Of course, we copied our friends' examples. This was how you played D&D. The DM read out long instructions, you drew detailed maps.

When I started DMing, I drew my own complex dungeons. Rooms with sleeping orcs, kitchens, armouries. Not forgetting the all important secret doors and traps.

Gradually, I learnt that giving better descriptions was much better for me and for the players. Telling them the floor sloped down, the walls were scratched, you can hear water, smell smoke or cooking smells; all this was much better than saying how many feet long the corridor was.

But this still left me with the problems of drawing maps. After all, a map is an excellent form of providing information, especially for a DM. I drew vague maps for countries; towns, roads, rivers, mountains, woods etc. You can use coloured pencils to plot out areas controlled by this group, symbols to show minerals.

But how to plan out dungeons? Of course, dungeons are not just for D&D. For dungeon, think of a campaign setting; a spaceport, a research facility, a campus. How do you draw out info about places, locations, people and objects without detailed words or complex diagrams?

Well, what you do is drop the idea of an exact interpretation. Just draw loops, big circles to represent a place. Join up the loops with lines to represent paths, roads, tunnels. Inside the loops, write brief notes about the contents; Orcs asleep; Prof. Bingo's Lab; Petrol Station. Along the lines write stuff about the path; Long narrow winding corridor; Passage patrolled by security guards; Road (½ mile) littered with wreckage. Put markings on the lines to represent gateways, bridges, guard booths. Where paths cross, either show crossroads if they are joined, or little jumps if they are not connected.

Forget making it in proportion. Forget making everything in scale, like a surveyor's map. Use the map as a schematic diagram.

I did read an article in Arcane magazine, demonstrating how to use simple flow charts to plan out adventures or campaigns. It's quite useful to break free from literal interpretation. Think in loose, flowing forms, rather than restricted, precise forms. It serves you well.