Mapping During the Game

GX.Sigma · Mar 27, 2014

What are people's opinions on mapping dungeons during play?
This issue came into focus for me tonight, during a session of D&D Encounters that I was running. In the first few sessions, I used my Dwarven Forge game tiles to represent the map. The problem with that was that it was rather cumbersome, not only in taking up time during the game, but also adding the hassle of hauling around a big box full of heavy plastic. For this session, I decided to do it old-school style.

The dungeon they were in was too big to fit onto my battlemat (even at 1"=10' scale), and I didn't have enough DF pieces or table space to make the whole thing with tiles (and it wouldn't have been ideal anyway, since most of the rooms were empty). So, I drew the portions they had already explored onto a piece of graph paper, and asked them to continue the map as they went along. A few problems became apparent:

Combat was more confusing, since the players couldn't see what was going on. This was exacerbated (or maybe wholly caused) by the distraction-rich environment: The game store is so loud that it's hard to hear, we had a few people show up late, and there was a lot of chit chat. Suffice to say, not everyone was paying attention to the game the whole time.

Additionally, from the mapper's perspective, it's really annoying to map stuff when there are a lot of empty rooms. This is why my other group ragequit Castle of the Mad Archmage. "Draw this thing. Choose a door. Draw this thing. Choose a door..." It's also annoying when there is complex geography (anything more complex than square rooms and perfect "T" or "+" intersections), since it makes for a lot of boring back-and-forth between the DM and the mapper for no real gameplay benefit.

On the whole, the session went well, but the mapping made it less enjoyable than it should have been. I still don't know how I should have handled it. A part of me still wants to believe that having the players make the map is a good way to do it (at least in some situations), but it just hasn't worked for me. Maybe I should just keep doing this until the mapper gets good at it? I guess that would be the old-school answer.

How do you handle stuff like this?

Nagol · Mar 27, 2014

As a player for old school mapping, I always just draw graphs (vertices as locations, edges as corridors) with some quick annotations to describe interesting features/occupants.

I never try to accurately map room shapes, sizes, what have you because it takes too freaking long and only helps if you are reduced to looking for secret passages or something.

DEFCON 1 · Mar 27, 2014

Mapping to me is one of those products of their time... which at this point past several decades ago. Same thing as the 10 foot pole.

Back in the late 70s, early 80s when "getting lost" inside a dungeon was actually considered to be an encounter in itself... having someone map it was a smart way for players to overcome that particular challenge. The same way that having pressure plate pit traps was a unique experience for players to deal with, and tapping the floor ahead them with a long pole was a creative and effective "solution" to that problem.

But now, 30+ years later... those kinds of traps have become so run-of-the-mill and are nothing more than D&D tropes, that no one really ever feels the need to use them anymore. "Solving" those things isn't special or cool... it's basic and expected dungeoncrawling. So more DMs nowadays don't even bother trotting those old bones out.

So in your case... do your players really need a map of where they've been? Does the map hold any usefulness, or is it just a waste of everyone's time? And if there's a chance of getting lost... is having a map any more of a worthwhile "solution" than just having the PCs make an INT check to see if they remember how to go? For me personally... unless getting lost in the dungeon is meant to be an actual encounter... having it mapped does no one any good and just takes up time better spent elsewhere.

DMZ2112 · Mar 27, 2014

There's something wonderfully old school about player mapping, but it falls into that group of activities defined by the '70s and '80s "player as character" mentality. Why should it matter if a player can draw an adequate map? Isn't it sufficient that his character has the skills necessary to navigate a dungeon and not get lost, including some limited capacity for cartography?

I'm always glad when a player whips out the graph paper, but if it gets to the point where I'm repeating everything I say about the dungeon to him three times or having to actually draw things on his map for him, it's not conducive to efficiency or enjoyment. I never penalize my players for not drawing a map, but saying things like "we go back the way we came and take the other fork" absolutely do not fly with me if they can't describe the route in detail or at the very least make an Int check. I treat story elements the same way. What was the name of that NPC? Maybe you should have written it down.

But as others in this thread have noted, good player mapping doesn't require surveyor exactitude. You just need to know what connects to where and who lives there. You might recommend a mind-mapping system to your fledgling cartographer.

Mind Mapping

Celebrim · Mar 27, 2014

I'm old school; as a player I map.

As a DM I expect my players to map if they don't want to get lost, although, since I have a Navigation skill if they do get lost as players, all they have to do is successfully Navigate in order to remember how to get from A to B. Now, it's possible to get lost as characters, which is why you'd want a map. I'm so old school, that they aren't allowed to map unless sheets of parchment and ink are in their equipment list, and they aren't running around or charging everywhere.

In the current group I've got 1 experienced player, and he draws quick but effective little graphs rather than trying to map the dimensions of everything exactly. That is also very old school, because Gygax was fond of maps that had distorted distances, slopes, silent teleports, and other challenges to mapping that would cause the players to form false inferences. Graphs of the room joins tend to defeat that, just as they do in old school cRPGs.

But I don't think you are actually talking about mapping. Your central issue as I see it is 'Visual aids or not', and not 'Map or not'.

I feel the game goes better without minatures or grids. Your players need to practice imagining rooms, and the crutch of visual aids has robbed them of their spatial imagination. I only resort to visual aids (battlemat, minatures, etc.) when things get sufficiently complicated that the value added to the game from the tactical problems is equal to the harm caused to the game by the distraction of props. The more experienced your players, the less need they'll feel for props. It's a bad habit, because it means that they are problem never imagining scenes in first person, and are not used to setting themselves on stage in the first person. It may also mean that you aren't getting enough practice as a DM organizing your room descriptions and stating them clearly.

Celebrim · Mar 27, 2014

GX.Sigma said:
Additionally, from the mapper's perspective, it's really annoying to map stuff when there are a lot of empty rooms. This is why my other group ragequit Castle of the Mad Archmage.

My very first essay on dungeon design would have failed 'Castle of the Mad Archmage' on multiple levels. Empty rooms are a big big no no. Empty corridors are nearly as bad, but I haven't figured out how to avoid that entirely.

"Draw this thing. Choose a door. Draw this thing. Choose a door..." It's also annoying when there is complex geography (anything more complex than square rooms and perfect "T" or "+" intersections), since it makes for a lot of boring back-and-forth between the DM and the mapper for no real gameplay benefit.

All the mapper needs is circles and an accurate count of the entrances and exits. Beyond that, 'chalk' is a very important peice of dungeon equipment that should be on some character's equipment list. You use it to draw arrows on things, put numbers on doors to identify which ones you've used, or put notes on the walls for yourself, "We went that way. Pit trap 30' that way.", etc. Of course, there is a metagame level to chalk use as well - it puts the burden on the DM to remember what was put where, meaning he has as much 'mapping' duties as the players do.

Grogg of the North · Mar 27, 2014

When I first started playing/DMing in college, I tried doing the combat without a map. However, my players expressed confusion about what was going on and I picked up a battlemat and some markers. One of the players went on to make special markers for all the PCs. They were just drawings he made on cardboard but they were awesome. Since then, I've used the battlemat. Usually I erase as I go if I run out of room. If I have a really big dungeon, I have a big pad of paper from office max. The grid on it is a little bigger than the standard battlemat, I think, but it's easy to tape together to make a mega-dungeon.

As a player, I used to bring some graph paper along with me to map stuff out for the group. It's really helpful if the map gets erased as we adventure. I appreciate it when the party has their own map both as a player and as a DM.

jasper · Mar 27, 2014

As to the "draw this empty room and choose a door". I old school too. I would either draw parts of the map on spare piece of graph paper. Or hand the players a map of most of that level once the done exploring the level.
And just because the room was empty when you first encountered it, does not mean it will be empty when fall back from the big icky nasty in room S which will chase you back to room N.

howandwhy99 · Mar 27, 2014

Mapping is a strategy, not a mandatory action.

If your gamers are feeling overwhelmed by mapping like with the Mad Archmage dungeon, then run adventures which don't place such a high value on remembering the configurations of their surroundings. That goes against megadungeon designs, but you could still do town and dungeon delvings for that experience.

Mapping should offer an advantage. It pays to remember things in a game. To keep a character log. But it's part of the players' play to determine what they want to take note of and what they don't. Low levels should mean not needing to be so proficient. That's changing the difficulty of the game. Higher levels generally mean more difficulty, so better proficiency at remembering what's going on, where you are, how to accomplish things in the game.

But there should still be alternate routes, no one doorway paths the players must use. That means mapping too. Higher levels might have magic items which enable better mapping or stuff like teleportation which makes extensive mapping less important. Either way, be prepared to provide player's with maps when they have that information. And erase it / take it back when they don't.

Olgar Shiverstone · Mar 27, 2014

As a player, I keep a graph paper map.

As a DM, I like to use a battle mat. Depending on the adventure that could mean a lot of the dungeon gets drawn on the mat, minimizing the need for player mapping, or just major encounter areas get drawn on the mat.