With the winners of this round announced, I almost feel like I'm kicking the cartographer while he's down. I--almost--feel a little bad about it. Almost.
Mercy is not in this Captain's line of work. Nor was it present in anyone else's when telling me how awful my map was. But that's okay, because I already knew that.
(Also, I'm going to go through these without double-checking which ones made the cut. As if that somehow made a difference in my exceedingly opinionated ranting.)
The Weeping Garden of Naderi
The layout of this one feels really well done. It's a walled garden in a bustling city, and it sure feels that way. While symmetry often feels boring on these maps, it sort of works here. The location isn't so big or closed-in that the symmetry feels forced or bland. It really kind of contributes the circular nature of it.
It's also filled with haunts, which are cool, I guess. What concerns me most here would be interesting encounters. Sure, there's a bunch of haunts in these little garden chamber things and it's a nice location for a big open fight or something... but I guess the most interesting thing that could happen here is a creature charging through the bushes and ignoring the grass walls. And then, really, all you have is a big circle with a couple of sight-blocking obstacles and some haunts you probably don't want to poke.
Feedlot CL-477
Man, I am so jealous of people that can draw. "Here's an awesome map that looks really well done on the grid and hey, here's an isometric view of the building just 'cuz." I can't even draw stick figures well. You guys suck.
I mean, you don't suck. That's the problem. This is place is awesome. And by that I mean it's awful. Holy crap is this place terrible. It's goddamn glorious in its awfulness. This is another case of symmetry done right. It looks amazing from the isometric view, and looks amazing from the game-grid view. And it's insanely cinematic. This is the stuff of nightmares and oft-retold RPG stories.
Apiary of the Aurulent Brothers
I have no idea what's going on here. There's like two different buildings and a side view and an explanation that doesn't really help at all. There's a lot going on here and not a whole lot of cinematic value to this. There's a mad herbalist! Living in a box, apparently? A box he has to waddle to on stepping stones over a pond? A pond.. on the terrace? And there's bees! Bees! I'm just not really seeing a point to this. I'm more interested in the main temple structure, but there's a lot of focus on this terrace thing that I just don't get. There's nothing here that I can really see interesting me as a GM or being super memorable as a player.
Temple of Exquisite Anguish
I was a little sad this wasn't for Zon-Kuthon. Exquisite Anguish? That's so ZK's thing. Hurt me more, Snake. Derros are much less cool.
This one's got some cool stuff going on with two crazy obscure gods. The whole 'force prisoners down some path of awful' seems a little... meh, I guess? And then the whole thing just boils down to sacrifices to some evil god on some evil altar by little evil dudes. We've seen that a million times before, and this one doesn't seem any more interesting than the others. Maybe if you were caught and forced to undergo the crazy ritual trial things... but even then, it's a hallway. Meh.
Hakima Ajit's Balcony
Whoa, that's a crazy awesome floor pattern. Whoa, that does absolutely nothing. Whoa, there's nothing... else... happening? What? It's a big empty room. With a crazy awesome floor pattern. That does nothing. No traps, no chessboard-floor-death-machine, nothing. The big reveal is 'haha, you've fallen thirty feet!' You've got to be kidding me. This could be the location for a super cinematic encounter, if only something happened! It's a beautiful location with absolutely fuckall to do! (Coincidentally, this is how I described Skyrim to people. A really big and beautiful puddle that as soon as you touch it to see how deep it goes, you realize it's just a puddle.)
Waiting in the Depths
The first thing that catches my eye here is how dark it is. This could use a little brightening up for blind people like myself. The second thing that catches my eye is how nice it all looks. It's set up well. I could definitely see an encounter here.
But it's not the kind of encounter I'm going to remember. It's a ditch with some tents and some trees and a hole in the ground. I'm not sure what kind of awesomeness you'd have to pull out to make that memorable... but it would have to be insanely epic to make this map memorable. It's a damn fine map. Solid, well done, well executed for what it is. But it's not what I want in a Superstar map. (And I still don't care what the rules for this round say, I'm judging these by my standards.)
Abandoned Shory Botany Laboratory
Another isometric view? Goddamn, people. Stop making work in the business so hard for people who can't draw!
This one's also got a case of the symmetricals. I'm not sure how much I like it here. Yeah, okay, one side's overgrown. Meh. The real centerpiece of this one is the crumbling front end. The dangers of those gears grinding up a PC are just too good to pass up. The actual greenhouse part? Meh. Uninterested. The fact that the whole thing flies is a moot point. It could be the lair of clockwork botanists and be just as awesome for the use of death gears. That's the sort of thing I want to see when clockwork stuff gets involved. Big ass gears and old clunky steampunk-ish tech makes for cinematic encounters and memorable events. I guess there's a bunch of exposed gears and even more chance of being thrown into the meatgrinder, but I'd be hard pressed to find a PC dumb enough to stick his face in that. Overall, there's a lot going on here that I just really like.
Reaping Stars Refinery
Fifty word description text doesn't use the Oxford comma? DQ'd for barbarism, next contestant.
Are those 1-foot wide bridges over molten metal? Who the hell is walking there? That's a recipe for horrible. Other than that, I'm not really seeing anything interesting here. It's a building that serves some purpose for some NPCs that no one gives a shit about. A fight in a big industrial room with motel metal could be really cool, but this one looks boring as all hell. There's just random pools of death, and then nothing. No machinery, no death hooks to swing across on, no chutes or ladders or get out of jail free cards, nothing. And then there's the rest of the map, which is like 'Yeah, it's a building! With stuff.' Stuff no one cares about at all. 'Yeah we put horses over here.' Okay.
Flintyreach Cliff Harbor Ascent
I really feel like I should have saved my chutes and ladders joke for this map. Just pretend that I did. Switchbacks are cool, and while I've seen them a bunch, I've not often seen them done particularly well. This one's awesome because it's not just a simple back-n-forth boring mountain climb. There's a lot of cool stuff going on as you slugfest up the switchbacks between cover and dodging arrows and avoiding rockslides and falling to your death. This is the kind of gauntlet I want to run.
The big problem is, I'm not sure it really requires a map to be effective. I could describe a series of switchbacks without a map and say people are getting sniped at and they have X turns at their move speed to get to the top, and it'd be basically the same thing. If I was going to use a switchback map, I frickin' love this one. Except, I'm not sure I like how it ends in a ladder. I'd rather see a stone staircase built in, or just let the damn slope finish it out to the top. A ladder there feels... silly.
The Howdah of Mogaru’s Consort
Please stop isometr- okay, you know what? This one's too good to even complain about. What the hell, man?
I don't even know if there's anything I can say here. It's a castle, riding on a kaiju, and it's full of bad dudes and stuff, and it's riding on a kaiju. This is about as insanely cinematic as it comes. Just getting to the map is the stuff of legend. Then going through the map? While shit's going on? Hell, imagine being trapped in this thing while the kaiju is trucking it out against Gypsy Danger? I am so very, very sold on this map. And even without the kaiju, the castle is still well done. It doesn't suffer the symmetrys, it's got some nice varied terrain and architecture and did I mention I love this map?
Den of the Ice Devil
Size issues aside, this one seems sort of bland. It's the lair of an ice devil! Brrr! There's ice stuff! And it's evil! I don't know, there's a lot of stuff crammed into what is really just one big room with, apparently, an ice devil. None of it really adds up to anything I care about. Yeah, there's some interesting hazards and things to go around and a room(fort?) you're fighting to at the far end... but why? It just doesn't inspire a particularly cool encounter. Nothing here feels really memorable. There could be something happening here, with another gauntlet-style truckfight with the ice devil as he retreats to what should probably be more than just 'fort.'
Ustradi Sunken Ruins (Mana Wastes)
I'm not sure why this is set in the Mana Wastes. This could be 'ruined swamp temple' just about anywhere. I'm not going to hold that against the map, which I think does 'ruined swamp temple' pretty well. The waters are gross and the mist (which is where?) is grosser, and there's a big skull on a pedestal. Except... I'm not sure why I care about the skull. You slog your way up the road to the skull, and then walk up to the top and then... what? Is there some super cool encounter supposed to happen here? I could see some cool mana-waste-crocodiles ruining everyone's day, but that's not really specific to this map. There's nothing here that says something interesting or memorable will happen here. Nothing that's here looks particularly memorable without an encounter to go along with it.
The Ashen Forge Incursion
This one feels a lot like the super Abaddon map, except done way better. It's got coherence. It's got story. It's got just as much interesting layout and features and stuff, but it feels like a place that was once populated by some Broadins of Torag, who trapped the wrong dudes. Wrong dudes who prayed to Drobro the Jerk, who then opened a portal of awful to screw with the Broadins of Torag and ruin everyone's day. And all of that is clear without a single word dedicated to the encounter set up. This is damn good work. This whole adventure would be memorable, and that's not even touching the super crazy cinematic fight bound to happen in the main anvil chamber.
Aberrant Excavation
This one feels like two disparate things glued together. There's a dig site with some stuff happening, and then there's a fallen lighthouse that just happens to be right next door with some stuff happening, and it's all on a cliffside that just happens to be there. The discovery of an aboleth skull isn't super intriguing--that's why NPC archaeologists exist. The lighthouse isn't particularly interesting. There's signs of something interesting happening with the holes and the tablet, but it doesn't really come together as anything interesting for me. And--more importantly--not something important enough to need a map. I can describe this aloud and do everything this map does without any paper on the table.
Ice Dam
That Ice King dam, though. In addition to looking really cool, there's potential for a lot of cinematic stuff going on here. Fighting below the dam while the BBEG is opening up the floodgates to wash you away. Fighting on the dam while something bad is happening below. Rushing to close the floodgates because it's killing your allies downriver. Whatever! And fighting on a reasonably large dam with some really cool water hazard things happening and also it's all made of ice because yeah is a pretty memorable thing. There seems to be a weird focus on breaking the dam, which I guess is cool, too. If I was standing in front of it, I sure wouldn't want to break the damned thing.
Meandering Oasis of Nex
It's that tiny little planet thing from Dragon Ball Z! Aw, yeah. And there's some really neat features here, with the whole manor and the lake and the extra moons flying around the tiny planet. This has a lot of potential to be really cool. It also has a lot of potential to be really frickin' annoying, because you're playing 2-D map mode on a sphere. Charging from the topside to the bottomside and all kinds of weirdness when you add fly into the mix and the rotational speeds of the main island and its moons and its speed through the air as it's flying and if you're using fly do you stay 'above' the island or do you stay relative to the primary planet's plane of gravity and wow, this is complicated. There's definitely some potential for some crazy cinematic encounter here, but nothing that's hinted at by the description or the map. And if it weren't for the fact it was a tiny little planet with tinier little moons, it wouldn't be very interesting at all. And... I'm not sure that's exactly a good place to be.
[The DQ'd maps follow]
The Hallowed Falls
I don't really get how this one is put together. There's a whole lot of rapids and stuff above the falls that doesn't do anything? And then there's a cave, but it's like... under the water? Or behind the water? And the cave isn't... interesting. This has a lot of potential, as waterfall caves are cool. But as far as I can tell, there's nothing happening here. There's some hazards you'll probably never run into, and there's some (okay, a lot) of space you don't really care about.
Swamp-Submerged Temple
"I'd just like to point out I'm following the rules."
"Not anymore! Bam!"
I don't want to rant on this again, but I really kind of do. One day this ranting will come back to bite me, but I don't even care. I'm from Jersey and this is how we do things. So: Paizo's coming off real jerky this time around. I know it's supposed to be hard and professional and all that shit. But wow, guys. Wow. Give like, a warning, or something. There's a huge difference between saying 'I did xyz because of abc' and saying 'I'm pretty sure I'm following the rules, please don't think poorly of me because I think I'm following these really fucking vague and arbitrary rules.' If you don't want people to talk about their shit, then just say that. Mute their goddamn accounts or something. Or better yet, keep them anonymous. No more popularity contest crap, and then you can't even talk about how you're in the Top X because you're under a quasi-NDA and isn't that really what the 'don't talk' rule is all about? Argh! So frustrating and I'm not even playing this game.
And really, I like this map. I like how it's set up with a structure sinking into the swamps and the lower level reflects that it's now like 15 feet under the swamp or something. It's a really solid location. There's definitely some cinematic value to be had in that main chamber. I like the interplay of the upper and lower levels being so wide open. The entrance walkway is... bland.
The Slime Vaults
This is another big ass room with a whole lot of nothing. I guess there's like three rooms here, and there's some slime with stuff in it. I don't know what stuff, and I'm not intrigued enough to care. The rooms themselves are bland other than the slime. There's no indication of why I'd want to see what's inside the slime vault. There's no reason I'd want to touch the slime vault with a ten-foot pole. There's no sign that there's going to be anything happening here that is particularly memorable or exciting. As far as I know, this is just another moderately gross chamber that is forgotten 10 minutes after the game. Also, there's nothing here that really needs a map to be done. No really clever layout, no super exciting tactical decisions to be made. It's a lot of the good old trope of 'don't stand in the fire,' but the fire is slime.
And on that note, them's the maps and them's my thoughts. I apologize to any of the cartographers who may have been offended by my insensitive ramblings. But hey, look on the bright side: you're all better cartographers than me.
That's why I pay someone to draw up maps on my ship.
And by 'pay' I mean ask one of my buddies really nicely until they draw stuff for me. And by 'one of my buddies,' I mean Cy.
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