I played Mork Borg the other day.
For those unaware of Mork Borg, it is a role-playing game inspired by early editions of Dungeons & Dragons, set in a world that is dying, and where the lives of its inhabitants are likely to be unhappy and short – especially if they are the player characters. The game presumes familiarity with D&D or similar games to play – there is not a lot of explanation of how to run the game – and it has a visual style that is distinctive, if not really to my taste.
The session involved us doing some travelling and then exploring a small dungeon. My character, Monir the Invincible, had two hit points and was illiterate. I played him mostly as a crazed berserker, attacking opponents on sight. Incredibly, he survived. Now he has three hit points. Hooray!
But while we were exploring the dungeon, I – that’s the player rather than Monir – started doing something I have not in a while. I started mapping the dungeon.
DM David recently wrote an article about the disappearing role of the mapper. It is well worth a read. And he is quite right: in most play, having one of the players map the dungeon is no longer something DMs do.
But I was mapping that night. The map I was drawing was not on grid paper. It was not to scale. It was just to allow me to visualise the connections between the areas and see what was left to explore. And I was doing that because (a) we were playing face-to-face and (b) the GM did not provide us with a map himself.
I am pretty terrible at drawing maps for my adventures. But I am happy to act as a mapper in a session.
Why are maps important? For me, it is primarily about visualisation. I find it much easier to relate to the map drawn on paper than just descriptions given by the DM. This is not true of everyone. One of my friends is brilliant at conceptualising spaces just from what he hears. In one famous session, the party lost their map and they had to get out of this complicated dungeon based on memory alone. And he guided them out perfectly.
But I can’t do that! I like having a map. I can see where the rooms are in relation to each other and identify areas that we still need to explore.
When you are playing on VTTs such as Roll20, it is most likely that the DM draws (reveals) the map for you. It can be quite easy. (From the DM side, there may be more preparation involved).
But when you are playing face-to-face, it becomes a bit trickier for the DM to draw the player map. It is time spent away from running the game. And this is one time when having a player map may be convenient. It is a way of turning the DM’s words into a visual description for the players.
So, maps are good for visualising the area you explore. The more advanced use is for the DM to place secret areas on their map, which can be discovered by the players drawing an accurate map. This can make the mapper feel very accomplished and give a real feeling of satisfaction. But the drawback here is how much time the DM and mapper need to spend describing the area so that the map is accurate.
When I DM, I use a standard method of describing rooms and corridors so that the mapper – when we use one – can easily interpret my instructions. Well, at least that is the idea. The fact of the matter is that not everyone is good at mapping. For me, mapping is an extremely enjoyable part of the game. When you have a player who enjoys mapping, it makes sense for the players to map the dungeon themselves, and to design dungeons that reward such play. When you have a group of players that could not care less, emphasise the fun parts of the game!
A few notes on my method of describing layouts for mapping:
- Give measurements in squares or units that correspond to the grid the players are using. (Most of my DM maps are in 10 feet squares).
- Describe where the entrance to any room is. “The room is thirty by thirty feet, and the entrance is just to the left of centre”.
- I often count out corridor length. “The door opens onto a corridor straight ahead – 10, 20, 30, in the 40th is a door to the left, then it continues to 50 and turns left in the 60th”.
- Standard descriptions: “T-junction”, “Side passage”, and “Crossroads”.
