A theater of the Mind movement and distance system?

[Whiskeyjack8044]

I'm not exactly a man of means, and I don't get to indulge my obsession with Dungeons & Dragons enough to justify spending money on Miniatures or mats (and I'm hopeless with computers, alas Roll20 is beyond me) so I've always played using theater of the Mind.

Theater of the mind has a lot of advantages, but it is a lot harder to adjudicate movement, distance, and so on. I would really like some feedback on the system that I've come up with to deal with that, and maybe even some better alternatives that are already out there.

* I've split distance up by units of 10ft. Most races will start with "3" movement.

*Each 10ft of movement gained by feat or class feature becomes another point of movement.

*Dwarfs, Halflings, Gnomes, and any other race that would have 25ft of movement now have 30ft of movement for the purpose of combat(or 3 movement as it is called in this system).

*The above races will have disadvantage during skill challenges involving Pursuit or Evasion. Wood Elves gain advantage due to the Fleet of Foot Feature.

* Enemies will be described at 5 distances: Adjacent requires no movement to melee attack; Near requires one movement to melee attack; Short-distance requires two movement to melee attack; Long-distance requires three movement to melee attack; Far is beyond the movement range of most races, the DM must tell the the player how much movement is required to reach the target.

*The Dash action immediately doubles your movement, so most races will have 6 movement after taking the Dash action.

* Effectively, A Player can go into melee range with three Near enemies, two Near enemis and one Short-Distant enemy, two Short-Distant enemy, or one Near-Distant enemy and one Long-Distant enemy.

I had X-com on the brain when I came up with this system. Do should I tweak anything? Has anyone already come up with a better system? Please let me know.

P.s. I'm not a game designer by any stretch of the imagination, I realize the system requires a little bit of suspension of disbelief due to how abstract it is, but it's designed to simplify things and make adjudication easy for the DM, and options clear to the players.

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm not exactly a man of means, and I don't get to indulge my obsession with Dungeons & Dragons enough to justify spending money on Miniatures or mats (and I'm hopeless with computers, alas Roll20 is beyond me) so I've always played using theater of the Mind.

Theater of the mind has a lot of advantages, but it is a lot harder to adjudicate movement, distance, and so on. I would really like some feedback on the system that I've come up with to deal with that, and maybe even some better alternatives that are already out there.

* I've split distance up by units of 10ft. Most races will start with "3" movement.

*Each 10ft of movement gained by feat or class feature becomes another point of movement.

*Dwarfs, Halflings, Gnomes, and any other race that would have 25ft of movement now have 30ft of movement for the purpose of combat(or 3 movement as it is called in this system).

*The above races will have disadvantage during skill challenges involving Pursuit or Evasion. Wood Elves gain advantage due to the Fleet of Foot Feature.

* Enemies will be described at 5 distances: Adjacent requires no movement to melee attack; Near requires one movement to melee attack; Short-distance requires two movement to melee attack; Long-distance requires three movement to melee attack; Far is beyond the movement range of most races, the DM must tell the the player how much movement is required to reach the target.

*The Dash action immediately doubles your movement, so most races will have 6 movement after taking the Dash action.

* Effectively, A Player can go into melee range with three Near enemies, two Near enemis and one Short-Distant enemy, two Short-Distant enemy, or one Near-Distant enemy and one Long-Distant enemy.

I had X-com on the brain when I came up with this system. Do should I tweak anything? Has anyone already come up with a better system? Please let me know.

P.s. I'm not a game designer by any stretch of the imagination, I realize the system requires a little bit of suspension of disbelief due to how abstract it is, but it's designed to simplify things and make adjudication easy for the DM, and options clear to the players.

One particular problem is the issue of trying to make everything's speed follow the "3" movement rule while also using the same distances for describing things.

13th Age is an RPG system made by some of the designers of 4e, and it uses a Theatre of the Mind system with very strict mechanical rules. I'd just follow their example. For them, moving 30 feet is a distance increment:





TofM
Very Far
Far
Close
Adjacent


Real Distance
90 feet
60 feet
30 feet
5 feet


Increment
3
2
1
0



Any change to your speed (from Longstrider, wearing heavy armor, or Difficult Terrain) makes you move half an increment instead of a full increment. So if you're Very Far, trying to close the distance, you're now halfway between Very Far and Far. If you need precision for this, using the increment scale, this would just be represented by a 2.5.

Unfortunately, 5e does utilize certain things that adjust speeds in increments of 5, 10 and 15, so it makes a simplified system more difficult, but I'd just recommend making it so that any change of 10 feet using in-game mechanics just rounds to be half an increment of difference (so Dwarves move as fast as everyone, despite having 25 speed, but Ray of Frost reduces your movement by half, despite mechanically reducing it by 10).


Your example is very similar, but converting everything to 3 feet increments may be more difficult, especially since almost everything can be rounded to 15ft or 30ft increments pretty easily.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Your idea kinda reminds me of Zones (https://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/zones) in the Fate system. If you're in a Zone, you're in melee range of anyone else in there; one Zone away is sorta point blank, short ranged attack/quick sprint to cover, and beyond that is long range.

That said, it sounds like you want to keep some of the tactics? In which case I suggest a dry erase battlemap (Pazio makes some excellent ones for I think ~$10) and a roll of quarters or nickles. Instead of pulling out a mini, just write "G" on the coins for the goblins and "M" for the manticore they're hunting. That's been my go-to for a while.

[sophontteks]

I use a far more simplified system that doesn't change the rules. Its more like the zones idea. Most engagements start either 30 feet away or 60 feet away. Some enemies are behind others and I typically allow those with movement bonuses the ability to reach them, depending on how great the movement bonus is.

[JackPhoenix]

What money? Pretty much anything can serve as a token, and a big sheet of paper (or four A4 sheets of paper held together with scotch tape) with hand (and propably ruler) drawn grid is all you need.

Speaking from experience with an edition much more dependant on battlemaps than 5e.

[Man_Over_Game]

What money? Pretty much anything can serve as a token, and a big sheet of paper (or four A4 sheets of paper held together with scotch tape) with hand (and propably ruler) drawn grid is all you need.

Speaking from experience with an edition much more dependant on battlemaps than 5e.

Flip American wrapping paper upside down for a grid and tape it down, as it has a square inch grid that's designed to be for measuring. As for tokens, I've always been a big fan of using bottlecaps. Have someone bring over a new case of beer each session and keep the caps for minions and players.

[Whiskeyjack8044]

Thanks for the advice as always guys, a pressing question, does this system put caster too at risk?

The above system makes everyone more mobile. I like the term rings, to get into the "Near ring" you spend one movement, to move inside the same ring you spend one more movement and so on. To get to the "Short-distance ring" you spend 2 movement, or 1 movement if you have already spent one to enter the "Near ring". And of course you must spend 3 movement(or 1 per ring) to reach the "Long-distance" ring.

Think of it as a radius around where you begin the turn. If you spend all your movement in the "Near ring" you can literally run circles around everyone.