Quote from: Elliot Wilen;283392Instead of trying to tear down any reason people offer for why they like mapping, or concluding as our friend John Kim did earlier that the process is "broken", I suggest that you ask why it was a core process of D&D as originally written, and widely (though of course not universally) accepted, without falling back on assumptions about people being dumb or hidebound.

Well, my conclusion was based on my own opinion and my experience with D&D groups.  It is possible that my experience was not representative.  Given that you and others say you enjoy mapping based on the GM's verbal description, I accept that.  The results of this survey do make me reconsider some -- though I note the confusion over exactly what is meant by it.  This wasn't the case for myself and many people I have known.  We accepted mapping because those were the rules -- but it wasn't a part of the game that particularly excited us.  

I don't simply assume that everything about original D&D is arbitrary and that liking it is hidebound.  I think there are many excellent design decisions in original D&D, but also some poor ones.  I think it's fair to make criticisms of it even though it was a good game overall, rather assume that everything about the game was the best choice for some unknown reason.  
(Apropos of Valentine's Day, Titanic was one of the most successful movie ever -- the top measured in absolute dollars.  Still, I find a lot to criticize about it -- even understanding that I'm not the center of its target audience.)

Oh, I agree there are things not to like about D&D (at least there are games I'd sooner use for certain flavors of play, to put it mildly), and there may even be things about it that are just badly-implemented. But mapping is a very general concept. You could compare it to note-taking or just plain remembering details in a game that has some sort of mystery element: you tread a fine line between excessively requiring players to keep things in their heads and just giving everything away. ("Excessively", because players have other things to worry about in their lives, unlike their characters who are there all the time so to speak.)