A 3x5 Map Experiment

Those who have read my blog know that I am a big fan of geomorphs. They are a fantastic tool for coming up with dungeons on the fly — especially those with a distinctly old-school flair. There are those, however, that balk at the seeming "uniformity" of maps generated by such a method. Since essentially all of the geomorphs over at Dave's Mapper are 100' x 100' all of the maps tend to be the same overall shape, even though the interiors might be radically different.

Enter the map I stitched together of maps drawn by Dyson. There have been a lot of positive comments about it. One that jumped out at me was that it seems more organic than other types of maps (the blocky nature of geomorphs, for example). This got me thinking of another way to implement the geomorph concept while getting a more organic outcome.

Most of the maps I used to generate this map were originally on 3x5 index cards. What if mappers out there produced a slew of 3x5 map areas with one or more ways to connect their map to other 3x5 maps. Here's the kicker: don't use a graph grid and don't worry how or where the connection happens. The result will be that the 3x5 card can connect, but not necessarily in a block — it creates a greater possibility to produce organic looking maps.

So, I quickly drew some up myself:

I then placed them together in order to create this:

Though not as organic as my inspiration, I don't think anyone could accuse it of being blocky. This being my first attempt, one thing I would do in the future is avoid getting too close to the edge of the card save for one or two rooms.

Anybody out there willing to take up the challenge?