Agreed. The whole "My ChArEcTeR iS dOiNg It NOW TELLME WHAT I COULDN'T BOTHER WITH" modern expectation is entirely unreasonable and devolves the dungeon crawl towards quick time event equivalent rooms. It's also the entirely predictable result of wotc trying to shift all player responsibilities and expectations onto the gm through omission. Taking the graph paper talk from earlier in the thread as an example... there used to be many references to using graph paper in many player facing books of those however & some of them are great examples of things sorely lacking in the 5e text where the term graph paper is not even found in the 5e PHB & the 5e dmg places the use exclusively on the GM when it gets mentioned.
Aside from a copy of this book, very little is needed to play the AD&D game.
You will need some sort of character record. TSR publishes character record sheets that are quite handy and easy to use, but any sheet of paper will do. Blank paper, lined paper, or even graph paper can be used. A double-sized sheet of paper (11 = 17 inches), folded in half, is excellent. Keep your character record in pencil, because it will change frequently during the game. A good eraser is also a must. ... dice talk ...
At least one player should have a few sheets of graph paper for mapping the group’s progress. Assorted pieces of scratch paper are handy for making quick notes, for passing secret messages to other players or the DM, or for keeping track of odd bits of information that you don’t want cluttering up your character record.
Miniature figures are handy for keeping track of where everyone is in a confusing situation like a battle. These can be as elaborate or simple as you like. Some players use miniature lead or pewter figures painted to resemble their characters. Plastic soldiers, chess pieces, boardgame pawns, dice, or bits of paper can work just as well.
You will need some sort of character record. TSR publishes character record sheets that are quite handy and easy to use, but any sheet of paper will do. Blank paper, lined paper, or even graph paper can be used. A double-sized sheet of paper (11 = 17 inches), folded in half, is excellent. Keep your character record in pencil, because it will change frequently during the game. A good eraser is also a must. ... dice talk ...
At least one player should have a few sheets of graph paper for mapping the group’s progress. Assorted pieces of scratch paper are handy for making quick notes, for passing secret messages to other players or the DM, or for keeping track of odd bits of information that you don’t want cluttering up your character record.
Miniature figures are handy for keeping track of where everyone is in a confusing situation like a battle. These can be as elaborate or simple as you like. Some players use miniature lead or pewter figures painted to resemble their characters. Plastic soldiers, chess pieces, boardgame pawns, dice, or bits of paper can work just as well.
History note from the late nineteen hundreds: Printers at home were primitive and almost unheard of till the mid/late 90s. Even then they were not particularly common till early 2000s. those old amber sheets were great sheets with a set of boxes by each weapon for precalculated d20 rolls.
Your group needs these items to play D&D.
The Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual
revised core rulebooks. (All players might want to have their own
copies of the books.)
A copy of the character sheet at the back of this book for each
player.
A battle grid. The Dungeon Master’s Guide contains one.
Miniatures to represent each character and the monsters that
challenge them.
A set of dice for each player. A set of dice includes at least one
four-sided die (d4), four six-sided dice (d6), one eight-sided die
(d8), two ten-sided dice (d10), one twelve-sided die (d12), and one
twenty-sided die (d20).
Pencils, scrap paper, and graph paper to keep notes and to map
the locations your characters will explore.
The Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual
revised core rulebooks. (All players might want to have their own
copies of the books.)
A copy of the character sheet at the back of this book for each
player.
A battle grid. The Dungeon Master’s Guide contains one.
Miniatures to represent each character and the monsters that
challenge them.
A set of dice for each player. A set of dice includes at least one
four-sided die (d4), four six-sided dice (d6), one eight-sided die
(d8), two ten-sided dice (d10), one twelve-sided die (d12), and one
twenty-sided die (d20).
Pencils, scrap paper, and graph paper to keep notes and to map
the locations your characters will explore.
Here are a few ways in which you can help the game go more smoothly.
Mapping: Someone should keep a map of places you explore so that
you know where you’ve been and where you have yet to explore. The
responsibility for mapping can be rotated from person to person, if more
than one player likes to do this sort of thing, but as a rule the same
person should be the mapper through a single playing session.
A map is most useful and most important when the characters are in
a dungeon setting—an environment with lots of corridors, doors, and
rooms that would be almost impossible to navigate through without a
record of what parts the characters have already explored.
To make a map, you start with a blank sheet of paper (graph paper is
best) and draw the floor plan of the dungeon as you and your group
discover it and the Dungeon Master describes what you’re seeing. For
example, when the characters come to a new, empty room, the DM
might say, “The door you have opened leads east into a room 23 feet
wide and 30 feet deep. The door is in the middle of the room’s west wall,
and you can see two other doors: one in the north wall near the corner
with the east wall, and one in the east wall about 5 feet south of the
middle.” Or, if it’s easier for you to visualize, the DM might express the
information this way: “From the north edge of the door, the wall goes
two squares north, six squares east, five squares south, six squares west,
and then north back to the door. There’s a door on the sixth square of
the north wall and on the fourth square of the east wall.”
Party Notes: It often pays to keep notes: names of NPCs the heroes
have met, treasure the group has won, secrets the characters have
learned, and so forth. The Dungeon Master might keep track of all this
information for his or her own benefit, but even so it can be handy for
you to jot down facts that might be needed later—at the least, doing this
prevents you from having to ask the Dungeon Master, “What was the
name of that old man we met in the woods last week?”
Character Notes: You should keep track of hit points, spells, and other
characteristics about your character that change during an adventure on
scratch paper. Between playing sessions, you might decide to write some
of this information directly on your character sheet—but don’t worry
about updating the sheet constantly. For instance, it would be tedious
(and could make a mess of the sheet) if you erased your character’s
current hit points and wrote in a new number every time he or she took
damage.
Mapping: Someone should keep a map of places you explore so that
you know where you’ve been and where you have yet to explore. The
responsibility for mapping can be rotated from person to person, if more
than one player likes to do this sort of thing, but as a rule the same
person should be the mapper through a single playing session.
A map is most useful and most important when the characters are in
a dungeon setting—an environment with lots of corridors, doors, and
rooms that would be almost impossible to navigate through without a
record of what parts the characters have already explored.
To make a map, you start with a blank sheet of paper (graph paper is
best) and draw the floor plan of the dungeon as you and your group
discover it and the Dungeon Master describes what you’re seeing. For
example, when the characters come to a new, empty room, the DM
might say, “The door you have opened leads east into a room 23 feet
wide and 30 feet deep. The door is in the middle of the room’s west wall,
and you can see two other doors: one in the north wall near the corner
with the east wall, and one in the east wall about 5 feet south of the
middle.” Or, if it’s easier for you to visualize, the DM might express the
information this way: “From the north edge of the door, the wall goes
two squares north, six squares east, five squares south, six squares west,
and then north back to the door. There’s a door on the sixth square of
the north wall and on the fourth square of the east wall.”
Party Notes: It often pays to keep notes: names of NPCs the heroes
have met, treasure the group has won, secrets the characters have
learned, and so forth. The Dungeon Master might keep track of all this
information for his or her own benefit, but even so it can be handy for
you to jot down facts that might be needed later—at the least, doing this
prevents you from having to ask the Dungeon Master, “What was the
name of that old man we met in the woods last week?”
Character Notes: You should keep track of hit points, spells, and other
characteristics about your character that change during an adventure on
scratch paper. Between playing sessions, you might decide to write some
of this information directly on your character sheet—but don’t worry
about updating the sheet constantly. For instance, it would be tedious
(and could make a mess of the sheet) if you erased your character’s
current hit points and wrote in a new number every time he or she took
damage.
That's a far cry from today where I've turned from discussing a quick skill check with a player (Alice) to find a second player (Bob) react in outrage at the unfairness when asked to tell us about the nasty trap their PC just triggered by him literally using his finger to explore behind the tabletop display's Fog of War "because I never said that I was walking off or anything"
Scale and Squares
The standard unit for tactical maps is the 5-foot square.
This unit is useful for miniatures and for drawing dun-
geon maps, which are usually created on graph paper.
In a fight, each Small or Medium character occupies a single 5-foot square. Larger creatures take up
more squares, and several smaller creatures fit in a
square. See Table 8–4: Creature Size and Scale, page
149 of the Player’s Handbook.
The standard unit for tactical maps is the 5-foot square.
This unit is useful for miniatures and for drawing dun-
geon maps, which are usually created on graph paper.
In a fight, each Small or Medium character occupies a single 5-foot square. Larger creatures take up
more squares, and several smaller creatures fit in a
square. See Table 8–4: Creature Size and Scale, page
149 of the Player’s Handbook.
The 3.5 dmg & 5e dmg mention the GM using graph paper to create dungeons maps & so on quite a bit & seem reasonably comparable in those areas, but in some ways that just reinforces the idea that players have no responsibilities whatsoever with regards to notes mapping & so on.
TL; DR version: wotc could do a lot better in supporting the use of tactical grid combat/exploration and d&d has done so throughout the editions up until recent editions seemed to buy into the myth that anything but totm is a bank breaking expense akin to Warhammer or something.
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