Need a hand with some maps...

[Solomoriah]

I'm going to run a non-BFRPG game (as a break from my ongoing campaigns) set in 1937. I need to make a decent floorplan for the small college where one of my player's characters works. Any suggestion on software or sites for making such a plan?

The collect is a former asylum (yup it's that kind of game) which has been converted into a women's college (where the only female PC in the game teaches). It consists of three large buildings, probably three or four stories, along with a smaller two story office building set beside the main gate to the small courtyard area. The outer wall was kept when the college took over the facility, for the safety of the students, but the building interiors were revamped.

The three main buildings are laid out much the same on the outside... oblong buildings with a single longitudinal corridor on each floor and main entrances centrally located on the ground floor. All three had the same original floor plan, with the ground floor having a foyer connected to a common room. One is now a residence hall, and the common room is the dining area; the other two are filled with classroom spaces, and the commons in each of them are laid out with comfy chairs and side tables for studying. The smaller building is office spaces, and probably won't be important in the adventure.

Anyway, while I can ad lib the room descriptions, a map would be nice. Suggestions?

[SmootRK]

University of SC School of Law has some good maps that could be converted for gaming:
http://law.sc.edu/about/directions.shtml

Look about halfway down page for Floorplans to 3 story building.

[Longman]

When I run 'modern' style games I usually do the opposite. Get an series of actual building plans and then key them, rather than visualising what I want and then drawing it.


http://www.cornellcollege.edu/residence ... ns/mn2.gif


Superhero game? Investigation style? Just curious.

[Solomoriah]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Very helpful. Though I am still leaning toward doing the one in my head rather than using someone else's.

Superhero game? Investigation style? Just curious.

Hah, good question. I've presented my players with a deliberately-sketchy set of rules, which do not give away the genre. All I'm going to say is, there will be a learning curve for them...

[Clever_Munkey]

Are you looking for free, or commercial software?

I've never been much impressed with most commercial mapping specific software. Usually you end up paying for a lot of pretty pictures you might never use, and not much actual functionality. I know that most of the people at the cartographer's guild use actual image editing software.

My go to choices for that kind of software are Photoshop, and the GIMP.

I don't think I need to explain Photoshop. It's good, and expensive.

The GIMP is libre, and there are lots of good tutorials on YouTube, and the cartographers guild for how to use it.

There is a bit of a learning curve if you go this route, but you also get the benefit of learning more useful software.

[Metroknight]

I've used gimp to just create colored blocks laid out in the pattern of the buildings and put text description of the buildings like "library" or "Cafeteria". I have even put smaller color blocks on the larger ones to define specific areas with the text saying "Prof. Etsy office" or even "Janitorial closet".

To me this helps keep it more in the realm of theater of the mind than going tactical mapping that blueprints or actual maps actually encourage.

[Solomoriah]

I'm at about a journeyman level in Gimp. My problem is that I'm not good at planning modern buildings. Too much time laying out castles...

[croaker260]

Have you looked at the call of Cthulhu adventure books? Most are set in the 1920s and 1930s and are pretty decently done. I've purchased them for this very purpose and used them in a Palladium Beyond the Supernatural Game.

Examples:

http://www.chaosium.com/secrets-of-new-york/

http://www.chaosium.com/secrets-of-los-angeles-pdf/


I know there are others.

Steve

[Solomoriah]

I'm familiar with CoC. But part of the rationale of this game is that the players do not really know what to expect... using rules that are intentionally incomplete and do not reference a specific genre helps with that.