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Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3696243" data-attributes="member: 16574">As a player I love drawing maps -- it increases my sense of immersion, provides a sense of accomplishment (we've explored/cleared all this), and serves as a record of the game (this is where we met monster x and got treasure y, we still need to explore here and here and here). I don't care if the map is particularly accurate, and would just as soon draw it on non-graph paper. It frustrates and bores me when the dungeon isn't fun to map (too straightforward, not mazy enough) and annoys me greatly when the DM takes the map and draws it for me -- to me that's tantamount to rolling the dice for the player or telling him what spells to cast. It also annoys me when the DM describes things from a bird's eye view or with reference to map squares instead of a first-person "in the dungeon" perspective -- I know they're doing it to make drawing the map easier, but it ruins the immersion for me -- I want to feel like I'm in this dungeon exploring it and drawing the map as I go, not that I'm just taking dictation from the DM and creating a copy of his map (another frustration to me when mapping -- the DM showing where on the page to start so that everything will line up perfectly with his map). As a DM, my attitude is that it makes no difference to me whether the players draw a map or not, and I have no interest in the map they draw if they choose to do so. I try to describe things as accurately as possible from the first-person perspective, and if a room is oodly-shaped I'll let the players show their map to me to say "is this right?" to which I'll give a general response (like if they've got the shape completely wrong, i.e. a triangular-shaped room with the party standing at the base, but they misunderstood the description and drew the map as i they were standing at the apex) but I refuse to draw on their map, or to correct mistakes, or to describe things in terms of squares to make it easier for them. If the players don't enjoy drawing a map and don't care if it's accurate I'd be perfectly happy if they chose to draw 'trailing maps' instead, and if even that's too much for them, I don't care if they don't map at all (because I don't describe things any differently depending on if they are or aren't drawing a map -- as DM, I describe what the characters see, from their perspective; if the players want to draw that onto a map, they can do so (provided they brought along mapping equipment, that is), but even if they aren't drawing a map I'm still going to describe what they see). In other words, when DMing I try to behave like I wish the DM behaved when I'm playing...</blockquote>

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