D&D 5E Does anyone still do mapping?

[mrpopstar]

Good catch on the time to check for traps on a door. I set that at 10 minutes in my Sunless Citadel game along with a number of other common dungeoneering tasks so that the PCs can all get more or less one thing done in a given 10-minutes stretch. At the end of it, I make a wandering monster check.

I think the "another minute to check for traps on the door" is a ruling and not a rule. It requires DM judgement!

 

[iserith]

Disarming a trap takes an action unless otherwise specified, and the thief can make such an attempt with a bonus action.

Do you have a source for disarming a trap taking an action?

 

[mrpopstar]

Do you have a source for disarming a trap taking an action?

My thinking on that is informed by the thief's ability to disarm as a bonus action. I understand most traps to be designed with a mechanism to disarm or bypass, so it seems reasonable that a single action captures the attempt of disarming a simple mechanical trap. Your rulings may vary!

 

[Toledo]

In our group, it is mandatory that someone maps all dungeons, but we don't do outdoor mapping. Usually a wizard or cleric type has to map. Occasionally the DM checks to make sure the map is okay - and if not, and it is a complicated maze, the party could become "lost". I've not seen it happen myself, but not a good thing supposedly in a big thing. Usually (I'm told) random encounters will eventually doom the lost party.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes. It's SOP here, regardless of what rules system (1e, 3e, 5e, PF, whatever) is being used.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Mapper of the mind! (That's a thing, right?)

 

[Schmoe]

Yup, there is almost always a mapper in my games. A lot of people tend to have fun with it.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Mapping is dead and gone, and good riddance. It basically just wasted time transmitting information from the DM to the mapper in an inefficient format, who then showed the map to the party.

Unless the goal of a section is to make the players lost, then I'll map if I think it's necessary to show the layout of an area, like if a fight happens, or pure TOTM would be confusing. If the goal is to make the players lost, I'll probably still do the same, but won't keep more than a single room on the map at a time, and won't let the players say things like "we go back to the room with the big column".

 

[5ekyu]

Back in the day, we had a mapper. One of the players would have graph paper and do their best to map out the dungeons. I don't see that so much anymore. Not even with my own group. There is some speculation around that. For example, it takes A LOT of time for the DM to describe the room in detail, and then map it out, and now as adults with jobs and kids and families, our gaming time is limited so we don't want to spend it on mapping. The other thought is that also back in the day, you had to map when you played video games. Due to graphics and non-smooth movement, every tile looked like every other tile and if you didn't map, you'd get lost. Is it a coincidence that our desire to map in D&D stopped at around the same time video games started doing the mapping for you?

So how to you handle it? Many times, I'll print out the actual map with all the details blank, and just let the players use that as a reference. It just speeds things way up. But I feel like it's almost like cheating that way, and the players are missing out.

Usually its more Mind'sEye and I use character abilities for checks to notice patterns, recall layouts and odd gaps etc. Puts focus on character efforts, not player efforts which is where we prefer it.

But it can be very circumstantial as one might expect, as to which skills apply.

 

[JonnyP71]

If the players don't make a map then it is assumed the characters are not, and thus risk getting lost, missing secret areas, etc. My players know the value of making a good map!

As a DM I try to focus on player skill over character skill. Also, I never let Passive Perception detect secret doors, or anything but the very largest and badly concealed traps - my players must state where they are looking, and frequently how they are going about it! I know it's the old way of doing things, but I find it much more satisfying, and encourages the players to think more about the dungeon environment.