"A ten-foot wide hallway stretches thirty feet and then . . ."

[Steel_Wind]

Oh well that's a different point.

Using a projector to reveal the dungeon map or a battlemat to draw it for the players is a necessity.

But describing it so that the players can map it themselves? That's just way too old skool for me. A few times asside, it was too old skool when I was in the old skool!

 

[Crothian]

I droppped it when it astarted taking away from the fun

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Back in the day, the "mapper" was the second-most important player (right after the "caller" ;-)

But for the past couple decades I've provided tabletop maps that players can move miniatures around on, which makes mapping a little less important because players can better visualise the whole place in their heads, or jot down simple yet accurate maps on scrap paper, if they need to.

Plus, I can skip the "you see a 30 by 30 room" and just go straight to the important descriptive stuff.

ironregime

 

[Shadowslayer]

I remember with great fondness mapping out a dungeon as we explored its depths but that seems to be a thing of the past or a "never-was" for most gamers. What's your take on this? (Will the graph paper industry survive? )

In the old days, our DM did it for us, and that sort of carried on with me as DM. Basically he'd describe the scene then draw the room, handing us the paper over the DM screen. When we came to the next thing, we'd hand the paper back, he'd draw the next room and so on. We tried having the players map as he described it, but it was always "No actually its 30 feet, and you have the door on the wrong side...no thats...never mind, gimme that."

Doing it this way also eliminated the need for boring decriptions with full dimensions.

Nowadays, I either do one of two things. If the dungeon is small enough, I just lay it down as we go with dungeon tiles. If its big, I revert back to the old way, except that when I draw for the players its just lines for hallways and squares for rooms, almost like a flowchart. The players are free fo write whatever memory joggers they want in the room squares ("Mystic circle on floor" or "Labratory" or "Three dead goblins here") Using this second method, the dungeon tiles only come out when something needs to be worked out...mostly for combat.

I personally never liked the game-bogging-down aspect of having the players map it themselves, especially whan the only reason to do it that way was only to give them a chance to get lost if they got it wrong...big investment for little return.

Mind you this is all in my own experience. I'm sure there were other groups that used mapping and had fun with it.

Trev

 

[Slander]

We don't draw scale maps anymore, but we do draw map trees. It's very rare that the actual shape of the dungeon is an important enough aspect that a scale map is needed. Its generally enough to know where we've been, how we got there, and what areas still need to be explored.

 

[Wombat]

I did this all the time back in the OD&D days.

Nowadays? Nah.

Part of the problem is "knowing when to stop". For example, shouldn't we also have to map the wilderness, the cities, and the villages? Why only dungeons? And who is actually drawing the map that they are referring to? Do they have measuring sticks?

So when the semi-hemi-demi-logic broke down, I gave up mapping.

 

[WayneLigon]

We usually don't map, per se. It gets drawn on the tiles with dry erase, then we simply erase and move when we go to the next section. If we ever need to keep the map for some reason, a copy is usually provided to us afterwards because after we get rid of the main encounters we'll usually explore the place top to bottom unless we're pressed for time in character.

Also, many times if we find an extensive, well-built place, especially if it's close to a town or something... we'll take it over. We'll clean it out, then actually clean it, claim it with whatever local lord there is if his reach even goes that far, hire some locals as guards. The place then becomes a cache for us to rest, re-equip, winter in, or as lab for the wizards, or something.

 

[ssampier]

Mark, I'm not an old-school gamer, so I always thought it was a bit silly that DMs give "accurate" dimensions in description. I would prefer this description,

"A long hallway, wide enough for two armored soldiers to pass, stretches out before you..."

As for mapping, we're usually pretty casual about the "realism", so we tend to just assume that you can find your way out (unless it's Undermountain or other mega-dungeon).

 

[Peter Gibbons]

But describing it so that the players can map it themselves? That's just way too old skool for me. A few times asside, it was too old skool when I was in the old skool!

Ditto. I have faint memories of doing this a few times in the 70's, when we could spend all day every day playing D&D if we wanted. Now that my gaming time is precious to me, no freakin' way!

 

[Mouseferatu]

Mark, I'm not an old-school gamer, so I always thought it was a bit silly that DMs give "accurate" dimensions in description. I would prefer this description,

"A long hallway, wide enough for two armored soldiers to pass, stretches out before you..."

As for mapping, we're usually pretty casual about the "realism", so we tend to just assume that you can find your way out (unless it's Undermountain or other mega-dungeon).

Except for the fact that I am an old-schooler, this is me to a tee.