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Message: <blockquote data-quote="grodog" data-source="post: 5866533" data-attributes="member: 1613">My take:Mappers are useful so that players and their PCs can find their way out of the dungeon; without a mapper, unless the players have some sort of photographic/eidetic memory, then they're probably going to get woefully lost.  In general, I recommend that there be at least two mappers in a party, in case one falls into a vat of acid along with his/her map, one fails a saving throw vs. fireball and some of his items burn up (including the map...), etc.  Basically, my POV is that the mappers are the most important PCs in the party, and the maps are among the PCs' most important equipment (and are probably more important than many of the PCs themselves in a larger party <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ).Callers I find somewhat less useful, personally.  They're more helpful in larger parties (7+ players) and in convention/tournament play, since they help to speed the party along and not spend too much time dwelling on the dungeon dressing.  When managed badly, however, callers can hog the spotlight and prevent others from has as much fun in the game, which is a definite drag.  Not sure if that helps or not?I track PC movements on my maps usually by laying the point of a pen/pencil on their location.  That also helps me to track how far they can see, based on the light source(s) that they're using, too---so that I don't give them too much information about the far side of a larger room, for example.  WRT movement rates:  So, mapping = PCs with 12" movement rates cover 120' of linear distance (assuming that they don't stop along the way, which they do a lot <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ).  While travelling through previously-mapped areas, PCs with 12" movements cover 5x120' = 600' of distance.  They double that distance covered only when in pursuit or in flight, and they cannot map during such movement.  Battles that take longer than 10 rounds move into the second turn of combat (and I roll the WM check after the first turn of combat, which may mean that additional antagonists appear while a long battle is still ongoing!).  Once the battle ends (including flight/pursuit), then I mark off the number of turns, rounding up for all fractions (i.e., a battle lasting 13 rounds counts as 2 turns of battle).  Then after each battle, PCs must rest a turn (and WM are rolled for too <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ).  Well, WotC's going to reprint them in July, so you can always buy them then (at ~$110 for all three books), but if you don't want to wait that long/spend that much money, you should be able to find good, used copies on Amazon, ABEbooks, eBay, etc. pretty cheaply ($8-15 each, depending on how picky you are).  You can also download OSRIC (the AD&D retroclone that cleans up and reorganizes the AD&D core rules from the MM, PHB, DMG in one volume) for free @ <a href="http://knights-n-knaves.com/osric/" target="_blank">OSRIC</a> You can also buy a copy of OSRIC from Black Blade @ <a href="http://black-blade-publishing.com/Store.aspx" target="_blank">All Products > Store</a> ($26 for a hardcover that's superior to the one available on Lulu.com)</blockquote>

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