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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 9030532" data-attributes="member: 6787650">I agree with everything you say except perhaps this paragraph. I don't think Mearls et al. made a conscious choice not to explain how to create or use a map key, for instance[1]. I think they grew up playing D&D and had internalized that knowledge to such a degree that they literally never realized it needed to be taught. We see the fruits of that now in Example 1 of the previously-linked article: a 5-star DM's Guild adventure which tries to describe a ruined castle's layout through room-by-room textual descriptions but includes no map of the castle! A what is worth a thousand words, people?It's not just map keys of course. New DMs should know the dungeon crawl procedure. I'll do my bit for humanity and write up roughly what the DMG should have said in Chapter One. I'm going to use the terms "players" and "player characters" interchangeably here.Dungeon crawls are one simple and fun way to run an adventure. They focus on players moving from place to place within a "dungeon", interacting with the contents of each place such as by searching for traps or treasure, talking with dungeon inhabitants such as non-player characters or even monsters, or combat with those inhabitants. At its most basic, a dungeon crawl happens when you as Dungeon Master do the following: 1. By consulting the map and the map key, briefly describe the place where the players currently are. Be sure to include information about any monsters, treasure, etc. in plain sight, as well as any exits leading to a different location (different room, hallway, etc.). Try to keep descriptions brief--don't feel like you have say everything up front. Give the players enough information about immediately-obvious features so they can ask follow-up questions, such as "how many orcs are there?" or "what does the statue look like?" Players tend to remember detailed info better if it's given as a response to their questioning. 2. After describing the location, ask, "What do you want to do or ask me?" 3. Answer their questions and decide the results of their actions. Optionally, if enough time has passed, roll a wandering monster check to see if any monsters enter the location from elsewhere in the dungeon. 4. If players aren't sure what to do, a good default action is to move to a different location by going through one of the exits. You can ask for example, "Do you want to go through the north door or back through the east door or do something else?" If they move, return to step 1. There are many variations on dungeoncrawling such as navigating a forest instead of a dungeon, and there are ways of running an adventure without dungeon crawling at all, but if you can do the above you are ready to DM your first adventure! [1] BTW I think it's generally a mistake, though common, to key maps solely by numbers. A map which has a hallway labeled "13. Gelatinous Cube" is superior to one that just says "13".</blockquote>

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