Theatre of the Mind: yay or nay?

[HidesHisEyes]

In looking for ways to speed up combat in 5E I came across this:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/3v4wwh/keeping_combat_short_and_tothepoint/

Tldr: it describes a general approach where you view combat as intermingled with the rest of the adventure as much as you can. It emphasises keeping sight of the objective, both for the DM and the players. Keep in mind what the party and the monsters are actually trying to accomplish by fighting and a lot of fights can be cut short: monsters might surrender, flee, or fight to the foregone conclusion without having to play out the last couple of rounds. The story moves on with no need to get bogged down in the combat system.

I really like this whole idea, but one things that jumps out at me is that the author says they use theatre of the mind combat. Now that makes a lot of sense with this approach to combat, since drawing out a map and placing miniatures down not only eats up time but, I think, gets everyone in the "fight mode" headspace, sort of like the screen whooshing and the battle music starting in a Final Fantasy game. It seems to me that as a player, psychologically, I would find it harder to think of the battle as just one more part of the adventure, and not as a mini game scenario to be played out in full, with a battlegrid and minis in front of me. Some players might even feel sort of cheated, I suspect. The author suggests wrapping up a combat once it gets one-sided in the PCs' favour by, for example, just stating that the remaining monsters flee. Now the players decide whether to let them go or chase them. I suspect that with the grid in front of them, a good many players would a) be more likely to give chase without even considering that they could choose not to and b) would expect to play out the chase on the grid using combat rules and might feel cheated if you said "ok now make Athletics checks to catch up" or whatever.

All of which suggests theatre of the mind really would work better for this kind of approach. But I have to say there are a couple of things grid-based combat does that I really like:

A) it makes it easier to design spaces in which PCs (and monsters) can interact with the environment in a meaningful way, with difficult terrain and cover and so on.

B) it creates a shared objective reality for the fighting to take place in. Everyone can see exactly how far they can move, which enemies they can and can't target, who has cover, when the rogue can get a sneak attack and so on. To me, this definite-ness is really important, since it means that every little decision counts, and that being able to move that extra five feet because you chose to play a wood elf can be the difference between success or failure. To me that's a big thrill and I suspect it would be harder to get with TotM combat.

Am I wrong? Does anyone use TotM? Or does anyone use the grid but still make the fast-and-integrated approach work?

[Waterdeep Merch]

In looking for ways to speed up combat in 5E I came across this:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/3v4wwh/keeping_combat_short_and_tothepoint/

Tldr: it describes a general approach where you view combat as intermingled with the rest of the adventure as much as you can. It emphasises keeping sight of the objective, both for the DM and the players. Keep in mind what the party and the monsters are actually trying to accomplish by fighting and a lot of fights can be cut short: monsters might surrender, flee, or fight to the foregone conclusion without having to play out the last couple of rounds. The story moves on with no need to get bogged down in the combat system.

I really like this whole idea, but one things that jumps out at me is that the author says they use theatre of the mind combat. Now that makes a lot of sense with this approach to combat, since drawing out a map and placing miniatures down not only eats up time but, I think, gets everyone in the "fight mode" headspace, sort of like the screen whooshing and the battle music starting in a Final Fantasy game. It seems to me that as a player, psychologically, I would find it harder to think of the battle as just one more part of the adventure, and not as a mini game scenario to be played out in full, with a battlegrid and minis in front of me. Some players might even feel sort of cheated, I suspect. The author suggests wrapping up a combat once it gets one-sided in the PCs' favour by, for example, just stating that the remaining monsters flee. Now the players decide whether to let them go or chase them. I suspect that with the grid in front of them, a good many players would a) be more likely to give chase without even considering that they could choose not to and b) would expect to play out the chase on the grid using combat rules and might feel cheated if you said "ok now make Athletics checks to catch up" or whatever.

All of which suggests theatre of the mind really would work better for this kind of approach. But I have to say there are a couple of things grid-based combat does that I really like:

A) it makes it easier to design spaces in which PCs (and monsters) can interact with the environment in a meaningful way, with difficult terrain and cover and so on.

B) it creates a shared objective reality for the fighting to take place in. Everyone can see exactly how far they can move, which enemies they can and can't target, who has cover, when the rogue can get a sneak attack and so on. To me, this definite-ness is really important, since it means that every little decision counts, and that being able to move that extra five feet because you chose to play a wood elf can be the difference between success or failure. To me that's a big thrill and I suspect it would be harder to get with TotM combat.

Am I wrong? Does anyone use TotM? Or does anyone use the grid but still make the fast-and-integrated approach work?
I use both TotM and miniatures back and forth, and about as often. Depends on the setup and what I want the fight to focus on.

I run TotM when the dungeon is too large to draw easily or the combat is pretty simplistic in nature or not overly important to the main narrative. Sometimes I'll then mix things up by suddenly pulling out a map for the one or two big fights in a session, then go right back to TotM.

I'd say try a similar approach a few times, and note the difference in feel. Some players will get frustrated with TotM. Try to tell them not to think so rigidly, and throw them a bone with what they're trying to do. If they say "I'm trying to stay far enough back in the room to not be attacked!", let them make some sort of skill check to accomplish that, maybe finding something to hide behind or figuring out the best tactical spot in the room to snipe from. Let the fighter play the Big Damn Hero and hand-wave threat range as 'yeah, you're threatening ALL of them' regardless of how impossible that would be on a grid. Let the wizard make arcana checks to determine how many enemies they can safely cook with a fireball. They'll settle into the idea that skill checks circumvent the need for precision, especially if you give them a wide berth to get away with things they couldn't do on a grid.

[Tanarii]

It's very difficult not to confuse your players with ToTM if there are more than a few of them, or they are fighting a large group of enemies, or the situation is complex tactically.

That said, I still prefer it. Because battle-mat tends to:
1) Cause a huge break right at the start of combat as you set up. The start of combat should be the quickest and most scary part for players. Pausing to set up a battle mat makes it very un-scary.
2) Ensure combat will think in combat terms during an encounter. They're less likely to try and stop or escape combat. Battle mat = combat & define the arena of combat, in the mind of most players.
2) Slow down player's turns, as they try to take a more tactically significant turn.
3) Lock players into thinking on the grid and of their character as a mini. It tends to suppress non-linear / out-of-box thinking.

[strangebloke]

I despise totm outside of chase scenes or very quick combat segments.

How do I judge, as a DM, whether the sorcerer can hit five kobolds or six with his fireball? Many times do I have to answer questions like 'with thirty feet of movement, can I get to the wizard?'

Roll 20 and other such tools are essential to keep combat flowing, though.

[Easy_Lee]

Works fine in certain encounters, such as fights with a single enemy. When multiple enemies are involved and people start dropping AoE, don't use it.

[Yagyujubei]

here's what i do. prepare a basic image of the layout of any area that the party will be fighting in if it's complex enough just so they can get a visual idea of the space (ie: ok so this part is elevated and there's kinda tall grass or a shallow pool here etc.) but aside from that everything else is TotM.

I find that this way the players are way less likely to get confused as to what is going on where, but you dont have the clunky time wasting of sliding pieces from square to square every two seconds.

[Matrix_Walker]

In my experience, TotM results in a great deal of confusion on nearly every person's turn. People are not sure what is going on, and where they are in relation to each other, they find it difficult to keep track of how many opponents there are, who can get hit in range, what the cover and source of cover might be and how to circumvent it... etc etc etc. and these decisions the GM makes feel more like pure fiat every time.

TotM is a frustrating nightmare for me.

[Tanarii]

How do I judge, as a DM, whether the sorcerer can hit five kobolds or six with his fireball? Many times do I have to answer questions like 'with thirty feet of movement, can I get to the wizard?'DMG p249-250

[Hrugner]

We resolve most combat with TotM and bust out the map when someone asks or things get confusing. If it's a small encounter with little terrain concerns that will be over in a couple combat rounds, the theater is fine.

[Maxilian]

I play mainly with TotM as we don't have a grid or anything like that, i, sometimes, print maps for some boss encounters.

So... i guess... Yay?

[mephnick]

In my experience, TotM results in a great deal of confusion on nearly every person's turn. People are not sure what is going on, and where they are in relation to each other, they find it difficult to keep track of how many opponents there are, who can get hit in range, what the cover and source of cover might be and how to circumvent it... etc etc etc. and these decisions the GM makes feel more like pure fiat every time.

TotM is a frustrating nightmare for me.

I'm not a huge fan, but I've used it a few times and it's ran ok. However, you need a very descriptive DM and mature, attentive players that are willing to go with the flow a bit. If you have players that constantly argue about how many creatures they want to hit, or look up from their phone on their turn and don't know what's happening, it's not going to work. At all. Whenever I do it I tend to revert to Numenera's idea of Close, Medium and Long descriptions for distances instead of using feet. It's a lot easier to say "Jurgon, you have 3 Orcs at close distance surrounding you, you see 2 Orcs have sprinted toward Kenra and are at Long distance as they try to shut down the ranger. Thartrik is going one on one with the Ogre to your left at medium distance and he seems to be losing."

[Theodoxus]

I use a grid, for pretty much exactly as you stated, Hides.

I've been starting to naturally speed up combat though, especially when it becomes one-sided.

Last session, the players were fighting Hamun Kost and his 12 zombies in LMoP. After taking out Hamun, the cleric managed to Turn 6 zombies. The party cut (very slowly, due to lack of crits/radiant and lucky Con saves) the remaining down. Then decided to chase the 6 remaining zombies who were dashing away 40' a round. I just hand waved the combat. I didn't really want to play out another 20 minutes of "you don't do enough damage to defeat the zombie" while the zombies wiff against the players.

Given the game I'm running has a specific ending time every evening, I'll probably utilize quick combat resolution more often. Once it becomes apparent that the party is out of trouble, I'll just declare them the winners.

I am a little concerned over resource utilization though. Seems cheap to not require any expenditure, but also seems unfair to have an arbitrary loss of ammunition and HPs... Anyone have thoughts on that aspect?

[Max_Killjoy]

Back in the days, we didn't use grids or movement rules or miniatures, but we did often use hand-scribbled mapping of combat just to keep everyone on the same page and prevent any "no wait you said..." moments.

[SiCK_Boy]

I am a little concerned over resource utilization though. Seems cheap to not require any expenditure, but also seems unfair to have an arbitrary loss of ammunition and HPs... Anyone have thoughts on that aspect?

If you or your players are the kind of people who care about this level of minutia (tracking ammunition), then you probably shouldn't use quick resolution. The whole point of using these kind of shortcuts is to save time and not worry about stuff like ammo or a few hit points.

If you still go with quick resolution, just assume it costs the players nothing and treat it as a gift from DM to players.

[Armored Walrus]

Sometimes staying off the grid removes some of the flavor of the fight, and I have a few players that enjoy the tactical mini-game aspect of fighting on the grid. It makes it easier for them to use things like jumping in for a sneak attack and then disengaging, using terrain, hiding, using cover, etc.

On the other hand, sometimes staying off the grid adds a whole new level of flavor to the fight. The other night I had my party, who is in a swamp, come across a giant poisonous snake. They paused, faced it down, and it eventually just decided to slither away. As it slid off the path and into the water of the swamp, suddenly the coils of a gigantic constrictor snake erupted out of the algae-covered water, enveloping the poisonous snake, and further coils grabbed one of the party members. A round later, another set of coils lunged out of the water and grabbed yet another party member. After a few rounds of fighting what they thought was three giant constrictor snakes, it gradually became clear to them that this was all one giant snake, and that sort of blew their minds. On a grid, it would have been hard to pull off the positioning of all these coils in relation to where the party members were standing or where they moved to, etc., but in TotM I got to use the inherent fuzziness and slight confusion to play up the fact that this enormous snake just seemed to be everywhere.

So I go back and forth.

I also do handwave the end of fights quite often. Fights are only fun, IMO, when the outcome is still not obvious. But if we're fighting two dozen goblins, when the party finally breaks them, the survivors are going to just flee off screen - if the party wants to capture one or more, it will just happen. I'm not going to sit through five rounds of the goblin disengaging and dashing, and the party chasing, before one of them finally fails a constitution check to dash and either catches it or gets away. That's fun once, maybe, but not after every fight. They only have to actually play it out if there are any actual consequences for failing to chase the enemy down.

[HidesHisEyes]

Sometimes staying off the grid removes some of the flavor of the fight, and I have a few players that enjoy the tactical mini-game aspect of fighting on the grid. It makes it easier for them to use things like jumping in for a sneak attack and then disengaging, using terrain, hiding, using cover, etc.

On the other hand, sometimes staying off the grid adds a whole new level of flavor to the fight. The other night I had my party, who is in a swamp, come across a giant poisonous snake. They paused, faced it down, and it eventually just decided to slither away. As it slid off the path and into the water of the swamp, suddenly the coils of a gigantic constrictor snake erupted out of the algae-covered water, enveloping the poisonous snake, and further coils grabbed one of the party members. A round later, another set of coils lunged out of the water and grabbed yet another party member. After a few rounds of fighting what they thought was three giant constrictor snakes, it gradually became clear to them that this was all one giant snake, and that sort of blew their minds. On a grid, it would have been hard to pull off the positioning of all these coils in relation to where the party members were standing or where they moved to, etc., but in TotM I got to use the inherent fuzziness and slight confusion to play up the fact that this enormous snake just seemed to be everywhere.

So I go back and forth.

I also do handwave the end of fights quite often. Fights are only fun, IMO, when the outcome is still not obvious. But if we're fighting two dozen goblins, when the party finally breaks them, the survivors are going to just flee off screen - if the party wants to capture one or more, it will just happen. I'm not going to sit through five rounds of the goblin disengaging and dashing, and the party chasing, before one of them finally fails a constitution check to dash and either catches it or gets away. That's fun once, maybe, but not after every fight. They only have to actually play it out if there are any actual consequences for failing to chase the enemy down.

This going back and forth seems like a good policy. A while back, though, I sprung a random encounter on a party with a handful of goblins that was supposed to be a nuisance encounter (I was using Angry DM's time dice system and this was the consequence of dawdling and being noisy), and I said "I'm not gonna use the grid for this" but the players immediately insisted that we did use it. Going forward I guess I should just explain that I want to runs things in such a way that sometimes the grid is appropriate and other times it's not, but my point is that grid really has a way of defining the way the game works. Players get to rely on it, or perhaps they just like it.

Anyway, thanks for the input everyone. The more I DM the harder it gets, that is one thing I can be sure of!

[Matrix_Walker]

I'm not a huge fan, but I've used it a few times and it's ran ok. However, you need a very descriptive DM and mature, attentive players that are willing to go with the flow a bit. If you have players that constantly argue about how many creatures they want to hit, or look up from their phone on their turn and don't know what's happening, it's not going to work. At all. Whenever I do it I tend to revert to Numenera's idea of Close, Medium and Long descriptions for distances instead of using feet. It's a lot easier to say "Jurgon, you have 3 Orcs at close distance surrounding you, you see 2 Orcs have sprinted toward Kenra and are at Long distance as they try to shut down the ranger. Thartrik is going one on one with the Ogre to your left at medium distance and he seems to be losing."

I can see how that might work for some, but if I have allot of goodies in my toolkit, I want see what my best choices are with a glance... Does close mean I can break up my attacks amongst them, or get more than 2 in an area effect? Who should I move next to for my rogue buddy to best sneak attack, and if it's not the guy I attacked, do I have enough move left after the step I took to get into melee range... Sure these things can be answered if you ask a bunch of questions, but you may forget to ask certain things that would be immediately apparent at a glance...

So, if the GM doesn't bust out the battle matt, I ask for it.

[Matrix_Walker]

Sometimes staying off the grid removes some of the flavor of the fight, and I have a few players that enjoy the tactical mini-game aspect of fighting on the grid. It makes it easier for them to use things like jumping in for a sneak attack and then disengaging, using terrain, hiding, using cover, etc.
Agreed, much much easier.


On the other hand, sometimes staying off the grid adds a whole new level of flavor to the fight. The other night I had my party, who is in a swamp, come across a giant poisonous snake. They paused, faced it down, and it eventually just decided to slither away. As it slid off the path and into the water of the swamp, suddenly the coils of a gigantic constrictor snake erupted out of the algae-covered water, enveloping the poisonous snake, and further coils grabbed one of the party members. A round later, another set of coils lunged out of the water and grabbed yet another party member. After a few rounds of fighting what they thought was three giant constrictor snakes, it gradually became clear to them that this was all one giant snake, and that sort of blew their minds. On a grid, it would have been hard to pull off the positioning of all these coils in relation to where the party members were standing or where they moved to, etc., but in TotM I got to use the inherent fuzziness and slight confusion to play up the fact that this enormous snake just seemed to be everywhere.

So I go back and forth.

See, this sort of thing is why TotM is a problem for me. It seems like your players were more confused about the situation than their characters should have been. If the line and flow of the creature would give it away, but since the players can't see it (while the characters should be able to) they made different assumptions... Thats not a feature. Being stressed about not understandng what is being described is different than feeling the tension of the story.

[Tanarii]

but since the players can't see it (while the characters should be able to) they made different assumptionsBattlemats generally give FAR more information than the character could reasonably be expected to see. That's one of my favorite things about TotM. It gives the right about of 'fog of war' to replicate what combat should probably feel like. Panicky, not enough time to make decisions, and unable to tell much accurately other than 'there's some orcs over there attacking Alice and I'm probably in range to shoot them with Acid Splash'.

[Grod_The_Giant]

In my experience, TotM results in a great deal of confusion on nearly every person's turn. People are not sure what is going on, and where they are in relation to each other, they find it difficult to keep track of how many opponents there are, who can get hit in range, what the cover and source of cover might be and how to circumvent it... etc etc etc. and these decisions the GM makes feel more like pure fiat every time.

TotM is a frustrating nightmare for me.
This has generally been my experience as well-- If nothing else, it absolutely will not speed up your encounter. Especially if you have players trying to be tactical and make careful choices. I think the game works best somewhere in between-- you don't want to snap to a grid or take twenty minutes to draw a careful map, but you don't want pure anarchy either. Take thirty seconds to sketch out the battlefield, maybe throw in some coins or dice to represent characters ("you guys are here, by this low hill; the orc archers are on the other side of this ditch here, and there's some thick growth and ponds down here"), and then generally proceed in a TotM fashion, keeping track of everyone's approximate position on your crude sketch.

[HidesHisEyes]

Battlemats generally give FAR more information than the character could reasonably be expected to see. That's one of my favorite things about TotM. It gives the right about of 'fog of war' to replicate what combat should probably feel like. Panicky, not enough time to make decisions, and unable to tell much accurately other than 'there's some orcs over there attacking Alice and I'm probably in range to shoot them with Acid Splash'.

I totally agree and I love this idea, but at the same time I love the tactical combat rules of 5E and I think that despite the DMG's section on TotM, the rules really are geared towards the grid.

I am having a genuine crisis over this!

[Tanarii]

If nothing else, it absolutely will not speed up your encounter. I've played and run 5e both battle mat and TotM.

TotM is universally faster, just comparing with the same DMs, me or someone else. Every single time.

[Scripten]

I've played and run 5e both battle mat and TotM.

TotM is universally faster, just comparing with the same DMs, me or someone else. Every single time.

This has been my experience as well.

[Armored Walrus]

Agreed, much much easier.

See, this sort of thing is why TotM is a problem for me. It seems like your players were more confused about the situation than their characters should have been. If the line and flow of the creature would give it away, but since the players can't see it (while the characters should be able to) they made different assumptions... Thats not a feature. Being stressed about not understandng what is being described is different than feeling the tension of the story.

No, that's the point, the characters wouldn't have been able to see it. They were busy fighting for their lives, in a muddy, swampy, wet environment, the coils came up from all around them. The bulk of the snake would still have been below the water, and the characters could only percieve the parts of it that they were interacting with. The fact that it was all one monstrous creature wouldn't dawn on them immediately because the thought of something that huge would go against the characters' expectations given they had interacted with other giant snakes and had an idea of how big they were and what they were capable of.

If this had been on a grid in front of them, where they could pinpoint where every attack was occuring, it would have been harder to convey the shock and awe that the encounter was meant to have.

Edit: To the point in your post that preceded the one I quoted above; I have a couple players that also enjoy the tactical minigame aspect of D&D, and that's why I do make sure there are a few opportunities for a mapped combat in each session in addition to whatever unmapped fights happen. The point of having the two options is that at times it's not the fight itself that's important, but the narrative around the fight. Other times it's about posing a complicated tactical situation and letting the players try to solve it via optimal tactical decisions. Two different flavors, two different approaches. It's why I use both methods. Some of my players will be frustrated by the unmapped fights, some of my players will be bored by the mapped ones, all in all, I try to strike a balance that makes the session fun for everyone.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I've played and run 5e both battle mat and TotM.

TotM is universally faster, just comparing with the same DMs, me or someone else. Every single time.
That has not been my experience. I've had good TotM encounters that flowed nicely, and I've had TotM encounters that got bogged down by "okay, who's still standing? I go for the-- oh, he's too far away to reach? How many can I hit with this power? Where was the shaman again?" Occasionally with the same GM. TotM gets harder and harder the more characters (PC and NPC) are involved in the fight.

[Armored Walrus]

That has not been my experience. I've had good TotM encounters that flowed nicely, and I've had TotM encounters that got bogged down by "okay, who's still standing? I go for the-- oh, he's too far away to reach? How many can I hit with this power? Where was the shaman again?" Occasionally with the same GM. TotM gets harder and harder the more characters (PC and NPC) are involved in the fight.

Yeah, I've seen that from time to time in my own game. I got off the grid because we were in the middle of a dungeon crawl, playing on roll20, and the whole experience started feeling too much like a video game. I (over)reacted to that by trying to remove the grid completely in all aspects of play. I've compromised since then and begun to develop a feel of which fights need a grid and which don't.

To the OP. I read the final question in your post finally. I can say that it is possible to handwave the wrap up stage of combat even on a grid. Either they flee off the map or you can tip the mini over as the combatant drops its weapons and cowers, surrendering. If they feel the need to pursue, either that's now a new encounter, basically, and you can make that as complicated an exciting as the battle itself, or you can offer them one shot with their bow, and if it hits, it drops them, if it misses they get away, or just assume they catch the runner, or whatever works best in a given situation.

[War_lord]

Totm is awful. I get that not every DM has the ability, time and money to make or source good battlemaps, but I'll take even a rudimentary grid with black lines for walls over over the Quantum entanglement mess that is trying to do D&D combat mentally. There are systems that can be played mentally, D&D is not one of those systems.

[Armored Walrus]

It's a little insulting to assume that a DM choosing not to use a grid for a battle is displaying a lack of ability or means. One method is not intrinsically better than the other, which is why both methods exist and get used. You may have a preference of one over the other, but that doesn't make the other method wrong.

[War_lord]

No, using a grid is intrinsically better for D&D. "30 feet" on a grid of 5 foot squares is 6 squares. 30 feet of movement in the DM's head means nothing, even if they have a photographic memory the players don't. You could, of course, design a system that doesn't rely on exact positions and movements, but that's not the D&D system.

[Armored Walrus]

No, using a grid allows you to apply the combat rules as written directly, that's true. That does not automatically equate to better. In some instances, the feel of a combat works better without the grid, in some instances it works better with it. Similarly, using an automated character sheet makes it easier to apply encumbrance rules, track ammo, etc. But that wouldn't automatically result in a better game than playing at a table that handwaves or flat out ignores those rules.

Again, you may have a preference, but that doesn't automatically make one better than the other. D&D works just fine without a grid, as evidenced by the tables that run it that way habitually.

[strangebloke]

DMG p249-250

I know. :)

But I don't like players having to constantly answer such questions, and at times it makes things very non-intuitive. For instance, if a melee monster is blocking the tunnel that the adventurers are coming down, and there are a few dozen archers hiding in the woods beyond, that implies widely spaced archers, an its unrealistic that you would hit 4 of them with a twenty foot sphere. Meanwhile, its silly that you would only hit 4-7 if you tossed a twenty foot sphere into a dense hallway packed with kobolds. Also, these rules don't fairly address tactical movement, opportunity attacks, and other minutiae.

The game has a lot of distance and area-dependent effects. I can see it working with some groups, but definitely not mine.

[Pelle]

YAY

Backstory: I have the last year gotten together with my friends to play D&D after our 8 year or so hiatus. We're currently playing 3.5 which are the rules we knew, but I'm greatly looking forward to use 5e for the next campaign.

Didn't realize it was possible back then, but now I am trying to use TotM as much as I can. It saves a lot of time, it's easier to keep the flow, makes people pay attention and react faster on their turn, and it makes negotions/parlays/retreats etc more natural. Bringing out the map makes the players get into combat mode, start rolling initiative, and they expect that all the combat rules are followed exactly until all enemies are dead or TPK.

Sure, it depends what you want the game to be about. For me, all the tactical decisions in combat are the least interesting. I get really bored and frustrated spending half the sessions on "five-foot-steps", exact measuring movement and ranges and spell areas, +1 this, +2 that, flanking maneuvering etc.
If I want to have a lot of tactical decisions with clear defined rules, I prefer to play board games. D&D combat makes for a really bad board game IMO.
I would rather spend the game/time on how to handle different situations, choices on how to interact with people and strategies, and not the exact accounting of HP and spell slots.

I feel some of my players, still in the 3.5 mindset, are a little frustrated when some rules aren't being followed exactly. And it is a challenge to me to provide them enough information to act on. They might feel cheated if they can't use their spells optimally since they can't see the exact positions. However, they should also be empowered to do more things as well. "Sorry, you can't charge that enemy, he is 13 squares away, you can max move 12" is not a problem anymore.

So I still bring to every session a bunch of my old miniatures, nice grid maps and some hand selected terrain features that may become relevant. And I bring them out if there is a large, complicated, or tough (boss) combat. But I am more happy if I don't have to.

[Chugger]

Grid is far superior to theater for me - it makes the combat seem "real" - it helps everyone visualize it - and it keeps everyone to a certain extent "honest". If there's no way that orc is getting over to hit player A without giving player B an AoO, the grid will reveal it. If theater, the DM will often not allow it if he wants the encounter to "be more challenging" or w/e. And players get resentful. The problem with the theater approach is that the DM isn't loading all relevant info into his/her head - and isn't telling the players enough - in most circumstances. But grid can be cumbersome. If it's a lesser fight and straightforward, i.e. it's on a grassy plain and there's one giant - maybe theater is best - cuz things go faster. Or at least put figures down on the table, maybe w/out grid and guestimate distances. Grid and miniatures is usually worth the effort, though.

[HidesHisEyes]

Yeah, I've seen that from time to time in my own game. I got off the grid because we were in the middle of a dungeon crawl, playing on roll20, and the whole experience started feeling too much like a video game. I (over)reacted to that by trying to remove the grid completely in all aspects of play. I've compromised since then and begun to develop a feel of which fights need a grid and which don't.

To the OP. I read the final question in your post finally. I can say that it is possible to handwave the wrap up stage of combat even on a grid. Either they flee off the map or you can tip the mini over as the combatant drops its weapons and cowers, surrendering. If they feel the need to pursue, either that's now a new encounter, basically, and you can make that as complicated an exciting as the battle itself, or you can offer them one shot with their bow, and if it hits, it drops them, if it misses they get away, or just assume they catch the runner, or whatever works best in a given situation.

Thanks, I may just keep using grid combat but try to stress that the larger game is still going on and that there are more possible outcomes than just "TPK or TMK". I still think it sounds difficult but maybe it's just a matter of practice.


YAY

Backstory: I have the last year gotten together with my friends to play D&D after our 8 year or so hiatus. We're currently playing 3.5 which are the rules we knew, but I'm greatly looking forward to use 5e for the next campaign.

Didn't realize it was possible back then, but now I am trying to use TotM as much as I can. It saves a lot of time, it's easier to keep the flow, makes people pay attention and react faster on their turn, and it makes negotions/parlays/retreats etc more natural. Bringing out the map makes the players get into combat mode, start rolling initiative, and they expect that all the combat rules are followed exactly until all enemies are dead or TPK.

Sure, it depends what you want the game to be about. For me, all the tactical decisions in combat are the least interesting. I get really bored and frustrated spending half the sessions on "five-foot-steps", exact measuring movement and ranges and spell areas, +1 this, +2 that, flanking maneuvering etc.
If I want to have a lot of tactical decisions with clear defined rules, I prefer to play board games. D&D combat makes for a really bad board game IMO.
I would rather spend the game/time on how to handle different situations, choices on how to interact with people and strategies, and not the exact accounting of HP and spell slots.

I feel some of my players, still in the 3.5 mindset, are a little frustrated when some rules aren't being followed exactly. And it is a challenge to me to provide them enough information to act on. They might feel cheated if they can't use their spells optimally since they can't see the exact positions. However, they should also be empowered to do more things as well. "Sorry, you can't charge that enemy, he is 13 squares away, you can max move 12" is not a problem anymore.

So I still bring to every session a bunch of my old miniatures, nice grid maps and some hand selected terrain features that may become relevant. And I bring them out if there is a large, complicated, or tough (boss) combat. But I am more happy if I don't have to.

You may well like 5E then. Even with the grid, the combat rules are much more streamlined. There's no such thing as a "five foot step" and you hardly ever apply modifiers to dice rolls, using the much simpler and faster advantage/disadvantage mechanic instead (roll two d20s and keep the higher/lower roll, ignoring the other). That said, it still clunks a bit at higher levels, hence this thread. I like your idea of using the grid for boss combats. TotM for most of the session, then get the grid out for the climactic set piece - could work well.


Grid is far superior to theater for me - it makes the combat seem "real" - it helps everyone visualize it - and it keeps everyone to a certain extent "honest". If there's no way that orc is getting over to hit player A without giving player B an AoO, the grid will reveal it. If theater, the DM will often not allow it if he wants the encounter to "be more challenging" or w/e. And players get resentful. The problem with the theater approach is that the DM isn't loading all relevant info into his/her head - and isn't telling the players enough - in most circumstances. But grid can be cumbersome. If it's a lesser fight and straightforward, i.e. it's on a grassy plain and there's one giant - maybe theater is best - cuz things go faster. Or at least put figures down on the table, maybe w/out grid and guestimate distances. Grid and miniatures is usually worth the effort, though.

Well I like grid combat for all the same reasons. If I didn't really like the tactical combat element of D&D then this wouldn't even be an issue for me. My problem with the grid is not that it's too much effort but that, as others have pointed out, it tends to lock everyone into thinking in "combat terms". So in the rest of the game the goal is dictated by the narrative and the methods for achieving the goal are pretty much whatever the players can imagine - but suddenly when a fight starts, the goal becomes "reduce all monsters to 0 HP" and the method becomes "make attack rolls, cast spells and use special abilities". I don't want to throw the grid out if I don't have to, but I do want to throw out the hard distinction between "combat" and "not-combat". If that makes sense.

[Pelle]

You may well like 5E then. Even with the grid, the combat rules are much more streamlined. There's no such thing as a "five foot step" and you hardly ever apply modifiers to dice rolls, using the much simpler and faster advantage/disadvantage mechanic instead (roll two d20s and keep the higher/lower roll, ignoring the other). That said, it still clunks a bit at higher levels, hence this thread. I like your idea of using the grid for boss combats. TotM for most of the session, then get the grid out for the climactic set piece - could work well.


Thanks, as I said I'm looking forward to 5e, everything I read about it looks promising. The whole rulings > rules suits my preference as a DM better.
Not sure if switching to 5e will increase or reduce my use of TotM. Combat in 5e may be smoother, making the grid less a burden, but 5e also seems better suited for TotM.



I don't want to throw the grid out if I don't have to, but I do want to throw out the hard distinction between "combat" and "not-combat". If that makes sense.

In an encounter, I tend to wait as long as possible before bringing out the grid, allowing for other confrontations than straight combat. I might sketch rough positions on a piece of paper or use some dice on the table to illustrate positions, before judging it neccessary with a grid.

Now I remember the old days, we sometimes played using miniatures and a string with knots marking certain distances such as 10, 20, 30, 60 ft. It was relatively fast, feels more free than using a grid, and is really more true to the rules. Grid/squares is just an artificial and limiting way of representing the distances given in abilities and spells. Much better IMO to use distance directly, than going through this poor model...

[Unoriginal]

Theatre of the Mind has always worked ok for me, but if the combat is big, or if the battlefield has special features, it IS a good thing if the DM draws a quick sketch of what the area is like and where the characters are.

No need to use a battlegrid, but it's hard to argue against the use of a quick sketch to avoid much confusion.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I guess I do a hybrid. Physical maps and minis, but no grid.

I have a glass-topped table that we play on, and I draw an approximate sketch of the map on it when positioning is important. I don't worry about having it down to the 5' accuracy--just get it close enough.

This takes about 20 seconds, and usually happens when they're rolling initiative. We then measure (using a flexible measuring tape designed for sewing) distances--1 inch = 5 feet. No grid, no fixed squares, just distances. For me and my style it works really well. TotM gets me confused and I forget who is where. It's hard enough keeping track of everything going on--adding all of that would overload me completely.

[HidesHisEyes]

I like the idea of TotM with the Numenera solution of distance being abstractified into close, medium and far. It would render movement speed bonuses from various features moot though.

[Blacky the Blackball]

My group have used TotM pretty much exclusively since the '80s, and we much prefer it to using grids. We've used it in every edition - yes, we even played 4e that way, and it worked fine.

Occasionally, if there's a particularly complex fight we'll scatter a few things on the table to make an impromptu tableaux of what's going on, but never with a strict grid and exact scaling.

We find that in the very rare instance that we've used a grid, it feels more like a game of chess than a fight in D&D.

Besides, combats are often stop-start affairs where they're interspersed with diplomacy and other interaction; or will involve people flying around, running up walls, leaping onto the backs of dragons, and other such things; or will turn into chase scenes (and vice versa). None of that can be represented on a grid easily.

For us, grids get in the way of imagination, rather than facilitating it.

We've never had any problem with:

"How far away is the medusa that Sarah is in melee with?"
"Around 30 feet from where you are in the doorway."
"Fine. I'll run up and try to kick her in the head, doing a flurry of blows."
"If you're trying to run while averting your eyes, it will count as difficult terrain..."

or

"If I want to get the ogre in a fireball, how many goblins can I also catch in the blast?"
"Three, or five if you don't mind Bob being in the area of effect too."
"No problem - don't worry Bob, I've got 'Careful Spell' so you'll automatically make your save..."

[HidesHisEyes]

My group have used TotM pretty much exclusively since the '80s, and we much prefer it to using grids. We've used it in every edition - yes, we even played 4e that way, and it worked fine.

Occasionally, if there's a particularly complex fight we'll scatter a few things on the table to make an impromptu tableaux of what's going on, but never with a strict grid and exact scaling.

We find that in the very rare instance that we've used a grid, it feels more like a game of chess than a fight in D&D.

Besides, combats are often stop-start affairs where they're interspersed with diplomacy and other interaction; or will involve people flying around, running up walls, leaping onto the backs of dragons, and other such things; or will turn into chase scenes (and vice versa). None of that can be represented on a grid easily.

For us, grids get in the way of imagination, rather than facilitating it.

We've never had any problem with:

"How far away is the medusa that Sarah is in melee with?"
"Around 30 feet from where you are in the doorway."
"Fine. I'll run up and try to kick her in the head, doing a flurry of blows."
"If you're trying to run while averting your eyes, it will count as difficult terrain..."

or

"If I want to get the ogre in a fireball, how many goblins can I also catch in the blast?"
"Three, or five if you don't mind Bob being in the area of effect too."
"No problem - don't worry Bob, I've got 'Careful Spell' so you'll automatically make your save..."

Where is the DM getting those answers from though? I like the idea of playing this way, but I don't like the idea of the DM making up these details as they go along.

[Armored Walrus]

Where is the DM getting those answers from though? I like the idea of playing this way, but I don't like the idea of the DM making up these details as they go along.

Why? The DM literally makes up the details of the grid, too. The DM makes up the details of every other pillar of the game, and you trust her there, don't you? Why does combat need to be different?

If you don't trust your DM to run a good game, and need a grid to "keep him honest" that's not really a grid problem, it's a player/DM relationship problem.

[Millstone85]

If I want to have a lot of tactical decisions with clear defined rules, I prefer to play board games. D&D combat makes for a really bad board game IMO.It seems like my DM feels the same, and that's really a pity.

Me, I feel like I am being constantly teased with this really intriguing board game and I will never get to judge for myself if it is good or not.

Our group started with the worst edition of D&D in that regard. 4e tried really hard to be a board game. Whether it was the worst edition in general is another matter.

[Thrudd]

I guess I do a hybrid. Physical maps and minis, but no grid.

I have a glass-topped table that we play on, and I draw an approximate sketch of the map on it when positioning is important. I don't worry about having it down to the 5' accuracy--just get it close enough.

This takes about 20 seconds, and usually happens when they're rolling initiative. We then measure (using a flexible measuring tape designed for sewing) distances--1 inch = 5 feet. No grid, no fixed squares, just distances. For me and my style it works really well. TotM gets me confused and I forget who is where. It's hard enough keeping track of everything going on--adding all of that would overload me completely.

That is my recommendation, as well. Grids have an inorganic feel to them for me, minis are spaced out in sometimes unrealistic ways, and it can tend to "gamify" the combats a little more in a subliminal way.

I feel like minis and measurements are necessary for D&D combat to be played according to the rules (their TotM mechanics are basically "DM wings it").

So I do it as AD&D and prior did, minis on a tabletop with distances measured by tape, 1" = 5 ft (instead of 10 like the old days). I use bits of cardboard and paper and other stuff to represent terrain and doors and such, that I keep handy. I allow one test measurement per player per turn before they decide their action, to see if they can reach a target or estimate where their AoE will reach.

[Blacky the Blackball]

Where is the DM getting those answers from though? I like the idea of playing this way, but I don't like the idea of the DM making up these details as they go along.

Even in TotM, the DM pretty much always has a map - either one supplied with the adventure or one they've drawn themselves; so they do have an idea of where things are in relation to each other. It's not as if the DM is just pulling arbitrary numbers out of thin air - the announcement (to use the above example) that there are three or five goblins is because the DM (and hopefully the players) are aware that there are three goblins who are next to the ogre and another two that are in melee with Bob.

But for the exact details and placement? Yes, the DM makes it up. Just as they make up what monsters are there and how they will behave.

To me, there's no real qualitative difference between the DM saying "you can get four wolves in the fireball" and the DM placing wolves on a grid in an arrangement such that four of them are close enough together to be fireballed. In either case the placement and movement of the wolves (and therefore how many you can hit) is being decided by the DM - or "made up as they go along", if you prefer. It's just that placing miniatures on a grid gives it an illusion of objectivity.

[ZorroGames]

Nay.

I started White Box with miniatures, rulers, and no grid.

Worked well.

Played TotM with our usual DM. Not unbearable. Confusing as hell but it worked - in a crippled, pale way.

That said, never again; I now bring a case or two of Human, Elf, Gnome and Dwarf miniatures that can stand in for whatever (he has a very small collection) and usually a bag of pennies for horde monsters.

If I signed up for an AL game or was invited to a non-AL game and discovered it was TotM I would as gracefully as possible immediately withdraw from the game. Simply something I would not participate in. I have a great imagination but I am a visual person and prefer functioning in that mode.

If I went to the stage or movie theater and somebody on a stool read the play/script I would walk out and demand my money back. To me there is no difference between that and TotM. YMMV but has no reference on my position. Nay, a thousand times nay. :smallwink:

I still have several thousand (after recently dumping/giving away multiple hundreds) miniature figures that I gladly share if needed for games. All those years as a miniature war gamer (Historical, Fantasy, Victorian Science Fiction, Science Fiction) has given the potential to assist the DM present a 3D model of the event, not just the battles. My dungeon furniture pieces are not too shabby a collection either. All the DM has to do is ask and I wil gladly assist by providing 3D assests.

:smallbiggrin:

[Matrix_Walker]

Confusing as hell but it worked - in a crippled, pale way.


QFT



A grid isn't needed for games that don't use TotM, any table will do, all you need is a ruler

[GlenSmash!]

I've moved from a complete ToM to having a big whiteboard on the game table. I'll probably ad some minis to it, but I'm very unlikely to use a grid.

[Knaight]

I'm not a huge fan, but I've used it a few times and it's ran ok. However, you need a very descriptive DM and mature, attentive players that are willing to go with the flow a bit. If you have players that constantly argue about how many creatures they want to hit, or look up from their phone on their turn and don't know what's happening, it's not going to work. At all. Whenever I do it I tend to revert to Numenera's idea of Close, Medium and Long descriptions for distances instead of using feet. It's a lot easier to say "Jurgon, you have 3 Orcs at close distance surrounding you, you see 2 Orcs have sprinted toward Kenra and are at Long distance as they try to shut down the ranger. Thartrik is going one on one with the Ogre to your left at medium distance and he seems to be losing."

Numenera distances work, Fate zones work, and generally there are a lot of systems that work really well without some sort of concrete visual representation. There's a trend to them, and a lot of it is in the absence of exact measurements - D&D meanwhile has a bunch of mechanics that push towards a grid, and that makes TotM work significantly more poorly.

[Pelle]

If I went to the stage or movie theater and somebody on a stool read the play/script I would walk out and demand my money back. To me there is no difference between that and TotM. YMMV but has no reference on my position. Nay, a thousand times nay. :smallwink:


Interesting, for me it is kind of opposite. I tend to lose immersion seeing the grid/minis. My imagination works better with only the verbal descriptions, than with minis that have limited movement options, doesn't represent the characters completly, look like a chess board, etc.
It's like reading a good book, compared to watching a bad movie adaption. I prefer what my imagination comes up with.


Question for those of you that don't like TotM; is it because you like the combat mini-game (and maybe CaS > CaW), or is it related to immersion, visualizing, having more information about the situation etc?

I see that the last part can be important to consider more for my players sake, but I will still use TotM alot because for me the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

[War_lord]

Question for those of you that don't like TotM; is it because you like the combat mini-game (and maybe CaS > CaW),

Combat is not a "mini-game", it's one of the pillars of D&D. The default xp system rewards killing monsters, the adventuring "day" is based around a fixed number of encounters that challenge the party's resource management skills. If you tore the combat out of D&D, you wouldn't have much of a game anymore.


or is it related to immersion, visualizing, having more information about the situation etc?

It's critical to actually playing the game D&D, exploration without a map is often Non-Euclidean because of the limitations of most DM's. Combat is totally gutted because no one has any sense of spacing, which is devastating for Rogues. A good example of how grids enhance the game even outside of combat is the Death House prologue for CoS. The first floor of that is nothing but the party exploring the rooms of a creepy Townhouse, actually being able to see a topdown view of the room they were in and exactly were they were standing in it did a lot to make my players feel fully immersed.

[Pelle]

Combat is not a "mini-game", it's one of the pillars of D&D. The default xp system rewards killing monsters, the adventuring "day" is based around a fixed number of encounters that challenge the party's resource management skills. If you tore the combat out of D&D, you wouldn't have much of a game anymore.


Sure, but using TotM doesn't mean tearing combat, resource management and adventuring days away. Maybe bad choice of word then, but with combat mini-game I was meaning the tactical "chess" aspect of combat, with initiative order, five-foot-steps, standard actions, flanking, careful measuring of squares etc. IMX, using a grid makes the players focus on the rules and mechanics more than the decisions and actions the characters make. Some players enjoy that aspect of D&D, which is fine.

[Max_Killjoy]

Sure, but using TotM doesn't mean tearing combat, resource management and adventuring days away. Maybe bad choice of word then, but with combat mini-game I was meaning the tactical "chess" aspect of combat, with initiative order, five-foot-steps, standard actions, flanking, careful measuring of squares etc. IMX, using a grid makes the players focus on the rules and mechanics more than the decisions and actions the characters make. Some players enjoy that aspect of D&D, which is fine.

Strict adherence to the grid and the way it shifts the focus to the combat mechanics strikes me as bit like the "fade to combat" aspect of some of the Final Fantasy games and their cousins.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Strict adherence to the grid and the way it shifts the focus to the combat mechanics strikes me as bit like the "fade to combat" aspect of some of the Final Fantasy games and their cousins.

Grids work if everything is expressed in grid terms and grids are required. They didn't bug me in 4e (more than anything else, anyway). In 5e, they get in the way of the flow of the game. Having a whiteboard to sketch maps and show locations as an aide to the play works well for me--TotM while doing things where exact placement, distance, line of sight, etc aren't crucial. Map + minis + measured distances for things where those are important. It's a good compromise for me and avoids the extra mental overhead of pure TotM while being clearly just an aid (not an exact representation of reality) to avoid the "fade to combat" effect.

[Thrudd]

Interesting, for me it is kind of opposite. I tend to lose immersion seeing the grid/minis. My imagination works better with only the verbal descriptions, than with minis that have limited movement options, doesn't represent the characters completly, look like a chess board, etc.
It's like reading a good book, compared to watching a bad movie adaption. I prefer what my imagination comes up with.


Question for those of you that don't like TotM; is it because you like the combat mini-game (and maybe CaS > CaW), or is it related to immersion, visualizing, having more information about the situation etc?

I see that the last part can be important to consider more for my players sake, but I will still use TotM alot because for me the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

It's partly about liking the tactical/strategic combat element of the game. It is also about making the most of what the game has to offer - which is mechanics that include making strategic decisions about character abilities and equipment that are only relevant if precise distance and range and line of sight/cover and timing are used in combat.

To me, using only TotM is like only playing half the game. You ignore so many things and so many things are reduced in importance or utility, and so much becomes completely dependent on the DM's subjective decisions that it is a very different game.
ToTM:"How many targets can be hit by my fireball?" - "uh, let's say three."(because I don't want the fight to be over too fast).

Minis+measurements - player looks at the battlefield and chooses to launch a fireball where it looks like it will catch the most bad guys - if the choice is well made, with the right timing and set-up, it will catch more enemies. If they make a mistake or choose poorly, it will be less effective. Either way, it is the player's decisions which have objective impact on the results. The DM will be playing the enemies in a way they find suitable, but the players can use their abilities to objectively affect the battle. Obviously, this is the preferred method for those embracing the philosophy that DM is referee primarily, and DM is storyteller secondarily. ToTM is favored by those who wish for combat to primarily serve the narrative, and to work as a game secondarily.

Note: I favor gridless combat with measurements and terrain - a grid, especially a square one vs a hex, feels too artificial to me.

[mcsillas]

All of which suggests theatre of the mind really would work better for this kind of approach. But I have to say there are a couple of things grid-based combat does that I really like:

A) it makes it easier to design spaces in which PCs (and monsters) can interact with the environment in a meaningful way, with difficult terrain and cover and so on.

B) it creates a shared objective reality for the fighting to take place in. Everyone can see exactly how far they can move, which enemies they can and can't target, who has cover, when the rogue can get a sneak attack and so on. To me, this definite-ness is really important, since it means that every little decision counts, and that being able to move that extra five feet because you chose to play a wood elf can be the difference between success or failure. To me that's a big thrill and I suspect it would be harder to get with TotM combat.

Am I wrong? Does anyone use TotM? Or does anyone use the grid but still make the fast-and-integrated approach work?

I only play theater of the mind. Role playing games were originally designed to be played in this manner. You can see that in 1st and 2nd edition, as well as a large majority of the other original RPGs were played this way. It wasn't until D&D 3.0, for the most part, that you started to see the grid. As a counter to your points above:

A) The grid stifles player imagination and creativity. A tree can be seen as an obstacle instead of something that can be climbed for example. Also, when you play TotM, players will ask the DM for things such as cover, obscured areas, terrain that the DM did not think of, but really adds to the combat. Such as the rogue asking for a dimly lit area to hide since he has the skulker feat. It also forces players to visualize the beholder they are fighting, not just see it as a miniature on a board, or at worst a poker chip. To me it's just more spontaneous and imaginative to eliminate the grid.

B) Distance is the biggest challenge with TotM. For the most part you fake it till you make it. I keep track of the combat with a piece of graph paper where I know the exact position and distance in combat, but I only let the players see it briefly if they are completely confused. That way I can quickly answer questions related to distance.

TotM is the only way to run combat in my opinion, but I know there are those who like to make an RPG half board game. I do not.

Edit: It has been pointed out to me that 1st was based on Chainmail and that it encouraged the use of a grid. However, 2nd edition made no mention of grids.

[PeteNutButter]

I greatly prefer having a grid, no small part because I've hundreds of dollars and hours invested into my miniature collection. It's a big rip off when you want to show off your BA mini you painted for your character, and the DM says, "no need for a map. Let's ToTM." I have a special miniature of a T-Rex with a shield guardian riding it for when my wizard polymorphs into a T-Rex to serve as a mount for my shield guardian. That's not something that should stay in the bag.

But on a more gameplay oriented note, I think the grid adding a tactical approach to the game is an element that is missed by a lot of players if it isn't used. It turns D&D into a mini wargame, which some players love, some might not. I can see how it might somehow break immersion for certain players.

The only time I'd avoid a grid is in situations where it isn't all that helpful, such as extensive three dimensional combat.

"I see the dragon is 90 feet from me so I'm going to Scorching Ray it."
"No, he is 90 feet away horizontally, but 80 feet up, so Pythagoras tells us that's actually 120.4 feet away and scorching ray has a range of 120 feet. You're out of range."
*Table Flips*

Once trigonometry is involved, the grid has lost it's usefulness.

[FreddyNoNose]

In looking for ways to speed up combat in 5E I came across this:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/3v4wwh/keeping_combat_short_and_tothepoint/

Tldr: it describes a general approach where you view combat as intermingled with the rest of the adventure as much as you can. It emphasises keeping sight of the objective, both for the DM and the players. Keep in mind what the party and the monsters are actually trying to accomplish by fighting and a lot of fights can be cut short: monsters might surrender, flee, or fight to the foregone conclusion without having to play out the last couple of rounds. The story moves on with no need to get bogged down in the combat system.

I really like this whole idea, but one things that jumps out at me is that the author says they use theatre of the mind combat. Now that makes a lot of sense with this approach to combat, since drawing out a map and placing miniatures down not only eats up time but, I think, gets everyone in the "fight mode" headspace, sort of like the screen whooshing and the battle music starting in a Final Fantasy game. It seems to me that as a player, psychologically, I would find it harder to think of the battle as just one more part of the adventure, and not as a mini game scenario to be played out in full, with a battlegrid and minis in front of me. Some players might even feel sort of cheated, I suspect. The author suggests wrapping up a combat once it gets one-sided in the PCs' favour by, for example, just stating that the remaining monsters flee. Now the players decide whether to let them go or chase them. I suspect that with the grid in front of them, a good many players would a) be more likely to give chase without even considering that they could choose not to and b) would expect to play out the chase on the grid using combat rules and might feel cheated if you said "ok now make Athletics checks to catch up" or whatever.

All of which suggests theatre of the mind really would work better for this kind of approach. But I have to say there are a couple of things grid-based combat does that I really like:

A) it makes it easier to design spaces in which PCs (and monsters) can interact with the environment in a meaningful way, with difficult terrain and cover and so on.

B) it creates a shared objective reality for the fighting to take place in. Everyone can see exactly how far they can move, which enemies they can and can't target, who has cover, when the rogue can get a sneak attack and so on. To me, this definite-ness is really important, since it means that every little decision counts, and that being able to move that extra five feet because you chose to play a wood elf can be the difference between success or failure. To me that's a big thrill and I suspect it would be harder to get with TotM combat.

Am I wrong? Does anyone use TotM? Or does anyone use the grid but still make the fast-and-integrated approach work?

Theater isn't what I run but if this is what floats your boat, then go for it.

[huttj509]

I prefer having a visual reference rather than strict TotM. Too many times have I run into "He's hiding behind the crates" "what crates" "It's a warehouse" "but you didn't mention crates" "you should have asked if there were crates if you wanted to hide."

I just...if there's anything outside of an open room I feel it's much easier to keep track of features if I have a visual reference. Thinking ahead to how many guys I can fireball without interrupting the DM and someone else's turn, seeing if there's a flank path I can block, or just having the movement difference between a halfling, a human, a tabaxi, a monk, and a barbarian actually matter (like a tabaxi monk doubling movement and taking a bonus action move to run up and around the enemy to their back line, and being able to point and say "yup, the distance checks out").

I like planning neat stunts using the terrain. I find it easier to do that when I can see "he's next to a wall...hmmm, I have an idea" rather than needing to have the idea first and ask if he's next to a wall. (edit: in a fight with a dragon, I noticed he happened to move next to a ruined wall, still in the air. I climbed the wall, used tabaxi movement and monk jump increase, with the stated height of the walls and my jump height barely made it to the dragon, and grappled him to the ground. I would never have considered that without a map)

I've not really found it restrictive. If it's a warehouse, and I want to hide behind some crates, but there's no crates on the map...I ask if there's some crates around. The response is either "no" or "yeah, bout here and here" with some squiggles marking them. But I have a MUCH easier time keying off things I can see.

It also helps me keep track of what everyone's doing. As I said, I key off visuals much more easily. So if someone moves up to the ogre and attacks I can follow things more easily if a mini slides across the table.

Back in high school, in ADnD 2E, we started pure totm. We found that to keep track of combat the dm basically needed a sketch of where people were, and eventually that bringing it to the other side of the screen vastly reduced confusion and questions.

[Beelzebubba]

This is a good post about it:

http://www.runagame.net/2016/09/smarter-theater-of-mind-mechanics.html

Basically, the game uses exact grid measurements for everything, when it really needs an abstracted system to do ToTM smoothly. It's not terrible, but it does force a lot of winging it when there could be a better way.

When you have a grid, then 'shove 10 feet' matters. When it's ToTM, it doesn't match. It's more like 'shove from 'melee' to 'close', and then have mechanics that kick in if that opponent decides to close to 'melee' again on their turn.

The 13th Age has a really good system for this. The blog post goes into it.

I think the only reason they didn't build it in was their design precept of 'make it feel like the D&D we all know and love', and not rock the boat. We might get something like it in an optional rule set, but I doubt it.

[Galactkaktus]

I prefer theatre of the mind but i don't mind a grid either. If everyone just accepts what the dm says and the players express what they are trying to do then it's just quicker.
I attack the nearest enemy and try to stand between the enemies and my party members.
I shot one of the enemies and try to move behind cover if there is any.
And so on.
And when i am the Dm i just love it when the players asks about some detail about the battle that i didn't think of. It's the easiest thing to just add something cool that the players ask about since it's abit vague. I feel that Totm gives alot more freedom than a grid.

[Tanarii]

Minis+measurements - player looks at the battlefield and chooses to launch a fireball where it looks like it will catch the most bad guys - if the choice is well made, with the right timing and set-up, it will catch more enemies.
And is is what 'breaks' immersion for me.

When you bust out a grid, everyone is suddenly a master of seeing everything on the battlefield at a glance, judging distances and areas of affect, and tactical movement.

Edit: as I said earlier, the other thing that breaks immersion for me is the 'combat swoosh' that results from the time required to set it all up.

[SiCK_Boy]

(Note: I pre-wrote this earlier today, but couldn't post it until now; a lot of the recent replies covered the same ground, so sorry if it sounds like repetition of what others already stated)

Thurdd perfectly explained earlier what I do enjoy about grid-based combat and why I don't much like theater of the mind.

Someone mentionned earlier that some systems can be more easily geared toward theater of the mind, with less specific "measurements" included in the rules. But D&D is clearly geared toward grid-based combat, even if the people in charge of 5th edition are trying real hard to make it appear as if that isn't the case (maybe they are just overcompensating for 4th edition's mandatory gris and minis stance).

(By the way, using a map with exact measurement but no grid is pretty much the same as using a grid in my view, at least for the purpose of comparing it to theater of the mind).

As an exemple, in my current campaign, I play a dwarf with 25' of movement. We have a wood elf and a satyr in our group (both with 35' of movement). That extra 10' makes a world of difference in tactical combat, especially in the first round where positioning is critical, when you are looking at retreat options, or when subsequent waves of opponents join the fray. Yesterday, we went through 5 waves of enemies within a temple, with movement from room to room between waves (no break in combat, we kept going with the initiative order since the alarm was given and, even if we were not seeing them, opponents were moving/acting). There was at least one instance where I was forced to use a ranged attack (weaker than my melee options), and another where I had to use dash just to go "block" an opponent and cover one of my allies - both these situations would have been avoided if I had had the same speed as my allies. This kind of nuance gets easily lost when using theater of the mind (if I refer to my previous campaign where I played a halfling - again 25' of movement - there were never any instances where I was told I could not reach an opponent for melee, and we were using the concept of close/far to indicate distances).

It is true that the tactical combat is reminiscent of chess in some aspects, or a board game. In our current setup, our DM sits far from the table (he has a side table where he keeps his stuff), so only the players (PCs) are around the main table where the map is. We huddle around it, we discuss movement options (still level 1, so avoiding attacks of opportunity is crucial since any single hit can drop us), the spellcasters try to optimize where to put their spells using area of effect templates, etc. I think it creates a fun dynamic between the group. Sure, it may not be as interesting from a storytelling perspective (it has less of a narrative feel, and more of a boardgame feel - what with the assistant DM calling player turns and such), but the storytelling works just as well for me after the fact (basically, once the fight is over, I can deconstruct what happened and just make a quick story of it in my mind, including some cool moves/turns as highlights of the encounter - which usually gets included in our session summary afterward).

If all effects and abilities in the game were defined more loosely (ex: instead of having specific X feet of radius for an area of effect spell, you would have small, medium, and large radius), I would be much less inclined to use a grid. I don't know if I would enjoy the game as much, however.

Another advantage of using a map (gridded or not) versus just wordy descriptions is that it allows the DM to add features such as difficult terrain, obstacles to be used as cover, etc. That can also be done in theater of the mind, but unless there are constant reminders about these features every few turns, they will quickly be forgotten (both by players and the DM). For this to work with a map, however, you need a DM who gives thought to the encounter locations beforehand; if the DM starts making up a quick map once the encounter starts, it's quite possible that he won't think of adding those features anyway. Having these things identified on the map makes it so that they are constantly on everyone's mind (at least, everyone who looks at the map), and in that sense, I think it offers additional options to players rather than inhibit them. This point is much more DM-dependant than the first part of my post, but still factors in my personal appreciation of map/grid-based combat.

[Blacky the Blackball]

ToTM:"How many targets can be hit by my fireball?" - "uh, let's say three."(because I don't want the fight to be over too fast).

That's not how TotM works, any more than "I do 16 damage, how is it looking?" - "uh, let's say it's still fine." (because I don't want the fight to be over too fast) is how attacks work.

In TotM, the DM doesn't just pluck the positions of the combatants out of thin air to suit their whims. The DM - and the players, if it's being done right - should all know which combatants are where. They should all be picturing the fight in their heads (in far better detail and in a far more "realistic" manner than looking at a bunch of figures on a grid).

That's one of the whole reasons many of us don't like using grids - they spoil the image of the fight we have in our heads by replacing it with a mundane level of counting squares and moving bits of metal or plastic.

If TotM is being done right, the DM and the players will have consistent images in their heads (that's what Theatre of the Mind means), and if there's any doubt, the players can get clarification from the DM.

It certainly isn't just the DM making things up as they go along. That's not TotM - that's just fudging.

[Laserlight]

The DM - and the players, if it's being done right - should all know which combatants are where. They should all be picturing the fight in their heads (in far better detail and in a far more "realistic" manner than looking at a bunch of figures on a grid).

IME, if the players can't see it, they don't know which combatants are where. Or, worse, they know which combatants are where, except they're wrong. If it's going to be RP or one side is grossly outmatched, then I don't draw it out. ("The four of you burst into the room. Inside, you find only two kobolds, who stare at you in horrified shock"). If it's any kind of interesting combat, then it goes on the map.

[ZorroGames]

Last comment before I drop off this thread.

Play what you want.

Different people think differently and no two people without a common reference are going to imagine something exactly the same in thier heads. Often it is moot but, for me, the more commonality in the frame of reference (miniatures, accurate mapping of physical relationships,) the less chance of confusion.

Yes, the 200' general view is an issue but until we have individual POV holograms - I believe a map, with or without hexes, squares, or circles for movement, in real time - TotM simply doesn't cut it equally for players and DMs.

Anyway let me repeat, play what you want.

[Thrudd]

I only play theater of the mind. Role playing games were originally designed to be played in this manner. You can see that in 1st and 2nd edition, as well as a large majority of the other original RPGs were played this way. It wasn't until D&D 3.0, for the most part, that you started to see the grid. As a counter to your points above:

A) The grid stifles player imagination and creativity. A tree can be seen as an obstacle instead of something that can be climbed for example. Also, when you play TotM, players will ask the DM for things such as cover, obscured areas, terrain that the DM did not think of, but really adds to the combat. Such as the rogue asking for a dimly lit area to hide since he has the skulker feat. It also forces players to visualize the beholder they are fighting, not just see it as a miniature on a board, or at worst a poker chip. To me it's just more spontaneous and imaginative to eliminate the grid.

B) Distance is the biggest challenge with TotM. For the most part you fake it till you make it. I keep track of the combat with a piece of graph paper where I know the exact position and distance in combat, but I only let the players see it briefly if they are completely confused. That way I can quickly answer questions related to distance.

TotM is the only way to run combat in my opinion, but I know there are those who like to make an RPG half board game. I do not.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong for liking to play D&D without minis, but you are wrong about the original game: tabletop miniatures was absolutely how RPGs were originally designed. D&D (the first/original RPG) was literally designed as an expansion/supplement to a tabletop miniature war game (called Chainmail). You may note that tthings in the 1e AD&D rules are listed in inches, because you were meant to be measuring how far your characters could move across the table and the range of spells, AoE, missiles, etc. The DMG specifically references the scale of miniatures generally used, has rules for facing on both sorts of grid, and splash patterns for grenade-like attacks (so you can tell when a shield or dex bonus counts on AC and how many opponents can attack at once).

So yes, D&D was originally designed to be played with minis on a tabletop and potentially a grid from its inception. Did lots of people play without those things? Yes, and I did, too, many times. But doing so does take away a chunk of what was intended to be the game.

[Thrudd]

That's not how TotM works, any more than "I do 16 damage, how is it looking?" - "uh, let's say it's still fine." (because I don't want the fight to be over too fast) is how attacks work.

In TotM, the DM doesn't just pluck the positions of the combatants out of thin air to suit their whims. The DM - and the players, if it's being done right - should all know which combatants are where. They should all be picturing the fight in their heads (in far better detail and in a far more "realistic" manner than looking at a bunch of figures on a grid).

That's one of the whole reasons many of us don't like using grids - they spoil the image of the fight we have in our heads by replacing it with a mundane level of counting squares and moving bits of metal or plastic.

If TotM is being done right, the DM and the players will have consistent images in their heads (that's what Theatre of the Mind means), and if there's any doubt, the players can get clarification from the DM.

It certainly isn't just the DM making things up as they go along. That's not TotM - that's just fudging.

I get what you're saying, but based on my experiences playing D&D (and many other games) in TotM style, what you describe as "done right" is rare and unrealistic. There are always constant questions about where everyone is, what sort of terrain is there, how far away they are, etc. Nobody reliably and consistently holds the battlefield in their mind all that accurately, especially as everything is moving constantly, and it only gets harder the more elements you add to the field. And while it doesn't require the DM fudging things, it is extremely easy to do, in opposition to using minis. Sometimes the DM may not even be fudging on purpose, it just gets hard to keep track of all those moving parts and you forget about the guy behind the tree that hadn't done anything yet or that half the enemies you mentioned haven't taken an action in two turns.



And is is what 'breaks' immersion for me.

When you bust out a grid, everyone is suddenly a master of seeing everything on the battlefield at a glance, judging distances and areas of affect, and tactical movement.

Edit: as I said earlier, the other thing that breaks immersion for me is the 'combat swoosh' that results from the time required to set it all up.

I get that. But to me, that is immersion. If I was on the battlefield, I would see where the enemies were and use that information to make my choices. I would see where things were and not be confused or need to ask anyone if a monster was near me or how many of them I can see or if there is anything I can hide behind nearby. That is what breaks immersion for me, worse than spending a minute to put minis on the table.

[Tanarii]

If I was on the battlefield, I would see where the enemies were and use that information to make my choices. I would see where things were and not be confused or need to ask anyone if a monster was near me or how many of them I can see or if there is anything I can hide behind nearby.
Not that I've been on a battlefield, but clearly you and I have completely different assumptions about what it'd be like. I would assume if I was on a battlefield I'd get tunnel vision to what's going on in front of me and in my immediate vicinity. That's perfectly represented by listen to the description of the DM, and occasionally 'looking around' (asking the DM 'is there any cover nearby?')

To effect what you're asking for with a battlemat, but still maintain anything like verisimilitude as far as the fog of war goes, would require each player only being able to look at the table on their turn, and covering everything more than 20ft from their character with a tablecloth. Unless they were not in any immediate danger and spent their action serving the battle.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not that I've been on a battlefield, but clearly you and I have completely different assumptions about what it'd be like. I would assume if I was on a battlefield I'd get tunnel vision to what's going on in front of me and in my immediate vicinity. That's perfectly represented by listen to the description of the DM, and occasionally 'looking around' (asking the DM 'is there any cover nearby?')


Situational awareness is key in battle (or so I've heard). If you tunnel vision, you die. Quickly. Also, if you're actually there you would know extremely well how the terrain is around you. Verbal descriptions are very lossy--you can only convey a tiny fraction of what someone actually there would see and feel in any reasonable amount of time.

I've never played with people who could do TotM right. Too many questions about what's there. It requires everyone to be paying absolute attention and for the DM to describe things perfectly, otherwise different interpretations of the same words leads to "wait, what?" moments and retconning (or hurt feelings/feeling like the DM is playing gotcha games). This is my experience, anyway. Some kind of map is important to have a shared understanding of the battle-space.

[Tanarii]

The closest I've come is paintball. And I can tell you, as soon as the game starts, situational awareness goes right out the window. Sure, I can believe it's key. Tht makes perfect sense, if 'normal' is a complete lack of it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The closest I've come is paintball. And I can tell you, as soon as the game starts, situational awareness goes right out the window. Sure, I can believe it's key. Tht makes perfect sense, if 'normal' is a complete lack of it.

But trained fighters do much better, almost at the instinctive level. I'm always wary of assuming that our characters are just like us. They're (mostly, if they survive level 1) experienced combatants and professional adventurers. They're supposed to be aware of everything happening around them (this is extrapolated from the surprise rules and the opportunity attack rules, etc). From talking to my friends that have served in combat (I used to live next to a major military base, so I had quite a few of them), what you lose is awareness of things out of sight. People can duck behind walls and it's easy to lose track of them if there are other threats active. This is one of the reasons urban combat is so risky. A professional should be aware of anything within sensory range and not concealed.

It's a (much weaker) variant of the "Guy at the Gym" issue (at least in my mind).

[Tanarii]

But trained fighters do much better, almost at the instinctive level.Whats that got to do with the price of milk?

Do all your PCs always have the Soldier background?


It's a (much weaker) variant of the "Guy at the Gym" issue (at least in my mind).You're right. Because avoiding "Guy at the Gym" is the excuse people who want to play anime or a video game instead of fantasy trpgs use to break verisimilitude.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Whats that got to do with the price of milk?

Do all your PCs always have the Soldier background?

You're right. Because avoiding "Guy at the Gym" is the excuse people who want to play anime or a video game instead of fantasy trpgs use to break verisimilitude.

No, but they have something better (beyond level 1, at least). Experience. Otherwise they aren't above level 1, by definition.

So you can shoot fire from your fingertips? The guy at the gym can carry 300 pounds without slowing down, while making 4 real attacks per 6 seconds and moving 30 feet? Or maybe 8 attacks in 6 seconds and moving 30 feet? Or running along walls 60 feet in 6 seconds and making 4 attacks? Or surviving hits from dragons 3x their size? These are all things that level 20 characters can do stock. If you want to constrain yourself by what the "Guy at the Gym" can do, don't play D&D. Or any non-real-world TTRPG for that matter, as all of them involve people doing "unrealistic" things.

Verisimilitude should be about what's plausible in-universe. Not what's true of our universe.

[RazorChain]

I only play theater of the mind. Role playing games were originally designed to be played in this manner. You can see that in 1st and 2nd edition, as well as a large majority of the other original RPGs were played this way. It wasn't until D&D 3.0, for the most part, that you started to see the grid.


2nd edition had 1 minute rounds....so having grids to represent movement didn't matter but maps...yes we did use battlemaps. Battlemaps have been used in variety of systems and when I started playing 30 years ago they were used and have been used since the roleplaying games inception. Arneson's Blackmoor setting started as a miniture wargame that evolved into a rpg (I personally give Arneson more credit for the roleplaying part in RPG). Roleplaying games evolved from wargames and were made by wargamers so you can bet your hiney that they used battlemaps and miniatures.


As for the OP post. I find it much more interesting the rest of the article rather than if to use maps or not (I do both). I occasionally throw in meaningless combat into my games just to sate the lust of the combat oriented players. I'd rather have less combat and more meaning to it or use it to pose a question, as Clausewitz said "war is just continuation of diplomacy through other means". Murdering your way through dungeons is not what I run. Combat is rather rare in my games, maybe 1 hour of 6 hour session so I can well afford the time to draw up a sketch at least.

One thing I've noticed while using a detailed battlemap is that the players make much better use of their surroundings like

Jump on a table or a rock for height advantage
Grab a lantern and throw at their foe
Kick a stool at a charging foe to trip him
Better use of cover
charge foes in the back
Swing on a chandelier (yes the swashbuckler did it)
Throw a knife in the behind of an ox that was drawing a cart to make him charge a group of ruffians in a tight street.
Push a foe off a cliff or down a flight of stairs.

Edit: I realize that many of those "stunts" have very little relevance to D&D other than maybe at lower levels before your foes get scratched when hit by a truck, but I mostly don't run D&D and this is more relevant to other systems.

[Thrudd]

Not that I've been on a battlefield, but clearly you and I have completely different assumptions about what it'd be like. I would assume if I was on a battlefield I'd get tunnel vision to what's going on in front of me and in my immediate vicinity. That's perfectly represented by listen to the description of the DM, and occasionally 'looking around' (asking the DM 'is there any cover nearby?')

To effect what you're asking for with a battlemat, but still maintain anything like verisimilitude as far as the fog of war goes, would require each player only being able to look at the table on their turn, and covering everything more than 20ft from their character with a tablecloth. Unless they were not in any immediate danger and spent their action serving the battle.

I disagree with your take on how severe "fog of war" would be for people, especially professional adventurers and warriors (which is every D&D character). I also think it is a pretty lame excuse for something that is clearly an unintentional consequence of the disconnect that inevitably happens between what a DM is imagining, what comes out of their mouth, what the players hear, and what they remember when they take their turns. Nowhere in any D&D rulebook has it claimed or made any such connection between TotM and purposefully maintaining confusion about the characters' surroundings, nor encouraged DMs to create a "fog of war" for their players by denying them information about the battlefield. It isn't a thing D&D does.

When using minis, it is on the DM not to place anything on the table that the characters shouldn't be able to see. That's how you do "fog of war". If there is darkness everywhere except a 60 foot radius around the lantern, then don't put down any minis further away than that until the players see it.

Even if I agreed that there should realistically be some degree of combat confusion due to adrenaline or whatever, trying to model that is a lower priority than having an engaging game where the players can use strategy and tactics to overcome challenges. The visual aid of having minis and terrain displayed on the tabletop makes more use of the actual game system and is more fair for the players. I want verisimilitude and in-world immersion to be maximized as well, but not at the expense of an engaging and fair game experience.


The closest I've come is paintball. And I can tell you, as soon as the game starts, situational awareness goes right out the window. Sure, I can believe it's key. That makes perfect sense, if 'normal' is a complete lack of it.
People who play paintball a lot, or who practice war games or other sorts of combat, would gradually lose that tunnel vision and lack of awareness. That's why you practice and drill and do exercises constantly in the military, so you have a better shot at keeping your wits about you in such situations. You have to if you want to survive. "Normal" is relative. I would err on the side of letting my D&D characters be on the more competent side in this regard. It's hard enough for the players to succeed and make good decisions even when they can see the whole battlefield on the table, they don't need more handicaps by regularly being given incomplete information about their character's surroundings.

[BillyBobShorton]

When I DM, i do both. Because there is a place for each, they are both fun when done well and the party is familiar with eachother and the DM. Mini's and grid for combat, some.dungeon rooms, and certain social areas like a bar or plaza where I want to just let the players be free to interact with NPC's and groups they can see.

While individual interpretations and mental visions are great for everyone to see it in their own mind, sometimes "the bar is crowded, some ppl are rowdy" doesn't quite illustrate an interactive envoronment well enough; whereas a drawn out bar loaded with mini's in goups doing bar sh't sometimes can get the players and myself into some really fun role-playing and improv.

Tldr: in short-why not have the best of both worlds.

[Tanarii]

These are all things that level 20 characters can do stock. If you want to constrain yourself by what the "Guy at the Gym" can do, don't play D&D. Or any non-real-world TTRPG for that matter, as all of them involve people doing "unrealistic" things.

Verisimilitude should be about what's plausible in-universe. Not what's true of our universe.
[/quote]Yeah okay, my objection to the concept wasn't really justified. I got too invested in my argument.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah okay, my objection to the concept wasn't really justified. I got too invested in my argument.

I hear you. I've had several recently where I just had to put the keyboard down and walk away (despite people being wrong on the internet). No worries. We're cool.

[HidesHisEyes]

When I DM, i do both. Because there is a place for each, they are both fun when done well and the party is familiar with eachother and the DM. Mini's and grid for combat, some.dungeon rooms, and certain social areas like a bar or plaza where I want to just let the players be free to interact with NPC's and groups they can see.

While individual interpretations and mental visions are great for everyone to see it in their own mind, sometimes "the bar is crowded, some ppl are rowdy" doesn't quite illustrate an interactive envoronment well enough; whereas a drawn out bar loaded with mini's in goups doing bar sh't sometimes can get the players and myself into some really fun role-playing and improv.

Tldr: in short-why not have the best of both worlds.

This is actually the first time I've heard of anyone using a grid and minis for non-combat situations. Very interesting idea.

It's been a fascinating discussion. I'm especially interested by all those who see the grid as something that opens up possibilities rather than shuts them down. I think this may be my way forward - try to remember that the grid is a convenient representation of the scene, not the scene itself. I actually have a friend who's very good at this, who plays a barbarian in our games and where many people would say "rage, attack" on every turn he is constantly finding ways to interact with even the relatively few environmental features I draw on the grid (usually on the spur of the moment right there at the table).

If you're interested in this whole subject you really should read the Reddit post I linked to in my opening post. TotM vs Grid wasn't the point of that, it was really all about integrating combat into the larger game and stopping combat from eating up so much time. I just thought TotM might be more conducive to those goals than the grid.

I am going to continue using the grid for now, and just try to lead by example with monsters that behave the way they should in terms of the larger narrative, as opposed to "my job is to hack at these adventurers until they kill me".

[mcsillas]

I'm not saying anyone is wrong for liking to play D&D without minis, but you are wrong about the original game: tabletop miniatures was absolutely how RPGs were originally designed. D&D (the first/original RPG) was literally designed as an expansion/supplement to a tabletop miniature war game (called Chainmail). You may note that tthings in the 1e AD&D rules are listed in inches, because you were meant to be measuring how far your characters could move across the table and the range of spells, AoE, missiles, etc. The DMG specifically references the scale of miniatures generally used, has rules for facing on both sorts of grid, and splash patterns for grenade-like attacks (so you can tell when a shield or dex bonus counts on AC and how many opponents can attack at once).

So yes, D&D was originally designed to be played with minis on a tabletop and potentially a grid from its inception. Did lots of people play without those things? Yes, and I did, too, many times. But doing so does take away a chunk of what was intended to be the game.

You're correct - 1st edition was based on Chainmail; however, 2nd edition was not. 3rd is where the grid was reintroduced to D&D. What brought me back to D&D was that 5th has moved back to the 2nd edition style of play that facilitates TotM, while also allowing for the variant play of using a grid PH Pg 192.

[Tanarii]

I hear you. I've had several recently where I just had to put the keyboard down and walk away (despite people being wrong on the internet). No worries. We're cool.Yeah I have to do that a lot. If if keep responding I end up doing all the cliche internet argument things because I get tunnel vision. If I leave off, sometimes I can see the other point of view. For example ...


Tldr: in short-why not have the best of both worlds.
Not gonna go that far, but this thread has convinced me to trial run a white board for general positioning (playbook style) with one of my groups, and see if they prefer it for additional clarity.

[HidesHisEyes]

Yeah I have to do that a lot. If if keep responding I end up doing all the cliche internet argument things because I get tunnel vision. If I leave off, sometimes I can see the other point of view. For example ...


Not gonna go that far, but this thread has convinced me to trial run a white board for general positioning (playbook style) with one of my groups, and see if they prefer it for additional clarity.

Good job, GitP, we are doing Internet forum discussions right. Bonus points for all of us because no one used the word "fallacy" once!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Good job, GitP, we are doing Internet forum discussions right. Bonus points for all of us because no one used the word "fallacy" once!

I've been making a major effort to walk away from discussions when I'm getting heated. Boy I love being right (or sometimes, with some posters, them being wrong), but I hate how I feel when I'm mad (especially about silly things). I once had a 30-minute, knock-down, drag-out argument over whether we should pasteurize milk. That was pointless.

I personally detest the habit of using claimed fallacies as a weapon to shut down conversations. I like the ideas behind a lot of the GitP fallacies/laws, but they're ideas and heuristics that inform or caution--they can't be used to "prove" the other person wrong (especially just by claiming that they've committed such fallacies). Often I find them deployed by those who can't (or won't) argue substance.

More on topic, I think that this is something DMs should experiment with. The answer isn't gonna be the same for every group (or even every situation in every group). Find something that works for you and yours, taking into account the pros and cons that have been discussed.

[Telwar]

The only time I don't like minis is when it takes a while for the DM to draw out the map, and then the tomcat jumps on the table and lies down in the middle of the minis, and then I'm not entirely clear on where my gobber was and I feel bad about moving him to a slightly more advantageous position. His sister, no, she just walks through them without disturbing anything, but he just thwumps through them even if he is just walking across the table.

Worse, he won't cooperate as a mini in the game to be a colossal black dragon, no matter how nicely we ask him.


But yeah, I generally prefer minis over TotM in D&D. It's not that TotM doesn't work, it's just that it's very easy for players to get wildly different views of the battlefield, and as a DM you keep having to constantly remind people of where everyone is, and I feel I can better spend that mental effort on trying to kill the PCs er, creating an engaging fight for them.

[HidesHisEyes]

The only time I don't like minis is when it takes a while for the DM to draw out the map, and then the tomcat jumps on the table and lies down in the middle of the minis, and then I'm not entirely clear on where my gobber was and I feel bad about moving him to a slightly more advantageous position. His sister, no, she just walks through them without disturbing anything, but he just thwumps through them even if he is just walking across the table.

Worse, he won't cooperate as a mini in the game to be a colossal black dragon, no matter how nicely we ask him.


But yeah, I generally prefer minis over TotM in D&D. It's not that TotM doesn't work, it's just that it's very easy for players to get wildly different views of the battlefield, and as a DM you keep having to constantly remind people of where everyone is, and I feel I can better spend that mental effort on trying to kill the PCs er, creating an engaging fight for them.

When I had a cat I was ten and was playing The Sorcerer's Cave rather than D&D but I had the same issue 😆

[Thrudd]

You're correct - 1st edition was based on Chainmail; however, 2nd edition was not. 3rd is where the grid was reintroduced to D&D. What brought me back to D&D was that 5th has moved back to the 2nd edition style of play that facilitates TotM, while also allowing for the variant play of using a grid PH Pg 192.

5e doesn't so much "facilitate" TotM, it's more that it suggests that it's ok to ignore stuff about movement and distance if you feel like it. If they wanted to actually make TotM "the way" D&D was supposed to be played, they would introduce rules that abstracted speed and distances and positioning and word abilities and spells in such a way to interact with the abstract TotM rules rather than listing everything in feet. That has never yet been done in a D&D edition.

And it was definitely inaccurate to say that using minis and grids/measurements and tactical combat wasn't a thing until 3e, which is what your original argument was. It was assumed from the very first inception of D&D. It's true that 2e DMG didn't actually say anything about using grids or miniatures (for the first and last time), but still had everything listed in feet and yards and didn't introduce any rules for abstraction. It talks about facing, determining the range of missiles etc., implying that you're doing something to track the character's relative positions and distances in a non-abstract way. There were companies making miniatures specifically for 2e AD&D from the beginning (not just after Combat and Tactics came out).

So TotM is sure a valid and easy way to play, requires less space and more convenient in some situations. But it isn't the default way inferred by the rules, nor strongly supported mechanically in any edition.

[Matrix_Walker]

My whole problem with the "fog of war" analogies is that's not how it measures up in play. Invariably you finally catch a detail no one thought to ask about but would be clear as day if you were in the situation (sometimes revealing why your tactics for the last three rounds were fundamentally flawed).

[mcsillas]

So TotM is sure a valid and easy way to play, requires less space and more convenient in some situations. But it isn't the default way inferred by the rules, nor strongly supported mechanically in any edition.

Wrong, and you can keep trying to beat this point to a pulp, but your statement is not correct. Try the DMG Pg 250, "Using Miniatures". It is very clear that the grid is not the default way to conduct combat. The grid is to be used as a tool in complex combat situations. If you choose to use the grid in every combat situation you face, fine, and it appears that many do, but trying to tell me that the grid is the standard way to run combat and that TotM is not strongly supported mechanically is nonsensical. Look at how cover is handled in the PH 196: it doesn't reference a grid at all, only that a target can benefit from cover when an attack originates from the opposite side - TotM.

[napoleon_in_rag]

I only play theater of the mind. Role playing games were originally designed to be played in this manner. You can see that in 1st and 2nd edition, as well as a large majority of the other original RPGs were played this way. It wasn't until D&D 3.0, for the most part, that you started to see the grid.

I have been playing since Original AD&D and grids, hexes, and miniatures have always been a part of the game. Remember that the original system grew out of the Chainmail miniature war game rules. So even the earliest version was aimed at movement and tactics, not just what the dm saw in their mind.

[mcsillas]

I have been playing since Original AD&D and grids, hexes, and miniatures have always been a part of the game. Remember that the original system grew out of the Chainmail miniature war game rules. So even the earliest version was aimed at movement and tactics, not just what the dm saw in their mind.

Yes, that has been pointed out and I edited my comment to that effect. However, this doesn't have any bearing on the fact that 5th has reverted back to a 2nd edition style of play that does not require the use of a grid for effective combat.

[Thrudd]

Minis and measurements not required - True.
Effective and efficient use of the rules as written without visual aids and measurements of any kind -this is what I dispute. I would argue that from a gameplay/mechanics standpoint it is decidedly suboptimal (which is not a judgment on anyone's preference or ability to DM).

When I say "not strongly supported mechanically", I mean the designers put no thought into rules that actually simplify and abstract the combat procedure sufficiently to be able to provide a comparable objective experience to using minis on the tabletop. They said "you don't need them" but gave no way to make that work besides "just keep all the distances and relative positions of characters in your head". Which has been the way TotM in D&D has always worked/not worked.

Without minis and measurements, the game experience varies even more wildly than normal between DMs, the utility of various abilities and equipment that by-the-book should be relatively balanced/reasonable can fluctuate from completely useless to overpowered. Whether or not certain abilities work and how often they can work comes to depend more or entirely on the DM's adjudication rather than objective action taken by the player. Some DMs will be very objective and have a map of the area or carefully track distances and movement, and have objective answers for how far away things are and whether a character can reach cover or exactly how distant enemies are (of course still requiring players asking instead of just looking and deciding for themselves). Other DMs will be very "wobbly" about it all, and decide on the fly or have only a vague idea of distances and ranges, resulting in players having less control over the effectiveness of their actions.

[Tanarii]

I have been playing since Original AD&D and grids, hexes, and miniatures have always been a part of the game. Remember that the original system grew out of the Chainmail miniature war game rules. So even the earliest version was aimed at movement and tactics, not just what the dm saw in their mind.
I started in 1985 on BECMI and AD&D 1e. I don't know anyone that used minis. otoh I was playing in junior and high school for my first eight years, and no one could afford them. By the time I hit college in '93, 2e was well established.

It wasn't until 2e Combat&Tactics and 3e, and me getting heavily int FLGS play that battle-mat play was something I encountered regularly. I played it all the way through the end of 4e. It's fun. But it has some rather massive downsides. So I'm glad 5e was designed to be played without minis/battlemat first, then had specific rules for battlemats added second. The ability to roll back to the way I learned to play D&D is a refreshing change.

However, as I said in my very first post, going completely TotM and map/diagram-free makes it very hard to not confuse players in a big battle. So my takeaway from this thread is I should introduce basic diagrams, white boarded, to a test table. And see what kind of feedback and changes in play result.

[napoleon_in_rag]

Yes, that has been pointed out and I edited my comment to that effect. However, this doesn't have any bearing on the fact that 5th has reverted back to a 2nd edition style of play that does not require the use of a grid for effective combat.

TSR released 2e rules for miniatures in 1989, the same year 2e was released. I think it was it called skirmishes. As I recall, it used miniatures with out a grid with 1" equaling 10'.

I played 2e more than any other edition. We didn't use miniatures but we did draw out maps on grid paper and used pennies to represent the characters. 2e might of had a one minute round but there were still movement rules and special abilities and a of e attacks that need a map for accuracy.

I don't think any edition NEEDS to use a grid. I do think in 5e that there are abilities in every class that lose utility in the theater of the mind.

[Blue Lantern]

But trained fighters do much better, almost at the instinctive level. I'm always wary of assuming that our characters are just like us. They're (mostly, if they survive level 1) experienced combatants and professional adventurers. They're supposed to be aware of everything happening around them (this is extrapolated from the surprise rules and the opportunity attack rules, etc). From talking to my friends that have served in combat (I used to live next to a major military base, so I had quite a few of them), what you lose is awareness of things out of sight. People can duck behind walls and it's easy to lose track of them if there are other threats active. This is one of the reasons urban combat is so risky. A professional should be aware of anything within sensory range and not concealed.

It's a (much weaker) variant of the "Guy at the Gym" issue (at least in my mind).

The only issue I have with this comparison is that even the best trained and experienced soldier awareness of his surrounding is a far cry to having a perfect top down vision of the battlefield that ignores obstacles and allows precise measure for movement and fire.
I highly doubt that there is a soldier that is able, in a few seconds, to throw a grenade with pinpoint accuracy to perfectly maximise the number of enemies caught in the blast while perfectly avoiding friendly fire, sometimes with just inches of difference between the two. Now compare that to 90% of the wizards using fireball when there is a grid involved and you see the disconnect right away.

Personally I like both methods, I have a slight preference for TotM, when done well, because it helps both keeping the players engaged and in picturing the situation properly.

The problem is that TotM is harder to do well than grid and maps, because it requires, first of all, a good DM who is able, not only of doing good and clear descriptions, but also of keeping track of the situation moment to moment, and is quick enough to his feet to fairly adjudicate any player action.

Another thing that TotM requires imho, is an higher level of trust between players and DM.

The last difficulty is that TotM becomes exponentially harder to do the more players and pieces are involved in the battle.

I don't know if anyone has watched the D&D stream Dice, Camera, Action, there Chris Perkins uses TotM and is a perfect example of when and how it can work.

[MrStabby]

I used to be a die-hard TotM guy, till 5th came along. 5th's speed/lack of superfluous rules sped things up and the extra baggage of TotM stood out a lot more.

A grid also works well with a lot of other 5th edition features such as bounded accuracy.

Bounded accuracy lets multiple small threats still be dangerous, as dangerous as a big threat. Now if you go down the TotM route this is a bit of a problem. Either you have the burden of trying to describe where 20 goblins are or you are forced into dealing with "clouds" of them - "six of them near the door, five near the staircase, six in the middle of the room...". Neither are quite adequate for me where I want to have individuals hiding behind pillars, hiding behind doors. Being able to have the whole table simultaneously grasp where everyone is and which enemies have already been subjected to attacks. I can explain everything but it does take a long time, results in a lot more questions and generally slows the game down.

I think it also works well as we use roll20 quite a bit. With dynamic lighting and all of that you can pre-prepare a lot to make it run smoother.

[Blacky the Blackball]

The relationship between early D&D and miniature use isn't a simple as it sounds.

On the one hand, the game was a modified version of Chainmail - which was a miniatures wargame - so most of the combat and magic rules were inherited from that game and talked about things in terms of inches as if on a map (and the assumption was that there were different scales for indoor and outdoor: indoors was 1":10', outdoors was 1":30').

But on the other hand, Gary Gygax very rarely used miniatures when actually DMing the game. He would use TotM. In fact, reports from some of his players are that sometimes he would go even further, in that he wouldn't just use some kind of screen to block the players from seeing his notes; he'd be completely hidden behind his desk so the players wouldn't be able to see him at all and they'd just hear his voice describing things. As far as he was concerned, the action should all be taking place in the players' imaginations and even seeing him would be a distraction.

So basically the game has been split between miniatures and TotM right from its very beginning. Anyone saying that the early game was strictly one or the other is only giving half the story.

[Max_Killjoy]

I prefer having a visual reference rather than strict TotM. Too many times have I run into "He's hiding behind the crates" "what crates" "It's a warehouse" "but you didn't mention crates" "you should have asked if there were crates if you wanted to hide."


I've played with the GM who constantly fell back on "that was implied, you should have inferred it" and "you should have asked"... it was maddening.

Somewhat like your situation, we ended up as a group forcing him to sketch out locations where things mattered, and pushing back on details he left out by saying "if you get to imply things and drop in details, so do we".

Whether it's grids and minis, rough sketch maps, or ToTM, the GM and players have established a common mental image of the space the characters are in, or the game has a very high suck potential.

[Max_Killjoy]

Situational awareness is key in battle (or so I've heard). If you tunnel vision, you die. Quickly. Also, if you're actually there you would know extremely well how the terrain is around you. Verbal descriptions are very lossy--you can only convey a tiny fraction of what someone actually there would see and feel in any reasonable amount of time.

I've never played with people who could do TotM right. Too many questions about what's there. It requires everyone to be paying absolute attention and for the DM to describe things perfectly, otherwise different interpretations of the same words leads to "wait, what?" moments and retconning (or hurt feelings/feeling like the DM is playing gotcha games). This is my experience, anyway. Some kind of map is important to have a shared understanding of the battle-space.



The closest I've come is paintball. And I can tell you, as soon as the game starts, situational awareness goes right out the window. Sure, I can believe it's key. Tht makes perfect sense, if 'normal' is a complete lack of it.



But trained fighters do much better, almost at the instinctive level. I'm always wary of assuming that our characters are just like us. They're (mostly, if they survive level 1) experienced combatants and professional adventurers. They're supposed to be aware of everything happening around them (this is extrapolated from the surprise rules and the opportunity attack rules, etc). From talking to my friends that have served in combat (I used to live next to a major military base, so I had quite a few of them), what you lose is awareness of things out of sight. People can duck behind walls and it's easy to lose track of them if there are other threats active. This is one of the reasons urban combat is so risky. A professional should be aware of anything within sensory range and not concealed.

It's a (much weaker) variant of the "Guy at the Gym" issue (at least in my mind).



Whats that got to do with the price of milk?

Do all your PCs always have the Soldier background?

You're right. Because avoiding "Guy at the Gym" is the excuse people who want to play anime or a video game instead of fantasy trpgs use to break verisimilitude.




No, but they have something better (beyond level 1, at least). Experience. Otherwise they aren't above level 1, by definition.

So you can shoot fire from your fingertips? The guy at the gym can carry 300 pounds without slowing down, while making 4 real attacks per 6 seconds and moving 30 feet? Or maybe 8 attacks in 6 seconds and moving 30 feet? Or running along walls 60 feet in 6 seconds and making 4 attacks? Or surviving hits from dragons 3x their size? These are all things that level 20 characters can do stock. If you want to constrain yourself by what the "Guy at the Gym" can do, don't play D&D. Or any non-real-world TTRPG for that matter, as all of them involve people doing "unrealistic" things.

Verisimilitude should be about what's plausible in-universe. Not what's true of our universe.



Yeah okay, my objection to the concept wasn't really justified. I got too invested in my argument.



I hear you. I've had several recently where I just had to put the keyboard down and walk away (despite people being wrong on the internet). No worries. We're cool.



Yeah I have to do that a lot. If if keep responding I end up doing all the cliche internet argument things because I get tunnel vision. If I leave off, sometimes I can see the other point of view. For example ...


Not gonna go that far, but this thread has convinced me to trial run a white board for general positioning (playbook style) with one of my groups, and see if they prefer it for additional clarity.



Good job, GitP, we are doing Internet forum discussions right. Bonus points for all of us because no one used the word "fallacy" once!


I've been making a major effort to walk away from discussions when I'm getting heated. Boy I love being right (or sometimes, with some posters, them being wrong), but I hate how I feel when I'm mad (especially about silly things). I once had a 30-minute, knock-down, drag-out argument over whether we should pasteurize milk. That was pointless.

I personally detest the habit of using claimed fallacies as a weapon to shut down conversations. I like the ideas behind a lot of the GitP fallacies/laws, but they're ideas and heuristics that inform or caution--they can't be used to "prove" the other person wrong (especially just by claiming that they've committed such fallacies). Often I find them deployed by those who can't (or won't) argue substance.

More on topic, I think that this is something DMs should experiment with. The answer isn't gonna be the same for every group (or even every situation in every group). Find something that works for you and yours, taking into account the pros and cons that have been discussed.




Tunnel vision -- This is a problem for people in actual combat and combat-like situations, and there's deliberate effort in the training to mitigate it for those expected to go into these situations. All that screaming and verbal jabbing, all that pushing and stress and crawling in mud and simulated gunfire, is in part to get soldiers so that they can handle insanely stressful situations without freaking out. And there are breathing exercises to help settle the system into a state that is fired up for combat without being so fired up that the tunnel vision sets in.


On the subject of fallacies -- I don't know what's more aggravating, having someone throw in a comment that's a blatant fallacy as if they're proclaiming truth, sometimes to the point that they might as well be repeating the quoted examples from the definition of the fallacy... or people who have no idea what the fallacy is and just start throwing it around because they think it makes them "the winner" by some sort of textual magic. Often it will be the same person, to the point where I've seen someone commit the strawman fallacy in the process of inaccurately accusing someone else of committing the strawman fallacy. (Inaccurate both in that they weren't responding to what the person actually said, and in that they clearly had no idea what a "strawman" is.)


On the subject of "situational layout" -- Do what works. Whatever does the best job, for a particular group, of keeping everyone in the moment and moving forward and on the same page as to what's going on around the characters, that's the thing that group should use. This is one of those things where picking the tool that works is far more important than finding One True Way.

[Tanarii]

Somewhat like your situation, we ended up as a group forcing him to sketch out locations where things mattered, and pushing back on details he left out by saying "if you get to imply things and drop in details, so do we". That actually works fine as long as everyone is on board with it. Although I found it works better in not-D&D games. Either while playing D&D or the kind of people that play D&D, seem to come from the idea that the world is described/designed exclusively by the DM, and the players merely interact with it. Probably because the various DMGs put it that way, in general terms. Which is fine and dandy if that's what people want, and in fact I prefer it as a general rule.

But I played in one memorable Rifts game where we got to drop in details that 'made sense', and it made that ramshackle system a whole lot more fun. Also ran a couple of Warhammer RPG sessions that way, although it ended up making the place a lot darker than I intended. Players were 'seeing' (ie describing) chaos corruption everywhere.

Thinking about it, that actually wouldn't be a bad approach in many games. Many DMs forget basic stuff like weather, lighting, obscuring effects (especially foliage), and of course cover. This is true both in TotM and when filling in battle mats IMX. Of course, giving players the ability to 'create' these things might break some peoples immersion far worse.

Edit: this also could work when setting up a battle mat, as opposed to doing it on the fly during battle. Let players jump in and add details that would 'make sense' while laying things out.

[Max_Killjoy]

That actually works fine as long as everyone is on board with it. Although I found it works better in not-D&D games. Either while playing D&D or the kind of people that play D&D, seem to come from the idea that the world is described/designed exclusively by the DM, and the players merely interact with it. Probably because the various DMGs put it that way, in general terms. Which is fine and dandy if that's what people want, and in fact I prefer it as a general rule.

But I played in one memorable Rifts game where we got to drop in details that 'made sense', and it made that ramshackle system a whole lot more fun. Also ran a couple of Warhammer RPG sessions that way, although it ended up making the place a lot darker than I intended. Players were 'seeing' (ie describing) chaos corruption everywhere.

Thinking about it, that actually wouldn't be a bad approach in many games. Many DMs forget basic stuff like weather, lighting, obscuring effects (especially foliage), and of course cover. This is true both in TotM and when filling in battle mats IMX. Of course, giving players the ability to 'create' these things might break some peoples immersion far worse.

Edit: this also could work when setting up a battle mat, as opposed to doing it on the fly during battle. Let players jump in and add details that would 'make sense' while laying things out.

In our specific case, we didn't do it to assert that the players should get to add world details on the fly, so much as we did it to make the point that the GM wasn't being upfront with crucial details (we could never pin down how much was because he was not grasping that his mental picture didn't automatically translate to our mental picture, versus how much was because he was just making stuff up on the fly based on his wonky notion of "challenge").

[HidesHisEyes]

That actually works fine as long as everyone is on board with it. Although I found it works better in not-D&D games. Either while playing D&D or the kind of people that play D&D, seem to come from the idea that the world is described/designed exclusively by the DM, and the players merely interact with it. Probably because the various DMGs put it that way, in general terms. Which is fine and dandy if that's what people want, and in fact I prefer it as a general rule.

But I played in one memorable Rifts game where we got to drop in details that 'made sense', and it made that ramshackle system a whole lot more fun. Also ran a couple of Warhammer RPG sessions that way, although it ended up making the place a lot darker than I intended. Players were 'seeing' (ie describing) chaos corruption everywhere.

Thinking about it, that actually wouldn't be a bad approach in many games. Many DMs forget basic stuff like weather, lighting, obscuring effects (especially foliage), and of course cover. This is true both in TotM and when filling in battle mats IMX. Of course, giving players the ability to 'create' these things might break some peoples immersion far worse.

Edit: this also could work when setting up a battle mat, as opposed to doing it on the fly during battle. Let players jump in and add details that would 'make sense' while laying things out.

Yeah it's not the way I like to do RPGs, either as a DM or a player. As a player I just want to roleplay my character, and that means I only have control over the things my character has control over. I just find it easier an more fun this way; I'm not writing the story, I'm participating in it as a character. I'm not too keen on FATE and other systems that do the "I declare..." thing, for the same reason.

The only exception is players determining their characters' backgrounds, since that necessarily entails the player declaring some things. In this case, as a DM I like finding ways to weave the PCs' backgrounds into my world.

[Beelzebubba]

I started in 1985 on BECMI and AD&D 1e. I don't know anyone that used minis. otoh I was playing in junior and high school for my first eight years, and no one could afford them. By the time I hit college in '93, 2e was well established.

It wasn't until 2e Combat&Tactics and 3e, and me getting heavily int FLGS play that battle-mat play was something I encountered regularly. I played it all the way through the end of 4e. It's fun. But it has some rather massive downsides. So I'm glad 5e was designed to be played without minis/battlemat first, then had specific rules for battlemats added second. The ability to roll back to the way I learned to play D&D is a refreshing change.

However, as I said in my very first post, going completely TotM and map/diagram-free makes it very hard to not confuse players in a big battle. So my takeaway from this thread is I should introduce basic diagrams, white boarded, to a test table. And see what kind of feedback and changes in play result.

Counterpoint: My AD&D groups even as far back as 1983 used minis. Our FLGS had cabinets of the most gorgeously-painted ones I've ever seen, and their store gaming tables were covered in grids.

TotM has a breaking point, and it means you give up on SOMEthing eventually. Whether it's having fewer combatants, tactically less complex situations to untangle, omitting the effects and influences of cool environmental things, or making battlefield control spells very 'mother may I' because there isn't enough objective knowledge on the part of the player, you end up just hand-waving away parts of the game.

And, the most fun I've ever had in a large scale battle was in a complex room, getting nets dropped on us by a mix of Sahaugin and other monsters, with eight characters, and different parts of the room being washed over by waves at different times. Impossible with ToTM.

It doesn't necessarily need to be gridded 3E style, but having a visual of some kind is helpful more often than not.

[Saeviomage]

I personally quite like using a map, because it can be much faster than trying to describe where things are to everyone's satisfaction.

However, I agree that using a grid can be distracting, as can measuring with a ruler.

So I guess my favourite would be "use minis on a map with a scale, but don't use any measuring devices". You can pretty much eyeball if something will be in range, and there's no real reason to leave someone 5' out of melee if they charge or something like that.

Does it make the halfling with a 25' move pretty much the same as the human with a 30' move? Sure, but do you really care? Things like that are more important in chases or overland hikes or the like. In combat, it feels arbitrary.

[Knaight]

Yeah it's not the way I like to do RPGs, either as a DM or a player. As a player I just want to roleplay my character, and that means I only have control over the things my character has control over. I just find it easier an more fun this way; I'm not writing the story, I'm participating in it as a character. I'm not too keen on FATE and other systems that do the "I declare..." thing, for the same reason.

On the other hand, there's a whole bunch of reasonable declarations. My favorite example for this is "I pick up a stick" when in a forest. Sure, the presence of a stick may not have been explicitly specified. However it's a forest, and it really shouldn't have to be.

[HidesHisEyes]

On the other hand, there's a whole bunch of reasonable declarations. My favorite example for this is "I pick up a stick" when in a forest. Sure, the presence of a stick may not have been explicitly specified. However it's a forest, and it really shouldn't have to be.

That's true, I do absolutely use declarations to the extent that my players can't expect me to state every single detail so I can't expect them to play using only the details I've stated. I was talking more about "I declare the gate guard has a thing for elves and fancies me" or something. I often roll randomly for that kind of thing, since if the players are going the seduction route then I don't know how likely it is to succeed since I haven't written a whole psychological profile for every NPC. I'd rather not have mechanics that let the players decide, that's all.

[Psikerlord]

For me it's 100% totm, maybe with the occasional scratch map to help folks understand relative locations

I used to use ****loads of minis and maps. For years. And that's fun too in it's own way.

But I find totm promotes better PC/GM improv, RPing, side treks and random encounters. And this is gold. It is also ime faster. Yes, you give up a bit of precise detail - but for me the benefits of totm far outweigh the drawbacks. I commend it to all who haven't tried it.

One note - totm doesn't work with all systems. It's fine for 5e for example. Cant do it with 4e however, well not ime. We played 4e for 4 years or so and always had grids out

[Elric VIII]

I've recently joined a group that uses TotM and it just feels to me like an old final fantasy game. Everyone takes their turn smacking each other and there is no tactical movement beyond "you start x feet apart" and "I move toward the enemy." I'm sure this isn't everyone's experience, but I really miss out on the war game feel of combat.

[Kane0]

Yay.

It's nice to have the choice between using physical materials and a full naration approach. There's appeal to each, so having the ability to do both is great.

[Blacky the Blackball]

Yay.

It's nice to have the choice between using physical materials and a full naration approach. There's appeal to each, so having the ability to do both is great.

And, of course, it's not a simple choice of the two. Some examples include:

1) Everything's simply verbally described.

2) There's a basic sketched map to give people an idea of the area, but positioning of combatants is just verbally described.

3) There's a whiteboard with marks and arrows showing vaguely who is where.

4) Figures (or figure proxies) are used on the table, with books and other objects arranged to give an approximation of the shape of the area.

5) There's a grid, and figures are moved square by square.

6) There's full modeled terrain and furniture.

I've used everything from 1-5 in the past. Although I've been an advocate of TotM in this thread, which is basically 1-2 on this scale, I'll happily move up to 3 or even 4 if it's a complex situation with lots of combatants. I've done 5 in the past, but I can't envisage a situation where my group would want to bother with it again (I still have the figures and grid though, so we could if we really wanted to).