Storybased Dungeon Exploration - No Map Required?

[Wisdom Penalty]

Fellas:

My nerd mind was in full swing the other day and I was considering shifting from a tactical movement-based dungeon exploration mode to a story-based one. My group uses minis and a battle map for fights because they're inherently tactical and we like that, but I'm starting to think that a "tactical" map is not needed for dungeon exploration when we're 'connecting the dots' between tactical encounters.

Let me try to explain what the heck I mean.

In the olden days of 1e, I described the dungeon in excruciating detail - and the players mapped it out on graph paper. For fights we'd use a grid drawn on an old pool table, or we'd do it without minis.

Nowadays, I slap up a map on a projector, or put together Dwarven Forge pieces, or draw it with a wet erase marker on a Chessex battle map. We move tokens or minis around the map, and as the party progresses, I reveal/draw more.

With me so far? This is probably fairly standard practice.

But what if...what if we dropped that mapping aspect and only "zoomed in" when we entered combat and therefore required a tactical battle map? (I realize some groups don't use minis, nor tactical maps, and that's fine; we still want to use them, but I'm asking whether it'd be cool to only use them for tactical encounters.)

Why do this?

A couple reasons come to mind:

1) It allows me, as the DM, to create a map with my imagination (as limited as that may be). I no longer have to worry about drawing corridors, finding maps on the net, or putting together tiles. If I want a 300-ft wide underground river, I simply need to describe it. No map required. So long as combat isn't occurring in that area, there's not a need for a tactical map - right?

2) It takes away the "computer game" concept of dungeon exploration. I hate that analogy because I think it's been improperly bandied about on these boards, but I can't think of a better one. By "computer game" concept I mean: going to a story-based method takes away the metagame aspects of dungeon exploration, especially when revealing a digital map. The players don't see a huge unmasked part to the west (and therefore know the heart of the dungeon is in that direction), nor do they see the "obvious" spots for secret doors.

3) It shifts the focus away from a square-by-square grid of a dungeon to the story inherent with that dungeon.

Let me try to further explain by way of examples:

In our current method (using a digital map):

DM: (reveals more of the map out to the extent of the party's light source) OK, so that's what you see. A 10 square long hallway with a couple patches of what appears to be difficult terrain. It ends at a T-intersection with corridors shooting off to the east and west. Ceilings are about 10' above the floor, and hallways, as you can see, are a uniform 2 square width..."

In the story-based method (using no maps):

DM: "You push aside the cobwebs and reveal a black tunnel that descends into the darkness beneath the jungle. Piles of debris stand like mute sentinels along the length of the corridor - bits of jade, tattered cloth, rat droppings, and old mammalian bones. The dust is thick, and the darkness so oppressive as to be nearly tangible. At the distance of your flickering torchlight, the corridor appears to end at some sort of intersection..."

Piratecat once had an example of a Deepearth map he had made for his original story hour. It was created in Powerpoint or Excel, if I remember correctly, and just had lines connecting various rooms or areas of interest. I don't think there were a lot of dimensions on the map - just a general idea of what areas connected to one another. That type of medium, I think, lends itself to a "story-based" exploration method.

I should also note that we use this story-based method for wilderness travel. By that I mean we don't place a token on an overland, regional map and move it along a grid from one town to another. I simply describe the journey, and we "zoom in" to a tactical map if there's a (highly non-)random encounter on the way.

Wouldn't this work for dungeon exploration as well? If you were the player, would this story-based approach appeal to you? Or does it seem full of fail?

WP

 

[mattdm]

Wouldn't this work for dungeon exploration as well? If you were the player, would this story-based approach appeal to you? Or does it seem full of fail?

We basically do it that way. I often start drawing on the grid at points where there *might* be a tactical encounter or there might just be interesting terrain, both because it keeps things moving if a combat does happen, and so the players don't automatically equate the map coming out with an impending fight.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

While I don't generally use Dungeons either, I do something similar. I as a DM have some manner of map, but I simply describe thing as they go along to the players and only bring out a board during combat (if combat is important enough in that circumstance for it).

Now, if the player as something the PC would do, decides to draw a people more power to them. I actually quite like that, since it actually makes sense then that they could find their way out of a incredibly complex dungeon after reaching whatever goal they went in there for.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

That's what we always do. It's very rare - if ever, that we have a grid for and push minis through every square foot in the dungeon. Also, when I design dungeons, it's very much a "this room, this trap, this view, that sound, this smell, those monsters, this clue, that foreshadowing, this character hook" approach. I just make a list. Then I just put those individual elements into the dungeon as the plot and pace of the evening dictate. Usually I'll sketch out a "default" layout first, but if there hasn't been a roleplaying encounter in a while, then I move the nymph's head in a jar up to the next door, and if we need a puzzle, I move up the green head with a sphere of annihilation in its maw, etc.