Why is North not Up???

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I mean, how hard is it? Almost every map you get in a 5e module is oriented so that North isn't up. We're currently playing tonight and just, Why?
And smaller scale maps of larger areas are often oriented differently, just to make it more screwy.
Is this just my pet peeve?

[ProsecutorGodot]

Is... rotating the map not possible?

That aside my quick look through CoS, SKT, Avernus and Dragon Heist didn't see a single map out of the ten or so I looked at that doesn't have north defaulted to the top side of the map.

[Zetakya]

If anything, the "North is up" convention is fairly recent. Maps of Old used to have East at the top.

[Athan Artilliam]

If anything, the "North is up" convention is fairly recent. Maps of Old used to have East at the top.

That's largely dependant on the culture.

[Willie the Duck]

If anything, the "North is up" convention is fairly recent. Maps of Old used to have East at the top.
In Renaissance Europe, yes often (verb form of 'orient' coming from the noun form, etc.).


That's largely dependant on the culture.
When there was consistency at all. Maps of yore tended to be built entirely to fit the purpose*, not an overarching convention.

Not sure how it fits the OP issue though. Their players are likely playing the game are modern people and can want modern conventions followed. However, I don't necessarily agree with their position. I don't know which module of which they are thinking. However, if the relevant map section has (for example) a long dimension that is Southwest to Northeast or something, and the map is supposed to take up a half-page of a 8.5" x 11" module book, then I'd much prefer the map be SW-NE (with some arrow pointing off to some corner saying 'N') than force the map into a new format and thus force the relevant portion of it to have to shrink in size.

[stoutstien]

In my personal homebrewed universe there isn't such thing as magnetic orientation so almost all maps are in reference to some major landmark or Stars. It's actually a major plot point for one of the larger cities where the direction is determined by which part of the city has the tallest structure which has started a construction War among different affluent individuals.

[Pex]

1) Just to be different for immersion purposes. The idea is to have players feel they're in a different world.

2) For dungeons and caves, if the layout is elongated it's easier to map and read if the elongated aspect is left and right than up and down because of how we read. Some Asian cultures read up and down, but for the most part we read left to right or right to left (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.). However, because of geography of what lies on the surface, where you enter, where you can exit, to remain consistent North has to be at the same orientation. If the short ends are North and South it will be tilted until the elongation is left and right.

3) A subset of 1), elongation could be ignored and purposely set at up and down or diagonal precisely because it's jarring.

4) I'm just making all this up at the moment of thinking about it as to what I think is a reasonable explanation, not cold hard fact.

[Pildion]

In Renaissance Europe, yes often (verb form of 'orient' coming from the noun form, etc.).


When there was consistency at all. Maps of yore tended to be built entirely to fit the purpose*, not an overarching convention.

You know, I'm kinda ashamed of myself for not remembering that. I think going forward I may change my home brew maps at least to be more fit to purpose and not just oriented north.

[JonBeowulf]

This bugs me and my players a lot. Rotating the map is fine IRL but cannot be done for online play because the text is part of the image.

All maps of outdoor areas should be North is Up. If the map fits better in landscape (due to W<->E dimensions) then the text should be written so it reads correctly when rotated North Up. That way we can use it as easily online as IRL.

[Waazraath]

I mean, how hard is it?

+1 to this (and then some extra letters)

[Keravath]

Some modules are worse that others for random orientation of maps. The Ghosts of Saltmarsh is probably the worst I have seen. The coast map has west at the top, the town map has east at the top, individual location and encounter maps can have any orientation. I understand why the orientation might have been chosen since the maps tend to be taller than they are wide but they could at least have kept either east or west at the top.

Rotating the maps is always a possibility but sometimes that is more effort than it is worth especially with purchased digital content that includes numbered and named locations. Flipping the maps and moving all the labels/numbers/encounters/NPCs is quite a chore just to obtain a consistent map orientation to help the players understand the layout.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Some modules are worse that others for random orientation of maps. The Ghosts of Saltmarsh is probably the worst I have seen. The coast map has west at the top, the town map has east at the top, individual location and encounter maps can have any orientation. I understand why the orientation might have been chosen since the maps tend to be taller than they are wide but they could at least have kept either east or west at the top.

Rotating the maps is always a possibility but sometimes that is more effort than it is worth especially with purchased digital content that includes numbered and named locations. Flipping the maps and moving all the labels/numbers/encounters/NPCs is quite a chore just to obtain a consistent map orientation to help the players understand the layout.

Funny you mention that. I DMed GoS for our group and it drove me nuts. You'd flip from page to page and it was never the same way. I'd be trying to describe directions: "You keep goin Nor... er wait no West then there are doors to the.. Just wait a sec, oh bugger that's wrong."

[Imbalance]

It often seems like cardinal directions are an afterthought for gaming cartographers (I've known a few architects, too). Consistency would be nice, but I'm fairly accustomed to looking for the Rosetta first.

[Athan Artilliam]

Is... rotating the map not possible?

That aside my quick look through CoS, SKT, Avernus and Dragon Heist didn't see a single map out of the ten or so I looked at that doesn't have north defaulted to the top side of the map.

Its pretty tiresome to rotate a PDF & remember the text rotates with it. There are a lot of messed up map orientations. Your "quick glance" isnt very much of a scientific standard

[Willie the Duck]

It often seems like cardinal directions are an afterthought for gaming cartographers (I've known a few architects, too). Consistency would be nice, but I'm fairly accustomed to looking for the Rosetta first.

I mean, in many cases it is relatively arbitrary. The abandoned temple is on the edge of a hill and happens to be facing East, but not because it is a temple of a dawn god. The riverside dungeon is on the bank of a river going West to East, but if the map has it on a Eastern shore, well that's just a place where the river curves to the south for a couple miles (maybe even explains why the rive has retreated a bit as the oxbow widens, letting the PCs get better access).

[qube]

It often seems like cardinal directions are an afterthought for gaming cartographers (I've known a few architects, too). Consistency would be nice, but I'm fairly accustomed to looking for the Rosetta first.When I design maps, I design 'm naturally

geographic maps are designed with the idea that higher parts (ex. mountains) are higher on the map, lower parts (ex. sea side) are at the bottom.

Likewise, maps players find are made accoding to the location of the map maker: the location of the map maker is center or at the bottom, while the most prominent marker, is at the top - because maps are made for everyone - not just people with the keen mind feat.

for a person using said map it's not


"You keep goin Nor... er wait no West then there are doors to the.. Just wait a sec, oh bugger that's wrong."

But it's "you leave Neverwinter in the direction of the mountains and on the left side you see X" or - in case of a dungeon crawl - "You take the door to your left. You enter a room with two doors. One to your left & one to your right"

But, I guess it all depends on habbits.

[Segev]

It's usually for space reasons, or because the building or caves being mapped have a "natural-feeling" orientation that gives a top or bottom to them that doesn't align with overworld-north.

My friends and I usually refer to the top of a map of a building or dungeon as "relative north" for ease of discussion.

[Eriol]

In my personal homebrewed universe there isn't such thing as magnetic orientation so almost all maps are in reference to some major landmark or Stars. It's actually a major plot point for one of the larger cities where the direction is determined by which part of the city has the tallest structure which has started a construction War among different affluent individuals.
Umm, pet peeve here: "magnetic orientation" isn't needed for a planet to rotate on its axis, and thus have a true North and South to them. In fact most of the planets in our solar system have kinda crappy magnetic fields (it's one of the reasons why Mars had its atmosphere stripped off, lack of a strong enough one to prevent Solar Wind from stripping it off over time).

Now fantasy can go wherever you want with this (Discworld being an obvious one here), but magnetic field specifically is not needed on a spherical (spheroid, etc) world for people to figure out north/south. There are in fact all kinds of tricks to determine true north/south without them, since people have known for centuries (and probably millennia) that the lodestones/compasses lied, but the sun didn't.

That doesn't negate the politics of your fantasy world, nor does it mean that people can't orient maps all kinds of directions for all kinds of reasons even with magnetic orientation (as evidenced by the real history cited in this thread), but just saying it doesn't have to have anything to do with magnetic poles is all.

[Witty Username]

I personally orient maps as entry point at the bottom, since that makes it easier to read/draw onto a playmat. I haven't ever used a module though.
North is not a very useful thing on maps outside of a reference point, personally.

That being said, I as a rule try to not take issue with other people's orientations.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For battle maps and other interior maps or ones where absolute direction isn't that important, I've taken to using "combat (direction)", where combat North is away from the DM or up the screen. And I only preserve orientation on multi floor maps when it's important, since I tend to handwave a lot of the stairs and passages between locations.

[Chronos]

When my group meets in person, we're sitting on all sides of a table, and if there's a significant map, it's in the middle of the table. And I would imagine that's a pretty common setup. But with that setup, every map has every orientation, simultaneously. Some player or players will see north at the top, some will see west, some will see south, and some will see east. Given that, map orientation can't be that big a deal, because if it is, you're always going to run into problems.

[Imbalance]

Not to play god, but as DM I place my position as north when orientation matters. I have a Sword Coast map behind me that the players can see, and I'm trying to get out of the habit of using 'left' and 'right' to describe direction at the table. Instead, I point to the map and say something like, "you're far enough inland to be away from the sound of crashing waves but the salt on the breeze tells you the ocean is near," or, more locally, "the setting sun is on your back as you descend into the ruins. It will soon be as dark outside as it is below," or, "this river eventually reaches Neverwinter, but first it winds through the immense forest. For the next three miles it flows East." And if there is an encounter, the battlefield orientation matches.

[Luccan]

North pointing up is handy because that's how we tend to see maps today. But that's a handiness born of familiarity, not an objective boon. The first GoS map shows the coastline and a little inland. Because more coastline (and marsh) is shown than land, it's actually better for the map to be rotated with North to one side, because book pages have more height that width and the sections they wanted to show would have been distorted in a north=top map. I can't speak for all books/adventures and all maps, but just that much would make sense to me for "inconvenient" map orientation