Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Jack Daniel" data-source="post: 4747873" data-attributes="member: 694">I used to be in the habit of trying to put as much dungeon as possible on the table.&nbsp; Whether it was with wet-erase markers, dominoes and glass stones, or dungeon tiles, it's just always a great big hassle.&nbsp; Precious (boring) time ticks by while the DM sets the scene, and then, once the players explore their way off the map or decided to descend down to the next dungeon level, everything has to be cleared away or messily erased.My salvation came from an obscure section in the D&amp;D Basic Set (and I think it's in the Rules Cyclopedia too).&nbsp; It's the part at the beginning of the book that suggests that during play, one player should be the &quot;caller&quot; and one player should be the &quot;mapper.&quot;&nbsp; That is, one player acts as a party spokesman who collects actions from all the other players and relays them to the DM; and another player pays careful attention to the DM's description and maps the dungeon on graph paper.I never used to pay any attention these ideas, but when I tried them out, man oh man what a difference they make!&nbsp; It really speeds up the game!&nbsp; Now, as the party explores the dungeon, we just track it on graph paper.&nbsp; Super easy, super quick, and no need to erase anything when the party explores a new area.&nbsp; We only need to shift to the battlemat when a fight breaks out, and then, it's just a matter of putting a few tokens or dominoes on the mat to mark the dimensions of a room and the locations of exits (or, say, roads and terrain features, if the party is outside).&nbsp; Likewise, having a single player tell the DM what everybody else is doing is actually a good idea.&nbsp; It clarifies things and speeds everything up, since the DM can basically just go down the list, adjudicate all the actions, and report all the results.&nbsp; I never would have thought to look for the best tabletop advice ever in my flimsy little red-cover booklets from 1983, but there you go.&nbsp; The wisdom of our forebearers.&nbsp; Makes the game burn by at warp-speed, at least compared to how I was doing things before.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jack Daniel, post: 4747873, member: 694"] I used to be in the habit of trying to put as much dungeon as possible on the table. Whether it was with wet-erase markers, dominoes and glass stones, or dungeon tiles, it's just always a great big hassle. Precious (boring) time ticks by while the DM sets the scene, and then, once the players explore their way off the map or decided to descend down to the next dungeon level, everything has to be cleared away or messily erased. My salvation came from an obscure section in the D&D Basic Set (and I think it's in the Rules Cyclopedia too). It's the part at the beginning of the book that suggests that during play, one player should be the "caller" and one player should be the "mapper." That is, one player acts as a party spokesman who collects actions from all the other players and relays them to the DM; and another player pays careful attention to the DM's description and maps the dungeon on graph paper. I never used to pay any attention these ideas, but when I tried them out, man oh man what a difference they make! It really speeds up the game! Now, as the party explores the dungeon, we just track it on graph paper. Super easy, super quick, and no need to erase anything when the party explores a new area. We only need to shift to the battlemat when a fight breaks out, and then, it's just a matter of putting a few tokens or dominoes on the mat to mark the dimensions of a room and the locations of exits (or, say, roads and terrain features, if the party is outside). Likewise, having a single player tell the DM what everybody else is doing is actually a good idea. It clarifies things and speeds everything up, since the DM can basically just go down the list, adjudicate all the actions, and report all the results. I never would have thought to look for the best tabletop advice ever in my flimsy little red-cover booklets from 1983, but there you go. The wisdom of our forebearers. Makes the game burn by at warp-speed, at least compared to how I was doing things before. [/QUOTE]

Verification