Quote Originally Posted by Coyotemax View Post
Yes.

To me, the story helps drive the map, and the map helps drive the story.

When i'm doing maps just because, i can't help but seeing stories evolve in them as I go. And when I'm making a map based on a story, the story is obviously a huge influence.

So to me, the two processes are inseparable
This - I'm in complete agreement. I'll have to admit that I am a mapper first, but as many of us also part author, game master, illustrator. For me its a collaborative process with all levels of creative arts - that's what makes fantasy maps such an exciting task in practice. I'm kind of a visual guy, so when I know the story, I see it in my head like a movie. Where one's place is located at any given time within the story is intrinsic to some location on a map, or an encounter scale map. The story and the map are one in the same. The creative processes embarked on one aspect integrates the other simultaneously. Eventually the written dominates the time element of course, but I see the map in my mind, while I write the story.

It's difficult for me to separate the two, even ideologically.

Still, I voted "story" first, as the seed of an idea is needed, even for a map - that seed is story.

GP