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<blockquote data-quote="SWBaxter" data-source="post: 2950307" data-attributes="member: 27926">Well, my take is that what makes a good or bad map is not an independent objective quality, it can only be judged in the context of the rest of the adventure and the desires of a given group. What works in one area might not work in another. It seems obvious to me that a more &quot;open&quot; design with a lot of options works well in a context in which the PCs are supposed to be kicking around and exploring. IME it doesn't work nearly as well when the PCs have a focused goal they're trying to attain, in that case a more linear design is preferable. For example, that design works fine for the Caves of Chaos because that's a kill-critters-and-take-their-stuff romp, but I always found it pretty jarring in Descent into the Depths simply because the framing for the latter is that the PCs are in hot pursuit of the Drow conspirators from G3, and every side exploration that dead ends (or worse, leads off to an unmapped part of the underdark) just builds player frustration.So to me, the key is to figure out &quot;what do I want the high points of this adventure to be?&quot; and design the map accordingly. There's no One True Way that's guaranteed to lead to fun, because different people like different types of adventures, which demand different types of maps.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="SWBaxter, post: 2950307, member: 27926"] Well, my take is that what makes a good or bad map is not an independent objective quality, it can only be judged in the context of the rest of the adventure and the desires of a given group. What works in one area might not work in another. It seems obvious to me that a more "open" design with a lot of options works well in a context in which the PCs are supposed to be kicking around and exploring. IME it doesn't work nearly as well when the PCs have a focused goal they're trying to attain, in that case a more linear design is preferable. For example, that design works fine for the [i]Caves of Chaos[/i] because that's a kill-critters-and-take-their-stuff romp, but I always found it pretty jarring in [i]Descent into the Depths[/i] simply because the framing for the latter is that the PCs are in hot pursuit of the Drow conspirators from G3, and every side exploration that dead ends (or worse, leads off to an unmapped part of the underdark) just builds player frustration. So to me, the key is to figure out "what do I want the high points of this adventure to be?" and design the map accordingly. There's no One True Way that's guaranteed to lead to fun, because different people like different types of adventures, which demand different types of maps. [/QUOTE]

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