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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 2894822" data-attributes="member: 32740">Voted yes, but I will also reiterate the same points made by others.  Mapping as a player in an RPG is boring, especially if you're mapping solely by verbal description.  As a player, keeping a map of the dungeon is something of a necessary evil and thus its tedium should be minimized.  DRAWING UP the map as the DM is often quite different.  In meta-game terms mapping the dungeon as a player means all you're doing is making a copy of what the DM already has.  If the DM is actively trying to confuse you in doing so with meandering natural caverns and mazes for that specific purpose of causing mapping errors that's not fun - that's frustration.  Mapping the dungeon from the perspective of the character is something else again.  The larger and more complex the dungeon, the more any SANE adventurer is going to want a map to refer to just to GET OUT again with a minimum of bother.Use of battlemats facilitates the whole process immeasurably as the DM can rapidly draw and erase areas to give players immediate and graphic display of a dungeon and save his breath for describing mood and detail rather than tedious, technical dimensions and orientations.  A map of anything is a tool for navigation and for helping those who are not AT a physical location (re: the players) gain an understanding of the physical space.  I dislike deliberate attempts to use the map and the copying thereof BY the players to cause difficulties for the players.Characters obviously don't know everything their players know; that's what we call meta-game or OOC knowledge.  But the reverse applies as well - just because the PLAYER has been inattentive and doesn't know how many left-hand turns have been taken in the dungeon doesn't mean the same MUST be true for his meticulous-behavior, super-genius 18 INT character.  Isn't it enough then that if the player declares that his CHARACTER is keeping a map of their progress through the dungeon that the DM can assume that IS what is happening whether the PLAYER draws his own copy of it or not?  If the PLAYER makes a mistake in the accuracy of his map isn't it perfectly feasible that the CHARACTER has made no such error?  Isn't it possible that even if the player has a carefully drawn and exactly accurate map of the dungeon that the CHARACTER can either have a crude but functional charcoal diagram or be hopelessly lost because he's made an error in his attempts at a detailed map?The game is roleplaying, not "copy-the-map".</blockquote>

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