I know we can purchase pdfs of the campaign maps but has anyone ever reprinted just the maps? Or purchased the PDF to print? How did it turn out?

It seems that everywhere (DriveThruRPG, wargame vault, etc) is running the 18 campaign maps in pdf format for $14 and Aaron has certain original maps for sale over at NKG for under $5 each.

Just wondering if anyone's purchased the pdf and tried to print them out and if so, how does the end result look? What kind of paper did you use? Would you do it again or would you purchase all originals? I think we all agree that the campaign maps are something that JG did correctly from the start.

If purchasing the pdfs, which link should I go through to make sure the most money gets back to JG? Thanks in advance!

Agree with the post above.
The JG maps (in the original form) are not all that hard to find on the Internet in print form.

I once scanned some JG maps for Bill Owen.
We wanted to see if they could be scanned and saved to a file and then re-printed at a quality that would come close to the originals.

My scans went off just fine, but printing was a chore for any printer including my high end large format plotter/scanner/printer.
The map copies came out ok too and would be fine for playing copies, but the coloring was not quite right and of course the feel was not there either.
(FWIW: I am NOT a professional, like the folks who made the PDFs being sold On-Line)
You can easily tell the difference between the originals and the copies I printed out by sight and it would not matter what sort of media I used either.
Even when viewed on a computer screen the scans of the copies I made are easy to tell from the originals.
Not to mention the FEEL of the original heavy bumpy brown/tan colored paper is also quite impossible to duplicate.

During our discussions; Bill told me that he had not been able to locate any paper (or paper manufacturers) that could duplicate that original paper type, which if used instead of the paper I used, would print MUCH closer to the true original form of those old maps.
It aint just the ink, or the printer, its the paper too.
And yes, it costs a lot to print those maps... ink galore was used....

This was all done before the PDFs that are now for sale on-line were created (By others).
I would not hesitate to buy those PDFs if I did not own originals of the maps.
In fact; even though I do own original copies of the maps, I have been debating with myself for a long time about buying the PDFs anyway.
But that said, I would not bother trying to print anything more than rough playing copies with a regular printer and even then I would only print whatever section of the map being used at that time through the game/campaign being run.

I buy the original Judges Guild maps whenever I can and I do have some extra original maps, and I aint gonna let em go either.
However, I did keep the test copies I printed back then and I will use them for personal playing copies.

Someone here has the original hex grid that was used to print the JG maps.

Thanks guys for all your input....I will probably just buy a set of the originals as I find them.

If I had a copy of all of the Wilderlands Campaign, and other JG maps (IE. City State Maps, etc.), I would not bother buying the PDFs
Since I have easy access to a large enough printer to print out full scale copies for playing with.
That way I could write on them and not worry about marking up an original map.
Unfortuntely, I dont have them all and some of the original maps I do have are damaged in some way (Seperated at the folds, or torn) and some of the original maps I have are heavily written on and marked up with highlighters and even magic markers.

The PDFs would allow me to print small area copies for mark ups, so I may indeed buy them at some point.

Here are two of the maps I scanned and then made copies of.
I scanned the maps at a very High resolution and then printed my test copies at a fast print speed (fast print speed = low res = less ink used).
They were test copies after all.

The images below are much reduced images of the scans.
The copies I made from the scans had yellow areas that came up that were not on the originals and the scans show some of that, though with the small size of the images below they are not easy to see.
The darker maps actually printed better than the lighter colored maps.
I have not tried it yet, but I think if I used a lower resolution for scans the yellowing might not show on prints made from the scans.

As you can tell, the maps below are easily useable as playing copies and when printed at normal speed they are no worse than the scans, though the yellowing is still present as are the fold lines.
(Obviously all of my originals have the fold lines, so scans and copies will too).

The First Fantasy Campaign Map.



The City State Campaign Map One.

This link tells you which maps were given individual product numbers as they were sold separately.  The ones without product numbers were not sold separately.

http://www.acaeum.com/jg/CampaignMaps.html

I'm looking through my doubles to see what I might have to trade with you.

Is the Modron map Players or Judge?

Gnat the Beggar wrote:IO: Did not see this back in November when you posted it.
Do you still have those extra Maps and are you still looking for Judges Guild Stuff to copplete some sets?

I am always on the lookout for extra Judges Guild stuff, especially Maps.

Would you happen to have any of these?

Book of Ruins
Escape From Astigars Lair (any print)
Field Guide to Encounters
Flotilla One
GenCon IX Dungeons (any print)
House on Hangmans Hill
Lara's Tower
Mines of Custalcon (any print)
Ravenscrag
Survival of the Fitest (any print)
Under the Storm Giants Castle (any print)

Gnat the Beggar wrote:IO: Did not see this back in November when you posted it.
Do you still have those extra Maps and are you still looking for Judges Guild Stuff to complete some sets?

I am always on the lookout for extra Judges Guild stuff, especially Maps.

E-Mail Sent

Admittedly, this is an exceptionally old post, but, as I've spent the better part of two weeks digging for the maps, I felt compelled to post.

I forget how I discovered Tegel Manor (I've never played it), but as soon as I saw the map, I was gah gah.  I'd kinda like to get an original map, but not to use in play.  Here's why:

AutoCAD and most image processors have ways of integrating PDF's in the program.  In AutoCAD, you can attach the PDF and then outline it.  No, the image isn't perfect but it WILL allow one to produce a crisp clean image in w/e format you want... on w/e paper you want.  If you additionally have access to an Cannon iPF printer, you can print to ARCH E (36 x 48) on Velum, matte bonded or w/e else you can find.

It does NOT cost that much money to print anymore and frankly, for the size of the map in question (17x22), the amount of ink you'd use might come out to $.50.  Maybe.

Photoshop can do the same the same thing, but as the map is really an architectural blueprint, AutoCAD Architect is probably the BEST possible way to reproduce the building map for your own personal use.

The only problem with PDF's and reprinting them is that there's data loss and whatever some bozo drew/wrote/scribbled on there previously.

 Take, for instance, the border of the map.  I can't actually make out all of the details on that.  I can guess, but that's not the same.  One solution may be to clip multiple sections of it and then over lay them in gimp/photoshop then eleminate the light pixels that occur when zoomed in to pixel level.  And, the PDF version that RPG supplies has some noobs faint cavern sketchs on the GM's map.  SO irratating.

Re-drawing only a fourth of it took me 5 or 6 hours.  This is mostly caused by the fact that autoCAD is a vector software, so it doesn't do well drawing out hand sketchs.  You can use GIMP to do the statues/rocks/trees/etc, but you'll still need to convert if from a raster image to vectors... which may not convert cleanly.

Anyway, my $.02