The Mapping Game
Much has been made to the fact that OD&D is a chimerical hybrid of wargame & role-playing game. But there is a secret third game that doesn't get talked about nearly as often: I call it the mapping game.1
I think of the "mapping game" as a way of running old school D&D where player-drawn maps are a central (rather than incidental) feature, where it is understood that some of the fun will come from gradually navigating a convoluted underground labyrinth. I think it represents a type of game distinct from the "war"-game & "role-playing"-game. (Just as D&D successors/precursors engage with these games in isolation, so one could conceivably play the mapping game without role-playing or combat elements, though I'm not brave enough to argue that this would actually be fun.)
By my limited reckoning, the mapping game is not a default part of OSR play culture, and even less a part of the burgeoning NSR subculture (c.f. Cairn 2e, where procedures for creating dungeons explicitly assume the use of pointcrawl maps). This is understandable -- arguably, the baggage of mapping distracts from the 'meat' of dungeoneering: combat, NPC interactions, solving puzzles, faction play etc. And VTTs make it possible to unambiguously convey maps to players, which can make a game feel more concrete and impartial. But I've nonetheless come to love the mapping game for a few reasons.
The difficulty of verbally describing the dungeon (and of drawing based on a verbal description) ends up being an interesting instance of (pardon the jargon) "ludo-narrative harmony". The inadequacy of words neatly corresponds to the imagined uncertainty of mapping an underground labyrinth by torchlight.
One of my favorite aspects of TTRPGs is their tendency to produce documents that straddle real & imagined worlds, and player-made maps are a wonderful instance thereof. More than just a memento, they can be a cool way to create continuity in an open-table game with an inconsistent player base. As different expeditions explore different areas, they can share, amend, & extend each others' maps.
Player mapping also affects the focus of gameplay & prep. The process of successfully navigating & mapping a massive labyrinthine complex can function as an omnipresent (and surprisingly engaging) 'meta-puzzle'. I find that this reduces the pressure on the referee to stock every room of a dungeon with something interactive -- when mapping is a primary challenge, interstitial spaces constitute an interesting obstacle regardless of their contents. This is, I think, why the three little brown booklets have random encounter tables & instructions for shifting corridors, sloped passages, etc. but interactive, site-specific tricks & traps wouldn't be emphasized until Greyhawk. In the purest sense, wandering monsters could be viewed as a mere complication to the primary task of mapping the dungeon.
Approaching the dungeon this way can affect the emotional tenor of exploration -- the idea of a dark underworld of stone & violence is awesome & psychologically potent. Something about the painstaking mapping process lends it gravitas, a sense that (in my experience) is lost when dragging tokens around a VTT or eliding node transitions in a pointcrawl. This is partly because player mapping comes with a real possibility of screwing up -- of getting lost, mislabeling dangers, misjudging shortcuts. The satisfaction from not screwing up is likewise magnified.
Finally, I've found that for the referee, the mapping game elevates the work of drawing a dungeon map beyond wiring together abstract topological connections -- a good layout can be truly beautiful, and redrawing it piecemeal can evoke a strange kind of aesthetic communion between ref & players.2 Conversely, I never tire of seeing the diversity of mapping styles players develop -- how they represent rooms and doors, how they interpret scale, what salient features they choose to label, & with what marginal decorations they adorn their work.
None of this is to say that the mapping game is the best or only way to play.3 On the contrary, it's often tedious & cumbersome, and almost certainly a bad fit for the average table. But if you can adopt the right mindset (and find the right group), it can be a truly compelling part of one's dungeon game.
I'm definitely not the first person to write about this. Jon Peterson alludes to it in Playing at The World, and recently Justin H spoke about it in a Discord conversation. Mr. Mann has a great post on practical considerations for player mapping. My musings here are mostly based on personal experience as a player & ref with my in-person OD&D campaign, and should be taken accordingly.↩
I think different types of game produce different flavors of this general type of communion & suspect that it's a core part of why we play games at all -- but I am not at all versed in theory/philosophy of games so take this as just idle musing.↩
In particular, I want to distinguish my position from the grognards who whine any time a published map doesn't have a scale or whatever. As mentioned earlier, I don't think it's bad that standard O/NSR gameplay has drifted away from the mapping game -- but I offer it here as something certain tables in certain situations might want to experiment with. In particular, I think, because it's somewhat counterintuitive. Why would all that busywork be fun?↩