Easy Mapping for Players

Time to create clear advice for players who are mapping.
Players need:

• Index cards, or
• Squares of paper (for example, US Letter or A4 torn into quarters)

Mark the top edge of the first card/square as “North”. This can be either true North or “logical North”, the direction you start out facing as you enter the dungeon.

If the entrance starts with a corridor, draw a short line northwards. You can add an arrow on the north end of the line as a reminder of where you started.

Example Player Map

Draw simple lines for tunnels or passages. Don’t worry about scale. Just make short lines. If you want to keep track of distances, write how many turns you had to walk to get to get to a room or intersection.

Don’t draw every turn a passage makes. All you need to know is what direction you started in and what direction you are facing at the end. So, just use a single straight line, two lines if you change direction, or a U-bend if you end facing the opposite direction. This kind of simplified mapping will help with mazes, since you won’t need to map every twist and turn, just where the intersections are.

Every passage ends with either a room or an intersection. Mark rooms with short labels. Use these same labels when you make notes about what’s in the room, or if you start a new map for that room.

You don’t need to map the layout of a room unless you feel it’s important, for example if the room is two or more levels with exits on both levels, or if there is some kind of barrier dividing the room. When this happens, just grab another card or square of paper, label it with the room label, and sketch the layout. Again, no need to draw to scale.

If a passage or room exits reaches the edge of the card or square, add a new label and start a map on a new card. Give it the same label.

These cards or squares represent an actual map that the PC is making, even if the “real” map would look very different. If the real map is lost, the GM confiscates the cards. If a piece is torn off and lost or otherwise is unreadable, the GM confiscates one or more cards.

If you get lost or don’t know which direction you are facing, start mapping on a new card. Leave the direction off, but treat the top of the map as “logical North”, the direction you choose to face when you start the new map. The GM will give directions from that reference point. Once you figure out the orientation of this new map in relation to your other map(s), you can write “North” on the edge that matches “North” on the other map(s).

Posts referenced:

• To Map or Not
• Find Your Own Way
• Mapping a Maze

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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
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(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

Mapping a Maze

In my previous post, I wrote:

I’m leaning away from treating mazes as skill challenges, myself, but perhaps this is worth thinking about more. Is there a different way to create a feeling of isolation? Can it be done with mapping? Is a feeling of isolation what you, the GM, really want to impart?

There were several detailed replies to that, generally favoring either skill challenges or some kind of map reveal/fog of war. I’ve been mulling over my own thoughts on this.

First, let’s get this out of the way: I don’t agree with Dyson’s emphasis on a feeling of isolation, and don’t think a skill challenge will help with that, anyways. I think mazes are there to get you lost, period. However you feel about being in a maze is however you feel, but not my concern as a GM. This doesn’t mean that skill challenges aren’t useful for the other factor Dyson mentioned, getting lost. I’m just dismissing part of the discussion that’s not really useful. We’ll focus instead on getting lost.

What this all boils down to is an age-old debate about mapping. Some people like it, some don’t, and some are in between. People have suggested things like skill challenges before: Chaosium’s Stormbringer, as I recall, has a Map skill which players roll when trying to get somewhere using a map they’ve made. For BRP/Chaosium-style games, where dungeon-crawling or exploration in general is not usually the focus, this might make sense.

I’m more in the “love maps” side of things. But what I find is that describing things for mapping isn’t always handled right. I’ve blown it myself in the early days. On the other side, interpreting descriptions and recording them on a map isn’t always handled in the best manner, either. There’s basically not much advice available for either side of the process. I’ve tried to address this in other posts, for example To Map or Not and Find Your Own Way (which actually sort of has a skill challenge in it, but only a small one.) But more needs to be done.

On the player side, I started advocating something closer to a flow chart than to a precise map. Actually, more like just lines, with an occasional box to write short landmark descriptions like “statue room” or “big pit”.

If a player doesn’t feel like mapping a maze when doing a flow chart map, they could try just mapping intersections:

1. Start to draw the line a short distance in the direction you are facing.
2. Stop drawing until you get to an intersection. Keep track of turns, though, either mentally or on scratch paper.
3. Draw a short extension of the line turning in the new direction as it approaches the intersection.
4. Draw stubs of lines indicating possible directions you can take at the intersection.
5. Once you make a choice, repeat Steps 2-4 as needed until out of the maze.

This records every choice you make, but not every turn made, or how far you’ve actually traveled. It could get confusing if you have to backtrack, though, because lines might cross each other… perhaps you’d need colored pencils, switching colors every time you go back and try a different route.

The GM, on the other hand, probably needs a more detailed map, but perhaps I’ll have more thought on this later.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.