Having Your Players Create Maps

Would like to point out to method 1:
If you are running a dungeon, that is supposed to be rather large and labyrinth in nature. Dont correct your players on their map.

The animated background bums show an important feature of making your own map.

"There should be a door here." Yeah, you're right. There should be a door there. Maybe a room in this weird "empty space" you now see on your map. Get to searching.

Distance is important. If you don't understand that room A is next to room B, you can't anticipate that the beholder in B will hear you tipping and dragging furniture around and get more pissed than its usual murderously xenophobic mood.

You describe the room as it appears, starting with the basics. You see through a door facing north. The room extends two squares west, one square east and three squares forward. On the third easternmost square, there is a closed door also facing east.

They jot down the basic information, and you can give them further details. The hammering you heard turns out to be a golem methodically smashing up an abandoned homeless camp, there's nylon sleeping bags and empty kerosene cans flying. It does not appear to notice you.

If they want further details, they are free to ask and even encouraged to do so. Most things will not be obvious at the first basic glance to get. "Are the sleeping bags modern or older than the 80's?" "Is there any bodies being mangled?"

I scribed a 1" grid in a dry erase board, and draw in the current area on an appropriate scale. When they leave that area, I erase the board and draw the new area.

Past that, if the PCs fail to map accurately, or at all, that's on them. If they get lost, they have to find their way back out the old-fashioned way.

Having said that, as a player, unless our group agrees that we want to be completists and ferret out every single secret door and such, I tend to make maps more like flow charts than the map the DM has,

A great was to age paper like maps is to lightly and heavily in spots brush on cold black coffee on white blank paper and you can rip and lightly singe the edges with a lighter or smoke with a match. As soon as it looks like it's going to catch on fire blow on it and pull the fire away. Also if you fold a large piece of writing paper up tight and wash it in the pocket of blue jeans and dry it in the dryer the paper comes out like that soft map quality sort. Wash on whatever wash cycle or setting you normally do for jeans. Just some fun cheap tips so you don't have to buy the fancy looking paper that's prestressed.

Miss seeing stories and advice from you guys.

I don’t remember which video introduced me to this channel, but I love how you guys approach making these vids

Kinda weird that this is the only video on this topic. thanks for the valuable info!

promo sm 🙄

If I tried do to a relational map my players would become triggered because there would be no corridors for them to bottleneck every single combat encounter through

When I first started playing D&D in the late 90s the DM insisted we make the maps. He explained there should always be a mapper and a scribe within the player group and this always stuck with me.

I had an idea for something non dnd but, here goes.

In the west, is the badlands. Think wild west but with magic. Many of the factions arr tribalistic or outlaws.


In the East is a combination of imperial japan and feudal china.


And the central continent is undergoing a revolution after being relatively isolated from the rest of the world. Things like sailboats, ketches, caravels, frigates, flintlocks, muskets, and other advanced weaponry is finally coming to fruition after a relatively long darkage.



All the continents are part of the world Aethir and are entirely seperate and isolated from eachother.


Magic is only really present in the West, but it surges throughout the entire world nonetheless.


Idk I just thought it was a cool idea.

I had a DM require us to map as we went. I had 1/4" grid graphing paper and my engineering scales out to make the map. I did a lot better than expected (the DM in question is my best friend and somehow forgot I went to college for construction technology) , but it really slowed the game down and while I didn't mind flexing my ability to hand draw blueprints, it was really crummy to do while trying to play. We opted out of it after a few sessions as he had maps from the module.

That bird thing was a DINOSAUR in MY dungeon!

I ran a totally random dungeon once...
Dice and random tables for everything in the dungeon and even the tunnels and chambers.

Told the players that they needed to map it. They didn't, until they tried to turn around to get out and found a blank wall.
Wherever they didn't map, I hadn't mapped either so I just had it magically seal off the tunnels past what was on the battlemap in the middle of the table.

It took them several sessions before there was a random stairs out.

yes this is what ive been saying for agess!

I'm a visual person. I'm also a "standing" DM. When I describe a room, I'm usually gesturing to show shapes and locations. I might even walk about the room were in such that a PC will know where two objects might be in relation to each other.

Having ran and played in old school style tournament dungeons we would usually make multiple maps. We were not supposed to have the GM correct player errors outside GM error for mapping.

The circle and line map was used for generic guidance through the dungeon so we didn't get lost this important in dungeons that have portals and verticality. A detailed map like a normal map was also often done because gaps in our map could reveal secret rooms and doors which could give us more treasure and win the tournament.

Mini handouts for each room is perfect for a puzzle dungeon I'm working on where each door is a portal that leads to a room where significant events have taken place in the campaign so far (some laced with heightened threats hehe). I was trying to figure out how I would present this, but a patchwork dungeon is perfect!

i love your videos sm

Hey so, inspired by this, I was having a blast earlier this evening making my own dungeon tiles, and I just gotta say, the illustrations you guys bang out are wonderful. Like, it's common to see art improve over time; I'm watching a video you made about crafting healing potions from over a year ago, and the art is still banger. Well done. Love the channel. Linking to my two friends.

great video but the audio is really poorly mixed. New mic?

Gygax was always in favor of letting the players do it and figure it out for themselves. (But he was a bit of a sadist.) I like some of these ideas, especially the flowchart style for lazy mappers, and only handing out the map room by room once they've explored it. But imo, player maps generally shouldn't be exact or even accurate, unless they spend a lot of time carefully measuring etc. And even then, their mapping should raise questions and/or have room for improvement. My favorite exception to this was the original Ravenloft (I6) in which our DM carefully drew on our map each of the isometric areas as we entered them, just to keep the feel of the incredible maps in the module.

I love mapping as a player. I often, as a GM, will draw a reference as I go, though, as I don’t want to rely on a player that enjoys mapping 😊

Do you have any ideas on how to run an escape room scenario?

I had a game where the whole campaign was basically just to create a world map (they'd landed on a newly discovered island chain). Every time they set out, I'd roll a die behind the screen to see how much they deviated from their path, modified by the player actions/abilities/etc. So, they'd head out due west for 3 days, but end up heading west north west. They'd still write that location down due east from where they set off. It was great seeing them try to figure out which places weren't exactly where they thought they were as they built up the map more, and after they'd finished the main story (ancient lich got locked away for a thousand years), I showed them the /actual/ gods-eye-view map. Ended up with some places shockingly close and others embarrassingly far off

I use Paint Shop Pro V (yes, it's old but it's what I have) to create a map with layers and the top layer is a full-black Fog which I use the Eraser tool to clear where they can see as they go. It's only recently that I actually started implementing the Fog, but they've been enjoying it so far!
It took me a while because I wasn't sure how I wanted to clear it, or what would be the most effective way. In the end, I've decided if I accidentally erase too far, that's on me and will just ask them to temporarily forget that sight. They are good sports, so these things tend to work out well.

I use a TV with the base taken off as the board, attached as a second screen on my laptop. Sometimes it gets a bit funny, especially if I am sharing the screen to a remote player who couldn't join in person, but we work it out.
Still, I would like a more consistent option, especially one where I can view the full map safely on my screen while showing their view on the other. I've heard of a couple programs, but haven't really taken the time (or had the energy) to really dive into learning them.

An easy way I found to get my players to draw the map on my sunless citadel game as they went was, I used two printed maps, the printed version with all the details, and the player version was just an outline drawing obstacles and rooms, keeping secret rooms hidden

I'm having a player make the region map.

It's working well so far, I just kind of add little corrections here and there.

Are there any good videos on that subject?
It seems similar, but different enough that I'd love some specific pointers

It would be interesting to have a "Mapping" skill for characters. It'd work sort of like a perspetion or knowledge skills to ask questions to the GM about places you've already been and the DM would answer based on the roll. DMs could also "twist" the maps of characters that rolled really poorly or "fix" and add extra details the maps of players whose characters rolled well. It would also be a kind of "craft" skill. By the end of an adveture a map done with consistently high rolls, could be sold for quite the price or be requested by NPCs as part of a quest objective.

This has changed so much since we moved to roll20.

But to be honest, I don't think this is fun, sounds like a class or homework. People come to the table to have fun, not to experience indentured slavery again. If any of my masters told me to do this, I would be playing golf instead.

I make so much use out of Dungeondraft and Owlbear Rodeo I don't think I'd be able to run a game without them.

The way we do it in my game right now relies on a characters backstory as a 'waybreaker'. It makes it easier for me as DM because I'm practicing improve a bit more this campaign. Here's how we do it.

In prep, I make a relational map instead of the real one, and then the cartographer is the one making the real map. I'll make adjustments, but I'm watching her map it and basically designing the look of the room (unless it's a puzzle room or what not) as we go. Then, what she draws is what exists.

I do the same with monsters. One player is in charge of noting resistances, Weaknesses, AC, etc.

Then, to Gameify it a bit more, they can sell their maps and bestiary for profit.

I'd say the point of making the players draw the maps is so there will be discrepancies between their map and the actual dungeon layout, it makes the maps more in line with how maps were made by people exploring new lands anyway, those weren't accurate either.

Relational maps are great for designing your own dungeon.
Especially if you are using multiple levels, branching paths, hidden passages, or loops.
You can plan out routes, connections, shortcuts etc. without muddling up spatial relations too much. Include only notable rooms. And then you can translate the relational map into a spatial map afterwards. Here you can add additional rooms, corridors, or staircases where needed to make everything else fit together spatially.

Players of call of ctuhullu (no maps allowed, no minis allowed, only character sheets and dices) will never have this problem

I went the oposite way of making it easier. I gave them a blank piece of paper and a pen and just told them when the tunnels of the cave system went left or right. It had multiple loops and they split the party, so when they got back toghether they had to work out what parts may be the same.
Was realy fun too.

Having players draw the map can be tricky but it can also solve so many problems!
I find it's one less thing for me to do, adds to the feeling that they are exploring and best of all it's helped me see where I need to improve with my descriptions!
If they just aren't listening... 🤷‍♂too bad! That's your map now! 😂
But if they are listening and I see that it was my fault for not explaining better I'll point out what needs to be altered and it's really helped me describe things better!

For the last many years (several before the pandemic, even) I've GMed primarily online, so have used VTTs for my mapping and using fog of war to reveal it. Before then, when I primarily did it in person I would rely on theater of the mind for most areas, but pull out a wet/dry erase battle mat (whichever was on hand) and draw out an area for combat or other tense situations where placement was critical. The last in person game I GMed was a one shot taking place on a train, so I drew out the train cars on index cards I taped together (2 cards per train car). I had two versions, one inside and one on top, so they had additional movement options during the adventure.

I'm not sure quite what I'll do for the next time I actually GM in person, as my friends all live in other states as I've moved since the last in person game I ran. I could see using the dry/wet erase battle mat again, but I might instead make dungeon tiles. Either sturdy, generic ones to set up into different configurations, or make the maps digitally like I've grown used to for VTT use and then printing the areas out to put down as they enter each area. Or, I might decide to do a cross between mapped and theater of the mind, and use either the Ultimate Dungeon Tile from Dungeon Craft, or zones like are done in Index Card RPG.

It's always a good day when Master the Dungeon uploads 😄

One "map" type I used for a VTT game I used for most of our non combat scenarios during that campaign.
Rather than a map of any given city or other location I found a nice piece of art that resembled what I had in mind, added a small frame and a location name and sometimes a little town motto, turning each location into a postcard.
I then had a big board with a lot of empty black space around it that got populated with portraits of important people living in that city or any important location or landmark that wasn't worth its own "map" but served a purpose or became re-occuring. Very much a variant of the mind map.
My hope was for the players to draw out red lines and make connections like a big conspiracy theory board as the people and places unfolded. That didn't happen as I never told them too and there wasn't a need for it most of the time but I think it was appreciated as several notes were written down next to people and places instead of the usual drawings of random or lewd additions to the more traditional maps.

yeah but why would you do this? i think dms are responisble for drawing the map and players are responsible for their tokens and speel area of efects

This is a (very) “unexplored” topic in D&D! Would love to see more on this if possible. My players groan at the very thought of having to undertake mapping. Since 4th Edition, they have grown very accustomed to a VTT visualizing everything for them. And I agree, there should be much more advice in the rulebooks for this. Wouldn’t that be great?

Also player made maps are GOLD mines of adventure hooks!

(Standing just outside the city gate)
Player 1: So where did we have to go?
Player 2: A place called Death Hill.
P1: Ok! ... Which way do we go again??
P2: Right! ... Umm let me get the map out
(whips out a slightly detailed area map)
Gate Guard walks up: Hey where did you get that?
P2: Oh I drew it myself! (Proud af)
GG: Nice! Can you what a little? My Captain will have a couple questions for you. Might be willing to buy that off of you too! 😇

(player greed tripped)
P1 & P2: SURE!

(a few hours later)
P2: huh what!?!? (slowly wakes up with a headache)
P1: Finally up. Good.
P2: Where the @#$ are we?
P1: City prison. Charged as Traitors to the empire.... 🤬

Giving the group a rough map early in the campaign can get the group into the habit of using maps. First session, the group needs to go into a mine, have a miner give them a basic map that was quickly drawn in front of them.

My method: drawing on the grid. I use two mediums; a dry erase (or wet erase) battle mat so I can quick sketch things or erase as I go, or if I want a permanent map I use gift wrapping paper that has a 1" grid on the back (intended to help with wrapping gifts, but works perfectly for dungeoneering)