SPEEDY DUNGEON MAPS in D&D! GIT GUD at CALLING YOUR MAPS! (OSR, Dungeons & Dragons)

[@QuestingBeast]

This is great. Never thought about developing specific procedures for mapping.

[@gfcsdnd205]

That's what I love about the OSR sphere, everyone has a different approach and people bring things to your attention that you otherwise wouldn't have thought of. Thanks for watching!

[@paavohirn3728]

Yeah! This is great! For a while now I've mostly ran dungeons with a lot of natural caverns and such with players with little enthusiasm for mapping so I've been drawing the maps. I want to run some more old-school dungeons again as well and I'm always thinking about how to do the mapping in each instance. I might also have some of my players getting into mapping.

[@remarkablysquare3216]

nice to see good creators supporting other good creators :)

[@jesperpetersen6105]

Thanks for dropping this on a Mongolian basket weaving forum, as KZbin didn't notify me that you dropped a video.

[@gfcsdnd205]

had to notify my fellow erotic byzantine mosaic enthusiasts

[@remarkablysquare3216]

@@gfcsdnd205 I thought you were a Chinese billionaire?? How can you enjoy the culture of a people who once subjugated the country that now provides your wealth, while claiming to be an honorable Chinese billionaire You must be disloyal to the CCP -200 social credit

[@gfcsdnd205]

@@remarkablysquare3216 those tiles tho 🥵

[@gdmnsdgl]

I know calling via verbal description is the tradition---and more immersive---, but I've been experimenting with small hardboard tiles to provide quick visual cues re room/hall layout. Offloads some of the mental work and can serve as an impropmtu battlemap if theater-o-mind does not suffice

[@DM_Curtis]

You could just make a key for the mapper, a really obvious idea after watching this.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Shorthand is always good!

[@HuyTran]

@@gfcsdnd205 You should release a key! It would be too cool.

[@chriscooper7962]

A way I'm considering mapping rooms that differs from the video is to call the walls of a room similar to how you call the hallways going around the room clockwise. Doors, passageways, etc would be their own square, similar to how turns, T's, and branches aren't counted as part of the distance of a hallway (assuming you're using his first method of calling and not the shoji method). For example: You enter the room from the West. The Westernmost wall runs 20ft North, there's a door, then continues 10ft north, turns East and runs 40ft. It heads back south 30ft, there's a 20ft passageway heading East leading deeper into the dungeon, but the wall Eastern wall continues on South for another 10ft then turns and heads west 40ft. The southern wall turns and heads North 10ft, and ends back at the door through which you entered.

[@stinkystink9830]

Breaking down the concepts of mapping into 'lego bricks' or 'widgets' that youre snapping together as you go. Creating a convention btw player and ref. Very wise

[@SynthApprentice]

I just made my own reference copy of your examples. I only used the shoji style examples, because I figure I can easily adapt that to "ten foot wall" style, and I added short step-by-step text descriptions of each example. Thank you so much for this incredibly useful resource!

[@Meshric]

You are a genius. I couldn't wrap my head around maps until this.

[@joeseatat]

Takes me back to the old NES. You had to draw out your own Super Metroid and Castlevania maps. Mini-maps? Quest Journals? Nowhere to be found. It helped you to become more attentive and invested, though. Excellent advice, as always. I will be referring back to this.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Mapping is a lost art, but so immersive and fun!

[@JamesEck]

This is excellent! I've been trying to come up with unambiguous conventions during meetings at work, but this largely solves it for me.

[@gfcsdnd205]

I'm glad to have helped!

[@RegularBeico]

Great video as always. I don't personally call/expect this sort of precise mapping from my table (they usually go for flowchart-style maps), but would love to try playing and mapping in a game like this.

[@gfcsdnd205]

It's pretty fun!

[@someguy403]

I just ran a small dungeon for my sister where she controlled 8 adventurers because I wanted to test some game mechanics and your mapping guide out so I wanted to say thanks for the help since mapping was so much easier this time around than compared to my first time going in fairly blind. My sister's map was almost perfect, except for one mistake, and it was such a faster and simpler procedure for mapping that it didn't bog down the action at all basically.

[@gfcsdnd205]

That's great to hear! Thank you (and your sister)!

[@jonhadley5768]

Absolute banger

[@gfcsdnd205]

😎

[@nightelflevel5062]

Never thought about this topic. Thanks for the video I will try this out

[@gfcsdnd205]

Let us know how it goes!

[@finnianquail8881]

Thanks for this

[@gfcsdnd205]

No problem!

[@joshuawilliams8230]

This is absolutely excellent! Using this procedure how would you call 45 degree turns? Thinking about this further, would it just be a single line? Playing with this more a single line looks to work well for 45 degree turns.

[@Cynidecia]

Shame the high quality digital mapping tools are all online only websites.

[@gfcsdnd205]

I've been known to cobble together a map or two in google sheets

[@SillySyrup]

Truly these videos help me a lot. I always love when you come out with a new video. I just saw this on my homepage posted four hours ago and I was like, "Hell yeah!"

[@gfcsdnd205]

Hell yeah!

[@rdmths]

On the dawn of the fifth day he returns. One of the beacons of osr.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Everyone who plays and spreads the good word of ~ZOZ is a beacon of OSR!

[@C3R341K1LL3R]

This is a level of practical advice that I think is sorely missed in many RPG systems and guides for GMs. Not having a consistent language for describing physical space in a dungeon leads to so many headaches. Thanks for this great info!

[@razorchuckles]

I've been DM'ing for nearly 40 years, and some of these situations have always frustrated me with player mapping. I love your suggestions, and I'm totally going to make a key similar to what you have shown.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Always happy to help!

[@lungfungus8495]

My favorite dungeon mapping trick is to include "one way vantage gates". Essentially, the destination of a hallway differs based on how it was entered. Assume the following hallway between two rooms, with P as the player and the arrow as their facing. []======[] []==P>====[] Approaching east, the hallway works normally [] || || ==

[@gfcsdnd205]

Sounds devious, love it!

[@LordOfMetal666]

The Non-Euclidean hallway!!

[@LordOfMetal666]

The king is back!

[@gfcsdnd205]

never left ;)

[@NevetsTSmith]

+3 Magical Mapping Video of Enlightenment Seriously, holy balls this is a valuable resource. Thank you.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Always happy to help! Thanks for watching!

[@DevineInnovations]

Sometimes I wonder if it would be more fun to play it like an enhanced board game and just give them a full map. Or at least make it easier/encouraged to find a map before entering a dungeon. You could still have secret rooms and unmapped areas. Maybe there are even maps that are intentionally misleading.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Especially for first-timers, this can be a great idea! Incomplete maps, that is. I'd save the inaccurate maps for intermediate players ;)

[@antonioborobia4178]

pog!

[@razorchuckles]

13:00 LMAO

[@hopeforthebestx]

This is a momentous day

[@gfcsdnd205]

a red letter day!

[@jamesstern9578]

Thanks for the new video! I found your hexchad video when I was looking for tips on running hexcrawls, but all your stuff on game procedure has helped me immensely as a GM.

[@gfcsdnd205]

I'm glad to have helped! Thanks for watching!

[@kylegraywolf]

Love this. I have no tricks, as my group doesn't keep up for various reasons, but they love it when I give them a vague map. I've been reading through your blog recently, have you published anything, or is your output solely here and the blog?

[@gfcsdnd205]

Just here and the blog... for now ;) thanks for watching!

[@kylegraywolf]

@@gfcsdnd205 right on, thanks for the thoughtful content 🤙

[@midshipman8654]

I really do like the idea of map “rhythm”. using sensical floorplan thought in a given context to piece out possible secrets and dangers. gives a real spacial element to exploring that becomes another part of the play. making it FEEL like you are exploring and considering geometric shapes as part of the game rather than teleporting between “scenes”. kinda adds another pillar to the experience all to itself. making it feel like a real place that must be scoped out. so that learning it becomes as engaging as fighting or puzzle solving. I think its something that is really often forgotten about even though it can make exploration actually feel like exploration instead of an afterthought as a means between points of interest a b and c

[@gfcsdnd205]

Couldn't have said it better myself!

[@JonBeowulf]

THANK YOU! I'm about to run a BECMI adventure for my 5e group (they want to see how it was done "in the old days"). For the complete experience, they need to create their own map -- which is difficult in a VTT. I knew I needed standards but had no clear plan on what they should be.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Hope it works for you!

[@gameworkshop2707]

you're severly underrtated!

[@gfcsdnd205]

thank you!

[@halflingshoard]

Sharing with my gaming group now.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Hope they find it useful!

[@halflingshoard]

I'm the mapper in our new campaign so this will help fix our issues we had last week!

[@gfcsdnd205]

@@halflingshoard Oh, good! Please let me know if it worked!

[@JenxRodwell]

Damn I gotta donate through Ko-Fi now! You clearly need the cash to afford a video in a higher resolution than 360! I'm joking, of course. Always great to see a new video on this channel, and this was a pretty damn interesting one too!

[@gfcsdnd205]

tfw youtube humiliates you by taking way too long to process the HD vid :((( should be up soon though. Uhhh wait I mean yeah I'm destitute! penurious! impecunious! (in all seriousness, please only kick me a couple bucks if it's burning an absolute hole in your pocket, don't go scrounging change from the couch cushions or skipping groceries just to kick me a couple bucks, but I do appreciate the support🙂)

[@aquarat1]

Great video as usual! i still want ur take on skirmishes and mass combat ;)

[@gfcsdnd205]

I'll have to do some playtesting!

[@aquarat1]

@@gfcsdnd205 im still happily waiting for ur videos, my dude.

[@bujabujabu3529]

return of the king

[@gfcsdnd205]

👑

[@AdolphusOfBlood]

This is a great video, thank you for doing it!

[@gfcsdnd205]

Thank you for enjoying it!

[@SillySyrup]

I just finished the video where you asked us to comment about our favorite dungeon-mapping tricks. I love using depth - could you show us in a video how you map depth? I mean, how do you draw a pit without it looking like a wall, or how do you draw staircases on the walls of the pit leading down? Also, how do you signify exactly how deep a pit or staircase goes down?

[@gfcsdnd205]

So, referee-facing side it's just going to be ugly. I think B2 - Caves of Chaos has everything you're looking for, basic topographic tricks of outlining the pit and using triangles to show if it's a hill (going up) or a pit (going down) and then the depth written along the outline. Staircases will be parallel lines that shrink as they go down and then their depth written beside them.

[@SillySyrup]

@@gfcsdnd205 I've never heard of B2 - Caves of Chaos before and I don't know what it is. Could you give me a link to it or to something about it?

[@gfcsdnd205]

@@SillySyrup Sure, it's the module at the back of the Moldvay Basic ruleset published in the early 80s. Googling "B2 - Caves of Chaos" will bring it up

[@MrOdrzut]

@@gfcsdnd205 sometimes it works ok if you have vertical and horizontal parts of the dungeon to just show them separately in top-view and the vertical parts in side-view. Like if you have several levels of a mine connected by half-broken elevator shaft opening to side-view cave system.

[@gfcsdnd205]

@@MrOdrzut Yes, a few old-school modules have those sort of cross-section views. I always liked them

[@Eron_the_Relentless]

Spectacular/useful content as always. I need to git gud at watching youtube videos as I can't speed this up faster than 1.25 without losing the thread as you sound like the Micro Machines guy at that point.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Thanks! I've got to learn to hit that sweet spot where I'm not talking too slowly for 1x or too quickly for 2x!

[@squirekev]

Eron, just turn on the close captioning. Then you can do x2 easily and keep the plot.

[@ymdw45]

Good advice, thanks.

[@gfcsdnd205]

No problem!

[@twentysides]

Brilliant to work out what these things mean before pencil touches paper. Rule out all the arguments and headaches ahead of time.

[@MrRourk]

Beautiful

[@gfcsdnd205]

💅✨

[@everthingtotal8798]

I do not currently use mapping but was really thinking about it recently. Your video gives some real inspiration for mapping. My concern though, is it takes too much time. Also, that it takes too much attention; in other words the mapper is way more concerned with the map than role play (a big part of my games) or other elements such as tension/suspense.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Ah, but the role of the mapper IS a role to play, and the ever-present threat of becoming hopelessly lost within the dungeon is a source of constant tension!

[@someguy403]

Really helpful video! My campaign didn't last as long as I'd hoped for but one of the issues we ran into was terminology of mapping so it became needlessly complicated but this clears up my problem. Hopefully I can get back to running the campaign but it's difficult coordinating everyone's schedules, for now I will just have to prep and play solo.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Thanks! That's a shame about the campaign; I'd recommend running an "open table" style game so you can run it for whoever shows up that week.

[@someguy403]

@@gfcsdnd205 That's what I was trying to do but unfortunately I don't know enough people for it to really work lol. I might be able to get more players some time soon since my sister introduced me to some friends and they seemed interested although I'm not sure if they are up for a B/X hexcrawl since they mainly play pathfinder/5e.

[@gfcsdnd205]

​@@someguy403 Good luck!

[@someguy403]

@@gfcsdnd205 Thanks!

[@LizardPilled]

This is gold! Thanks, man. I've been wanting to run megadungeons without drawing them out for my players. This will go a long way.

[@zzlord4309]

Great video, personally I no longer use the help of a mapper because I wanted to skip the awkward repeats. Instead what I do is I make a copy of the full dungeon map with only walls and doors , Secret rooms stay unpainted until found, then they use dungeon tiles to make the map for me and I add any details on the tiled pieces. Saves time and keeps the players occupied.

[@metalcreeper52]

This is great, definitely will use this system when I run next! Would really love to see an example of one of your sessions when all the other elements are in play (Wandering monsters, only being able to see as far as a torch illuminates, traps, etc.)

[@perplexedmoth]

Note to self in the form of YT comment. I would describe the examples as follows: # Turn 1. 10, 20, 30, turn left, 10, 20, turn right, 10, 20 ends. 2. 10, 20, 30, turn left, 10, turn right, 10, 20 ends. # Branch 1. 10, 20, 30, branch right, 10 ends, corridor continues 40, 50 ends. 2. 10, 20, 30, branch right, 10 ends, corridor continues 40, turn right, 10, 20 ends. # Cross 1. 10, 20 is cross, turn left, 10 ends, cross continues 30, 40 ends, cross turn right, 10, 20, turn left 10 ends. 2. 10, 20 is cross, turn left, 10 ends, cross continues 30, 40 ends, cross turn right, 10, turn left 10 ends. Etc. For rooms: You enter a room, 30 foot across, 40 foot wide to the east, 0 to west. On west wall, 10, 20 a door. On the north wall a door, to the east 10, 20, another door. On east wall counting from south, 10 a door, 20 a door. On south wall to the east, 10, 20, 30 a wall.

[@guyman1570]

I honestly don't think all of this effort is worthwhile. Consider if you will... 1. It slows down the game, assuming you're narrating, not throwing onto the table some battlemat + terrain. You have to make sure the directions and distances are clear. 2. Following the assumption that we're not using the map for the actual combat itself, and we're running it via Theater of Mind. Cut out the pointless hallways, corridors, etc Leave in only the important forks/junctions and make it more interesting than "left door, right door, which one do you take". Make it so that each choice has a meaningful impact AND can be partially established that the two or more choices are in fact visibly different or even with additional sensory data. (Ie, On the left, there's a staircase leading up into complete darkness. On the right, the hallway turn underneath the staircase, which you can see the flicking glow of a small fire spilling from behind, and from behind the same corner you also hear some quiet whispering.) 3. Alternatively... YOU give your players the map, piece by piece! Similar to how battlemat + terrain works anyhow. Heck, even a quick scribble from you onto a whiteboard is ever so much quicker and efficient than narrating to a player trying to draw it out. And 4th point to consider... it absolutely sucks for the REST of the party waiting for the back-and-forth between the mapper and the DM to wrap up at **every** **single** **room** and **every** **single** **bend in the corridor**. So in a nutshell, narrate then mapping between two people definitely does slow down the game. It makes for a poorer experience for the DM. It makes for a poorer experience for the Mapper. It makes for a poorer experience for the rest of the players. Who actually benefit from this method of running a dungeon? Be honest here.

[@someguy403]

it doesn't slow down the game, it IS the game

[@someguy403]

@Hexproof Project I realize people have preferences but the osr places an emphasis on procedure so if you aren't taking part in it you aren't really playing "old school".

[@wurzzzz]

@hexproofproject8199 OSR is more board game than theater. Modern D&D is more theater than board game. It's just about what you like. I have found value in both, but currently I'm enjoying OSR games a lot in their purest form.

[@hexcrawler785]

This channel is so underrated I already have watch all your content. I have a question that isn't about this video, do you have any advice for novice GM that wants to run a theatre of the mind game? I don't find enough information in this subject only debates about what is better theatre of the mind or miniatures.

[@gfcsdnd205]

Theatre of the mind is how run my games for the most part, I think you'll find it's less daunting than it might seem. Perhaps you could keep your rooms relatively uncomplicated until you get more used to running them.