Quote from: Spinachcat;1030372I love using wooden blocks for dungeons. They are just too heavy to drag to cons.

Several times at the hardware store I've wondered if making my own from the lightest wood would be worth the effort.

IKEA. They make a set of 100 birch blocks that work just fine for walls, bridges, and all sorts of stuff. The box is pretty light, and fits in a briefcase. I have two, and use them all the time for games. (Photos on the Photobucket page) Pretty cheap, too.

Players doing their own mapping achieves a few things:

1) It keeps them immersed in perceiving the world through the eyes of their characters. It's not the DM handing the players a game aid at the table, it's the characters drawing a map based on what they see in the game world.

2) It introduces errors and uncertainty in the map. Which is as it should be when you're mapping a labyrinth by lantern-light under unrelenting threat from traps and attacks by foes.

3) It makes it clear that mapping is a player responsibility, not the DM's. It's the players who need to put in the effort to figure out where they are in the dungeon and where they're going and why, rather than passively react to the DM's mapping.

Quote from: Haffrung;1030411Players doing their own mapping achieves a few things:

1) It keeps them immersed in perceiving the world through the eyes of their characters. It's not the DM handing the players a game aid at the table, it's the characters drawing a map based on what they see in the game world.

2) It introduces errors and uncertainty in the map. Which is as it should be when you're mapping a labyrinth by lantern-light under unrelenting threat from traps and attacks by foes.

3) It makes it clear that mapping is a player responsibility, not the DM's. It's the players who need to put in the effort to figure out where they are in the dungeon and where they're going and why, rather than passively react to the DM's mapping.

Thank you. I was pondering how to formulate a response to the curious (such as Spinachcat).

QuoteI know some players enjoy it, but why is it vital that the players do the mapping?

First and foremost, it isn't 'vital' in any traditional sense, --  any more than if you did everything else old-school, but took out gp=xp, then the game would magically lose the rest of its' old-schoolitude, -- it is just another practice that was often done at the time and is encouraged to recapture the feel, but also sets up a small cascade of incentives and best practices which helped make old school gaming what it was.

I think Haffrung's list is a good explanation. I'll do it in reverse order:

• #3 mapping gives players a sense of ownership over the situation. That by itself isn't required, but some form of ownership or investment is. For those of us not trying to tell a story with our game*, this is part of the immersion that makes the game more than moving a piece on a dynamic game board (even though yes, technically speaking what you are doing is drawing out that dynamic game board). If you are drawing the walls or cliffs or huts your characters walks through, you are bringing that world to life. Obviously you can have the DM do it, or not do it, if you're doing theater of the mind (that's mostly how we did it after the first 2-3 years, up until the end of my original stretch of TSR gaming), but there is real value in this practice and the gaming experience it engenders.

*You might have noted I don't routinely insult people who invest heavily in the story of their characters. That's because I consider it a completely valid style of game I simply have no interest in (albeit I do feel if the DM changes outcomes based upon how it effects the narrative, it is less of a 'game').

• #2 uncertainty is the suspense of the game. This one is pretty self-evident, and there's not much more to it, but it's real. Obviously this is very group dependent and also a DM and group just trying out this method (again or for the first time) is going to have some growing pains (and it's not necessarily the players who are screwing up). So if a player says, "okay, I move South off the platform," you should probably say, "South of the platform is a 60' drop, did we screw up the mapping?," not, "you fall to your demise." for quite some time. Outside of that tomfoolery, uncertainty is the flickering of torchlight, and the part of a suspense scenario where you don't actually have to throw the hidden horror around every corner to get the suspense effect, simply because you might.
  
  
• #1 is the same as #3. Immersion and ownership/a sense of ownership are what make the game 'real' for gamers who aren't telling a story. The characters are real not because they are characters in fiction, but because they are participants in a world the player playing them can invest in/pseudo-believe-in.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1030372But...did you explain how wandering monsters work in OD&D?

I always do. Wandering monsters don't exist in WotC editions. It's a new concept for many players. ...

Wandering Monsters do indeed exist in 5e.  The concept is introduced in the starter set module Lost Mines of Phandelver too, with the proviso that too many random encounters can become tedious so use them sparingly. Lol.  Want fewer encounters?  Quit putzing around and get  a move on!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1030326Having an open game table, my last two sessions have had three people who've never played AD&D1e before. All of them imagined they'd have to kill X creatures to level up. My two experienced players explained, "No, it's treasure." They'll need a few sessions to understand it.

In a lot of ways, XP for treasure is brilliant.  It matches the motivation of a big chunk of historical/fantasy adventurer types (to get rich and famous -- works for Conan, John Hawkwood, Blackbeard, and Sir Richard Burton).  It creates high stakes and allows for completely unfair and unknowable monsters.  The Beholder doesn't have to be a fair encounter that eats up 25% of resources if the whole point is not to be even noticed by the evil death eye.  It isn't the only way to play,  but it incents good behavior.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1030345The bulk of your xp still comes from killing things though, the other amounts are minor (going from memory)

Yeah, that's my memory too.  Ad hoc XP seemed to be the major thrust of it and you are emulating combat encounters in the build of these.  Obviously you could make most of the XP about completeing quests.  But that is tinkering, which is a good feautre  and not a bug.  But it doesn't change that reading the 5E rulebook gave me the impression that fighting was how you typically advanced in level.  I am almost preferring a Top Secret style of XP, where a clean raid (fewer deaths) means more XP.  As most societies would start having series problems with a crew of pyschopaths, even if they are only killing "the other" and not the locals.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1030363Yes. One kept saying. "and in Dark Souls -".

He's young. It's not his fault.

Dark Souls has souls as treasure though...

Quote from: RandyB;1030403Hell, even I can answer that one.

Exploration requires uncertainty - if you know what's out there, you're not exploring, you're sightseeing. Having the players do the mapping keeps a level of uncertainty active even after the players have mapped an area. It also keeps the players more active outside of combat, thus more engaged in the game.

* sniff * You've brought a tear to this crusty old bastard's eye, lad.  Well done.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1030372But...did you explain how wandering monsters work in OD&D?

Yes.  I explain that if you are yammering around the table, your characters are running their mouths down in the dungeon.  I explain that the longer you spend making up your mind, the more wandering monsters.  And I even say things like "Because of all the time you've spent dithering, a wandering monster comes" or "While you're standing around yelling at each other down in the dungeon, a wandering monster comes".  Some people apparently just can't be helped.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030463Yes.  I explain that if you are yammering around the table, your characters are running their mouths down in the dungeon.  I explain that the longer you spend making up your mind, the more wandering monsters.  And I even say things like "Because of all the time you've spent dithering, a wandering monster comes" or "While you're standing around yelling at each other down in the dungeon, a wandering monster comes".  Some people apparently just can't be helped.

That's why a healthy dose of horrific death possibilities is the best teaching instrument.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030462* sniff * You've brought a tear to this crusty old bastard's eye, lad.  Well done.

I'm likely not that much younger than you. I started with the Holmes blue book back in '78... Thanks, nonetheless.

Quote from: RandyB;1030403Hell, even I can answer that one.

Exploration requires uncertainty - if you know what's out there, you're not exploring, you're sightseeing. Having the players do the mapping keeps a level of uncertainty active even after the players have mapped an area. It also keeps the players more active outside of combat, thus more engaged in the game.

Tell me what in the big 12.5 mile hex then.

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For me that map is what I choose to do instead of saying

QuoteYou see mountains with foothills to the south with a large stream running north. Nestled in a foothills is a small like 1 mile long and a 1/2 mile wide that the stream enters in on the south and exits to the north.

I opt to do that in part because I can draw decent maps, but also because it more effective form of communication for me given the fact I am 50% deaf. In addition my style was influenced by the ridiculous mapping rules I encounter with AD&D and Judges Guild which was at total odds with my experience hiking and camping in the wilderness with my family and as a boy scout. One's situational awareness of the surrounding terrain was much greater than what either gave credit for.

For these reasons I opted to do something different from the moment I started running tabletop roleplaying campaigns than handing the players a blank grid. If anything doing that encouraged my players to explore more to see what lies amid mountains, hills, and plains that the hex map wasn't showing. The same when I give something like the Dearthwood map which is handed AFTER talking to a being, a dragon, who gave them the lay of the land. The information isn't a gazetteer of all thing Dearthwood, it is drawn and told from the dragon's point of view. Thus slanted and distorted due the Dragon's point of view.

Now when it comes to underground mazes or specific kinds of terrain (like being in a mountain valley) then the balance changes. The field of view shrink, and the players better be mapping if they are to figure out the lay of the land. But then again, there are those who don't need to map because they have a intuitive grasp of spatial relationship.

My point is there is more than one way to have the players explore than handing them a blank grid (hex or square) and giving them a verbal description. That the alternatives are not "coddling" or "spoon feeding" players. What works consistently is a balance.  Keeping in mind the player's interests (to a point), and what details they would have if they were actually standing there.

Again, both approaches are needed it not a case of one or the other. And for different groups it will be a different balance. But whatever the result turns out to be it not any more "Old School" or less than sitting down with a blank grid.

Gronan, if your players diddled around after learning about wandering monsters, they earned the smackdown.

Especially when they hear you clattering the dice.

Quote from: RandyB;1030403Exploration requires uncertainty - if you know what's out there, you're not exploring, you're sightseeing. Having the players do the mapping keeps a level of uncertainty active even after the players have mapped an area. It also keeps the players more active outside of combat, thus more engaged in the game.

You don't even lose uncertainty if you hand the players the map of the dungeon. They don't know what or who is within those rooms or halls. They may have a layout, but not the contents or the threats so there's plenty of uncertainty.

I map out room by room (based on their vision / range / magic, etc) because I want to show what the CHARACTERS see so the PLAYER can make choices. If I allow the player to map and they botch the mapping, then we are tweaking the PC's perception to the player's badly done map.

And I have zero problem keeping player attention on the game. I run OD&D as survival horror. Scary shit is all around you. Just because the DM drew the zone you are in doesn't mean the zone is safe in the slightest. My empty rooms are bad news. Who knows if the damn thing is really empty? That last "empty room" ate the cleric!!

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1030406IKEA. They make a set of 100 birch blocks that work just fine for walls, bridges, and all sorts of stuff. The box is pretty light, and fits in a briefcase. I have two, and use them all the time for games. (Photos on the Photobucket page) Pretty cheap, too.

You rock!!! Thank you!!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030463Yes.  I explain that if you are yammering around the table, your characters are running their mouths down in the dungeon.  I explain that the longer you spend making up your mind, the more wandering monsters.  And I even say things like "Because of all the time you've spent dithering, a wandering monster comes" or "While you're standing around yelling at each other down in the dungeon, a wandering monster comes".  Some people apparently just can't be helped.

But is there an (ecological) reason that the monsters are wandering around in the first place?

IIRC, a lot of the subsequent development of (TSR) modules was a pushback against dungeons that made zero sense.

Quote from: Motorskills;1030511But is there an (ecological) reason that the monsters are wandering around in the first place?

In mind, yes. Dungeons with orcs in them have wandering orcs. Dungeons of undead have wandering undead. And so on.

But if the players complain it makes no sense, I would just say, "it is indeed a mystery, how will you go about finding out the cause? perhaps you could keep making noise until every wandering monster in the dungeon comes to fight you, and ask them?"