Dungeon of the Mad Mage Map Question

[jaydarkson]

Hello,

I’m just trying to get perspective from other GM’s who ran DotMM on FGU. I’m looking more for what worked (or didn’t work) for you rather than suggestions as to what I should do.

Currently I have the party moving their tokens on the player map. I’ve given them free reign of their characters (no token lock). This allows them to map with their characters what they’ve already explored in the dungeon. When they encounter combat we run the combat normally. It also allows me to keep track of creatures who have run off into the dungeon but continue to plague the group.

One of my players wants to switch to theater of the mind but I’m somewhat against this as I don’t want to drag their characters around the dungeon and he has already proven to be the most distracted player of the group. He is always asking what is going on so I have my doubts he will be able to keep track of me describing everything in theater of the mind. The map helps, at least for the other players who rely on the map which shows them where their characters have been so this doesn’t seem to be an issue for the rest of the group.

I’ve contemplated creating a single mapping token for them that represents the party as a group and giving control of it to one of my players. This, however, forces the group on one player to tell them where they’ve been and now three of the four players are less involved and don’t have to pay much attention.

[Zacchaeus]

Since the encounters are all on the maps and the maps all have line of sight I used the maps. Only difference is I used token lock.

[LordEntrails]

I have only run a few of the levels from DoMM, and we always used individual PC tokens with no token lock. One way I can always tell who's paying attention is by who is moving their tokens :)

It works well for us.

When I ran parts of my version of Undermountain (much bigger maps than DoMM in FGC, we used a party token for gross movement and then individual area maps for combats or detailed investigations. Part of that though was because FGC could not handle a map that large (~10kx15k pixels).

[jaydarkson]

I have only run a few of the levels from DoMM, and we always used individual PC tokens with no token lock. One way I can always tell who's paying attention is by who is moving their tokens :)

It works well for us.

This is my current set up right now. The only issue I have is that sometimes the players get ahead of themselves and run past encounters I have set up. I might have to set up token lock again.

[LordEntrails]

This is my current set up right now. The only issue I have is that sometimes the players get ahead of themselves and run past encounters I have set up. I might have to set up token lock again.

When this happens I speak out "hold on, stop!" or similar. And I try to make a rough adjudication and move the players back to where I want them, or allow them to be all split up, and I start the encounter there. After doing this like two times where the party triggers an encounter all spread out, they are pretty good now about keeping the party together. esp since it tended to be the dwarven cleric who would lag way behind and miss out on the first couple of rounds.

[Cyrian]

I do basically what LordEntrails does, but also have the marching order set as a general "this is how the group moves together unless you tell me otherwise." When the front line or scout goes to (or passes) a trigger for something, I'll tell them to stop, move the front token back, but will also know where everyone else should be based on the marching order. This is especially handy in DotMM when there are lots of traps to deal with and not having to tip people off when asking, "So what side of the hall were you on?"