Figure out what parts you suck at. Read up on those parts. Learn not to suck at them.
Basically, teach yourself geography. Apply it.

1. Get a bucket of green paint and some blue paper.
2. Splash green paint randomly on the blue paper.
3. ????
4. Profit!

Easy to do good stuff if you follow the processes.

First, draw tectonic plates however the fuck you want, and keep in mind which way they move with big fuck-off arrows. Do the arrows and faultlines in pencil.

Then, continents. Bang that shit down wherever you want, the big ones don't matter. Continental outlines in pencil for now.

Look at where the bits of continent touch fault lines. Bits ramming face-first will have huge fuck-off mountains. Bits pulling apart will have fucktonnes of lava, or at the least bits of hot earthen interest like volcanoes. Bits rubbing sideways will have smaller mountains, a handful of volcanoes, and tectonic activity like a motherfucker.

Where these lines are in the ocean, similar. Face-on, big mountains, archipelagos and such. Apart, huge-arse trenches and volcanic islands. Across, a few volcanic islands.

Then consider your continental movement. Where plates move together bits rammed each other a long time ago, so make the continents look a little awkward. Where they pull apart there'll be continental drift, so make it look like an eroded puzzle piece pulled off and stick a heap of islands in the middle.

From there, change the pencilled bits to look more aesthetically pleasing and utilitarian, then pen them on.

Now for climates and shit.

Anyone know what comic this is from?

>>6598114
Stick "refine, compare to other world maps" between 2 and 3, and you're good.

World maps are for queers. Are you a queer son?

Just make maps, you get better with experience.
For the actual things to make maps with, paint works fine for the basics, just google "Map making program" for advanced things.

It helps to read up on how land is formed, but thats optional when you can just say "God of X did it."

The middle of the map is going to be hot and wet and have monsoonal rain. The edges of the map will be colder and possibly drier and have more regular rain.

Now figure out how wet things are. Pick a direction for the wind to generally blow from the water to the land in each continent, or more than one if that's how you want it. Watch it go all the way to the nearest lot of mountains. Bits oceanward of the mountains get regular rain. Bits oceanward of mountains and on the edge of the mountains get lots of rain. Bits inland of the mountains get little rain. The bigger the mountains the more significant this is, so if you've got molehills it won't do a damn, but if you've got the Andes just sitting there one side will be lush and the other a damned desert. Also, the further inland you are, even if there's no mountains, the drier it gets.

Once you've got this down, put your general greenery in place. Wetter in no-equatorial areasmeans more dense forestry e.g. English woods. A little dry means less dense e.g. Australian bush. Proper dry means african-style scrub plains all over the joint. Very dry means desert. DO NOT USE ENGLISH PLAINS AS AN EXAMPLE THEY ARE HUMAN-MADE.

Then, for equatorial areas, wet means ridiculously rainforests, drier means jungley areas, properly dry means flat but with still more trees and superdry means scrub deserts.

Once you've got these down change them for aesthetics and utility then bang them in in pen.

Keep in mind not to mention this to proper geographers or climatologists since this is simplified to the point of being offensive.

Now for hydrology and that wet crap.

Rivers go from mountains to the ocean. That's it. The more rain on your mountain, I.E. the closer to the coast and the higher the mountain, the bigger the river will be. It shoudl have tributaries from that mountain and other mountains on the path flowing into the main river, which meanders however you want it to but generally away from high ground to low, to the ocean, where just before the ocean if it's really big it forms a delta. Bits along that river can have canyons and such for geographical points of interest. Bang lakes and shit of whatever size you want down on the way, so long as you don't have the Comically Tiny River as the main source of water for Lake Fucking Huge. If the river doesn't make it all the way to the ocean because it's too far or it goes inland into the deepest part of the place without escape, it forms either a big salt lake, and the lake will be properly salty, or a marsh, depending on your climate or more realistically your preference. If shit's really dry, you can have huge river paths and vast salt lakes with no or nearly no water for interest.

Now, your civilisations.

Work out your capitals first, because most historic civilisations were based on one capital with a fuckton of small towns around it.

Civilisations are based on people in groups. Groups of people like nice things. Nice things like resources. Critical resources include:

Water. Bitches love water. You will never ever see a city without water. Most or all of your major cities should be on major water sources that are NOT the ocean which is BAD because unlike river or lake water which is DELICIOUS seawater is NOT DELICIOUS. You can have non-riverine towns supplied by wells, but because water's so critical in the 'make town/don't' civilisational paradigm, it'd better have shitloads of good stuff like ten trading routes over a goldmine or something.

Food. You need at least two supplies of food, preferably more. Food from water comes from fishing. Get food from forests and shit by hunting. Get food from anywhere with rain by farming, which if you do will lead to flat farmed plains fucking everywhere.

Good stuff includes:

Good forests, because timber makes good things like houses. Timber comes from forests.

Good quarries, because stone makes very nice houses for rich people. Quarries will be in mountains.

Good mining, because gold fucking rocks and so does iron once you can smelt that motherfucker. Mining, for the most simple example possible, comes from mountains.
Once you've stuck your major cities where the most of these combine, stick towns in the next best areas and villages in the next. Remember your rule of travel. Farmers, which is practically everybody in preindustrialised times, have to cart their shit places. There will be a village, formed around a market, at most twelve hours from any one point of the populatyed part of your territory. There will be towns every three days' travel, for major trading excursions. Cities will be rare and only where there's a fuckload of useful shit. Keep in mind it's okay to have national areas that have no villages in them, because no nation ever uses al the ground because some of it just isn't that useful.

>>6598229
>>6598198
>>6598154
>>6598145
>>6598143
>>6598127
These, OP, answer your question. Use them.

Awesome, this makes me want to draw a map for my current campaign.

>>6598239
Not OP, but consider them thieved.

>>6598129
http://groovepit.blogspot.com/2008/08/i-am-dungeon-master-and-my-wife-is.html

Some guy's wife comissioned it from the guy who does rumblo.com // horribleville.com ... aka the guy who drew Dickbutt.

>>6598145

just wanted say "thank you".

so... you know... thank you.

Archived for future use, http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6598082/

>>6598446

This pasta has been posted and archived before.
Twice.

Try this, OP.

http://donjon.bin.sh/world/

OP here, thanks for all the tips, here's a reward.

>>6598082
get better at drawing maps.

>>6598620
moar!

>>6598620

This is AWESOME!

>>6598504
>>6598620

>>6598082
Okay, serious replies time.
Go here:

http://forum.cartographersguild.com/index.php

Register, look at all the tutorials and go through them. I found that RobA's tutorial on regional maps in GIMP worked best for me. There's all sorts of tips and tricks you can use to make a halfway-decent-looking map even if you totally suck at art (pic related).

There's also general advice on city placement, rules for placing rivers and mountains and such, etc. scattered all over. The primary purpose of the community is to post maps for critique and advice and everyone there is pretty cool, faggotry or drama of any sort is not tolerated.

They even have tutorials and advice for those fucking horrible neutered CAD map-drawing programs like Campaign Cartographer if you want to waste your money on them instead of using GIMP for free.

>>6598620
>>6598504

Post the WW2 version, please. :O

>>6598504
>>6598620
>>6598762
and this is why i'm a history major

>this thread

Isn't there just a computer program you can use to generate your own maps or some shit instead of drawing them?

are those county comic by that guy who did stuff like this?

>>6598908
Not if you want them to look even remotely good.

>>6598620
moaaaar

bumping in the futile hope of World War II.

Not OP, but here you go.

>>6598908
GIMP comes with Script-Fu plugins that generate landmasses at random.

But if you care that little about what your map looks like then why the fuck are you making a map in the first place?

>>6599105
consider your leg vigorously humped good sir.

http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html

I recommend this, OP.

>>6599105
Source?

>>6599105

Woops, sorry, I cropped that wrong.

>>6599105
That pic seems cut off at the bottom.

I made this with MSPaint.

Basically I made the background blue and used the circle tool to make these green blobs. Then I use the brush tool on blue and swiped at the side of my continent to make them look natural.

Then I used Curve tool to draw lines basically where I wanted the two artics to be and Filled them white. Dicked around some more with the paint tool on brown where I wanted mountains. Use the Circle on tan and Brush on green to make me some deserts to be and this one forest. I filled one whol continent dark green and called it a jungle continent. So yeah, it takes some time and some improve but MSPaint is awesome for this.

>>6599165
... cropped wrong?

I say dear fellow, perchance are you the artist behind these fantastic shenanigans?

>>6599165
You are awesome, sir.

>>6599173

What? No, I just found it online. I forgot where, but I'm just sharing the love.

My wireless is acting up, bear with me everyone.

Last part, enjoy.

>>6599169
No glaring geographical flaws but goddamn is it ugly.

Go to that website I posted a while back. With not much more time investment you could make something that looks pretty good.

Geometrics, Apply them.

Guy that posted the WW2 stuff here, the artist's name is Angus McLeod.

ARE YOUR PLAYERS GOING TO TRAVEL OVER THE ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET? FUCK NO THEY'RE NOT!

THIS ISN'T FUCKING FINAL FANTASY PLANETS ARE GODDAMN HUGE THEY'LL BE LUCKY IF THEY VISIT FOUR OR FIVE COUNTRIES IN THEIR ENTIRE LIFETIMES

WHY ARE YOU WASTING TIME ON THIS SHIT?

>>6599299
Magic.
Multiple games.

Bless you OP and WW2 poster anon. Bless you.

I haven't done a full world map, but I do draw my dee un dee maps in MS Paint. I have no reason to do whole world maps. I just draw the regions they will be spending any considerable amount of time in.

>>6599367
That's amazing for MSPAINT.
Amazing.

I use PAINT.NET

>>6599253
So is there a Cold War one?

>>6599408
I like that map. Looks like a quaint little town.

<- pic not directly related. Drawn in MSPaint. Grid added in Photoshop.

>>6599367
Why do some of the rivers just stop? That only ever happens if they enter a sink hole, and that's really fucking rare.

Lack of drawing capability can be made up for in aesthetic.

Some candles and webs can be picked up at any store super cheap since it's right after halloween.

You can also give your map a sort of 'worn out scroll' look by rolling it up, unrolling it, weighing it down, and then soaking it lightly in tea.

this is that map i use for every game ever

>>6599519

The only good thing to come out of that mess was the Doobies

>>6599559
>The only good thing to come out of that mess was the Drow
You've misspelt it brah

>>6599487
Only very wide river sections are shown. For scale; The large landlocked body of water is just shy of 600 miles wide at it's widest.

>>6599578

I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.

DOOBIES WERE THE BEST THING TO COME OUT OF THAT SHIT

>>6599604
>just shy of 600 miles wide at it's widest

So you made a map of something the size of Africa?

>>6599487
I didn't do much but glance at it bfore, but Jesus Christ somebody call the fucking river police, there are crimes against drainage being committed here.

Rivers never branch downstream, always upstream. Think of it like a tree. The center drains out to the ocean, and the branches are all draining from various higher-elevation sources. Lakes can have multiple inputs but only one output which of course drains to the ocean. If a lake isn't draining anywhere it's usually because it's evaporating too fast, which of course leads to the development of a salt lake since it loses water but not the solutes in it.

>>6599604
>>6599625
Oh heavens no, that's a horrible typo. I meant 60 miles.

>>6599604
That's a gigantic fucking scale and lakes that fucking huge don't form without any source.

And no matter what the size of your rivers, they still need to behave like rivers. That means they get wider as they get closer to the coast, as more and more smaller rivers merge into the major one to drain out to sea.

>>6599639
I see.

My points here
>>6599627
>>6599675
still stand. You need to redo your rivers.

>>6598082
get Civ 4. generate a random map. edit it a little. bob's your uncle.

>>6599687

I'm already busy reworking the rivers. Did I say anything to make you feel as though you needed to reinforce your point about them?

>>6599709
No, I just thought that it can't be stressed enough. Rivers are pretty much the most common fuckup when it comes to fantasy maps. Mountains, forests, etc. are usually easier to do just by gut feeling about whether or not they look right.

Now put some goddamn drainage on that shit.

>>6599755
Fact (you pointed out): Rivers start at higher elevations.
Question: How should one represent that on a map?

>>6598127
transform faults don't get volcanoes, just instense earthquakes, volcanoes happen most at convergent boundaries where a portion of ocean crust subducts (gets pushed underneath) into a part of continental crust, and at hot spots which can be anywhere, as it happens beneath the plates, with a mantle plume, which is actually a bit of the outer core coming off almost like a mushroom

Okay, let me give a brief idea how to make realistic coastlines in Photoshop.

Okay, picture an existing continent in your head. Is it blob-shaped? FUCK NO. It's got jagged coastlines, peninsulas, archipelagos, all that good shit. So, you should start with a good shape. For this tutorial, I will assume you're using Photoshop CS3.

Start by setting up your tool. Get the pencil tool(yes, pencil, not brush) and set its size to 2. Now, go to the brush settings. In the Scattering part of teh options, set the scattering to 100%.

With that done, draw your continent. Make an interesting shape, avoid smooth transitions.

Next, fill the shape in.

Next, use an eraser(not a white pencil) with the same settings, and ROUGHLY go over the outside of the shape. This will create coastal islands and such. Also draw in any great lakes your continent has.
If your continent is near a pole, it will have glacier damage in the colder areas. Do little loopies with the eraser to simulate that.

Next, fuck around with blending options. Here, I used embossing, texture overlay, and inner and outer glow. Continents are drier as you go in, so the inner part is a little brownish here. You may want a more gradual transition than what I have here.

Next, on a separate layer, you will draw mountain ranges the same way you drew your continent.

Apply an inner glow blending option, and drop that layer's Fill slider to zero, and you'll have your mountains.

There you have it.

>>6599165
>>6599234
>>6599253
Call me a fag, but is anyone else reading this in TF2 voices?

>>6599888
I AM BUMPING BECAUSE I DID NOT WORK ON THIS TUTORIAL JUST TO HAVE IT IGNORED.

>>6599959
You're a fag.
Yes, I am.

>>6599755

How's this?

i like it

>>6600034
Better than my rivers. I like it.

>>6600034
Holy shit, son. You learn fast.

Anyone have sauce on OP's pic? I keep seeing it, but I never think to ask.

>>6600170
It's in the thread. Look for it.

>>6600310
No it's not

>>6600342
Yes it is. You are just blind.

>>6600342
See:
>>6598313
You blind motherfucker.

>>6600034

Man, that's really good.