D&D General Mapping: How Do You Do It?

[Lanefan]

Is this a puzzle for the players or for the characters?

Yes.

As in, both in parallel: the players are experiencing the same puzzle the characters are.

 

[el-remmen]

I draw a map for the players at a 1-inch = 5-feet scale on beige cardstock with sharpies and wedge-tipped black markers. I then meticulously cut out each of the rooms, and then during the game i and lay them down on the table as we explore them. This creates a fog of war effect as I pick up old, previously explored rooms when the dungeon sprawls across the table.

I do very similar, except I use multiple chessex wet erase battle mats or my DIY dungeon tiles. I encourage the players to map as a way to figure out where to go or areas that need exploration or revisiting and other planning.

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

Hope this thread doesn’t devolve into an argument about what the true meaning of being lost is…

Anyway, I’ve always hated mapping both as a player and a DM. It always kills the pacing and tension of a session when I have to keep checking and correcting the players or myself with the shape of a room that has zero bearing on the overall experience.

This is a timely thread as I’m running a biggish dungeon over the next few sessions. Normally for something I’d run in a single session I’d forgo the mapping and only drawing out encounter areas if needed. But with a dungeon that will need to be properly explored, I’ve been asking myself how to deal with mapping.

My group plays once a month for 3-4 hours, so I’m loathe to do anything that’ll slow down play. But I’d like to also make the exploration of the place have some depth and tension.

Not sure what I’m gonna do.

 

[smetzger]

I will sketch out the map on a plain (non grid) piece of paper (or a large whiteboard) as the characters move through the dungeon.
Since it is by hand without grid, it ends up being a rough estimate of relationships between rooms and hallways.

Simple and quick just enough to get the point across

 

[Reynard]

I think handwaving PCs being able to navigate back misses the point of dungeon exploration. If you are going to do that, dispense with fog of war entirely.

 

[Truename]

I’m running an in-person megadungeon at the moment, and this topic is one that I wrestled with at the start. I feel like the part of the fun of a dungeon crawl should be creating a map, but in practice, actually describing the rooms has been a hassle. Even a rectangular room slows the game to a crawl, and I can’t describe irregularly shaped rooms at all without sketching them out.

So this time I made player maps with dungeonscrawl(.net?) and printed them out on cardstock at five squares per inch (1 square = 5 feet). I cut them out along the walls, then at game time, I slice rooms off according to how they explore the dungeon. They glue them into a manilla folder using a glue stick. (I do give them a hint about where to place the first room.)

The in-game fiction is that they’re mapping as they go, and they have to take 10 minutes to search (Investigation check) and map (no check) a room. In practice, I just hand out the map pieces, but they don’t get them if their characters are distracted, such as fleeing or in combat.