I don't have a map so why would I expect them to have one?

More seriously I have a stack of A1 sheets of papper that my stuff was packed in when I moved out here. A bunch of this sit in the middle of the table and I sketch out a map as one is needed, which is currently kind of becoming a battle map as the players have been enjoying tactical combat stuff of late.
These sheets sit in a roll in teh cupboard and get labelled with a date an a place so we can revist them if needs be (as I said there are no other maps in play as I don't use them as a GM).

Speaking as someone who has tried to map stuff by eye as part of academic work it is almost worthless. The best you can do is create a topological diagram representing the area.

Try it now get a bit of "parchment" and freehand draw out the floorplan of say a local mall you go to a lot. The measurements will all be out by 10-15% minimum and a mall is regular and made up of blocks. Try that in a cave where there are no straight lines and where the floor itself isn't flat and the results are laughable.
There is a reason surveyors use equipment.

I would never draw anything for the players.  I assume multiple player groups or expeditions; discovering a likely location for a secret door based on the map is part of player skill.

Quote from: jibbajibbaSpeaking as someone who has tried to map stuff by eye as part of academic work it is almost worthless. The best you can do is create a topological diagram representing the area.

Try it now get a bit of "parchment" and freehand draw out the floorplan of say a local mall you go to a lot. The measurements will all be out by 10-15% minimum and a mall is regular and made up of blocks. Try that in a cave where there are no straight lines and where the floor itself isn't flat and the results are laughable.
There is a reason surveyors use equipment.

The point isn't accuracy, though, but useability.  Scale and measurements don't matter very much: which corridors lead where can matter a lot, especially when you're dealing with multi-level environments with more than about a dozen rooms.

Mapping isn't something I'd ever expect or demand from players, it's something I'd suggest as a strategy for effective dungeon exploration.

I haven't done player mapping for decades.  First off, it just takes so bloody much time.  I can think of a lot better things to do with my gaming hours than running mechanical drawing classes.

For another, it's spectacularly unrealistic.  You're going to operate quills and parchment and ink pots, in the middle of a dungeon?  Seriously?  Do the PCs have a floating writing desk?  Are they aware that ink spills, smears and smudges?  Where exactly does that damp parchment go when they're doing anything else?  (Pencils weren't invented until the late 16th century, artists' charcoals a century earlier, never mind the smudge factor.)  And how exactly are you measuring those room lengths precisely, those angles and heights precisely?  Is the PC who's doing the mapping an expert civil engineer bearing the Wondrous Sextant of Surveying?

For a third, it's tactically moronic.  If I'm in a dungeon, lethal encounters all around, what I am not doing is to put down my weapons and shield so that I can turn my back to everything and prop paper against a wall for scribbling.  (Never mind that the map would likely be toast should wandering nasties come through.)

Instead of all that trouble and fuss, I assume that PCs are good in the wilderness, and pay minimal attention to their surroundings.  Make your IQ or Survival roll?  Good.  Then you can retrace your steps.

hah. My very first D&D session with a RPG club was as the groups mapper.

Hopefully I still have the first wilderness hexcrawl from my first session with family. Which mostly showed us getting lost... a-lot...

Quote from: Steerpike;747957The point isn't accuracy, though, but useability.  Scale and measurements don't matter very much: which corridors lead where can matter a lot, especially when you're dealing with multi-level environments with more than about a dozen rooms.

Mapping isn't something I'd ever expect or demand from players, it's something I'd suggest as a strategy for effective dungeon exploration.

Agreed which is why I said topological maps are the best you can do (this area is connected to this area by this route). But then folk like Old Geezer will say that spotting where there ought to be a secret door due to the map is part of "player skill", but this skill only comes into play if the DM is giving precise distances and descriptions that would be very unlikely to occur in the real.

First off the use of graph paper means all coridors tend to be multiples of 5 feet wide and all rooms like wise. Back in the real this is bollocks. rooms are 12 3/4' by 11 1/2' not 10 by 10, corridors in most medieval buildings outside of palaces (if there are any) are 3 or 4 feet wide. A spiral staircase in a castle is typically 2-3 feet wide etc etc Caves are far far worse.
The fact that skilled players spot the obvious place for the secret door stuff is because they are given information at a level of detail that is unrealistic unless they actively measuring each room with plum lines, rules etc, or are autistic savants.

Quote from: RavenswingI haven't done player mapping for decades. First off, it just takes so bloody much time. I can think of a lot better things to do with my gaming hours than running mechanical drawing classes.

For another, it's spectacularly unrealistic. You're going to operate quills and parchment and ink pots, in the middle of a dungeon? Seriously? Do the PCs have a floating writing desk? Are they aware that ink spills, smears and smudges? Where exactly does that damp parchment go when they're doing anything else? (Pencils weren't invented until the late 16th century, artists' charcoals a century earlier, never mind the smudge factor.)

Both good points, although I think they can be mitigated if the map is crude enough.  In my mind a plausible looking adventurer-made dungeon map would have about as much detail as something like this, maybe a few more detailed bits here and there if they're are being really meticulous.

I can draw so I tend to end up mapping on either side of the figurative GM screen. Always much simpler representations than the old-school graph paper reproductions. On the GM side, whether I draw maps depends on the pace of the adventure, but I may do so whether or not the PCs are actually sitting there drawing a map, because making the players always rely on theater of the mind handicaps them relative to what their PCs could reasonably perceive, plus, since I am comfortable drawing, it can be faster that way.

Don't do mapping, don't do dungeons.

Dungeons I run are usually either improvised or abstract relationship maps, so we usually only use maps for either the geographical area, or if we want to more clearly visualise a space where something exciting is happening. We don't really play a game where every step is life or death, so we can just fast forward the boring parts and get to the exciting stuff.

It means that when an area is important, I have to be more descriptive and leave clues for important hidden stuff or traps.

I've toyed with writing room descriptions and dangers on cue cards, and drawing one for each exit when the party enters a room. I still like to know what's 2 rooms ahead so I can put hints into my descriptions and keep things contiguous.

Quote from: Kiero;748016Don't do mapping, don't do dungeons.

So why chime in? What do you hope to contribute by doing so, not just to this thread, but any of the times you post in a topic about magic or demihumans or dungeons or thieves (here or at other boards) about how the topic being at hand is a non-issue at your table because you simply don't truck with it? I don't mean to pick a fight, because I like you and you sometimes offer up some interesting perspectives, but what on earth was the point of this comment?

Quote from: Kiero;748016Don't do mapping, don't do dungeons.

So why chime in? Not to be rude, but... What do you hope to contribute by doing so, not just to this thread, but any of the times you post in a topic about magic or demihumans or dungeons or thieves (here or at other boards) about how the topic being at hand is a non-issue at your table because you simply don't truck with it? I don't mean to pick a fight, but why enter into a discussion about something you're not interested in just so you can say that it's irrelevant to you?

Are we just all supposed to see the light of doing it the Kiero way and abandon all our silly elves and wizards for rigorous bronze-age historical games? 'Cause that's probably not going to happen. We talk about mapping and dungeons because those are a feature of the kind of game we are interested in. Best case scenario we'll become interested in that as well.

My brother is a great advocate of using Mutants and Masterminds 2e for all kinds of campaigns, but if he were a member of this forum, I wouldn't expect him to go into one of your threads about your Tyche's Favorites thing and be all like "yeah, but that doesn't enter into my gaming, because I just play a modern-day superhero game using d20-based design principles." He'd just find or make a topic about something he did want to talk about and post in that instead.

Quote from: LibraryLass;748022So why chime in? Not to be rude, but... What do you hope to contribute by doing so, not just to this thread, but any of the times you post in a topic about magic or demihumans or dungeons or thieves (here or at other boards) about how the topic being at hand is a non-issue at your table because you simply don't truck with it? I don't mean to pick a fight, but why enter into a discussion about something you're not interested in just so you can say that it's irrelevant to you?  

In his defense, the site owner engages in this sort of threadcrap all too often.

But I agree that it's counterproductive as hell regardless of who's doing it.

We don't tend to play games where we'd need to map ourselves.

In modern-day games, we tend to get given laminated floorplans (Once we do the legwork, natch) or descriptions and sometimes a sketch, but we don't deal in precise locations; that's for our characters to deal with on the ground.

Even when we go spelunking in, say, Ars Magica, we'll get given a brief description of the area and MUD-like "exits leading from here", to investigate at will.

Stopped doing it late nineties or early noughties. Just didn't see what the point was after years of slavishly doing it. Unless the dungeon is particularly mazy, we figure that our characters know where they are going.

If there are multiple elevations, worm-holes and entries/exits, we sometimes still do 'cos we figure that'd be disorienting for the characters, so they'd be mapping in-game.