I've been playing long enough that seeing the corridor ahead and having to decide whether to turn or go straight seems part of the very essence of Dungeons and Dragons.
D&D 5E Does anyone still do mapping?
- Thread starter Sacrosanct
- Start date
I've been playing long enough that seeing the corridor ahead and having to decide whether to turn or go straight seems part of the very essence of Dungeons and Dragons.
Flexor the Mighty!
18/100 Strength!
I'm going to make them designate a mapper if they are going to map during game time.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
AH, I've been playing that long as well, started back with Red Box Basic. I've just had my tastes in what I look for in a game mature over time.
mrpopstar
Sparkly Dude
Are you calling our tastes immature?AH, I've been playing that long as well, started back with Red Box Basic. I've just had my tastes in what I look for in a game mature over time.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
It's definitely a common choice in D&D. The issue is that it's still not a meaningful choice unless you have some idea of what's down the turn and what's straight ahead or otherwise where they lead. Otherwise the choice may as well be random. This is a good place for the DM to foreshadow: straight ahead, there's a metallic ringing like a hammer on an anvil and, to the right, the horrible stench of death. Which do you choose?
The players drawing a map might provide the necessary context. You may, for example, realize that straight ahead will not be a good choice because clearly there's not enough room on this 8 1/2" x 11" piece of graph paper for it to do anything other than dead end. So turn it is!
I agree with the suggestion for the DM to provide foreshadowing. But knowing that straight ahead is likely to be a dead end would make me want to go straight first to absolutely verify that there was nothing there such as a teleporter, a magic item, etc. Then with that corridor completely and probably quickly mapped, I can move on to the rest of the dungeon.
I loved being the mapper because as a 1e Magic User it kept me very entertained during points when I did not have much to do. Also it is very relaxing, like the way people used to do needlepoint. I did some when I got back into 5e and the other players thought I was wasting my time, but sure enough it came in useful when we got deeper into the dungeon and had to get our bearings. It would be great if games could get back to it, and it is also fun to take photos of the map in progress and you can see how your adventure has progressed btw sessions. It goes a long way to helping establish a sense of place to be able to look at the map and remember that is where the x was, and over in that room was the y. It makes it more real to the mind.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
My overall point is that it's not a meaningful choice to pick between two essentially opaque options, even if that's a common thing at many tables in my experience.
pming
Legend
Hiya!
Speak for yourself!
I LOVE mapping, describing stuff to map, and looking at what the player(s) have mapped. There is just something extremely satisfying looking at a map I drew of the "Bath House Dungeon" (from City State of the Invincible Overlord when I was playing my highest level character I've ever had...Denakhan, Grey Elf 20th level Arch-Mage, 1e AD&D). I think I only got about 200' or so into it. It was..."dangerous", to say the least! But still, looking at the map, my doodles on it of symbols I found, spell placements when I took on two Beholders at the same time, by my self...it all just comes flooding back.
Maps are tangible proof that you "were there", so to speak. Seeing and holding in your hand a physical object that you, yourself, created makes it seem more "real" to me. Like I'm holding the actual map that my character made. It makes the memories more vivid for me.
I don't know...not having a map made by myself or my players just seems to be a terrible loss of potential.
Anyway, the key to describing an accurate map, as I said in another recent thread about mapping, is consistency. I describe in terms of "this...and THEN...that". Like telling a driver where to turn...."Keep going, go past the blue house there AND THEN turn left". You don't turn left AT the blue house...you pass the house, AND THEN you turn left. Same mentality with mapping...
"This is a standard corridor that goes north for 60', then turns west for 20', then north again for 30', ending in a door". If you have established that a "standard corridor' is 10x10'x12' height arched center", you can just say "standard corridor" and everyone knows what you mean. This corridor goes on for "6 squares", assuming a square is 10'x10. In the "7th" square is a corridor heading west for 2 squares. In the 3rd square is a corridor going north again for 3 squares, with the north side of the last square being a door.
Rooms are the same way "A 40' (west-east) by 50' (north-south) room. You enter through a door in the south wall, 10' away from the south east corner. There are two other exits; one is another door, in the west wall, at the most northern 10'. A standard 10' corridor also leads out of this room, located in the north wall, 10' away from the north west corner".
Easy. I'm pretty sure nobody would have any trouble mapping that. Mapping either of my examples would take all of 30 seconds for my group, probably a lot less. After that, then I can get into the juicy "dungeon dressing and description". By having a map, when things start to get described, my players will often doodle in things that they find interesting, or they'll draw an arching arrow to some area and then write what it is (e.g., "Is this the same statue as up stairs?", with an arrow pointing to a statue the drew in the corner of the room that I described).
Caves are a little more difficult, but as long as you (and your group) understand that the map is "rough", it's not much harder. "The cavern is made of two major sections; one in the east, where you enter in the southern'ish area of the east side of it, is about 40' in diameter...the north western area of this 40' cave opens into another cave that is about 30' north-south on average, but extends at least 100', maybe 120', slowly tapering into a thin 5' wide by 5' high cave exit heading north-west". A little more "imagination" and "artistic representation" is expected with this...it is a cave and quite irregular. My players will map, then sometimes say "like this?". I look, and if it's not obviously out of whack, then yeah, it's like that.
At any rate...mapping is pretty much required at my games. I do NOT provide 'maps', 'battlemaps', and only on rare occasion will I do any mapping for the players. If they don't draw maps...they're going to get lost, run out of food/supplies, turn into a really bad section of the dungeon/cave, and then I usually get to add another TPK skull to my DM Screen.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Speak for yourself!
I LOVE mapping, describing stuff to map, and looking at what the player(s) have mapped. There is just something extremely satisfying looking at a map I drew of the "Bath House Dungeon" (from City State of the Invincible Overlord when I was playing my highest level character I've ever had...Denakhan, Grey Elf 20th level Arch-Mage, 1e AD&D). I think I only got about 200' or so into it. It was..."dangerous", to say the least! But still, looking at the map, my doodles on it of symbols I found, spell placements when I took on two Beholders at the same time, by my self...it all just comes flooding back.Maps are tangible proof that you "were there", so to speak. Seeing and holding in your hand a physical object that you, yourself, created makes it seem more "real" to me. Like I'm holding the actual map that my character made. It makes the memories more vivid for me.
I don't know...not having a map made by myself or my players just seems to be a terrible loss of potential.
Anyway, the key to describing an accurate map, as I said in another recent thread about mapping, is consistency. I describe in terms of "this...and THEN...that". Like telling a driver where to turn...."Keep going, go past the blue house there AND THEN turn left". You don't turn left AT the blue house...you pass the house, AND THEN you turn left. Same mentality with mapping...
"This is a standard corridor that goes north for 60', then turns west for 20', then north again for 30', ending in a door". If you have established that a "standard corridor' is 10x10'x12' height arched center", you can just say "standard corridor" and everyone knows what you mean. This corridor goes on for "6 squares", assuming a square is 10'x10. In the "7th" square is a corridor heading west for 2 squares. In the 3rd square is a corridor going north again for 3 squares, with the north side of the last square being a door.
Rooms are the same way "A 40' (west-east) by 50' (north-south) room. You enter through a door in the south wall, 10' away from the south east corner. There are two other exits; one is another door, in the west wall, at the most northern 10'. A standard 10' corridor also leads out of this room, located in the north wall, 10' away from the north west corner".
Easy. I'm pretty sure nobody would have any trouble mapping that. Mapping either of my examples would take all of 30 seconds for my group, probably a lot less. After that, then I can get into the juicy "dungeon dressing and description". By having a map, when things start to get described, my players will often doodle in things that they find interesting, or they'll draw an arching arrow to some area and then write what it is (e.g., "Is this the same statue as up stairs?", with an arrow pointing to a statue the drew in the corner of the room that I described).
Caves are a little more difficult, but as long as you (and your group) understand that the map is "rough", it's not much harder. "The cavern is made of two major sections; one in the east, where you enter in the southern'ish area of the east side of it, is about 40' in diameter...the north western area of this 40' cave opens into another cave that is about 30' north-south on average, but extends at least 100', maybe 120', slowly tapering into a thin 5' wide by 5' high cave exit heading north-west". A little more "imagination" and "artistic representation" is expected with this...it is a cave and quite irregular. My players will map, then sometimes say "like this?". I look, and if it's not obviously out of whack, then yeah, it's like that.
At any rate...mapping is pretty much required at my games. I do NOT provide 'maps', 'battlemaps', and only on rare occasion will I do any mapping for the players. If they don't draw maps...they're going to get lost, run out of food/supplies, turn into a really bad section of the dungeon/cave, and then I usually get to add another TPK skull to my DM Screen.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Last edited:
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Are you calling our tastes immature?
Nah, I'm calling myself old.
But more seriously I don't have time for that anymore - play on evening every other week after work instead of a 12 hour marathon every weekend plus some other games during the week. I want to get to the "good parts", not spend 90 minutes mapping a maze.
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