D&D 5E Player roles that no longer exist, and why

[Sacrosanct]

I was planning out my game session this upcoming weekend, and it hit me how several of the player roles we had back in the day no longer exist.

In the 70s and 80s, you'd typically have one player act as the mapper, and another act as the leader (the caller). They'd be the ones to do most of the talking and declare party actions to DM. Then you'd also have the record keeper. The player who kept track of all party gold.

Nowadays only the record keeper exists, and only in some of the campaigns. So why is that?

Mapper: Back in the day, you were lucky to have graph paper, let alone a gaming map with inch grids. Minis were few and far between, and easily accessible, and expensive. Most groups I played in back in the early 80s as kids, we did ToTM except for marching order or really complex battles, and then we used paper minis I drew myself, or dice, or some other toy. So there was a need to have a player keep track of the dungeon exploration on a piece of paper. Very similar to those old RPG video games of the 80s. However, now it's very common for someone to have a battlemap with erasable markers and minis are all over the place, and very cheap (with the move to plastic minis about 10 years ago or so). With the battlemap, the DM takes an extra role now in drawing out the area, and there is no need for a player to be a mapper any longer.

Caller: IMO, the biggest driver of this going away is because players felt they wanted more player agency. They didn't want to have only one player speak for the whole party to the DM. And most players want to role-play their own interactions with NPCs. Now, the only time I see a group decide to have the same player do all the talking is in optimizing groups, where everything is numbers driven. The PC with the highest persuasion bonus always talks, no one else.

Record Keeper: This still exists, with a player keeping track of all the treasure, but I see it less. Especially in 5e. I'm guessing because in 5e, magic items are far rarer, as is other treasure. And it also goes back to players wanting control over their character, including wealth. So they want to split up the treasure as soon as possible.

 

[Nagol]

We typically had a pair of mappers and only ever had a caller when the player group got so large the DM couldn't be expected to keep track of the conversations.

Mappers weren't for handling tactics; they were to get into and out of the exploration zones quickly and safely. The role isn't dead, but most newer games do not push a heavy focus on exploration and heavily designed environments.

The caller wasn't a leader for us. His job was mainly to track and relay what people said they were doing as opposed to assigning jobs to them. The players where I was pretty much rejected the leader role entirely. The caller role is pretty dead because groups don't get that large any more before splitting into separate games.

We also had a treasurer (tracking costs and assigned wealth leaving the group control) and a separate person tracking collected goods.

 

[TwoSix]

Mapper: Back in the day, you were lucky to have graph paper, let alone a gaming map with inch grids. Minis were few and far between, and easily accessible, and expensive. Most groups I played in back in the early 80s as kids, we did ToTM except for marching order or really complex battles, and then we used paper minis I drew myself, or dice, or some other toy. So there was a need to have a player keep track of the dungeon exploration on a piece of paper. Very similar to those old RPG video games of the 80s. However, now it's very common for someone to have a battlemap with erasable markers and minis are all over the place, and very cheap (with the move to plastic minis about 10 years ago or so). With the battlemap, the DM takes an extra role now in drawing out the area, and there is no need for a player to be a mapper any longer.

Agree with pretty much all the points you made. For the mapper, I'd add on two additional reasons:

1) The gameplay for many campaigns has moved away from being primarily site-based, to more wilderness and urban/settled locations.
2) A general change in assumption to the idea that interaction and knowledge of a character's environs should be a character resource based test, not a player skill test. The character is the one keeping track of where things are, so an Intelligence or some other related skill check is the proper method of determining if the character can find his way.

 

[iserith]

The rise of plot-based games over location-based games definitely contributed to the reduced need for mappers. But nobody I ever gamed with back in the day wanted to be the mapper either. You were usually stuck with it because you were in the bathroom when the roles were assigned (sucker!).

The caller, to me, just looks like an old kluge for trying to manage the table better. There are other techniques for that which work better in my view.

There are still record keepers and the joke in my group is that if you ask who is keeping track of the gold, the answer is YOU.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The rise of plot-based games over location-based games definitely contributed to the reduced need for mappers. But nobody I ever gamed with back in the day wanted to be the mapper either. You were usually stuck with it because you were in the bathroom when the roles were assigned (sucker!).

The caller, to me, just looks like an old kluge for trying to manage the table better. There are other techniques for that which work better in my view.

There are still record keepers and the joke in my group is that if you ask who is keeping track of the gold, the answer is YOU.

In our games, the mapper always got a 10% bonus to XP

 

[ad_hoc]

We have a mapper in our current game. I don't think it is necessary but she loves maps so she gets enjoyment out of it.

It does help me out too and adds a cool feel to the game when the party members can ask her about which ways they went and what is left unexplored rather than the DM.

She's also the record keeper. Everything that isn't being used by a player goes into a group pile. This mostly amounts to money but can also be potions and scrolls and the like where we haven't figured out who is best to have it.

I've never played with a caller.

At our table everyone contributes to social discussions (though some characters prefer not to talk in some situations). It's not exactly optimized to only have 1 shot at persuading the NPC. The stats might not even matter if the character says the right thing and automatically succeeds. It is rare for stats alone to have a negative impact on a social situation.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In our games, the mapper always got a 10% bonus to XP

Only if the party didn't get lost though, right?

Seriously, even back in the day I've never played in a group with a caller. Every person, even in large groups (and I've DM groups as large as 16 players at one time), the DM tracked who was doing what and every one spoke in turn. Of course, we also used declared actions then as well.

Mappers and Note Keepers existed, but usually through acquiring a captive or scouting, mapping became more the work of the DM. Note (or Treasure) Keepers were there just to keep a list of the loot to divide up later on. When I DMed, I always had a list myself and would compare with the player who was tracking it. If the player missed something, the party "lost" it (unless it was essential to the story).

Now, we still map (until a captive or scouting is done), and then our DM has a "player's" version for them to use. Note keeping is still done the same by one or two players, and the DM always knows what was found as well.

So, for my experience, really nothing in terms of the players' roles or duties has changed at all.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In both my groups, we have someone that keeps track of "communal" treasure that can't be easily divided up between people.

We never had a caller back in the day. By the mid-80s, when I got into gaming, I suspect that had already fallen out of style.

I've got some people that are mapping in Tomb of Annihilation, but only now that we're in the actual Tomb. I feel like the mapper role was far more important in the age when mostly all you had were dungeons and megadungeons.

 

[bedir than]

Left out, but not forgotten

The Note Taker -- They kept track of key learnings, NPC names, secrets, rumors, and the like for the group.

 

[ad_hoc]

Left out, but not forgotten

The Note Taker -- They kept track of key learnings, NPC names, secrets, rumors, and the like for the group.

This is an important one.

When I DM sometimes the players ask me what their characters know about such and such. I don't know. What did you find out? I can't remember. I'm not tracking that stuff.