Run Your Dungeon Maps Like A Board Game

I GM like I’m playing a board game now.

Wait. Before you hit the delete button and say you don’t want chocolate board games getting mixed with your tabletop RPG peanut butter, hear me out. This might be a boon for your improvisation and encounter-building feats.

First off, I’m speaking to GMing mindset and strategy here.

I’m not speaking about making cards, chits, pawns, and a bunch of other game pieces.

And I’m not speaking about disambiguated rules that, while great for making board games fun, don’t make any sense in a long-term TTRPG campaign.

Why does the fighter only get to use that ability once a combat?

Shhhh. Don’t ask questions.

Second point, regardless of your GMing style, my strategy could work for you.

Here’s how we can all GM like we’re playing the best board game in the world:

1. Start With a Map

Create a map or visual as your first GM move. This is the linchpin of the strategy.

When running a 5 Room Dungeon, I’ll have a map for the sandbox or region in which the 5RD is located, a map for the adventure location, and then map(s) for the encounters if I need more detail.

I run all my games online these days, though I’m hoping to get a face-to-face group going soon. So a map-first approach helps with VTT prep too.

2. Run Your Map

Use your map as a character sheet during play.

Each round or turn, read your map and look to see how the region, dungeon, or encounter zone might respond to what just happened in the game.

For example, a combat erupts. I scan the map and spot three nearby rooms that could potentially hear the ruckus. I decide to ask a player each round to roll to see if anything nearby in the dungeon senses the melee.

I get a few GMing boons from this:

  • It delegates a roll to the other side of the screen – one less thing for me to do.
  • It’s a great way to gently bring a disengaged player back into the action, giving them a reason to focus.
  • It alerts the players in a sneaky way that the dungeon is dynamic and denizens might become alerted to the party’s intrusion.

Put as much detail and information as you can on your map so it becomes a valuable GM cheat sheet for you. During play, review your map each turn for “options” and interesting moves you can make. Play the map like it’s a game board.

3. Make Your GM Moves

My favourite board game is probably Scythe. On each turn you perform a number of actions. You try to pick the best actions to achieve win state or victory conditions. For each action taken, I resolve the outcomes. Then it’s the next player’s turn.

When GMing, I read the map like a game board. I look at the game pieces and review my options for what I can do on my map’s turn.

I then have the map make its moves, which I call GM Moves, quickly note what’s happening in my Campaign Logger session log, and set up or update any clocks, meters, and resource pools.

Specifically:

  • Review Locations. As an encounter triggers, I scan the map for nearby rooms and areas. What dangers or interesting situations could spill into the current encounter if roused?
  • Check Connections. What’s in between these rooms and the current encounter location? Do these connections offer any interesting GM Moves?
  • Determine Senses. What can detect the current encounter?

Here’s where it’s great to note special senses of foes, such as tremorsense, keen smell, or supernatural detection.

Then I place an imaginary or real spell blast type of template over my map, centred on the PCs, that’s the rough radius of my dungeon’s “senses”.

Then I look for any affected denizens, dangers, and dilemmas that I can activate.

  • Update Trackers. I finish the map’s turn by updating Clocks, Meters, and Pools. These are things like countdown timers for new waves of foes to arrive, or how much time the bard’s torch has remaining.
  • Update Map. Finally, I update the map. I move tokens for creatures and objects that changed position, note changing conditions such as doors left open or rising water from the tide, note traps set and alarms triggered, and so on.
  • Play the Shock Waves. Depending on the situation, at end of round 3 I’ll start looking at a second tier of effects based on the shock wave (tiny or big) to the party’s presence and actions.

I repeat the process, from Review Locations to Update Map. And for a stage boss tier or high stakes encounter that reaches round 10, I’ll check for a third tier of shock wave responses.

The Mindset Change

This approach mirrors chess and other board games I play. Review current game board state. Keep my objectives or principles for winning in mind. Make the best moves possible on my turn based on the current situation.

We can apply this approach to our GMing regardless of system, genre, or style.

And after a few times, the process becomes quick and interactive. You study the map, make a GM Move, judge the outcome, update the map, and repeat.

So I am not playing a true board game here. But having a visual tool in the form of a dungeon or adventure map gives me a top-down holistic view of the entire place.

I play the map like a character, seeing each of its rooms, inhabitants, and dangers as the abilities and choices of its character sheet.

And on each turn I ask myself, What’s the best move to make with my available game pieces?

Another board game mindset I’m stealing for GMing is to see each room as a game piece. This makes deciding how a whole dungeon acts less overwhelming.

When you play a board game, you quickly learn what each game piece can and can’t do on its turn. You learn when certain game piece capabilities should be wielded for best results. And you learn how to string together a bunch of optimal moves based on synergies between game pieces and situations.

I see my adventure maps the same way. Oh, what’s Room 16 with the bored bugbears going to do here after the lightning bolt from the wizard makes a large boom and causes some screaming?

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

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