Worlds of Design: The Lost Art of Being Lost

If you’ve played tabletop RPGs long enough, you’ve probably been in an adventure where your party got lost. Yet it’s much less likely to happen nowadays.

If you’ve played tabletop RPGs long enough, you’ve probably been in an adventure where your party got lost. Yet it’s much less likely to happen nowadays.

orientation-7440747_960_720.jpg

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

You got to go down a lot of wrong roads to find the right one. - Bob Parsons
If you’ve played tabletop RPGs long enough, you’ve probably been in an adventure where your party got lost, or cut off from retracing their path home (which amounts to the same thing). Remember how exciting it was? Getting lost is a common occurrence in actual military operations. Yet it’s much less likely to happen in tabletop RPGs nowadays.

Fog of War​

In the first years of playing Dungeons & Dragons, many of my most memorable adventures were ones where we got lost in a place with few pathways, such as a dungeon. The cause could be as simple as a one-way door, or a rotating room. But this has changed, and it’s due in no small part to computer role-playing games (CRPGs).

In D&D’s early days, one of the fundamental roles of any party was the mapper. The idea being that the dungeon was concealed through fog of war, in which games simulate ignorance of strength and position of friends and foes. A common staple of board games, it was carried over into wargames and D&D. A mapper was an out-of-game role for a player (although presumably, the player’s character was also creating a map) so that retreat and further exploration were possible.

Fog of war changed how D&D was played. Being lost or cut off from home requires a different mode of play. In typical play you can go through an encounter or two, then stop (or go back home) to recover before you continue. But when you’re lost, you have to husband your resources much more carefully (depends on the game rules, of course).

Fog of war has a lot of fiddly tactical elements, not the least of which being that it requires keeping players in the dark. Dungeon masters must keep track of what’s happening with two separate maps, one representing the “real” dungeon and one representing what the PCs have explored. If the game is procedurally generated, it may be that even the DM doesn’t know the layout of the “real” dungeon, creating it as the players explore it.

This is a lot of work, which is why when the concept was ported to CRPGs, mapping was offloaded to the program.

Computers Take Over​

The Dunjonquest series of games were one of the first to replicate dungeon exploring, using numbered rooms and text descriptions that were read separately in a booklet resembling a pen-and-paper adventure module. But it wasn’t long before games just mapped everything for you. As computer power increased, virtual worlds got bigger, as did the opportunity for players to get lost. Many CRPGs provide waypoints that show the direction, if not the distance, to the next quest.

This led to the conventional wisdom that CRPGs should “always make sure the player knows what to do/where to go next.” It’s a form of handholding, making sure that players don’t get frustrated, that derives in part from the prevalence of free-to-play (F2P) games. If a free game is frustrating, players may quit it and (easily) find another to play.

The design objective in free-to-play video games is not to challenge the player(s), but to engage them in an electronic playground long enough that they’ll decide to spend money on micro transactions, or other methods of acquiring the player’s money. In a game that costs the player nothing to procure, anything that’s frustrating tends to be avoided, except when that frustration is a slow progress “pain point” that the player can fix by spending some money to speed things up. Negative consequences are avoided.

This approach can surprised players accustomed to CRPG-style exploration.

The Fun of Getting Lost​

The same factors that led to CRPGs streamlining mapping affect tabletop games: lack of players, lack of time, and getting players up to speed quickly so they can play.

While getting lost can be fun, not everyone wants their first play experience to be wandering around in the dark. New players expect to jump into the action, at least in part because so many other forms of entertainment allow them to do just that.

This of course depends on the style of play. Players might not be as frustrated in sessions where the GM is telling a story, as players will regard getting lost as a necessary part of the story. In a story, getting lost is exciting and mysterious. But (as GM) if you’re “writing” a story for your players, you have to control when they get lost, you can’t let it happen randomly. And if they’re used to you guiding them through a story, they’ll lose that excitement and mystery of getting lost, because they’ll know you’re in control.

Consider the Secret Door​

Whether or not a DM uses secret doors encapsulates if characters can get lost in a dungeon. If the DM is telling a story, a secret door is more of an obstacle—the PCs will presumably find it no matter what to progress the story. If the DM is running the game as a simulation in which the PCs’ dungeoneering skills are tested, the secret door may not be found at all and the room behind it may never be discovered.

Where this becomes an issue if players think they’re playing a story game but the DM is running a simulation. A dislike of secret doors by novices in D&D, sometimes termed by players as a “dirty GM trick,” represents the conflicting approaches. Some players want clear paths instead of obstacles. They’re not interested in allowing secret doors to perform their primary function: rewarding players for skillful dungeoneering.

Video gamers learn what they "should" do next. Board gamers of the Eurostyle learn the Generally Accepted Best Move in This Situation, and other players may actually get mad at you if you play differently! (This is partly a consequence of "multiple paths to victory" that everyone must follow to solve the puzzle of the parallel competition.) TTRPGers have much more "freedom," fortunately.

If your campaign is a simulation, then getting characters lost is a good way to challenge and excite players. If your game is a playground, or a storytelling session, the players might not react favorably.

Your Turn: Do you allow parties to get lost in your games?
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio

Stormonu

NeoGrognard
I still get lost in Diablo 3 underground systems sometime, or on (new) maps for Battlefield and similar games - even with in-game radars and maps.

I think with the modern conveniences of GPS, Google Maps and the like, we tend to forget that it's very easy to get lost or mixed up in areas you aren't familiar with. Moreso, it's seen as a time-waster and inconvenience rather than an opportunity for mystery and uncertainty. It's been a long time since a party in any of my games has gotten lost in the wilderness or a dungeon. I think the last time may have been in 2E with a dungeon with shifting passageways - with that being the primary "trick" of the dungeon.

Interestingly, I've seen similar attitudes toward disease in D&D, pre-Covid. Prior to the current epidemic, players would have complained that death to disease to be "dumb", especially in a world with all sorts of healing magic. Nowadays, not so much - though certainly not a way most players would like to go, they at least understand it's a threat.

I think that also applies to getting lost - demonstrating in game that getting lost isn't just a waste of time, but an opportunity for interesting consequences makes it much more palatable. Not just a "you lose 3 hours backtracking and/or a day's rations", but "you stumble on a forgotten ruin half-choked by old forest growth" or even something like a dungeon chute or teleporter that drops you in an unexpected and dangerous part of a dungeon - with no clear back to where you came - is something that can be occasionally interjected and be done in a way that is interesting.
 

I sometimes miss it and sometimes don't. It's fun to watch the map grow and adds tension. But we have been spoiled by auyo maps in video games for to long.

Getting lost in the real world sucks and is very easy to do.

I got lost in Cario one time trying to get back to my hotel to use the bathroom. I barley avoided a TPK (total pants kill).
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
Getting lost is on the random encounters table - survival check to find your path.

one thing I’ve always wondered though is what do you do when the characters are lost, whats the implication other than using the next turn to go back nd not be lost.

also secret doors are puzzles awarded for successful search rolls, the puzzle is how to open it…
 


Lanefan

Victoria Rules
In the first years of playing Dungeons & Dragons, many of my most memorable adventures were ones where we got lost in a place with few pathways, such as a dungeon. The cause could be as simple as a one-way door, or a rotating room. But this has changed, and it’s due in no small part to computer role-playing games (CRPGs).

In D&D’s early days, one of the fundamental roles of any party was the mapper. The idea being that the dungeon was concealed through fog of war, in which games simulate ignorance of strength and position of friends and foes. A common staple of board games, it was carried over into wargames and D&D. A mapper was an out-of-game role for a player (although presumably, the player’s character was also creating a map) so that retreat and further exploration were possible.
This is how we still play it. If nobody at the table makes a map it's assumed the characters aren't making one either.

Computers Take Over​

The Dunjonquest series of games were one of the first to replicate dungeon exploring, using numbered rooms and text descriptions that were read separately in a booklet resembling a pen-and-paper adventure module. But it wasn’t long before games just mapped everything for you. As computer power increased, virtual worlds got bigger, as did the opportunity for players to get lost. Many CRPGs provide waypoints that show the direction, if not the distance, to the next quest.

This led to the conventional wisdom that CRPGs should “always make sure the player knows what to do/where to go next.” It’s a form of handholding, making sure that players don’t get frustrated, that derives in part from the prevalence of free-to-play (F2P) games. If a free game is frustrating, players may quit it and (easily) find another to play.
Another factor that I saw most often in 4e adventures is the pre-drawn battlemap, where it's assumed the PCs know everything about the area even if they do not and as yet cannot. Here, the adventure designer is doing some of the work for the players, and 4e wasn't big on detailed exploration and mapping of what came between the set-pieces, thus mapping was gently discouraged at the design level. Those battlemaps were IME always very well done, pretty, etc. but gave away far too much information about pl;aces the PCs couldn't yet see the second you laid them out on the table.

Consider the Secret Door​

Whether or not a DM uses secret doors encapsulates if characters can get lost in a dungeon. If the DM is telling a story, a secret door is more of an obstacle—the PCs will presumably find it no matter what to progress the story. If the DM is running the game as a simulation in which the PCs’ dungeoneering skills are tested, the secret door may not be found at all and the room behind it may never be discovered.
Which can still be part of the story; and if what's behind the missed secret door turns out later to be essential then too bad - they just have to go back and have another look.
Your Turn: Do you allow parties to get lost in your games?
It's a sad commentary that this question has even become worth asking. Yes, of course they can get lost; and I'll give them every opportunity to do so. :)

To paraphrase Captain Barbosa: it takes being lost to find what can't be found.
 

Pentallion

Explorer
Your Turn: Do you allow parties to get lost in your games?
In my M-Space campaign I realized that a misjump was mathematically inevitable. So I prepped a mini "Lost in Space" campaign for them with a way back home. Then just waited for the inevitable fumbled roll to happen. One of the scenarios in that campaign became Junkyard Blues, which got published by Clarence for M-Space.
 


EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
It’s a form of handholding
Aaaaand right there you've lost me. "Handholding" is one of the most overtly antagonistic things you can say about a design element. It's dismissive of both the designer and the player simultaneously. I expected better.

Video gamers learn what they "should" do next.
I literally have no idea what this even means.

Your Turn: Do you allow parties to get lost in your games?
This implies I am controlling what the players do or do not do. You can only "allow" something if you have control over whether it happens or not. I do not. Just like my players, I play to find out what happens. If them getting lost is where the fiction leads, then they get lost--it has quite literally nothing to do with any form of permission or allowance on my part.
 

GDGD

microscopic
I've noticed the fog of war coming back in VTTs. It's been handled low-tech by DMs forever by slowly revealing the map as the party progresses, but with VTTs allowing for enforced lines of sight I see fog of war becoming more of an expected element of the game.
 

Related Articles

Remove ads

Remove ads

Top