Bill Owen wrote:Yes. I screwed up in not thinking through how they would fit together properly. I can't remember but we may have realized after the 1st one how the grid had to be a certain # of columns & rows to match up left/right & up/down. My excuses are: I was an untrained 22 year old working alone. Bob and I were surprisingly autonomous and compartmentalized about how we put the materials together.

I have flayed myself enough on this though. 30 years is plenty.

I know how hard it is. My first multi map project was using quarter inch square graph paper (8.5 by 11). I had a campaign that used 12 sheet in a 3 by 4 grid and I had to draw it three times before I got them to fit like the master map.

Then in the late 80's I redrew all the Wilderlands maps. Not only to preserve the older once I had but because I expanded the scale from 5 miles to 12.5 miles and added a lot more detail. The Ghinor map is an example of what I did with paper.

I drew them on these huge hex sheet that allowed me to combine multiple Wilderland maps one sheet. I screwed up the first one by starting out the coastline in ink. The map began with the coast near viridstan by the time I swung back north I missed some hexes but things stopped lining up. Since then I drew the coast in pencil first and then inked after I was sure it lined up.

Here is an example my hand drawn map. http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/ ... tilmap.jpg
One area expanded to every village.
http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/Antil_SE.JPG

There two reason I made the changes I did. First in on my campaigns the players went from city-state to viridstan in a few days. They were kinda of shocked how short it took and expected the world to be bigger.

Second my campaign were heavy with character building baronies and building realms. In the early/mid 80's the best source for running a medieval realm was Harn.  

By setting the maps to harn scale I could use the harn material judge how many people can inhabit various areas as well as getting the bigger map the player's wanted.

Bill Owen wrote:As I remember it, the we would cut the lower 2/3rds of the hand-drawn mountain out of zipatone and with the exacto knife, place it in position.

Most of the initial maps were drawn by Bob and I think I went over to Wood Printing to use their typesetter to set the type for all the text.

After I was gone from the Guild, later Wilderlands maps may have been drawn by Bob's employees under his direction.

The maps were drawn with Rapidograph drafting pens on vellum with an SPI grid underneath.

Thanks for the info. I know this may be long winded but here some of the things I did on the way as far as mapping.

I redrew the Wilderlands maps and the City-State map in the late eighties by hand. The computer generated map you saw stems from the mid 90's when CorelDRAW and Windows became the affordable.

The City State map when through three re-draws. This started in order to preserve my beat up originals. Also while the CSIO map was great, I didn't like how there were enough allyways and how huge the average buildings were especially in the middle section. Nothing wrong with it the original mind you but my personal preference.

When I stumbled across a xerox place that had a blueprint photocopier. I had them xerox six copies of the player's and gm map of CSIO. Then I took the Player's map and drew the new alleyways and building. This wasn't radically different than the original I focused more on the changes that six campaigns of players made to my CSIO (1981 to 1985).

Then I went to college in the fall of 1984 and majored in Computer Science and minored Geography. One my first classes was how to use all the technical drawing pens, vellum and what now. We had these great light tables as well.

So I took one of my photocopied maps bought a big old sheet of vellum and then inked out essentially the same map I posted previously. I then took it back to the place with the blueprint copier and had them photocopy and and then I use the photocopies to color and add fine details. I lost that vellum sometime in late college and always regretted.

So that was the second version. The third version was done using CorelDRAW and was my first serious attempt at drawing on the computer. The key was keeping everything in separate layers and ordering the layers correctly. Which is trickier than it sounds especially in the middle portions.

Do this I shrunk down my map to 8.5 by 11 and then used a digitizer board and a puck to accurate the maps from my original hand drawing. Scanner in the mid 90's were really expensive and unlike today the multi meg images that resulted from a 8.5 by 11 scan crushed the average computer.

I never did really transfer over my hand drawn wilderland maps. At the same time I did the computer CSIO map I found a place that could laminate blueprints/posters so over the years I had everything laminated and my preservation problems were solved. The Ghinor map is more of an expansion as my handdrawn maps stopped at the southern tip of Orchia.

However since my involvement with the Necromancer project I actively resumed trying to "figure out" how the old maps were drawn. One recent breakthrough is I paid a $100 to Letraset for a CD of scans of old zipatones. Now I can use the bitmap fill feature of Corel and have the old terrain shown as they should be.

Bill Owen wrote:
but Bob would bug me every so often about remaking the maps. I figured

James and other known that I am getting close to perfectly replicating the old style if they every need the old maps redone as they were. The big question is where can we find the textured paper they were printed on as nobody seems to have it anymore.

Bill Owen wrote:We and a lot of customers liked the classic, olden look of the maps. And I think it's important to remember how our level of quality may have impacted customer usage. What I mean is that if we'd provided extremely high quality (printing wise) materials especially if on slick, glossy paper, how many people would have felt comfortable or even able to mark them up with their own personalization.

Again wish we could find the paper again. That was good stuff and had the right combination of look and usability. I think you are spot on with the glossy stuff.

Bill Owen wrote:reassurance that "you blew'em all away Bob!" And we did. Even TSR seemed to have to play catch up with what we were doing. And I think we helped them make their game a lot more playable.

In my campaign the JG Materials were the meat and the TSR stuff was the filler. Nearly everything you guys did both maps and writing was more usuable out of the box than what TSR did. Sure there may been some clunkers (Looking at a certain Storm Giant Castle) but overall JG was the best value for my buck then and now with the re-releases.

Bill Owen wrote:Thanks Rob! I appreciate the care you've gone to match our original pre-digital age efforts!

I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.

Rob Conley

P.S. Great touch adding the street lights to the original CSIO maps. I proofed the new CSIO map for Clark and Necromancer and I off handedly mention "Don't you wonder what those dots were on the original?" He said "Yeah what are they?" I replied "They are the street lights. You can see which areas are lighted with oil lamps and which are not." Clark made sure that the new map had them.

robertsconley wrote:
Thanks and I appreciate talking with you about this stuff. I think we are cut from the same cloth as far as mapping goes.

Rob Conley

I try and try again. The first time is for my graphic training and 2nd time is fire for effect. I think a certain amount of doggedness helps (if you don't know what you're doing!)

When I was drawing the giant Victory In Europe map in the late 70's/early 80's, I made a giant light table out of my smaller sand table. It was 4x6' and with deep sides. I bolted several flourescent fixtures inside the table top and ordered a 4x6'piece of tempered glass (I think) and tried to mount it well enough so it wouldn't slide off and cut my legs off. Because it couldn't just be flat or slightly angled or I'd have to walk around and draw upside down. I mounted it with heavy door hinges to the rafters of the Franklin Mall (I had an apartment overlooking the mall street:
www.franklin-mall.us
...and proceeded to draw up a storm. Later when my father kicked me out because he'd rented my pad to a hairdo parlor, I didn't want to carry the glass with me so I gave it to him and he installed it in his new condo as a picture window between 2 rooms!

Then I moved with my brother's family and together bought the old homestead--a concrete bunker of a house (Miami Modern in central Illinois!) where I got started in wargaming and Bob moved in with me because he had to move from his place too! This meant we got to play a LOT of Hitler's War, A House Divided, Kingmaker and probably other stuff.

It was pretty retro because this is where Mark W and I used to play a lot of Anzio, shooting at tanks and ships with BB guns etc.

FormCritic wrote:How did you first meet Bob?

I had met his cousin Dave Petrowsky and after buying D&D in 1974 I called Dave up to invite him to my 'dungeon' (sounds pretty uninviting, huh?)!

Dave was totally uninterested in fantasy and later always harassed us about how we were fixated on fairies and enthralled with elves. He was a historical miniatures magnate who ended up teaching school after leaving the railroad (they may have flung him off the train, not sure). But think of his lucky (boy) students... refighting at least 2 dozen (he may have more periods of miniatures than that though) battles as SCHOOL. He did want to play the Live Ring Game but mainly to depants people.

Anyway, he said that his cousin Bob might be interested so I called Bob and Marc Summerlott. Bob brought Dave's brother Mike along to my beautiful 3rd floor city apartment which my brother and I had transformed from slumlike torpor. Sitting in my front room overlooking the street, the 4 of us played a completely forgettable D&D game of my own making.

The turning point in history came afterwards when Bob quietly asked, "May I borrow the ruleset?"

Bill Owen wrote:I realize I may have insulted you when I said I couldn't figure why your map didn't have hexes. I tried to make it clear that that may not have been your choice but rather the guys who hired you.

But I'm such a gamer, I'd have hexagons on my toilet paper if my wife would let me. And probably should have a gag on my mouth!

I'm sorry.

Nah I understand your point of view completely. There was a time when I flipped from using a grid (square or hex) to using clear plastic rulers to measure things. Then I kept losing the damn things and I have flipped back to using grids for my own work. All my commercial work has been done with the full hard core JG hex style.

Bill Owen wrote:
I did say the map was beautiful!

Yes you did and also I didn't mention that I am deeply impressed with your normandy. One thing I haven't mastered yet is drawing a map of a real place.

The closest I came was for the live-action role-playing chapter I owned for a couple of years. I ran events for another chapter before buying my own. Running a LARP event is like having a hundred players and dozen co-DMs. One thing I was tired of what player saying "Well I will march to this town (in-game world) get X and march right back in time for the afternoon big battle.

So when I bought my chapter I was given a section of the game world the parent organziation (NERO) uses to for a common campaign world. A part of it fit Western PA perfectly. Western PA (Meadville) is where the chapter was located and where I live. So I decided to transfer as much of Western PA into the in-game map I could. Wherever the camp we used was at that was where it was on the map.

I found it pretty hard to get good detail and have it all fit. Finally I just went with one version that was fairly close. With more practice I think I can do it but haven't had to time to pursue it.

For what it worth it did solve the problem. The second or third event of my chapter a player did indeed try to say "I want to walk to X and get something" I said "ok we are here and X is near Edinboro. Think you can get to Edinboro and back walking from sunup to noon?".  (We were 30 miles away).

Bill Owen wrote:The only glitch is that it does B&W scanning... do you know of anyone that will do giant COLOR scans of, say 17x22" or 22x34" for mouse-sized budgets? I ask re something I think JG fanatics would really like... a pretty definite purpose which is not at present disclosable

Look for places that do poster printing or fine art reproduction. The fine art reproduction places are generally not cost effective for anything other than a one off. The poster places vary and may be open to negotiating better rates.

As for scanning, in recent years most places will take a PDF file on a USB Flash Drive. I know that not the same as what you are talking about but since most of my original work is done on computers it been a LOT easier getting something made since the advent of USB Flash Drives. Just remember to buy another flash drive so you can leave it with them if they can't do it right away.

I will look into seeing what my local blueprint printers have. If I can get my hand drawn maps scanned that will be great. I can not only make more copies but also stitch them together. If the only thing I can fine are b/w scanners than I will just get them scanned and use the scan to draw over on the computer so I can replicate my original drawings.


Good Info

Thanks
Rob Conley

Hi Bill,

I really got a nice laugh when I read some of your auction descriptions on eBay, particularly the ones noting the quality coffee and tea stains laid down by Bob across some book covers and pages.    I guess I find it amusing that today we bag and board these suckers but back in the day these gaming materials were freely used and put in harms way.  Were these spills a frequent occurrence around the JG office?  Were they a frequent occurrence at the gaming table?

Also we know Bob was fond of the toasted style for his maps and scrolls ...were there ever any notable incidents at the table as a result of putting paper to flame that you recall?  Please share if you can as I'm sure everyone here is fascinated hearing about the early goings on around Bob's gaming table when he was DM'ing his Middle-Earth and CSIO campaigns.

Thanks!

islestrike wrote:Hi Bill,

I really got a nice laugh when I read some of your auction descriptions on eBay, particularly the ones noting the quality coffee and tea stains laid down by Bob across some book covers and pages.    I guess I find it amusing that today we bag and board these suckers but back in the day these gaming materials were freely used and put in harms way.  Were these spills a frequent occurrence around the JG office?  Were they a frequent occurrence at the gaming table?

Also we know Bob was fond of the toasted style for his maps and scrolls ...were there ever any notable incidents at the table as a result of putting paper to flame that you recall?  Please share if you can as I'm sure everyone here is fascinated hearing about the early goings on around Bob's gaming table when he was DM'ing his Middle-Earth and CSIO campaigns.

Thanks!

Bob was a major coffee drinker so I know that the spills didn't come from me. He'd be working away on something and accidently throw a coffee slosh spell and say something like "oh dummy me!"

You know someone's made an enormous impact on you when they are gone and you find the words you use are his words... (wistful sigh) ...or when annoyed saying "what is this garbage?!"

We mostly didn't WORK together that much (oddly enough; I guess we were both solitary by preference) but when we did (which is to say, Bob would come up town to the public office), the one big table that was just covered with booklets and maps was a minefield for stable coffee cup placement.

Of course we gamed together a lot both before and after JG (but not during; where was the time?!) and so we had plenty of coke (me!) and coffee spills over games. He'd feel awful and I'd tell him don't worry, you may have IMPROVED this particular game!

Bob would play ALMOST anything so he was sort of the opposite of Mikey and the cereal. And he wasn't a quitter or excessive competitor. Just the other day, Mark was commenting about how Bob caught him off guard as he was making up some fake review about Harry Turtledove's alternate reality book, impromptu like he was reading it off the back cover, in a blase voice... but it was actually Bob's being sarcastic about how insane the author is/was.

Bob did that all the time when we were in his campaign, relaying news like he was a BBC commentator with slight nuances of presentation... he might have been a great Shakespearean actor because of his lack of overacting. But he'd be telling me about how the orc army had carried off Sumerlott's wife and chopped her up... and in a similar tone to over the back fence chat with a neighbor.

He'd get a giant kick out tieing our shoelaces together in game terms and watching us 'hop up and fall down'... he was pretty mischevious that way. And how he'd laugh!!!

I don't remember him making the toasted stuff (which I prized even then but how much of it got scattered or lost?!) while we were there but I can just imagine it (he told me with a pained look at least once about how his scroll artwork burned up while just trying to toast the edges) because I think  he did most of his designing up a stool at his breakfast nook next to the stove where he'd light cigarettes* and throw tea on after making a big, screwed-up face after drinking what was now horrible/cold coffee.

We'd be down at the dining room table rocking and rolling and cutting up. And he'd be saying things like "oh my poor monsters!"

I have fun and think a bit of therapy remembering these things but as Pope John Paul said, MUST GO TO SLEEP NOW.

*This was back before politically-correct, anti-smoking times when I actually took up cigar smoking as self-defense against the staves of stinking.

hey bill

back in the day, who got to DM the most?

and what kind of Dm-ing style was used? this kind of thing always interests me...

thanks

Al

Plaag wrote:Since we know Bob was the writer, did you ever get a name (NPC, place, etc) that Bob liked and included?  How much if any of the situations that happened in the games you played before starting the company made their way into the early stuff?

ShaneG.

Actually I did add to the writing/art but had forgotten it! Huberic of Haghill was my castle art. I only remembered this when I found the color map I'd done first. My memory is really fuzzy but I think it was when I was judging the Mirkwood portion of the campaign later in our D&Ding.

I also wrote up the section on Litigation Tricksters which came from my brother's relaying how lawyers were illegal in ancient China (he had masters degree in Chinese law which in the mid-70's was pretty hard to put into practice) and a bit about Talus caves which I wrote up in the Tacoma Washington library while waiting for my sister to get off work (another lawyer). We went backpacking a lot there in the Olympics or Cascades and of course I was always soaking up topography for fantasy maps.

The biggest transfer from our campaign to JG came via Tegel Manor. We had a great time with this one and I think Bob probably improved on it a  bit but one could estimate that it was 80% original. Most of the other JG material was either new or piecemeal recombined rather than being unibody construction like Tegel.

And this is partly guesswork based purely on faulty memory!

Bob didn't always pass out dungeon levels etc. after a game. In fact, he may have never done this EXCEPT in so far as I was taking over a portion of the campaign when he was in the 'delegating' mode. I think Marc Summerlott (which I assume is at least partly where Thieves of Badabaskor*) was another active delegate and possibly Mark Holmer and Craig Fogle but they will have to speak for themselves.**

*And if you don't recognize the knock-off mountain on that ones cover, then you need to rent Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The best part in that movie was the heat register screws!

**And if forgot someone I've known since high school, please forgive me because I have an old and capricious brain! And this delegation came rather late in our D&D campaign. I don't know if it lasted weeks or months.

Bill Owen wrote:We and a lot of customers liked the classic, olden look of the maps. And I think it's important to remember how our level of quality may have impacted customer usage. What I mean is that if we'd provided extremely high quality (printing wise) materials especially if on slick, glossy paper, how many people would have felt comfortable or even able to mark them up with their own personalization.

I guess this is also a valid observation for game materials in general. A lot of the time, you look at them like museum pieces because they are so slick, well produced and professional that they are perfect without you. A bit of roughness keeps it more personal, more accessible, and since it needs your input, it also encourages and facilitates it.

A question: how many of the old dungeon levels survive? Lonely Mountain and Moria were mentioned as huge, many-level complexes; are these levels comparable to, say, an immense thing like Tegel, or more along the lines of Badabaskor's smaller areas?