Mapping and NPCs

[Solo4114]

When you guys are making your own homebrew campaigns and adventures, how much time do you spend actually drawing out maps? How often do you provide maps to your players?

Similarly, how much time do you spend drawing up NPCs? Or do you pretty much just throw generic stormtroopers and officers at players and go from there?

I'm wondering because I'm thinking of seriously trying to build out my campaign idea so that my regular group can play it as an alternative to D&D (especially since our DM is getting near a point where he won't have a ton more sessions generated and will need time to prepare).

I've been doing some similar work on a D&D campaign and came to the conclusion that my maps don't actually need to be detailed for that, as long as it provides me with a sense of where everything is in relation to other stuff. (E.g., "If you go west, you'll come to a village. To the east lie the mountains. In the north is a large lake. To the south is a fortress." You get the idea.)

The "pretty" maps that I'd consider handing out would be more just to give players a sense of where they are in a way that doesn't look like the various geometric shapes connected by lines that I'm doing in MS Paint for my DM map.

[Dredwulf60]

These days I play at a virtual table-top. (Roll20).

When my players visit a location I usually depict it with a few photographs.

If they are going to a forest planet, I show them a forest. If they are going to a desert planet, I find an image of a desert.

From there it's just a matter of description. If I know there is likely to be a fight at a location, I'll find a suitable map or floorplan online, or I'll sketch one out.

Unlike D&D I find detailed maps in Star Wars more of a hindrance than a help, since the game isn't really about exploring places and looking for secret doors.
I just need to put something in the mind's eye of the players and go with descriptions.

The same goes for NPCs. Most of the time an NPC is an image of a person or alien I've found in a google image search that fits the bill. To that I attach a name and a basic write-up of who they are. That write up is sufficient to assign them some stats on the fly if it turns out one of my players gets into an unexpected fight with them.

When I anticipate a fight, I usually have the NPCs with tokens to move around the map and just enough stats to get the job done.

[RyanDarkstar]

[garhkal]

[Solo4114]

I mentioned in another thread that I'm planning on doing a series of adventures that are structured around old WWII commando movies (e.g. The Guns of Navaronne).

I'm thinking that for things like "infiltrate the enemy fortress" I'm actually going to need some real maps so I know where folks are going and what obstacles they might run into along the way. Not, like, to the level of the whole Death Star Technical Manual, but at least something that lets me know roughly where folks are headed and what's in their path.

I'm thinking that it'd be helpful to provide them with rough blueprints based on "collected intelligence" or whathaveyou so that they can plan their attacks. And of course, the intel would never be complete or completely accurate.

[ThrorII]

I tend to stat out common 'genereic' NPCs on my down time, so as to have them when I need them. Sometimes its just a matter of cutting/pasting stuff from the Galaxy Guides or other places.

I keep a document of stormtroopers, scout troopers, generic Imperial officers, bounty hunters, etc.

As far as maps go, if I can't steal one of the internet, I don't bother. I run a 'theatre of the mind'. I don't use mini's, so any map is just for point of reference for the players.

[Tupteq]

I'm rarely draw any map up front. Only for important encounters (e.g. very tactical fights) or for dungeon crawling adventures. On the other hand we often use ad-hoc hand written maps with PCs and NPCs drawn directly on map.

With NPCs - I'm printing a photo (found online) of one important NPC before game session. Sometimes I'm showing to players pictures of NPCs on my laptop (usually alien races they don't know). With NPC stats - I'm delaying writing them down as much as possible, I don't create them until they are really needed. For thugs I reduce stats to minimal set like: initiative, attack, damage, dodge, soak (+armor).

[griff]

I always liked drawing out maps. Especially for places the characters spend a lot of time.
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"EXECUTE ORDER 67. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like order 67..... No, wait. Yes, yes it does. EXECUTE ORDER 68" Palpatine's last moments - robot chicken.