The Cartographer’s Kit
A map is not decoration and it is not a puzzle to solve — it is the thing that lets six people build one place instead of six. Three rounds, four to six people, about twenty-five minutes. Print it, put a map on the table, and let the fire do the rest. Prints clean on letter paper.
Running the kit
Everyone answers every round. Every answer names the spot on the map it belongs to — that is the whole trick, and it is what lets the table compare answers instead of talking past each other.
- Ask the round’s question. Go round the table. Each person answers once, or passes.
- Keep one answer. The table settles on a single answer for the band. Write it in.
- Keep the tensions. Anything that cannot also be true goes in the “also true” slot beside it, marked on the map. Nothing is deleted.
Place
What is this place? Name the spot your answer attaches to.
People
Who lives here, and what do they want? Place each answer on the map.
Pressure
What is about to break, and from where? Mark where it starts.
Free packs that are components, not scenes
The kit works on any map at all — a bought battle map, a blank grid, the back of an envelope. If you want free ones, these are the packs we use. They are components: tiles and chits you build with. A beautifully finished scene map is the wrong tool here, and it is worth knowing why — a drawn tavern has already made the decisions, so the table ends up describing the picture instead of inventing the place. The list below is sorted by the round each pack is actually useful for. None of it is required.
- For the Place round
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Roadside Tiling Road
Tiling terrain you lay down piece by piece — good for the Place round, where the table builds the ground before naming it.
Free pack by Ross McConnell (2-Minute Tabletop). The pack page states CC BY-NC 4.0 — free to use, not to sell.
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Dungeon Map Tiles
Interior ground to lay down room by room, so the table can put a wall somewhere and then decide who put it there.
Free pack by Ross McConnell (2-Minute Tabletop). The pack page states CC BY-NC 4.0 — free to use, not to sell.
- For the People round
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Castle & Medieval Furniture Tokens
Printable tokens for the People and Pressure rounds — cut them out and physically place who lives where and what is about to move.
Free pack by Ross McConnell (2-Minute Tabletop). The pack page states CC BY-NC 4.0 — free to use, not to sell.
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Hero Tokens
Figures to stand in for whoever the table invents. They are deliberately generic, which is the point — the table decides who they are, the token does not.
Free pack by Ross McConnell (2-Minute Tabletop). The pack page states CC BY-NC 4.0 — free to use, not to sell.
- For the Pressure round
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Sea Monster Tokens
Something large, offshore, and not yet explained. Place it on the water and let the table work out what it is about to do.
Free pack by Ross McConnell (2-Minute Tabletop). The pack page states CC BY-NC 4.0 — free to use, not to sell.
- For any round
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The Farm Friends Map Assets
Loose map components rather than a finished scene. Handy when the table wants to add one thing to a spot without committing to a whole location.
Pack by Connor Johnston, published by 2-Minute Tabletop. The free base pack sits alongside paid tiers, and the pack page itself states no licence — so the terms on the author’s Licensing & Attribution page are the ones that apply. Check them before you use it anywhere but a private table.
You do not need any of this to run the kit. To mark a spot on the map, a coin, a die, or a scribbled initial works exactly as well — the card is the rules, and the pieces are only convenient.
Most of the packs above are free to use and not to sell, but their licences are not identical and not every pack page states one — the Farm Friends entry is the one that states nothing. Read the terms attached to the pack you actually download before you use it anywhere but a private table.
Each licence line above was read off that pack’s own page on 12 September 2026. Creators can change their terms, so the pack page always wins over anything written here — if the two disagree, trust the pack page.
The Unmapped Edge
This kit reads the map you already have. That one is for the parts you chose not to draw — a printable one-sheet with room for three deliberate omissions, a line each for what the absence implies, and a box to sketch the edge.