D&D General "I make a perception check."

[Cadence]

This is from the 1e DMG.

"If movement is into an area where the party has not already been and mapped, then immediately roll again to determine if the party will be lost the next day also."

"Mapping During Flight: No mapping is ever possible. Give no distance measures in moving the pursued. Give no compass directions either!"

"While the construction is underway, the character should be exploring and mapping the terrain beyond the core area."

It seems the characters were the ones mapping in 1e.

Do you remember if any of the old modules where the players started locked up, enslaved, or otherwise de-equipped mentioned anything about not being able to map due to lack of supplies? (I don't have any of them, but it feels like one of them would have).

 

[Maxperson]

Do you remember if any of the e.old modules where the players started locked up, enslaved, or otherwise de-equipped mentioned anything about not being able to map due to lack of supplies? (I don't have any of them, but it feels like one of them would have).

I don't remember, but I expect the DM would have had to make the call on mapping. I know the DM I played with at the time wouldn't have allowed it. We could only map if a character had the skill(or high enough intelligence) and the supplies to do so.

 

[Reynard]

Do you remember if any of the e.old modules where the players started locked up, enslaved, or otherwise de-equipped mentioned anything about not being able to map due to lack of supplies? (I don't have any of them, but it feels like one of them would have).

On reflection I bet it is a meta activity that the old school assumed was happening simultaneously in and out of "the fiction" (not that they used that terminology).

 

[James Gasik]

Do you remember if any of the old modules where the players started locked up, enslaved, or otherwise de-equipped mentioned anything about not being able to map due to lack of supplies? (I don't have any of them, but it feels like one of them would have).

N4 Treasure Hunt.

EDIT: Hm. Carefully reading the module, it doesn't specify that characters can't map. You do start with no equipment, but you can acquire charts and even a spellbook, so materials that can be used to map are prevalent.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This is from the 1e DMG.

"If movement is into an area where the party has not already been and mapped, then immediately roll again to determine if the party will be lost the next day also."

"Mapping During Flight: No mapping is ever possible. Give no distance measures in moving the pursued. Give no compass directions either!"

"While the construction is underway, the character should be exploring and mapping the terrain beyond the core area."

It seems the characters were the ones mapping in 1e.

thank you max, I have the 1e DMG from when they put out the leather anniversary edition of it a dozen years or so ago. However I never really played 1e.

 

[Cadence]

N4 Treasure Hunt.

EDIT: Hm. Carefully reading the module, it doesn't specify that characters can't map. You do start with no equipment, but you can acquire charts and even a spellbook, so materials that can be used to map are prevalent.

Yup. Looks like one of the NPCs has to dig up supplies to map the island for them... but later in they can map normally.

Is one of the A modules one where they start with nothing too?

 

[James Gasik]

Yup. Looks like one of the NPCs has to dig up supplies to map the island for them... but later in they can map normally.

Is one of the A modules one where they start with nothing too?

A4 In the Dungeons of the Slavelords. It even asks the question: "how will the party make light, or ropes, or mark their way?".

EDIT: and more specifically,

 

[James Gasik]

And we're again told the players can't map until their characters acquire the means to do so, but here the intent is fairly obvious. The player is mapping outside of the game world, and their character is mapping within it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

"Eventually" is doing some heavy lifting here.

Just as much heavy lifting as the bold and itallics on "take longer"? Yeah, we can easily be talking 3 or 4 hours or even more.

Or, in a D&D context, walking into a different problem when you've already expended the resources you need to deal with it.

Sure, but this is part of the issue I have with problems in DnD being infinite. Let us say you have a dungeon that is effectively a 5 story building... I'm sorry, but after 6 hours of killing everything you come across, you have to eventually run out of things to kill.

But many game with random encounters will keep having squads of monsters randomly appear, long after everything should be dead and gone.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just as much heavy lifting as the bold and itallics on "take longer"? Yeah, we can easily be talking 3 or 4 hours or even more.

And that's kind of non-trivial from where I sit.

Sure, but this is part of the issue I have with problems in DnD being infinite. Let us say you have a dungeon that is effectively a 5 story building... I'm sorry, but after 6 hours of killing everything you come across, you have to eventually run out of things to kill.

But many game with random encounters will keep having squads of monsters randomly appear, long after everything should be dead and gone.

The question is whether you're even up to killing the things you hit after two hours. You don't need to get into old megadungeons for there to be one with 20 potential encounters in one, and 2-4 of those may well be all you wanted to really deal with without a chance to recharge by themselves.