DMs: do you make your players draw their own maps?

[Altamont Ravenard]

I let the players draw the map. If my instructions aren't clear, or misinterpreted, I correct the map myself.

AR

 

[The_Universe]

I would make them draw their own maps if it ever occured to them to track their progress through a dungeon.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I suggest that they sketch out a rough flowchart of rooms and hallways with correct cardinal orientation. Something that looks like:

Room with bats ----- troll campfire ---- troll sleeping area
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                               lots of smelly
                                 trash (search
                                 later?)

But I don't get into telling them "okay, a 35 foot wall on the north with a door in the fourth square from the left, which turns 15 degrees south and continues another 25 feet, ending in a curved wall (you brought your french curves, right?) that encloses an area of 72 square feet with a 3:1 scale statue of a dwarf at the focal point of the curve..."

 

[ivocaliban]

I tried dictating the description of the maps and having the players draw them, but it's like playing Pictionary...too much guess work and poor communication. So, I tend to do all the drawing.

 

[pogre]

I usually lay the dungeon out on the table with master maze and hirst arts pieces so mapping is pretty simple for the players.

 

[IronWolf]

No, I don't make them map it out.

 

[jasper]

NO. Too slow. Every time I tried to tell people to map it took 2+ sessions for me to communicate correctly with the mapper. Ex t intersection left side goes down 30 and ends. There a door on the far side. The right hand side goes 60 feet and turns north.
One mapper put the door in center of the t since I paused. etc

 

[Janx]

I found that mapping slowed things down.

Nowadays, I try to justify a way to give the players a map in the game (perhaps the first corpse they find in the dungeon has a map).

The map is always a hand-copied version of the DM's map, sans hidden stuff, and drawn out of scale such that the players generally, know which rooms to goto (which is what really speeds up game play), but they won't be immediately able to deduce where the secrets are.

I figure, the party has a wizard or some high INT character. They may not be physically mapping, but somebody that smart probably has an eye for details and isn't too likely to get lost (you don't get lost in a new building your visiting do you?). Basically I find an in game reason to justify making game play faster and easier.

I find things go really quickly when the players can point at the map and say, "we're here, we want to go here, by this path" and I can then describe what happens.

Real examples:
I ran a 4 level dungeon for the party. In 6 hours, they got to level 2, when I made them do all the mapping by hand. The next session, I gave them a map and they cleared the remaining 2 levels in 3 hours.

The last session my friend ran (as a new DM), he gave us a hand drawn map (nice prop actually). The game ran from 6PM to 9:30PM. We introduced the party, got the plot hook, and cleared 5 combat encounters in that time span. Having a map (and a time limit because we had to work early the next morning) made the game play faster.

Janx

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I used to but I don't anymore. If their map is screwed up then that's the nature of mapping a dungeon while being on the look out for loot and possible death.

 

[Greylock]

I get thoroughly and completely lost without a map. I often can't keep track of where my character is at in the world at large or in a particular area. When I draw a map for myself, I often find out that my map is at serious odds with the "reality" of the game world.

That is a player fault, not a character fault, so why should the character be punished for my ineptitude?

In my last game, the DM occasionally provided "drawn in the dirt" maps, and that helped immensely. In my current game, I've had my character invest in Craft:Cartography, and in-between games the DM sends higher quality maps. And yes, the char totes around plenty of ink and paper.