Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 solomani Feb 03, 2015 22:47:11	Curious how other DMs handle mapping with their groups.  Do you insist someone in the group maps? Do you draw/show each room as they go along?  Something else?   I ask because I have been DMing for a long time and have just assumed the players should have a mapper or they will get lost.  But with modern game maps being a lot more creative in their design I am starting to doubt the value of forcing players to map at all.
#2 CFK Feb 03, 2015 23:29:22	It varies. Normally I only draw the room their in, and after advancing to the next room I erase it. If the players don't copy the rooms they'll get lost eventually, it's their own fault then. When a player is drawing a map, I draw a miniature version or say the dimensions of the rooms/map.
#3 solomani Feb 04, 2015 3:14:56	I like that comprimise... so you use a whiteboard or similiar to draw the room then erase it as the party goes along?
#4 AaronOfBarbaria Feb 04, 2015 4:37:21	For the majority of my campaigns, the party has some character present that prevents getting lost from being likely enough to be worth worrying about (whether someone with the Wanderer background feature, or just a sufficient enough Survival modifier), so I gloss over everything related to mapping.   In the campaigns which getting lost is a real possibility, I favor an approach of providing the players with a to-scale but low-detail map with very little markings (if any) on it so that they can see an overview of where their characters are and where their characters can go, but will have to fill in the details of what they see/encounter as they travel in order for the map to be really useful.   In a dungeon environment, I print out a blank dungeon map - it has all the halls, chambers, and doors that aren't hidden, but no room markers or indication of any features or contents of any room or hall. At most there will be a single room marked to indicate it is where the party arrives when first entering the dungeon.   In outdoor environments, I print out a map that shows where there are mountains, hills, forest, open terrain, and large bodies of water, but no locations are marked or named until the characters know of them specifically - which usually means there will be one dot on the map marking the place the campaign starts, and its name listed, plus any geographic features nearby are named (the main road into town, the nearest river, what those hills right outside of town are called, et cetera).   I find this approach alleviates the part of mapping that irritates me the most, which is having to repeat details until the player understands them correctly (No, the hall goes out the south east corner of the room... bottom left. No, that's by the corner, I said in the corner. At an angle. South east. 30 feet by 50 feet. No, the room is 30 feet by 50 feet, not the hall - and so on) or watchnig as the player that is diligently trying to make a useful map realizes only too late that they drew something in the wrong direction or at the wrong scale so now the entire map is off.
(Reply to #3) CFK	solomani wrote:
#6 Timborama Feb 04, 2015 6:48:58	Getting lost is a dice-roll, for me, because one of my least-favorite things to do is map-making. ESPECIALLY the tedious kind. I love making a cool dynamic battleground, or setting a neat scene with tables, chairs, a fireplace, etc. etc. If someone wants to make a map (in OR out of character) they can go ahead. If they don't want to physically draw it, themselves, then it just becomes a check, or enables a check with advantage because they have a map.   The only time I actually draw a map is during battles. Any other time I have the PCs figurines grouped together on the battlemap. So if they're at a table they're in a circle (nothing drawn), if at a bar they're in a line with an NPC a little bit away (nothing drawn), in different areas of the building/town I try and keep them together with the NPCs they're interacting with (nothing drawn, but trying to keep each PC the right amount of "squares" away from the NPCs they're with). If fighting starts to happen, I "fill in" the scenery with dimensions, terrain, etc.   If I ever have a DM map, it's one I've ripped from the internet. Other times, I make up the room on the fly. I used to make dungeons and rooms myself, but it's not my forte, I don't really like it (especially if I can rip from the internets!), and sometimes the PCs wouldn't even use that room I took an hour to draw...   tl;dr-People in my campaigns usually make a map IC, if at all, and no one has graph paper charting every twist and turn I describe asking "how many feet?" Making a map in my games will help you succeed if needed (either an auto-success or advantage)
#7 akr71 Feb 04, 2015 8:20:38	I DM for two different groups, my wife & kids and a group of friends and co-workers.  For my kids, I describe the room and get them to add it to their map - as they get more experience, I will assist less and less.  For the other group - I am a Geographic Information Systems Analyst as are many of my co-workers and one of which is a trained cartographer - it hasn't become an issue yet.  If there is a group of adventurers that understand the importance of a map, its this one!   I describe the room, they draw it and say "Like this?"
#8 Ranthalan Feb 04, 2015 9:21:44	Mapping is generally abstracted as getting lost is rarely a possibility.  (Makes me think that would make a good challenge at some point.)  I print out battle maps with CC3 for certain set pieces.  I have the medium sized vinyl mat w/ wet erase markers for everything else.