How do you handle mapping?

[gfunk]

Our group makes extensive use of battlemats, but how do you guys map out your adventures? I just picked up the Rappan Athuk series and some of the maps are truly gargantuan. In one are each sqaure equals 150 ft!!

I mean do you just describe the rooms to your players and just use the battlemap in combat situations?

 

[Drawmack]

we have a party mapper whose job it is to map what the GM descripbes. The battle mat is reserved for rooms of the dungeon, except in the case of mazes where correctness is of the utmost importance then the map is done on the battle mat.

 

[Furtive Noise]

When I DM I always just draw out a crude map for the PCs as they go along. I remember having the hated task of mapping when I used to play, and how much it broke the mood to have to keep asking the DM how big is this room again? or do these halls align right? Just a personal preference to make things easier for everybody. I'm not sure how I would handle a situation of a dungeon with misleading sloping corridors or such... hasn't come up yet.

 

[Zappo]

First of all, it's been years since I've last sent my players into a dungeon that can be called large or complex. Most of my dungeons look like the D&D: The Movie dungeons (hey, the similarities stop there, though, ok?).

In any case, I draw a crude map for the players on the side of the whiteboard that doesn't have squares, and use the squared part for battles.

While having the players draw the map is somewhat more realistic and might cause the Find Direction skill to actually have a use, I agree with Furtive Noise in that it's a real chore.

 

[applenerd]

In my group I tend to draw rough maps on the whiteboard for the party mapper to copy down. We only use the battlemat for, um..., battles. It works out pretty well. Anyone know of any good mapping software out there? As a dm it would be great to have some decent map making software. Even better, anyone know of any good mapping software for the macintosh?

 

[Tonguez]

Whats a map?


Seriously though I don't use maps - I just give general descriptions of the setting and fill in details 'on the fly'.

If the players want a map - they draw it...

 

[Zappo]

An addition... what with every average party having at least one wizard member with 18+ Intelligence, I figure that the guy can most certainly remember the map of anything that wasn't explictly designed to confuse.

In one of the last tournaments I played in, the DM not only wanted us to draw the map, but he actually prevented us from doing it because none of our characters had ink and pen.

 

[Tonguez]

An addition... what with every average party having at least one wizard member with 18+ Intelligence, I figure that the guy can most certainly remember the map of anything that wasn't explictly designed to confuse.

Except that the spatial awareness required in recalling maps is probably modeled more by Wisdom in DnD than by Int. - Which makes sense Barbs, Druids and Clerics are gonna be better at Maps than a Wizard is...