Mapping the World's Largest Dungeon?

[Tar Markvar]

The World's Largest Dungeon is tons of fun, but I am getting tired of the mapping. I spend a lot of time going, "The room is 10,20,30, 40 feet wide from the Eastern wall and 10, 20, 30 feet wide from the Southern wall," and then reaching over to draw the map in when my poor directions have the players drawing a poor map. I couldn't imagine running through this thing without a map, though, so I'm wondering how other people are doing it.

I haven't run a lot of dungeons (the ones I ran were much less complex and twisty than this one), so I am inexperienced. I'd love to hear how others are getting through this major (in my opinion) roadblock to getting more deeply into the story and theme of the dungeon.

 

[DanMcS]

The World's Largest Dungeon is tons of fun, but I am getting tired of the mapping. I spend a lot of time going, "The room is 10,20,30, 40 feet wide from the Eastern wall and 10, 20, 30 feet wide from the Southern wall," and then reaching over to draw the map in when my poor directions have the players drawing a poor map. I couldn't imagine running through this thing without a map, though, so I'm wondering how other people are doing it.

Why are they trying to map the whole thing, as players? If the characters are making a map, let the characters make a map, and then say that they can pretty much figure out how to get back to wherever they've been. You don't map out every 5' square in a forest, do you? This is a large terrain, like that, treat it the same way.

Use a battlemap or graph paper only when absolutely necessary, and you'll save everyone a headache.

 

[Tar Markvar]

Okay.

In that case, please describe how you and your players would keep track of tons of rooms that lead through windy corridors with things that happen in about 60% of those rooms. I'm honestly curious, because I've never handled something of this magnitude in D&D. Would you really keep it as abstract as, "We go to that room where the ogre was and go north"?

 

[DanMcS]

In that case, please describe how you and your players would keep track of tons of rooms that lead through windy corridors with things that happen in about 60% of those rooms. I'm honestly curious, because I've never handled something of this magnitude in D&D. Would you really keep it as abstract as, "We go to that room where the ogre was and go north"?

The PCs keep notes of locations, like the entrance, water sources, that kind of thing. You need to be forthcoming with out-of-game info to help with this- let them note that the well they found was in room 6A (or whatever) to help you and them out.

The PCs notes should look something like:
Room 1 (entrance, dumped in here from well to surface). Connects to room 2 and 3, door to 3 is locked.

2 Fought ogre, connects to room 1, 6 and 8

3 unexplored. ->room 1.

Room 6. big golden altar. -> 2 and 8.

Something like that. Keep a list of rooms for yourself, or perhaps a photocopy of a section of the map that you can highlight to show where they've been. WLD is subdivided into smaller regions, so you ought to be able to do this a bit.

The exact shapes of the rooms are unimportant unless there's a secret door or some positional thing that needs the map to be revealed. The fact that they've been there, and can get back there if they need to, should be enough.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

We had our first session yesterday, and played for 7 hours.

The DM mapped it as we went, not feeling too constrained by the 'reality' of the maps that came with the product.

We're using a large pad of 1" graph paper. Several times during the day, the DM would say something like, "The room is much larger than what I'm drawing, but you get the idea." That was more than enough for us to slog through a bunch o' rooms.