- 9 and 30 Kingdoms talks a bit about mapping. I'm okay with players mapping or not mapping. It's up to them, as long as their characters can do it. If they try to use it to detect secret rooms, eh. I have lots of filled-in blocks of stone between hallways to avoid explaining line-walls that don't have any clear thickness. So it generally doesn't work. They do help to keep you from getting too lost.
- Not gaming, but this post explains historiography. I first ran into the concept in college and I wish I'd understood it earlier.
- Next game date is unclear.
"I'm okay with players mapping or not mapping."
ReplyDeleteDitto.
It's up to my Players. And like you, if they want to //use// the maps IC, they have to be able to make the maps ICly. How accurate they are made ICly will be "kinda" reflected int heir skills... but honestly I really like the way DFRPG handles it, Cartography is mostly used to determine how much the map //sells// for, not how accurate it is.
HOWEVER... I do have them make Cartographer rolls when I notice they've made glaringly obvious errors on their map. Like, they way I run is "gaming is a cooperative play" not a competition, it's not GM vs PCs, so if I see they've made a tunnel turn left when it should have turned right, I'll have them make a roll and correct them if the roll comes up in their favor. Sometimes if play was complex and garbled I'll just let the mapping Player they heard me wrong without a roll, it's a balancing act.
I also put blanks and voids and build the map as a naturally as possible so "void hunting" absolutely won't work with my maps. //Usually//. (Sometimes it does, like if it would be natural that a "blank space" there would be a service corridor between rooms or whatever, but again, if it would naturally fit. Also it makes for Skill usage to work for the PCs, like Architecture, Area Knowledge, Survival, whatever Spelunking would be, Mining, Engineering, etc.)
As a Player I almost always map, but as a Character it's hit or miss. I do like playing cartographers, whether they are scholars or Kenders, I really like my mappers. I need to make an Ogre stone chiseling mapper someday, maybe one who assembles menhir "stonehenge maps" from memory.
My party might not like my Kender "cartographers" but I have a ball and that's all that matters.