined them in a second file to create a practical map.

With each new map, I expanded and improved on my tiles. In some cases the improvements were aesthetic, but I was also doing my best to make the modules versatile and reasonable to build. I tried to avoid overly expensive elements or ones that aren’t readily available. One of the many nice features of Studio 2 is the ability to see an average BrickLink value for any part.

I also designed a couple of simple buildings as well. I hope to expand on this in the future, with a selection of common buildings that might occur frequently in a D&D game. If I treat the buildings like movie sets, keeping them pleasingly generic, they can be redressed with props to appear as any number of shops or roadside inns that players might encounter.

As I continue to refine these designs, I’ll start releasing them as part of my Patreon. Each month, I’ll release a set of modules (and building instructions) for my $5 patrons. Additionally, $10 patrons will get an article with suggestions for how to use the new modules and ways to personalize them. One of the things I am most looking forward to is building the physical models and introducing slight variations.

I’ve collected all 29 (I started a day late) of my maps. Take a look and tell me what you think.