In 1978, when I found the Dungeons & Dragons basic set, I noticed that the dwarf description included lot of fluff: stocky bodies, long beards, and an ability to detect slanting passages, shifting walls and new construction. I figured the slanting-and-shifting thing would never affect the game unless some dwarf skipped adventuring for a safer job as a building inspector. “Your rolling-boulder ramp isn’t up to code. Someone might not trip.”
Years later, I realized the dwarven fluff actually helped players keep the chore of mapping from becoming maddening.
In early D&D, one player assumed the role of mapper and transcribed a description of walls and distances onto graph paper. Map-keeping dominated play as much as combat. In the original example of play, the referee—dungeon master had not been coined yet—spends half the game reciting dimensions.
Did anyone ever think translating distances to graph paper added fun? Or was mapping another way to thwart players who tried to steal the quasi-adversarial referee’s treasure. (In the same example, the Caller finds hidden loot, and the Referee responds by “cursing the thoroughness of the Caller.” Rules question: Must the Referee curse aloud or can he just twirl his mustache?)
D&D co-creator Gary Gygax relished any chance to frustrate mappers. The original rules’ half page of “Tricks and Traps” lists nothing but slanting passages, sinking rooms, and other ways to waste graph paper. In this game, the dwarf’s slant-and-shift sense became essential. If you wanted to survive, someone played a cleric; if you wanted your game to not suck, someone played a dwarf.
Original D&D described dungeons as “mazy.” Gary wasn’t kidding.
The original example of play should have included this addition:
Mapper: I cannot believe the referee teleported us into another goddamn Maze.
Caller: I suppose a mountain of fun games will be invented in the next 40 years, but for now the only alternative is Monopoly.
Mapper: Sigh. I search for secret doors.
To be fair, the sloping floors and trick staircases made more than a nuisance. In the megadungeons of the era, greater threats prowled on lower levels, so tricks that lured PCs deeper threatened their lives. Traps that blocked a mapped escape from the dungeon prevented players from resting and re-equipping.
Deathmaze 5000’s revolutionary first-person view offered mappers a true test
Perhaps Gary also thought map-keeping let players practice the skills of imaginary dungeon explorers. But explorers would see the place they mapped. From a first-person view, mapping is entirely different than translating spoken descriptions. I learned this playing Deathmaze 5000 long before computer programmers went soft and made dungeon games with automatic mapping, or saved games, or that players enjoyed.
By 1976, Palace of the Vampire Queen included player’s maps to spare players the chore of transcribing dimensions. By fourth edition, labyrinths had turned from mapping challenges to skill challenges. Such mazes were no more fun, but they saved graph paper.
For years, mapping formed a part of D&D that players tolerated, but that few questioned. Then, this revolutionary game seemed so fresh and intoxicating that even duties like mapping found love, just a lot less than the game’s actual fun parts.