Map-and-key RPGing contrasted with alternatives

[Old Fezziwig]

Upon questioning, it turned out that he claimed to know the names and routes of every vendor in his cities. He would never let a player trespass on the sacred reality of Joe the apple-seller's route!

Joe has a family to feed, for goodness sake!

 

[Pedantic]

And this poster responded, "But what if there's no apple cart there?" Upon questioning, it turned out that he claimed to know the names and routes of every vendor in his cities. He would never let a player trespass on the sacred reality of Joe the apple-seller's route!

If he was actually telling the truth, that's equal parts awe-inspiring and appalling! I'd certainly never play in one of his games!

That's a whole separate question of resolution, but I don't think that's a particularly crazy thing to ask, if you're used to resolving each skill check as a discrete, specific action. If the basic unit of action requires you to interact in a specific unit of time with the environment, then looking for what's there to interact with (and presuming that it isn't there if you're not told it is) is a completely rational response.

 

[The Shadow]

That's a whole separate question of resolution, but I don't think that's a particularly crazy thing to ask, if you're used to resolving each skill check as a discrete, specific action. If the basic unit of action requires you to interact in a specific unit of time with the environment, then looking for what's there to interact with (and presuming that it isn't there if you're not told it is) is a completely rational response.

Sure, I can see, "If the GM didn't say there was an apple cart, there isn't an apple cart." It's not how my group rolls, but I can see it. It's claiming to know each individual vendor that staggered me!

Mainly I was using it as an example of a genuine extreme of map-and-key.

 

[The Shadow]

I could totally see the enemy gloating at us through the grille - it would probably come about as a "success at a cost". Or possibly just the GM being a jerk in that great GM way - maybe the NPC had a stunt making him poison resistant we didn't know about, and he inserted the gloating for dramatic effect and to give us a chance to respond. But in any case that grille would be there to make the scene possible, not because he had a map of the sewer.

It just occurred to me that the NPC having a sheet with defined stunts on it is itself an example of a map and key. A group more thoroughly narrative than ours might not even bother with actual stats for NPCs.

 

[The Shadow]

Joe has a family to feed, for goodness sake!

I wouldn't be surprised if he knows their names, ages, and dreams for the future!

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I wouldn't be surprised if he knows their names, ages, and dreams for the future!

He's probably missing a trick for a future game. His applecart upset, Joe Sr. turns to the bottle, his lucrative business selling luscious apples from here and yon dwindling into selling low quality homemade cider made from the noxious crabapples that grow in the nearby swamps to hobos in exchange for rat-loin pies. Little Joey, haunted by his father's eventual death (choked on rat-gristle), becomes a master assassin and stalks the PCs, one by one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred I think the whole "sniff and listen", earseekers etc arms race creates a real risk to the quality of play. Which I think puts us in agreement!

Yeah, in a pure Gygaxian dungeon crawl for us being 15 or so maybe, it was OK. DMs often learned, usually once you were 3rd or 5th level if was kind of like "OK, lets move on to other matters..." It could get non-functional though if you had a DM who just kept doubling down on this.

In the OP and the following post I was focused on resolution of "We move" and "We look around" but "sniff and listen" really gets into the territory of "We search . . . ." which is a bit different again.

Well, I was rereading the original D&D rules for this stuff earlier for another post. They don't really distinguish very well between 'looking around' and 'searching'. I think its just contextual and what actual declarations trigger which of the discrete 'find' or 'notice' rules is fairly ambiguous. I think that was one of the objectives of 'Sniff and Listen' being codified was to make it clear, we were triggering ALL of these kinds of things. This combats another tendency, which isn't necessarily a 'Map and Key' thing, which is the old gotcha of "well, you didn't say you were doing THAT!" even when it is obvious that is exactly what, contextually is happening. This is another 'error condition' of Gygaxian play, which is VERY likely with inexperienced/young GMs particularly, but can manifest in subtler forms too. It is kin to the 'lack of sufficient context' one that creates pixel bitching, but is kind of its antithesis.

So far I am liking how Torchbearer handles this: it uses map-and-key for framing, but doesn't use unmediated map-and-key for adjudication. So "We search . . ." triggers a Scout (or in some contexts Scavenger) test, and then earseekers would be a legitimate twist if the test fails. If the test succeeds the upshot of success might be read of the key, or if there is nothing good to offer from the key then the GM, if otherwise in doubt, can roll something up on Loot Table 1.

Yeah, it very naturally works for these types of scenarios. TB2 is a very 'exploratory' and 'environmental' game. Like in Blades we rarely do a lot of detailed exploration, or often even really working out any but the most general elements of locations. It has happened that we got a bit more into the environment, like when we were out in the death lands. OTOH when I was breaking out of Ironhook the other day, the descriptions were pretty high level. TB2 would probably include a bit more detail, like the lair of the cannibal people had a pretty detailed layout. It wasn't D&D level maping, but there were some details along the way.

 

[The Shadow]

He's probably missing a trick for a future game. His applecart upset, Joe Sr. turns to the bottle, his lucrative business selling luscious apples from here and yon dwindling into selling low quality homemade cider made from the noxious crabapples that grow in the nearby swamps to hobos in exchange for rat-loin pies. Little Joey, haunted by his father's eventual death (choked on rat-gristle), becomes a master assassin and stalks the PCs, one by one.

So dramatic! Alas, Joe wasn't due on that corner until 2:15 PM, and the PC was running through at 2:05. Now little Joey will grow up to be an apple-seller like his dad and probably marry young Marta across the street. Their torrid romance will be the stuff of legends, but the PCs will unfortunately never hear about it.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

So dramatic! Alas, Joe wasn't due on that corner until 2:15 PM, and the PC was running through at 2:05. Now little Joey will grow up to be an apple-seller like his dad and probably marry young Marta across the street. Their torrid romance will be the stuff of legends, but the PCs will unfortunately never hear about it.

Oh, thank God, I felt terrible for Joe Jr. And for Mrs. Joe — she had to sell the family orchards to pay off the debts Joe incurred to the importer-exporters he was selling apples for. They had been in her family for years. Damn near broke Grandpa Mrs. Joe's heart and Grandma Mrs. Joe couldn't eat tree fruit for the rest of her life.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

she had to sell the family orchards to pay off the debts Joe incurred to the importer-exporters he was selling apples for. They had been in her family for years.

You might ask, "The orchards or the importer-exporters?" And the answer is "yes." It was a bad day for the Mrs. Joes.