D&D 5E Player roles that no longer exist, and why

Boendal2 said:

During the last campaign I played (ToA) our GM expected us to map EVERYTHING. And it was awful. Just horrible. When 2-3 people just watch the DM for 10min as she tells one other player "left, right, 45 degree left, 10ft. further then a 90 degree angle to the right".... oh man.... it was awful.

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Yeah, that's the hard way of doing it.

Far simpler is to have a gridded board of some sort (I use a chalkboard) and for complex rooms like that just have the DM draw it on the board. Way faster than trying to describe it.

But it's trivially easy to say "the passage goes for 20' after which there's 10' openings to the left and right and the passage continues beyond that" and have someone map it either on the board or on paper or both.

Granted, ToA might take the cake for mapping, but after seeing my GM argue with the mapper if 45 degree angle to left meant "to her left or his left" for 2min straight just to start the mapping of the 20th maze from scratch...... I never want to play a single DnD session with player mapping again.

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Mazes are a headache, but in fairness that's kind of the point.

I am quite new to the hobby, but my approach is that it is a fun and fast RP game where everybody gets a chance to "shine" and express themselves (doesn't mean to win, failing is fun too, sometimes it just means RP at the campfire). And mapping just doesn't fit with that. It keeps the table waiting for something that could have been printed out (or prepared on a battle map by the GM).

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Sounds good in theory but in practice I've found published battlemaps always end up showing the PCs areas they can't yet see, while utterly defeating the point of secret or concealed features.

Also most dungeons can be easily resolved with theater of mind.... I guess....!? Even if the cobold lair has 12 different rooms - good communication by the GM can solve that (as mentioned before).

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This lasts exactly as long as it takes for the first "My character's here" "No, you said it was there" argument to erupt.

The caller would be weird in the games I play or master. Again: In my opinion everybody should have their special moment (winning or failing, doesn't matter). Just watching one player do all the social interactions would limit that way too much.

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That's not really how the caller works.

Social interactions proceed as normal - if you're the character talking to the guard then you speak as your character and the caller has nothing to do with it.

Where the caller comes in is when the whole party are discussing plans or marching order or watch sequence or whatever: once it's all figured out and decided the caller relays the results to the DM in a batch, rather than forcing the DM to try to listen to everyone at once. (this also means the DM can use this discussion time for other things if needed e.g. prep or note-taking, needing only to return attention to the table when the caller demands it)

Lanefan said:

Sounds good in theory but in practice I've found published battlemaps always end up showing the PCs areas they can't yet see, while utterly defeating the point of secret or concealed features.

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True. But not every dungeon has a secret door ;-) I personally don't have a problem with seeing the maximum reach of the dungeon but I get that it breaks the immersion for some people. (I should add, we put blank papers over the areas we haven't yet discovered, so we dont know the dungeon completey).

A friend of mine uses PPP for dungeon crawls. I think he puts black layers over the different areas of the dungeon, projects the map with a mini beamer and reveals area after area by mouseclick (awesome, but a lot of preparation and also a lot of stuff to carry around).

Lanefan said:

This lasts exactly as long as it takes for the first "My character's here" "No, you said it was there" argument to erupt.

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Haha, that's also very true. But I found, that in groups that know each other for a while this discussions are rare and not that annoying. But it is a problem with people you don't know yet or that don't know the GM style yet.

Lanefan said:

That's not really how the caller works.

Social interactions proceed as normal - if you're the character talking to the guard then you speak as your character and the caller has nothing to do with it.

Where the caller comes in is when the whole party are discussing plans or marching order or watch sequence or whatever: once it's all figured out and decided the caller relays the results to the DM in a batch, rather than forcing the DM to try to listen to everyone at once. (this also means the DM can use this discussion time for other things if needed e.g. prep or note-taking, needing only to return attention to the table when the caller demands it)

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Ah, ok.... I misunderstood the concept. Well, sounds interesting. We don't really have it.... Or more correct: The role changes from time to time. The GM very often tunes out and prepares the battle or the next social encounter (pr just goes to pee) while the party discusses strategies. Then one person tells him/her => that person does vary, but it's very often the same now that I think about it group dynamics I guess. Thanks for the clarification.

I've played for 30 years and a caller was never a thing. We always did things individually. Heck, I don't recall really using a mapper even in my 2e heyday. Maps just weren't a thing, our games were more cinematic. I drew a lot of maps but overall they were little used. 3e was a lot of maps and me drawing them out for players on the battlemap and then placing things as they found them.

One role we currently have in our group that isn't mentioned here is chronographer who, unlike the note taker, keeps track of what events happened on what dates in the campaign.

We also have:

• Note taker - Writes down the names of all the various NPCs and bits of important info we come across. Also writes up session summaries.
• Cartographer - Draws the maps as we explore.
• Treasurer - Keeps track of what money, magic items and other loot we found, how much it's worth and who currently has it.
• Musician - Changes the background music to whatever is appropriate for the scene we're currently in.

Two other player roles that have gone away:

RULES-GURU: Sometimes this meant a player who looks up rules in the book as needed. But there's also a different version of this: someone who knows the rules well enough that he can answer the DM's rule questions quickly so the DM can AVOID ever cracking a book during the game.

Best as I can tell, this has gone away because most groups, as a philosophy, just prefer to make things up as they go. First, they just aren't interested in spending time learning (or memorizing) anything before the game starts. But also, when people say 'playing D&D' they just mean a D&D-style game, they aren't referring to any specific setting or set of rules. And even if a specific set of rules is chosen, nobody expects the DM to actually remember or follow them in the heat of the moment. Just like with pirates, 'rules' are really more like 'guidelines'.

MONSTER GURU: Someone who knows (or can look up) monster and item stats.

Let's not forget that once upon a time there were people who had actually memorized just about everything in the entire monster manual. (There were fewer books, and fewer versions, back then, it only added up to 100 pages or so, not many thousands as it would be today) And same thing with the list of magic items: there were people who memorized every one. There wasn't this notion of just recasting magic items (for instance making 'gloves of X' into 'boots of X', or inventing a type of wand that can only be used twice per day: that was once considered wrong, you weren't allowed to re-imagine things like that).

I think this has changed because there's no notion of a common setting. Once upon a time, everyone 'knew' and agreed that goblins were level 1 and dragons were much higher level. But over the years, creative people have invented high level goblins, low level dragons, and everything in between. The philosophy now is that any creature can be any level -- they are after all fictional creatures, imagine them any way you like. It goes beyond just levels -- in some campaigns for instance, those poor prosecuted orcs aren't villains, they're victims of murderous adventurers. They're not dumb brutes, they're just as intelligent and righteous as any other race. There are good reasons for all of this... but it definitely has erased the common-culture from D&D, the ability to share stories of your adventures with other gamers and have them recognized and understood. There is no longer a common, near-universal, understanding of what a goblin is, for such people to "know".

This all is very related to the early notion that one's character could be moved about and played in many different games with different DMs (and bring his gear with him). It's not done that way anymore, every time you join a new campaign you need a new character, one native to that DM's setting.

We have all in my S&W game. One player is always keeping the party journal, another is mapping. Though they have a hireling now who is helping so I give them hints. And I will usually call one player party leader just so when they won't stop arguing over which stupid plan to implement I can say "OK what are you doing?" and move on.

For us, the Record Keeper is usually the last person who says "not it!" Unless that's something a player likes to do already.

I have mappers and callers in my game.

Most of the time when navigating the dungeon, the group decides where they want to go and what they want to explore and then the mapper is the one who directs me on how they get there. The rest of the players just concede to the mapper , during this time, since that player is the one with the map. In this case the mapper becomes the de facto caller.

In situations where the group is spending an inordinate amount of time deciding their course of action, I'll have everyone roll a d20 and the highest roll becomes the caller and gets to make the decision.

But, in actual exploration, I don't run a strict caller.

I allow players to tell me what they want to do, individually. In large player groups, I'm usually getting input from 3 or so players who want to do something and I then ask everyone else what they want to do at the same time. I tend to get input from everyone so that I have a good handle on where every character is at the time (so when the thief triggers the poison spray trap, I don't have arguments about whether characters are in the room or not.)

In a true caller situation, the group would talk amongst themselves regarding what each of them is doing, and the caller would tell me their final decision. Instead of me having to ask every player what their actions are, one player just tells me. Note that the caller is not necessarily the leader of the group. The caller is just the person who provides me with the information. The caller is a tool to make life easier for the DM.


I would like to see record keepers come back. Specifically players who would write synopsis' of sessions and track details. DM'ing is a lot of work and I end up having to add to my workload by documenting sessions, myself. I think this also does a disservice to my players as they should be the ones who are responsible for maintaining accurate information about their game.


But I exclusively run open world sandboxes, hex crawls, megadungeons. So, your mileage may vary.

Re: mapping

1E PH p. 106 said:

As long as it gives your party an idea as to where they are and how to get back, it is serving its purpose.

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Mapper - I have a mapper if we're doing a big dungeon crawl. I usually draw on a battle mat to save me having to provide a detailed verbal description of what a mapper should be able to see visually. Then it's the mappers responsibility to record that on a paper map. Works well, especially for planning where to go next session.

If we're not doing a dungeon crawl, someone usually just sketches out a connection graph.

Caller - I've never used a caller. My understanding is that that's only really needed for large groups. If I had 8+ people, I would definitely give it a try.

Record Keeper - I do this myself unless a player wants to take on the role. As some mentioned, it's not needed so much in 5e as the players have a lot less gear. This person usually also tracks monsters kill and calculates XP.