Good day friends. I present to you another piece in our series of inspiration, research and supporting material for our 10-part banger, Motivations in Roleplaying Game Economies. These essays are lighter reads than the Motivations pieces, intended to show that this type of games analysis involves play, reading, cooperation and a lot of love.
Today’s essay explores the second player meta-role of Dungeons & Dragons: Basic Set. We descend into the depths of one of the most loved-hated ideas in the game: mapping.
Like First Level Adventurers, We Began at the Entrance of the Dungeon
When we engaged with the Dungeons & Dragons: Basic Set in 2012 we wanted to understand how it created the feel of exploration. The Basic rule book in particular focuses on characters moving through subterranean spaces. How did the rules support that style of play?
The primary vector appeared to be through the dungeon master utilizing detailed, pre-prepared maps of underground environments, keyed with descriptions, hazards and treasures. The players then interact with that space through the medium of conversation—description from the dungeon master to the players and from the players back to the dungeon master. And in order to reduce confusion, the game requires one player to transcribed the descriptions into a map of their own—a best guess facsimile of the pre-constructed scenario the dungeon master secretly referenced in order to create the scenario.
Early into their adventures, my players created haphazard maps—drawn on multiple sheets and taped together, or drawn on two sides of a single sheet. Later once the value of the maps was established through play, one player (the self-same X the Veteran) heroically recopied the maps onto a single larger sheet and stayed late to fill in the details he had discovered on his solo adventure.
At one point in their adventure, the mapper characters took an unexpected dunk in a water-filled pit. I had the players make DEX checks to keep their maps safe. Fortunately for them, they both passed. The players then asked what would have happened if they failed. I told them, "I would have taken the maps into the shower." They howled with a mix of dismay and delight. When X was lost without light in the dungeon, I would not let his player consult their maps nor let the other players verbally guide him out.
On her first time up, one of our players was excited to give it a go, but after her first room—a variegated cavern with two odd features—she declared that she hated it. It turns out that the exercise of mapping is a painful one. And while the pain never stops, we found the benefits of the map eventually outshined its burdens.
Mapping Meta
One of the curious reasons for the pain is that the game text refers to mapping in terms of the player rather than the character.
There’s an implication buried in the light rules that the character should have hands free and a light source, but there’s no other requirement for character action (as there is in, say, the Combat Procedures) that I can find.
Thus the character never improves their mapping skills. Ever. The player cannot test their character's Wisdom or Intelligence to determine if they map the room accurately or inaccurately. They don't level up and get better maps. And after it's established that a player takes on the role of mapper, they never describe their character mapping. It is the player who maps. It is they who must listen to instructions. It's their skill that improves. The mapping character is just a mannequin holding blank piece of paper. Because there is so much player skill involved in this exercise, I submit that the game is primarily about mapping and exploration and other activities are secondary. And thus we see the wellspring from which all pain flows.
Verbal Description
According to the rules, the dungeon master is obligated to accurately describe the environs explored by the players. Conversation is the primary medium of play. Players sketch what the dungeon master describes. This alone is the premise for many a good game. However, the dungeon master is obligated to correct the players’ maps if they develop inaccuracies only “in extreme situations.” In fact, the game instructs the players to learn to become good mappers.
In practice, I answered the players' questions about a room until they were satisfied unless they were in the dark, running or in a fight. And I settled on a series of descriptive rubrics:
I used compass directions (north, south) unless the group lost its light or bearings at which time I used relative bearing (left, right).
I described distances in feet according to the map—a 20' x 20' room, the wall extends 40' ahead.
I told the humans what they could see according to their lantern light—30' from the light source.
I described what the dark-seeing characters could see 60' from their vantage point.
In rooms larger/longer than those directions, I described darkness at the limits of sight. Though I would often fuck this up and describe a lurking monster before it could be seen.
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The Map at the End of the Tunnel
Through extensive play and experimentation, we found the following benefits emerge from mapping:
Ritualistic activity: The mappers came to enjoy their task since they were intimately involved in every decision
Descriptive immersion: When they were lost but stumbled into a familiar area known by its description, the players would cheer for triumph and sigh for relief…and then consult the map for orientation.
Shifting power dynamic: at the start of the game, the players have a blank sheet of paper with one node, the entry. Basically, lots of information, but no knowledge. Their every step had to be exhaustively described by me in the capacity of DM. As the game progressed, they sifted through the information and created knowledge and as they retraced their steps and filled in details, they described more and more of the dungeon to me.
Artifact: The map became a representation of progress and, even better, a sort of save point.
Exploration: They used the map as it was intended and intuited the position and content of unexplored areas: to wit, they found the stairs up by collating data from their level 1 map with their relative position on the level 2 map.
Salvation: Without the maps, their characters would have perished in the dungeon, stumbling dumbly into trick, trap and terror.
Extracting Order From Chaos
We enter the dungeon and begin the orderly process of mapping—exploration to bring order to chaos, an attempt to glean knowledge from information, separate signal from noise. We maintain that order for as long as possible, but exploration brings us in contact with many unforeseen elements. Eventually, chaos creeps in and our friends start to die. At that point, the map becomes a thin, silvery thread between us and a horrific death in the pitch dark corridor of some forgotten corner of this hell hole, guiding you out to the light.
But Don’t Take My Word For It…
Tales of our exploration of the Caves of Chaos reached such heights that one of our maps landed in the pages of Art & Arcana: A Visual History of Dungeons & Dragons. Released in 2018, the book is a testament to the power of the game in creating ephemeral artifacts, whether highly refined, like Erol Otus’ art or bespoke, like our maps. These maps exist in legions in folders, filing cabinets and desk drawers spanning a distributed archive of adventure spanning continents and decades. I’m honored that one of ours was chosen to represent the practice and woven into a part of D&D history.
Thanks for reading! Join us next week for a look into our background with the Basic Set of D&D and some adventures we experienced along the way, mapping the road that brought us to this point. Until then, we remain your Ludological Alchemists.
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