Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AmerginLiath" data-source="post: 7438736" data-attributes="member: 777">A thought occurs to me while reading this: how has our changing relationship with mapping as a culture affected our changed relationship with mapping as gamers? Until a few years ago, having a map to a place meant consulting a general map of an area and determining the route between two points (which might not be at a great scale on the given map); in many cases, there might only be a list of directions to use and one would need to sketch up a rough map of their own (who didn’t do as much on old invitations and the like?). Then the advent of MapQuest, Google Maps, and such allowed us to create custom maps and directions easily before leaving to go somewhere with just two addresses. Now, a bevy of apps on our phones or GPS devices will map and remap directions for us as we go and tell us how to turn (such that many folks don’t even look at the directions ahead of time after punching in the destination).Certainly, younger players don’t have the same history of using and creating maps in their daily life as older players previously had, but even those older players are mostly out of practice — and that reliance on external mapping changes how our brain thinks about directions and such (like getting out of the habit of math that you don’t use). Decades ago, mapping at the table was a chore but something that could be done fairly automatically if the DM gave good descriptions because the players likely thought in terms of maps differently (for a related example, I’m reminded of how I take minutes at meetings more quickly and more detailed than many others in groups that I’m in, because I started being a recording secretary while still a grad student and thus used to taking extensive live notes during lectures).If we generally rely on devices to generate maps for us — or to tell us directions without ever showing us a map —  in normal journeys instead of traveling with a self-created of self-altered map, we’re not going to have those skills at the ready at the gaming table as players. So, as a gaming culture, we alter how we create and present maps to players. I can’t say that this is in any way the complete answer (had the tools to render maps electronically existed in the past as they do today, DMs and groups certainly would have used them more), but I feel that it has to play some role in the transition ‘generationally.’</blockquote>

Verification