Zeea
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I've been thinking about this a lot.
Exact movement and positioning wasn't a big deal throughout most of the AD&D era, and I'm not even sure how big of a deal it was during the OD&D era.
So why were the dungeons drawn on graph paper with a scale using exact distances, rather than drawn in an abstract format?
After all, you could easily draw a bunch of word balloons ('Entry,' 'Kitchen,' etc) with lines between them and duplicate most dungeons. And the little nitpicky maze stuff in many adventures never had any relevance, since lots of those rooms were empty dead-ends that would never be important in a tactical fight.
Not only that, but most of the maps are simplistic enough that there's no real tactical meaning. Undermountain, World's Largest Dungeon, and Expedition to Barrier Peaks are all just collections of huge rectangular rooms with no cover or obstacles in most of them. With 99% of the encounters in Undermountain, you could move them to another part of the map and the combat wouldn't run any differently at all, unless you moved them to one of the 1% of weird rooms.
What about wilderness maps? Instead of hex maps, you could probably do the same thing with little balloons, or you could just use a list of important locations, and it wouldn't make a difference in all but the oldest-school campaigns.
In 3e and 4e adventures, the maps are almost never relevant except during fights.
I think most old-school dungeon maps are beautiful to look at, and they immediately give me the urge to start stocking them and run them. But in actual play, they might as well just be a bunch of little balloons, or a bunch of single-entrance rooms in a straight line.
So, basically, I'm wondering why I used to be so obsessed with drawing dungeons on graph paper, and why I didn't realize much earlier that it was unnecessary. I mean, sure, drawing a scale map of the dungeon is neat, but so is drawing a picture of my character or drawing a picture of the monsters in each encounter, and I never felt obligated to do that.
If maps were originally drawn in a more abstract fashion, would that have drastically changed gamer culture? Would that have also contributed to us questioning whether encumbrance mattered? How about rations, water, ammunition? Would modern games bother listing weights for vehicles?
Exact movement and positioning wasn't a big deal throughout most of the AD&D era, and I'm not even sure how big of a deal it was during the OD&D era.
So why were the dungeons drawn on graph paper with a scale using exact distances, rather than drawn in an abstract format?
After all, you could easily draw a bunch of word balloons ('Entry,' 'Kitchen,' etc) with lines between them and duplicate most dungeons. And the little nitpicky maze stuff in many adventures never had any relevance, since lots of those rooms were empty dead-ends that would never be important in a tactical fight.
Not only that, but most of the maps are simplistic enough that there's no real tactical meaning. Undermountain, World's Largest Dungeon, and Expedition to Barrier Peaks are all just collections of huge rectangular rooms with no cover or obstacles in most of them. With 99% of the encounters in Undermountain, you could move them to another part of the map and the combat wouldn't run any differently at all, unless you moved them to one of the 1% of weird rooms.
What about wilderness maps? Instead of hex maps, you could probably do the same thing with little balloons, or you could just use a list of important locations, and it wouldn't make a difference in all but the oldest-school campaigns.
In 3e and 4e adventures, the maps are almost never relevant except during fights.
I think most old-school dungeon maps are beautiful to look at, and they immediately give me the urge to start stocking them and run them. But in actual play, they might as well just be a bunch of little balloons, or a bunch of single-entrance rooms in a straight line.
So, basically, I'm wondering why I used to be so obsessed with drawing dungeons on graph paper, and why I didn't realize much earlier that it was unnecessary. I mean, sure, drawing a scale map of the dungeon is neat, but so is drawing a picture of my character or drawing a picture of the monsters in each encounter, and I never felt obligated to do that.
If maps were originally drawn in a more abstract fashion, would that have drastically changed gamer culture? Would that have also contributed to us questioning whether encumbrance mattered? How about rations, water, ammunition? Would modern games bother listing weights for vehicles?
Work well during these crucial subject areas, fortunately, you are now able to find cost-free graph paper online. Graph Paper Themes Graph Paper Printable Full Page Utilizing Grap. In the Dungeon Master's Guide, page 250, it states that when playing with a mat the squares or hexes should be 1 inch across and should.