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

[Charlaquin]

One of my problems might be that I tend to run a bunch of 5-room dungeons and not anything longer than a dozen rooms leaving mapping a non issue.

I think this is the way to go for groups that aren’t into mapping.

I think for some modes of play, dungeons themselves are puzzles. The goal of a dungeon is to “solve” the space by exploring it, and the monsters and traps that lie within the dungeon, as well as its very layout, are the obstacles in the way of achieving that goal. Mapping the dungeon is how you “fight” the dungeon, and skipping over the mapping process would be like resolving combat narratively. You’re just glossing over the meat of the gameplay.

“X-Room Dungeons” aren’t really dungeons in the same sense. They’re really X-encounter adventures, and those encounters each happen to coincide with a room in a subterranean complex, or ancient ruin, or enemy keep or whatever. Heck, they don’t even have to be rooms in a dungeon-like space, you could easily design urban or wilderness adventures as “X-Room Dungeons.” This sort of design is, IMO, ideal for groups who aren’t interested in the challenge of “solving” an adventure location as part of the gameplay challenge. They center the encounters themselves as a series of individual challenges, rather than making them the “attacks” of the macro-challenge that is the dungeon.

 

[Charlaquin]

GM <> Player miss communication? GM says left when she means right. Player draws door on north wall when GM said south. While the map is drawn by the players, it supposedly represents what the characters are seeing and drawing out. At least one of the GM/players I game with is very dyslexic. Others are colorblind to some degree. Such issues can make accurate GM - player mapping communication very interesting.

To some degree, this can tie back to the Player skill vs Character skill discussion. If one of the characters has a high cartography skill while the players all suck at drawing, should the map reflect the high character skill or lack of player skill?

If you’re mapping as you go, making an accurate map is the challenge. The dungeon may be laid out in such a way as to be deliberately confusing and difficult to map, because navigation is just as much a part of the gameplay as combat is. The map is a tool you use to help understand and navigate the space, and being able to make mistakes is like being able to miss an attack or fail a check. Yes, if you correct the players’ attempts at mapping until they get an accurate result, the process is tedious and pointless. Just as the process of making attack rolls and ability checks would be tedious and pointless if you had the players re-roll over and over until they succeeded every time they take an action.

 

[Scott Christian]

It's perfectly fine to do this. It's also perfectly fine to not do this because a) we don't care, and/or b) magic! fantasy! oobleck!*

Concerning 'a' above: I often look at maps and wonder, "How the [CENSORED] do we have all of these five foot thick stone masonry walls on the 2nd floor** with nothing on the 1st floor*** to support them?" Then I remember, I don't care.

However, if you do care then make your maps accordingly. If your players care then they will appreciate the effort.

* .
** That would be the 1st floor for my British and German friends.
* Ground floor.**
**** 0th floor my [CENSORED]!

I get. Like I said in my above post, wanna run a crazy dungeon? Go for it. Have fun. But the literal title of this thread is:

Mapping, How Do You Do It?

Therefore, I feel the need to express some sort of specific reasoning behind my mapping process. These are logic and geology. I often ponder these questions before I start:

• How long has it been around?
• Was it created naturally? With stonework? With magic? All three?
• How often is it used?
• Who is it used by?

Then I dive into encounter creations, and how to use it to create unique or difficult challenges.

 

[mixmastashizz]

I am playing primarily online these days, so VTT with fog of war.

Last year when I was running in person games, I described the space while players mapped. They would get a chance to check on their work whenever we'd get into combat and I drew the battle scene.

When I run my next in person game, I am going to draw on the mat as we go using 15mm figures (~2 side by side per inch, for 10' squares) and erase and adjust as we run out of room on the mat. They can keep up with making their own copy. I find this to be the best of both worlds.

 

[Lanefan]

One of my problems might be that I tend to run a bunch of 5-room dungeons and not anything longer than a dozen rooms leaving mapping a non issue.

That would make a difference, yes.

Most dungeons I run are in the 30-50 area (or room) range, as Jacquaysed as I can get 'em, and occasionally I'll throw in an actual maze (yes, little twisty passages might be there too!) and-or teleporters; which means that it's quite possible to get lost or turned around without a map.

Then of course there's C3 Lost Island of Castanamir, where it's eminently possible to get lost or turned around even with a good map!

 

[Lanefan]

I get. Like I said in my above post, wanna run a crazy dungeon? Go for it. Have fun. But the literal title of this thread is:

Mapping, How Do You Do It?

Therefore, I feel the need to express some sort of specific reasoning behind my mapping process. These are logic and geology. I often ponder these questions before I start:

• How long has it been around?
• Was it created naturally? With stonework? With magic? All three?
• How often is it used?
• Who is it used by?

Then I dive into encounter creations, and how to use it to create unique or difficult challenges.

You seem to be talking about DM-side mapping here, while designing the adventure.

The rest of us are, I think, talking about player-side mapping while exploring said adventure.

 

[Marandahir]

I've traditionally used grid or hexgrid software with Pogs for characters & NPCs, when playing over internet.

In real life, I have battle mats (both grid and hexgrid) and generic wooden figurines and pieces given that I have no desire to get into the miniatures market.

Hexgrid is preferable to me in terms of realistic movement distances (at least regarding diagonals – following the hypoteneuse doesn't get wonky as it does with squares), but it takes a bit more kit-bashing given that standard combat assumptions are with a squaregrid.

Hexgrid is, however, the standard assumption for overland travel, so I don't face that trouble when we zoom out a bit to journeys between towns and dungeons and explorations sites.

I especially like Worldographer and its related plug-ins for city building and encounter building.

 

[Scott Christian]

You seem to be talking about DM-side mapping here, while designing the adventure.

The rest of us are, I think, talking about player-side mapping while exploring said adventure.

Ha! My bad. If there was an emoji of me smacking my forehead, I would post it here.

 

[AlViking]

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.

There's a vast difference between walking through a location and having it described because the description will always be inadequate. In addition, I don't expect a player with a high strength character to be able to bench press the couch so why would I expect the player to be as capable at mapping as their character?

I also don't really see what mapping has to do with the fog of war. If I'm using theater of the mind for exploration, I'm likely following an outline of some sort and giving the players some clue why they should choose to go left or right. But I am not generally giving them any actual details.

But we're all just discussing options here, I stopped doing detail mapping not long after I started DMing. It just never added much benefit in games I've run or played.

 

[cbwjm]

When I map, I normally use nodes with paths leading off them, sometimes I'll embellish a little and make those paths look like stairs or just make a note that they're "stairs up". This generally provides all the information we need to get around and explore, no need for mapping each 10' increment. The last time I made a map was for the exploration of a haunted fort, it had squares (nodes) with squiggles going all over the place, sometimes just to find a blank part of the paper, it had only the barest resemblance to the actual fort layout.

One thing I'm thinking of running is something that was mentioned in Dolmenwood, making the map an actual item in game. Lose that map in game and I might just take the map you've been working on away from you...