possible new real works user!!

[Cedriss]

I have a quick question
i'm considering buying Realm Work
i want to know if Real Works allow you to design you maps from the world view down to the dungeon level or I need to use a third party software to design my maps and then import them in realm works?

Thanks you for you help!

[meek75]

You can load your maps into realm works and create links to other maps or topics, but RW is not a map creation tool. If you want to create a map you need something like campaign cartographer, photo shop, or GIMP.

[Pollution]

What Meek75 said.

BUT, here's the important thing, you can map out your dungeon (or country, or town, or whatever) in Realmworks as topics and entries and other entries.

So, what you'd normally do, is create your maps (say a dungeon) and then import that image to use as your map.

Then you'll put pins in the map and link those to topics.

Here's a great blog on how to do this for a HUGE map containing EVERYTHING on a single continent.

http://ghmaps.net/tag/realm-works/

[MNBlockHead]

I highly recommend reading Anna Meyer's blog post that Pollution linked to above. I started with a very large high-resolution world map and just started putting pins into it. When zoomed out, it looks very messy, but due to the resolution I can easily zoom into an area to to look at the pins in that area.

But I wish I had done something more like what Meyer did. It makes things more manageable, but instead of a grid system, what I am planning on doing is:

In my "Known World" topic have a the map with high-contrast borders for the major realms and regions. Each realm would have a single pin that would be linked to that kingdoms topic. I may have some special borders for major regions that span kingdoms or are outside of kingdoms, but I will try to be very conservative here to avoid making things too messy.

Then in the realm's topic, I would have a map with the borders of the provinces, states, etc. highlighted and pin in each area linked to that province's, state's, etc. topic. Some of the major cities would have pins at this level, but again, I would try to keep it spartan.

At the state, province, etc. topic I would have a map which would have pins to cities and some major areas.

Beyond this, things get fleshed out as the campaign progresses. I use hexographer to keep the fleshing out simple and add the maps to appropriate topics in Realmworks.