Is mapping a lost art with adventurers?
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
Glyfair
Explorer
The number one reason, as many have pointed out, is that mapping isn't fun. It's incredibly boring and the only fun I've ever seen from mapping is from DMs who have tricked the players into having a wrong map.
This brings up another reason mapping has disappeared. In the old days, you were your character. If you had poor mapping skills, you character did. If you had great mapping skills, your character did. In these days, if you give your character Craft (cartography), then you can make a roll and do the map. (Admittedly, most DMs don't penalize characters without mapping skills).
Flexor the Mighty! said:
This brings up another reason mapping has disappeared. In the old days, you were your character. If you had poor mapping skills, you character did. If you had great mapping skills, your character did. In these days, if you give your character Craft (cartography), then you can make a roll and do the map. (Admittedly, most DMs don't penalize characters without mapping skills).
A lost art? No. But I don't feel it was an art to begin with. I think it was a necessary evil, to give the players a sense of the space the characters were working in.
These days, most of the adventures I run don't call for it - the spaces just aren't that complicated - a quick DM sketch will do. And if I did use such a space, I'd use something better than handing the players graph paper and pencil.
These days, most of the adventures I run don't call for it - the spaces just aren't that complicated - a quick DM sketch will do. And if I did use such a space, I'd use something better than handing the players graph paper and pencil.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
Very seldom, and in general it's not needed anyway. It was just another waste of time.
I did play in one totally-in-dungeon game. Myself and this other guy were the mappers. We mapped everything. And we were darn good at it. Then about, oh, nine or ten sessions in, we are about to link up to a portion we'd been to before... and the tunnels don't match up. We go back over everything and finally realize that what we thought was maybe two levels was, due to a teleporting/elevator room, probably four or five levels with countless passages we had not been down in our search for the Thing We Needed To Leave The Dungeon. All our hard work had been for nothing. We took the twenty or so sheets of graph paper and tossed them on the DM's living room fire, and never bothered with it again.
I did play in one totally-in-dungeon game. Myself and this other guy were the mappers. We mapped everything. And we were darn good at it. Then about, oh, nine or ten sessions in, we are about to link up to a portion we'd been to before... and the tunnels don't match up. We go back over everything and finally realize that what we thought was maybe two levels was, due to a teleporting/elevator room, probably four or five levels with countless passages we had not been down in our search for the Thing We Needed To Leave The Dungeon. All our hard work had been for nothing. We took the twenty or so sheets of graph paper and tossed them on the DM's living room fire, and never bothered with it again.
Quasqueton
First Post
Well, there's mention it could happen in the Meta forum; it's just taking a long time. I have all the data I posted in that thread, but there's also a lot of explanation/discussion that was lost. And I'm hoping I don't have to retype all that data.
Quasqueton
Mycanid
First Post
Hmm ... I was not as opposed to mapping as many of the other posters in here seem to be. Yes - I found it boring at times, but that was only because there was rarely an "shorthand lingo" for mapping.
Kinda a hard balance. It sure helps to know where you're going and where you've been. (Especially if you have to get out quick!) I am not a fan of miniature based gaming myself, so for me this is not really an option, although I kow many really like this. I prefer the old school of leave it totally to the imagination....
I (whether as a DM or as a player) enjoyed the aspect of having the map be messed up or just wrong, b/c this seemed more "real life" to me. Practical wise it was helpful for the DM to draw the map for the characters as they went along - made things go along much faster and everyone was "on the same page" with things.
I don't know of it was ever really an "art" though....
Kinda a hard balance. It sure helps to know where you're going and where you've been. (Especially if you have to get out quick!) I am not a fan of miniature based gaming myself, so for me this is not really an option, although I kow many really like this. I prefer the old school of leave it totally to the imagination....
I (whether as a DM or as a player) enjoyed the aspect of having the map be messed up or just wrong, b/c this seemed more "real life" to me. Practical wise it was helpful for the DM to draw the map for the characters as they went along - made things go along much faster and everyone was "on the same page" with things.
I don't know of it was ever really an "art" though....
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I have to admit to being very surprised here...I thought *everyone* made maps of the dungeons....that it was a mostly-integral part of the game and rather essential for finding one's way out.
The only time we don't bother with maps is if it's an outdoors setting; then the details just get drawn on the chalkboard if there's any reason to e.g. an encounter of some sort. Otherwise, I either describe the details or draw it on the chalkboard, and if the players don't map it before it gets erased to make room for the next area, too bad.
That said, I tend to run old-school 1st-Ed. type adventures where the map of one level can easily spill off both sides of a normal sheet of graph paper; the players need it to remind them what they've seen and in some cases what they've missed...
Lanefan
The only time we don't bother with maps is if it's an outdoors setting; then the details just get drawn on the chalkboard if there's any reason to e.g. an encounter of some sort. Otherwise, I either describe the details or draw it on the chalkboard, and if the players don't map it before it gets erased to make room for the next area, too bad.
That said, I tend to run old-school 1st-Ed. type adventures where the map of one level can easily spill off both sides of a normal sheet of graph paper; the players need it to remind them what they've seen and in some cases what they've missed...
Lanefan
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