Iosue
Legend
I've started a new thread to give this a fuller response.
In OD&D, AD&D, and Expert D&D (<- my more accurate alternative to "Basic D&D"), there were two roles that players could take on for the party.
The Caller's job was to keep track of what the party was doing and relay this information to the DM. Despite popular misconception, the caller never did this during combat. It was a turn-based role, not a round-based role. (Turn in this case meaning the unit of game time and action that typically represented 10 minutes.) Another misconception (admittedly fostered by the published examples of play) was that the caller was the "party leader" who could make unilateral decisions about what the party was doing, both individually and as a group. The caller essentially acted as a "commit button" for the players to the DM.
The mapper's job was to draw out, on graph or hex paper, a map of the dungeon or wilderness being explored, according to the DM's description. It was often a good idea to have at least two mappers, because the mapping was considered something being done by both player AND character, so if something happened to the character, it would happen to the group's map, as well. (This was part and parcel of the general fuzziness regarding IC and OOC in early play -- a topic for another post another time.)
One reason I lament the loss of these roles is because they existed due to D&D being not just a generic fantasy RPG, but rather a fantasy exploration RPG. So, in the course of play, you would have many people doing many different things. Someone's investigating a pile of rags in the corner, another is checking for secret doors, another is keeping lookout outside the door, etc. And since the goal of play was exploration of the dungeon or wilderness, a premium was put on efficiency and orderly play. (Mainly because, as just about everyone knows who's played, groups of players are seldom efficient and orderly as a rule.)
So, for example, a common issue is one of sequence. One player says, "I'm searching for secret doors!" The DM says, okay, and rolls their search die. The roll is successful! "I open it!" the player says immediately, revealing the monster lurking behind. The players now deal with the monster, without getting around to the actions the other people were doing. Or perhaps the most common pitfall -- the party enters a room, someone trips a trap, and then there's an argument/discussion about which players were inside the room vs. outside the room.
To be sure, these issues can easily be handled with an experienced DM who knows how to organize, prioritize, and sequentialize. But the caller allowed for the DM to focus on DM-stuff like reviewing the map and key, rolling wandering monsters, and other busywork, while the caller worked out with the players who was doing what where and when, and relayed that to the DM.
As for the mapper, IMXP few things really brought out the fun of an exploration game as starting out with a blank sheet of graph paper and watching as the map slowly took form, giving the players a tangible sense of their progress, as well as providing them with a physical thing they look over, analyze, and think about.
In my most recent groups, I've also utilized a Quartermaster -- someone who keeps track of who's carrying what, to facilitate the logistical side of exploration.
Some things have always remained the same in D&D. There are always fighters, magic-users, thieves, and clerics. Everyone always has the six ability scores. But exploratory focus of the game when I first started playing has largely fallen by the wayside. Forget callers and mappers, people don't even want to keep track of light-sources and simple encumbrance. So, on the those rare times when I'm inclined to feel sad about modern D&D, it's mostly along those lines. It is a major disconnect between myself and players who've started since the late-90s. In the 80s and early 90s, whether one preferred D&D or AD&D, whichever of the many diverse playstyles one might have settled into, the great many D&D players shared the common experiences of playing B2 and/or hating Bargle, the experience of mapping, and a good chance of having used callers.
That most post-2000 players don't have those shared experiences is not a knock on them or even on post-2000 editions. It just makes me feel old.
