How to Draw Your Own D&D City Map!!!

I figured out a super easy way to draw awesome looking city maps for your D&D campaign. Hope you try it out. I promise it's really easy, just takes a bit of planning!!!
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[@turbo.panther]

I don't need a map but suddenly I need to make one. Or two. Or three.........

[@qwertyuiop-cy5en]

or 10 for my nonexistant dnd campaign

[@edison7300037]

i don't even play d&d, and now i wanna play it.

[@Voron_Aggrav]

I tend to make (crude) maps out of loose wrist just for fun, I'm not a great artist and my hand I simply cannot keep steady but it's relatively easy to draw maps to just do something to occupy time

[@infinitetransit2899]

@@Voron_Aggrav I wanna make a big detailed map of my neighbourhood.

[@Voron_Aggrav]

@@infinitetransit2899 I'd say start with walking through it with a clipboard and roughly draw as you go through, then afterwards use that as a note to make it a bit more accurate and detailed Do make sure what you're doing is Safe, and try and avoid places that could be considered dangerous

[@danilooliveira6580]

I'll give 3 tips for everyone interested in creating their own maps first, just look real historic city maps if you are having a problem with layout of the city or how something is supposed to look in a map. my second tip is don't be conservative with farm land, back in the day a big city would be completely wrapped in farmland. if you look at a map like 15th century paris you will see that every bit of land that doesn't have a building in it is taken by a farm. (its something that fiction books and shows fail every time, so we only get that old cliche of a huge castle with walls in the middle of nowhere that is supposed to be a city) my last tip is while its common for the rich to live inside the city walls, with the most rich living closer to the center, the super rich and nobles would actually live in states outside the city walls, maybe even a section of the city with a secondary set of walls (or not depending on the political scenery of the world) with just huge palaces close to each other. and as a bonus tip, figure out if your map exists in the game world, or if its just a guide for the players. a official map wouldn't show structures inside the city blocks with a lot of clarity (since its been done by someone walking around the streets measuring every road, building and alley), but a guide for the players would have important land marks with more details, maybe icons to mark important places like secret entrances they found

[@jack1701e]

I remember that ages ago the Yogscast had a reading of one of their member's stories and it had a city that had every space it could turned to farming, from the sides of streets to windowsills. Not really a thing you can do on a map but it's the only time in fiction I could think of that related to tip 2.

[@danilooliveira6580]

@@jack1701e yeah, every time I see a show/book that fail at tip 2, I can only think "what all those people eat ?" and sometimes related to that when a "city" is just a castle "where those 100k soldiers live ? also... what do they eat ?"

[@macs.9644]

Thanks, as a DM who's starting to try to draw (I,m bad but getting better) your's and JP's ideas are really helpful

[@xXN0cturnXx]

i dont know why am i watching and reading this. iam not going to draw a map but this is still very interesting and helpful.

[@scottmills4164]

@@xXN0cturnXx Art is art my friend

[@evilcornet309]

That's why in our D&D campaigns we only visit villages or small town XD

[@eaterofchildren_]

Its not hard to make a cool one 😛

[@Version0111]

When drawing the buildings it's important to keep it in your mind that every building needs to be accessible by the street. don't draw buildings around another that will stop people from being able to access them. The best way to do this is to try to imagine where the doors will be on every tiny building you draw.

[@crystab3244]

Hey that's a really good tip I hadn't thought of, thanks!

[@duanevp]

Nope. Don't worry about that. Any building that cannot be reached from the street becomes a secret/special something or other. Thieves guild or assassin's guild with a secret entrance at the back of the bakery and an escape door through the pawn shop on the other side that actually fences the stolen goods. Or spaces that are blocked in by other buildings become community courtyards that only have access from surrounding buildings. Or it's "The OLD Thingawhatzis" that the new thingawatzis was later built next to but then surrounded because it didn't need other entrances. Or it's a building of it's own but only has access from another, NEWER part of a surrounding building that's owned by the same merchant - like his house that's only accessed from the back room of his shop.

[@danilooliveira6580]

@@duanevp except structures like that wouldn't be visible in a official city map. that is why its also important to think if its a real map that exist in the game universe, or just a guide for the players. a official map wouldn't show structures inside the city blocks with a lot of clarity (since its been done by someone walking around the streets measuring every road, building and alley), but a guide for the players would have important land marks with more details, maybe icons to mark important places like secret entrances they found or maybe even interior of buildings.

[@stJules]

@@duanevp Begijnhof in Amsterdam is a good example.

[@somebloke3869]

My players recently noticed such a building on a store bought map they have been using for sometime now. It became apartments for the people that owned the shops surrounding it. I wish I had of noticed it myself and had time to come up with a better idea, like secretive guilds.

[@AbuAli-ff8yh]

Scan this, print a copy. And use a tea-method to make the map look ancient. I reckon it would make it look cool

[@gormauslander]

This style of "making things look good because there's a lot" is a practice in the compound effect. It's not any one single item on this that looks good, but many small things, built over time, creates a larger effort. It's like the choices we make. There isn't a single one that leads to success, but many good choices built up over time Yes, I would recommend reading "the compound effect" or "the slight edge".

[@richardfritz2436]

It's good to remember that many cities had more walls that were built in a concentric pattern. It looks like this city has need of an additional wall farther out to cover the significant structures on the outside of the "old town." The old walls would have their gates that would lead to newer portions of the town. Good job.

[@BenjaminScottCampbell]

Not a D&D player, some friends are, but as I've been designing my own world map, I've found more and more I need to hone in on the specific localities the characters inhabit, and this video has surely succeeded in demonstrating how easy it is to get started with a city map that looks good and feels authentic. I think it's important too, for a slightly more advanced map, to understand the history of the city, to know what buildings and features were erected or happened at which point in time, as that will influence the sprawl and the sectioning of the city. Thanks for this brief but helpful video.

[@Kuhmuhnistische_Partei]

Honestly, a very good way to take inspiration is to look at 16th century city maps. Those are the earliest top-down maps of European cities you can find, they are fairly accurate (I know some maps of cities I lived in and can pinpoint specific buildings) and aren't that different from the medieval state of those cities, probably just a bit denser and the city walls are sometimes already bastion-style because of cannons and whatnot. But what you will find is that medieval (or to be precize early modern) cities were not that densely filled out with buildings. The cities usually consisted of mostly squares and rectangles (and sometimes different shapes) of houses with rather big garden areas in the middle. Usually around 5-15 buildings next to each other would make up each side of those shapes. In the denser areas of the cities the gardens would be replaced with more housing while in less populated areas (maybe an area that was only recentky walled in) you may have more or less free fields with only a few buildings on them. Some rich burghers would also just buy properties and keep those areas as their personal gardens. I can especially recommend the maps made by Frans Hogenberg and Georg Braun in their work " Civitates Orbis Terrarum" literally advertised in modern times as "Google Earth's ancestor".

[@TGMinnieeMee]

I love the passion and quality you put into this video!

[@jackgraham3988]

First video I've seen from you and already this is one of my favourite youtube channels. You bring a great energy to this game and your players are incredibly lucky to have you as a DM!

[@haven444]

That was great, definitely look forward to more map making videos

[@glitchxero4687]

Watching your videos makes me want to draw maps. I have nothing to draw them for, but I want to draw them anyway. 😅

[@graceborne]

That map is fantastic! Thanks for the inspiration!

[@nightwatcher1650]

This video was very informative for me to make a map of one specific fictional city/base of operations that my fictional female character resides in. Sorry for any confusion. The fictional city and character are not involved with Dungeons and Dragons in anyway but I still haven’t figured out what this will turn out to be. Keep up the good work.

[@legionarmatay4399]

Very cool, I'll definitely use some of this advices to build a fricking giant map. It'll take a lot of time tho because I'm creating my own roleplaying game and it's about space and planets and stuff

[@danielearnshaw8392]

Good luck!

[@citroken]

Nice! My bf is working on a sci-fi dnd campaign and I'm so divided on what race my character will be since he's willing to let anyone come up with basically anything. There's a lot of paths you could go down in terms of story and characters! Have fun!

[@isaiahdinkel5405]

Plot twist: Makes map of a country with every city street lovingly drawn and measured. Every building carefully textured. Every blade of grass exactly as imagined.

[@eaterofchildren_]

How did it go

[@legionarmatay4399]

@@eaterofchildren_ I started to use Inkarnate to make maps lol, for my game I'll probably use a map made on Inkarnate and modify it on Photoshop, that seems like the fastest method to make big maps in a short ammount of time

[@okaybrandon8021]

Thanks, JP! Your simple and effective approach really gives me hope!!! I'm learning to draw to eventually illustrate my new board game prototype for a deeper immersion, and your videos are really helping me approaching the task in a very practical way! Also, great sofa cushion, may the force be with you!

[@IngoMenhard]

This is awesome! Great work!

[@weckar]

I love how you do your cliffs.

[@scribblingjoe]

These are some great tips! Especially, making a key and writing out your main sites prior to drawing the map.

[@Horologium]

very paced and well-laid-out kind of tutorial. Thank you!

[@deromilly]

And once it's drawn, make sure you photocopy it in multiples, or scan it into your computer... because the players (or you) WILL spill coffee on it or otherwise destroy it. And reproducing something that's already been in use is a thousand times harder than creating something out of your brain. Ask me how I know...

[@navidryanrouf441]

I feel u man o7

[@prollybee]

i love your map, but also that little song that played gave me so much life 😭❤️

[@shahadbaharith2298]

Man... I can’t thank you enough for this video, I’ve been struggling so much for creating a map and now I feel like it’ll be a lot easier

[@oddlevi582]

Love your map and love your t-shirt!

[@ankabut92]

Hey, awesome work! I have done some in my D&D days, but your process of doing it is much less exhausting and looks so natural! Thanks for sharing this method, great video!

[@IceFire1800]

I came here looking for tips on making a map. I didn't expect to leave so inspired to make a map. Cheers mate!

[@Nicole-hearthemouseroar]

Super helpful! I was pretty stumped on where to begin but this, especially the tip about the keys, has sped things up tremendously. Thanks!

[@jackiea.9291]

I haven't been able to play in some time but recently I've been getting that creative 'itch'. And I've wanted to start my own campaign and draw my own maps. After watching this video it definitely feels way less intimidating 😂 very simple with an amazing out come. I'll definitely be using these ideas! Thank you!

[@TamarinFrog]

This is also very good for a comic maker like myself. I've been meaning to make a map of the city my comic takes place in. Thanks for a great video!

[@ghostparty2062]

I'm gonna have to try this right now for my city of SparkSpire!!!! Awesome 👌

[@Decado1628]

I am working on fleshing out a city for my homebrew campaign. Thanks for the video, its a big help!

[@empiretop10guy]

I love this guy's voice it's so calm

[@Sadhow6]

Great Tutorial. Thanks for showing how you did it. Many thanks

[@johnleach8553]

Very cool. Thanks. I will definately be using this to draw my own city maps

[@armorvestrus4119]

Your art is so interesting, I tried making one of your examples and it turned out great. The icons of texture and the colors bring it all together very well. Thank you for sharing your art. It is more fun when made simple. I am able to draw exact maps with measured lines and Azimuths but these types of maps are fun and useable for certain things.

[@puebloblau]

I just found this randomly on here a few days ago and I really love this channel by now

[@orcunorenel7866]

That was awesome man !!! I'm grateful to you sir !!

[@shortvideomakers.3295]

Wow , so beautiful and talented drawing

[@gentlemist4732]

This is so cool!! Please make more of these. This helped me so much.

[@JPCoovert]

Thank you! There are several more map tutorials on the channel. Definitely doing more too! Isometric maps is up next in a week or two!

[@tafa_matai3184]

Why am I unsurprised this genius is a matt colville fan😂 excellent vid man, cant wait to do my own!

[@ExTaiga]

Hey man, i just started following you, and let me just say, YOUR WORK ROCKS!!! there are so many great tips and the way you explain stuff is really easy to remember. Looking forward to more videos!!

[@JPCoovert]

Thank you!

[@WhistlePigZILLA]

I'm preparing a pirate campaign and just finished the primary map for the island and am moving on to make a map of the main port city. I plan to make a larger map with much more detail but this will be a huge aid to get everything laid out step-by-step so there's no guesswork in the main event. Thank you so much

[@lucforme]

Looks nice. Good job mate!

[@photonz1812]

Building my first fully fledged city, last one was just a country village. This has been most helpful. I have four other major cities to map out on A3 and was dreading it until this vid. Thank you kind Sir, Fort Wilton can now finally take form!

[@thomasgordon2855]

Just what I was looking for!! Thanks so much!

[@normalmrniceguy2746]

Very cool!

[@SkaterChan]

So sick JP! Even though I don't have anyone to play with, you make me want to make a world!

[@willshy4347]

awesome work! this is super helpful.

[@ZooKeePla]

Whew I'm glad I wasn't crazy at doing this kind of stuff, 10/10. I can still picture out the layout in my head, along with the fantasy world I made up with it.

[@christianpage5569]

Nice choice in pen, those uniball's are my favorite.

[@RomanEmin]

Really cool video, nice artwork!

[@johnkordosh3517]

This is great! Thanks so much

[@cordthomas97]

Great breakdown

[@lounakornobis7036]

Thanks a lot for all your percious advice ! I enjoy drawing some maps but with those tips they are going to be much more better than before ! (sorry for my english, i speak french normally)

[@rentheseer190]

Thanks for your tutorial. I never properly could get started, and I wanted to thank you personally. I even uploaded it on my twitter and. It's pretty dense stuff to just make these from nothing. Pretty time consuming, and of course... It still turned out good. At least thats what my friends keep saying. Again. Thank you so much. You are an amazing guy.

[@glennk.7348]

So great! I’m going to by some pens today!

[@shi90s]

Thank you so much! This was great help.

[@vvessel_]

Thanks! Great help.

[@KrishnaRSampath]

This is a fantastic video -- thanks for de-mystifying the map-making process. Your map is beautiful, yet you make it seem so effortless! It has inspired me to try my hand at this over the weekend in prep for my first ever campaign as a DM.

[@JPCoovert]

You're going to have so much fun!!!

[@honooryu5374]

This is very helpful and awesome, so thank you very much for this video.

[@xila762]

Very Nice!

[@outcastforever1876]

This Was amazing thank you so much now I can post it on my Twitter for my followers. And they have something free to play I have always loved to create city maps from when I was a small child for some reason ^-^ so this is perfect

[@bbdd1967]

You seem like a happy kind dude. Way to be my guy.

[@squirtleknight8333]

Ayyy I love the map and that sweet MCDM shirt!

[@brinar1992]

Man, found your chanel just today, and i whant to say, your maps are great! 👍

[@Glaswalker1001]

Maps are great for dnd. Especially if the characters stay in that area for some time. What I found out was that road and location names are more relevant than detailed layouts.

[@PH-rx8hw]

So cool

[@jameswilloughby4381]

Been stressing trying to use online systems and stuff. But now seen this I’m just gonna do this, thanks buddy. Subscribed to 😊

[@Marco-yb1gh]

Love the shirt!

[@cheneviv]

This is great!

[@knighttzd8904]

i love al your maps

[@VeteranDecanus86]

Great video! Very helpful; thanks for making it simpler for new DMs like me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@christianmichaels5162]

Haven't watched the video yet, instant like for the MCDM shirt! Edit: Started watching it, noticed you're using my favorite pen too. Can I double-like?

[@fedec35]

I love it!

[@RafaelCavalcantePaulino]

Amazing!

[@arekschneyer3802]

Choob! awesome video. Awesome shirt.

[@vinitatyagi7763]

Fantastic

[@sebastiantapia804]

I really like your handwriting

[@user-sd7uc1ev1z]

It's awesome pal!

[@yannberte8291]

Really nice to watch someone completly involved in DnD ! I discovered DnD in 78, I was 13 and it was my first year of english lessons at school, I'm french... Then I was learning english with the first box of DnD (imported from USA) : "Crossbow, two handed sword, axe battle, helmet... My teacher couldn't told me anything cause of my vocabulary directly coming from the middle age ;-) Poor girl..., It's nice Shakespeare but I prefered talking about "spear" - she didn't knew Lord of the Ring ;-)) At my 18 we were a group of 7guys and one girl and we spent sooo many nights playing DnD... I was the Dungeon Master, a good school to understand the art of movie script !!! Nice to met u guy ;-)

[@bryanpaz3487]

That is amazing and simple, I love making maps for different adventures

[@eclatshwartzbaumcybertune2063]

Amazing!!

[@robin251995]

I have to say your video really helped me learn how to just simply draw aspects of a city and it helped me get rid of a lot of anxiety I had around drawing it. I learn the best when I am shown how to do something and I cannot stress how helpful it was for me to just see the process of drawing these city elements. I also just love the style its simple but very complicated at the same time. Thank you for sharing you skills and knowledge for other world builders!

[@JPCoovert]

This means so much to me! Thank you!!!!

[@ezequielpereyra1900]

wow!, i love it, the 8 bit music too :D

[@sablesanctum]

The metor crater was a really neat idea.

[@TipsJunction]

Thank you so much it is so fun

[@Hireling]

I used to do this back in the 90s...running 2nd edition. I drew numerous city maps on poster board...very large maps. It took me a good 2-3 days per map to complete. If you enjoy drawing, then good-on-ya. But I've left that far behind me with easy to use computer map-makers. I use Inkarnate.,,best decision I've made for map-making. Great video. Cheers!

[@joaohenriqueabreu9786]

Amazing

[@sniper4719]

Hi JP, cool video. I really like the style and that you cut down a complex map into small pieces that are easy to draw and replicate by others. It would not be me without some comments and observations from my GMing career :) When I was comparing my old maps between each other and why I like some more than others, I found out that those which have generally the same density in each part are less pleasing to and eye and also less realistic. It is good to have some changes - some blanker areas, some building bigger (temples, noble villas, warehouses) - to have a small hill in one part of town with different roads, scarcer building,, small fort or such. For see, I would put much much scarcer the additional waves and ships, or put them not there at all (or maybe just one with extra details as an eye-catcher, but then similar things should be on a whole map). I also believe that there should be more obvious main roads leading from the town - most buildings should be around them and spreading further from the town, whereas in directions without such roads the town should end much closer to the center. That is a realistic behavior of people when they build their houses and workshops - they primarily go where is already traffic and commerce. There are exceptions but they always have a reason - some farmhouse or manor can be intentionally built in less occupied areas to be out of the main rush of town and close to the surrounding countryside.

[@madmicky]

Thank you so much for this ^^

[@gstaff1234]

Great looking T-Shirt (follow that channel too)...Thanks for the advice to plan out the symbols and outline ideas upfront

[@crystab3244]

Oh my gosh I've been struggling with making a map for my giant main city and this helps so much! Thank you! (I'll make sure to come back and link a picture once I finish it. :) )

[@guru_lakhima]

i'm in don't forget to link!

[@Jrocker105MC]

I too am in for this link

[@thomaswilson9925]

Thé lînk

[@kockaspizzounahlave1510]

Give me the L I N K.

[@Voron_Aggrav]

Just to be different whilst chipping in, pretty kitty :)

[@christiantyrann1512]

Hey, I just want to thank you for your awsome super inspiring videos. I had been struggling for sometime with digital mapmaking tools but didnt get it where i wanted, then i found you and realized that going back to hand drawing is more fun for me. So ive painted a couple maps with pens and watercolor, if you are interested in seeing them id be happy to share with you. Big ups to you, keep your fantastic videos coming!

[@JPCoovert]

That's so awesome to hear!!! Tag me on Instagram or Twitter!

[@Diabolik771]

Now you have to make a note card for each building with a brief description

[@somebloke3869]

But not right now. Only when a player goes to that building or is looking for a certain place, then it becomes a true part of the city.

[@Diabolik771]

@@somebloke3869 I've made these types of maps for Loftwick and Erehei-Cinlu and Greyhawk. The cards fill a small file box. Lot of work.

[@somebloke3869]

I love to play in Greyhawk with a GM that takes the time to bring the town's to life. I use note books and I don't do enough gaming to need more than a single note book.

[@beastmodegears3279]

Damn where was this when I needed this

[@victorpolito9508]

Man, you are amazing!!, I can't belive that I just see. Thanks for do it, and thanks again for use a easy english words and good voice. I understand a lot. Greetings from Buenos Aires, capital city of Argentina. (sorry my horrible gramatics)

[@oysterstu4822]

I love you channel! One thing I'd love to see that I've never seen anyone draw/map out is the local solar system for 5e. A sort of star chart would be so cool!

[@JPCoovert]

Ohhh! That's very interesting. LOVE the idea of a pantheon of gods based on constellations.

[@alexmiller1800]

I really like this map design style. Personally, I’m working on a Campaign that takes place almost entirely within a city, so I feel that making the city well detailed and designed will help make the setting feel bigger than it actually is. Plus, a visual helps me think. If/when I play this Campaign I’ll have a color key to mark buildings of importance that way I can keep consistency in my game world, especially since the people I play with seem to enjoy going off on their own mini adventures. This way I can keep track of any locations I have to improvise.

[@mikezollo7417]

Hello there map drawer, I like the way you map everything out before the drawing, I like to say that is great work, I have been drawing maps too, but mostly city street maps of made up places on the paint brush program, Anyway, Maybe I could show you some of my work sometime in the near future,..

[@daveyg34]

Damn this looks so good.