Why do you like Theater of the Mind?

[Catullus64]

In the latest campaign that I'm running, I've made a decision to try going all-theater-of-the-mind for combat. Usually I make maps for every encounter, but since I've been shorter on time, and this is a fairly open-ended campaign, I decided to give theater-of-the-mind a try for the first time since I started DMing 5e.

So far, I'm pleased with the results; the players have been enjoying combat, and the fights seem to move fairly quickly. But aside from speed, I'm struggling to put into words why it seems to have been working so well. Like... it definitely feels different from running combat on a grid or tactical map; the fights seem like they flow more seamlessly in and out of the broader narrative. I'm interested if anyone who does a lot of TotM has ruminated on this, and can put into words why it feels better.

If it helps anyone with making an argument, here are brief summaries of the fights which have transpired in the campaign so far:


This is a combat with only two actors, one player and one NPC. A brash local youth is blocking a bridge, refusing to let anyone pass as part of a grand gesture to win over a girl. One of the PCs decides to wrestle with him.

The players go hunting wolves, who have been made more aggressive and coordinated by the emergence of a new wolf-like demon leading the pack. They set an ambush for the pack, but are outflanked themselves; a tough fight, but they pull through.



While journeying through some highlands, a mound-spirit lures one of the party members away from the camp with an illusion; it then steals her voice and appearance and returns with the other party members to the camp. The voiceless player escapes the trap and returns the camp just in time to help fight off the spirit; a little "which one is the real one" business complicates the fight. Eventually the wounded spirit flees, still possessing the stolen voice.



The party tracks the spirit to its cairn, and under the mound they find a gateway to a strange underground wood of petrified trees. There the spirit attacks them with many shifting forms. They wound it enough to steal back the lost character's voice, but that character is struck down, and has only a few moments of speech again before death.



After meeting up with a replacement character, the party does what it was travelling to do; help a local clan scout against the Fir Bolgs who have been raiding their homesteads and pastures. They track the raiders, and eventually encounter and combat a group of Fir Bolg warriors, killing all but one.

While hiding in the woods with their captive, they are attacked by an unknown faerie assailant; the creature takes a few shots before fleeing after it loses the element of surprise.


While recovering from the faerie attack, the party is attacked by another Fir Bolg war party; they are captured and brought back to the war camp.

The players effect an escape and flee the camp. A deadly overland chase ensues, during which one of the PCs is knocked out and has to be carried; the party manages to whittle down their pursuers to four before being cornered at the edge of a waterfall. They stand and fight and, with the intervention of the faerie who attacked them earlier, triumph.

[GooeyChewie]

Like... it definitely feels different from running combat on a grid or tactical map; the fights seem like they flow more seamlessly in and out of the broader narrative. I'm interested if anyone who does a lot of TotM has ruminated on this, and can put into words why it feels better.

I often play theater of the mind, both as a player and as a DM. The big advantage, in my opinion, is that players can just tell the DM the result they want rather than needing to map things out. "I want to move as far away as possible." Cool, done, you're now {insert your speed here} feet away. Whereas on a map you spend a few moments counting out how many squares your speed gives you and choosing exactly where you want to be. While it might not take long on any given turn, those tactical decisions do add up. The biggest trade-off is tactical detail vs the narrative flow you mentioned.

Personally, I know my primary playgroup is perfectly fine with the somewhat fuzzy tactics of theater of the mind. That's why we tend to play that way. But when I play with strangers, I usually do theater of the mind for small encounters (where setting up the map might take more time than the actual fight) and the map for more complex encounters. (Of course, I'm usually the DM when I play with strangers, so I do get to pick.)

[Kurt Kurageous]

There was, in the early days of AL, someone who created a TotM ish battle map.

If your character was in melee range, they were in the middle. If in normal ranged weapon range, they were one step back, if at long range two steps back, and beyond long one more step back. It is a brilliant way to run games on zoom when you don't have a top down setup and flat tokens.

I lost the file/copy I had, and recreated it at least twice. It was that useful for sorting who was where without actual mapping.

[Luccan]

It lends itself to larger fight distances well, since I've always found the size of the table or map to be limiting in that regard (it doesn't matter that I can hit someone from 120ft away, we're not moving all character sheets and books at one end of the table so we can accurately model that).

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's great for lazy GMs who don't want to put much effort into making maps. :p.

It's also nice in small groups, for the flexibility already mentioned. In my experience it starts to fall apart with more than three players, though--rounds take too long and there are too many creatures on the field to easily keep track of, so trying to plan your turn frequently turns into a game of 20 questions.

(tokens marking relative positions on a quick not-to-scale sketch of the battlefield, on the other hand, is gold)

[Xervous]

It finds limited use in my campaign, usually when the players want to take potshots at something random out of spite. If the numbers are being brought out to answer the question of how much overkill, rather than if the players are winning or losing, it’s likely a short TotM bunny zapping event.

[Demonslayer666]

I like TotM because it is great for quick and easy combats. No setup time is needed - no drawing on the battle board, no getting out figures, terrain, etc. Just get right to the fighting.

TotM only works when the DM is fair, and the players trust the DM to not be biased. I played in a game where everything I tried was subpar because there was no battle board. The DM frequently said no. It was very frustrating. Creatures ran by me and didn't provoke even after stating I stand between the cleric and the creature in a smallish room.

If you frequently deny the wizard the ability to fireball the entire group of bad guys, TotM gets really old really fast. This is also true for any tactical ability.

Complex combats get into the weeds quickly, and players can get frustrated that they don't understand where everything is in relation to each other. It turns into "mother may I" D&D.

I love the battle board, because I am tactical and I understand the rules very well. I can see things the DM may not, and take advantage by using the rules, and I don't have to ask permission. I can decide my turn and never have to ask what is going on. TotM slows down my turn, because I feel like I'm not getting the whole picture, so I frequently have to ask a lot of questions before deciding what to do.

I have found that people that don't like tactical combat love TotM.

[Kane0]

Its quicker, easier and simpler.

Big, complex combats with lots of moving parts benefit from the battlegrid, but if its just a bandit ambush along the tradeway then its the more efficient approach.

[Eldan]

What I mainly dislike is that setting up a map and miniatures takes a lot of time. Time that not only could be spent on different things, but also time that creates a break in the flow of the game.

[Mellack]

I agree it is faster if you want simple combats or have few options. It is slower if you have lots of options you have to specifically ask for.

IE. How many of them can I get in a fireball and not hit Bob? How many can I get if I do hit Bob? How many can I get with thunderwave instead? How about if I move first?

Being able to see it on on a grid avoids a lot of those questions.

[da newt]

I've never liked TotM - I think that's because spacial relations and mobility are important to me, especially if the outcome of the battle could go either way depending on tactical choices.

If combat is simple (us vs one baddie) and the outcome is all but a forgone conclusion, sure do it all in your head, but if I have to ask 20 questions to figure out who is where, who I can attack, who I can't, who can attack me, who can I heal or buff, where is the AoE etc - I find a grid to actually help speed things up. As DM I can dry erase marker a map and throw down tokens in about 60 seconds.

[Bjarkmundur]

I've noticed a distinct shift in DM prep and planning since moving away from a grid and the 'tacticality' of 4e.

Instead of creating tactically intricate encounters, I spend the same amount of time to create narratively interesting encounters.

Just shifting over to TotM means you use a completely different approach in designing your encounters, which usually leads to faster combat, more narratively interesting combat and more chances to fudge things for the narrative. By adding a grid and terrain and amap etc, you have removed much more than you've added, meaning you've closed a lot of doors for your players, narratively. My player no longer ask question about menials things. They are starting to use phrases like "there is a door behind me" and "the half-open window accross the room for me", when I never mentioned any of these details. It's cooperative storytelling at the finest. If I would have drawn out a map, I would have removed their chances to contribute in this manner.

Don't get me wrong, I really love playing dnd as a wargame, but TotM suits me much better in the role of a storyteller.

[Imbalance]

It's great for when I don't have the right miniature.

[DeadMech]

I don't like it. DnD combat gets very particular about placement.

It can be acceptable in certain circumstances. As example in my last session the DM rolled up a couple random encounters. One of them was a bunch of goblins and an ogre operating an unsanctioned road toll. We approached using "diplomacy" and convinced the goblins to back off but the ogre insisted on a one on one duel and my character happily obliged.

So given their we're exactly two combatants, me and the ogre, we're both melee focused, and the combat was more of a speed bump between point a and point b, then sure theater of the mind is acceptable.

Later during a different point b to point c trip we came on another random encounter. A troll , a bridge. Unsanctioned tolls. The warlock pushed it off the bridge in a single action and it ran away.

So if a combat is off the cuff and exceedingly simple. Go ahead. But I will take a white room encounter on a grid paper over it. You don't even have to draw terrain if you don't want to.

[Second Wind]

For online play, I need to know where fights will happen and prepare a map ahead of time. Theater of the Mind becomes necessary for any fight I didn't plan.

[dafrca]

Instead of creating tactically intricate encounters, I spend the same amount of time to create narratively interesting encounters.

Just shifting over to TotM means you use a completely different approach in designing your encounters, which usually leads to faster combat, more narratively interesting combat and more chances to fudge things for the narrative.

I agree 100% that TotM offers more narratively interesting combat, but I have not experienced it offering a faster combat time. sometimes it has even seemed to slow things even more as players asked so many questions and were slower to commit to an action.

But again, I agree from a story tellers point of view TotM is a better choice. :smallbiggrin:

[Pex]

I like it mostly out of habit. It's what I grew up with. I like the simplicity of it where exact distances aren't needed. It's enough to say you're close enough to attack someone or you need a round to get closer. When doing an area of effect attack you say the obligatory of keeping party members out of it and need not worry about exact positioning.

I have come to appreciate the grid map. I do enjoy the more complex tactical manipulations it encourages and requires. Distances and positioning matter, and making those determinations is its own fun. There's fun in the play.

I'm fine with playing either.

[JellyPooga]

Instead of creating tactically intricate encounters, I spend the same amount of time to create narratively interesting encounters.

This about sums it up.

Playing on a grid or map has obvious advantages if you're interested in playing the rules to the letter, but TotM grants both players and GM much greater lattitude to improvise within the framework of the rules.

For example; if the GM describes a bad guy standing near a window, a player might have the idea of shoving that bad guy out of the window. In TotM, that's not a problem, if the GM thinks it's reasonable (and there's reasons it might not be), everyone can just get straight to the action, roll the bones and continue. On a battlegrid, the exact placement of that npc is crucial for such a plan to work. Time has to be spent calculating just how the player approaches, where they're going to stand, what direction they're shoving, etc. A whole lot of effort going into something that can really easily be glossed over with the simple statement "sure".

Some people rely on or enjoy the granularity of playing on a grid. I'm not one of them. I much prefer narrative possibility over adherence to rules and while they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, TotM makes the former a lot easier.

[Corpus]

I like TotM because it is great for quick and easy combats. No setup time is needed - no drawing on the battle board, no getting out figures, terrain, etc. Just get right to the fighting.

TotM only works when the DM is fair, and the players trust the DM to not be biased. I played in a game where everything I tried was subpar because there was no battle board. The DM frequently said no. It was very frustrating. Creatures ran by me and didn't provoke even after stating I stand between the cleric and the creature in a smallish room.

If you frequently deny the wizard the ability to fireball the entire group of bad guys, TotM gets really old really fast. This is also true for any tactical ability.

Trust is the key to TotM.
As a player that enjoys tactics and tactical games, I can totally immerse myself in the wondrous description of a battle if my character has purpose and I am able to contribute meaningful actions.

[GooeyChewie]

I agree 100% that TotM offers more narratively interesting combat, but I have not experienced it offering a faster combat time. sometimes it has even seemed to slow things even more as players asked so many questions and were slower to commit to an action.

It really depends on the players involved. I’ve had players who will, given a grid, will spend an eternity agonizing over the exact perfect space for everything. Or other players who just don’t grasp grid-based combat and have to ask every turn where they can move and what spaces they can affect. For such players, Theater of the Mind, where they can tell the DM the results they want and the DM and simply tell them it is possible (or not) without delving into the nitty gritty details, can be faster.

At the same time, I’ve seen players who want to know all those nitty gritty details and will spend an eternity quizzing the DM in Theater of the Mind.

[Sception]

while I prefer grid or hex or free movement based combat with physical or digital map & tokens for the more detailed tactical decisions, I can certainly appreciate the speed of theater of the mind. There's also a more coherent play experience that comes from resolving combat situations the same way you resolve other situations, albeit with turn orders and whatnot. In contrast map & mini based combats can feel disconnected, like alternating back and forth between two completely different games. Or like reading a book where every so often the book will tell you to stop reading and go watch a video on youtube to continue the story.

[Aliess]

I find that as soon as somebody brings out a grid I stop role-playing and start board gaming, and it's very difficult to get back into character.
For some reason Theatre of The Mind gets my creative ideas going ("can I swing of the chandelier? Can I wrap them in a wall hanging and push them into the fire etc.) Whereas with a grid map this all disappears for some reason.
I often still use a rough sketch map though to help everyone keep track of roughly where they are

[dafrca]

It really depends on the players involved. I’ve had players who will, given a grid, will spend an eternity agonizing over the exact perfect space for everything. Or other players who just don’t grasp grid-based combat and have to ask every turn where they can move and what spaces they can affect. For such players, Theater of the Mind, where they can tell the DM the results they want and the DM and simply tell them it is possible (or not) without delving into the nitty gritty details, can be faster.

At the same time, I’ve seen players who want to know all those nitty gritty details and will spend an eternity quizzing the DM in Theater of the Mind.
Good point, it will depend on the players and their personal actions could impact either style of play. :smallsmile:

[da newt]

I think TotM is VERY dependent on the DM. It forces them to adjudicate even more, give even more rulings, and keep more things straight in their mind.

TotM combat isn't a challenge, it's all narrative. It's all fudging and sure, I guess yes or 'cause I said so no. Everything is a judgement call, it is all up to the DM. This can work great with the right folks in the right situation or it can sour a campaign / allow abuses.

[dafrca]

I often still use a rough sketch map though to help everyone keep track of roughly where they are

This is the reality I live with. I use TotM but there are times, combat or other situations both, when I rough sketch or small map handout or other that does sort of straddle the two styles. TotM and maps. :smallsmile:

[Demonslayer666]

I find that as soon as somebody brings out a grid I stop role-playing and start board gaming, and it's very difficult to get back into character.
For some reason Theatre of The Mind gets my creative ideas going ("can I swing of the chandelier? Can I wrap them in a wall hanging and push them into the fire etc.) Whereas with a grid map this all disappears for some reason.
I often still use a rough sketch map though to help everyone keep track of roughly where they are

You aren't alone. Many have that same issue once combat starts, regardless of using the battle board or not. They shut off roleplaying mode.

I try and encourage roleplaying during combat, but it's hard to get that mindset going.

[strangebloke]

Theatre of the Mind is for random encounters or spontaneous combats, like a sudden fight breaking out during a social event.

Grids are for tactical fights and big fights.

Rule of thumb: if you're not going to bother with interesting terrain and the number of total combatants is lower than six or so, TotM works better.

[Thunderous Mojo]

I think TotM is VERY dependent on the DM. It forces them to adjudicate even more, give even more rulings, and keep more things straight in their mind.

I think the essential amount of DM adjudication doesn't alter greatly from one method of play to the other.

Ultimately decisions like the range of engagement, such as do the Hobgoblins use Longbows at extreme range, stay the same. DM style will play a factor of course, but a DM that would be likely to roll dice to determine if a Shopkeeper has a particular item a Player just inquired about, is also likely to carry over that same predilection to TotM Combat.

A DM might need to take more notes during a TotM battle.


TotM combat isn't a challenge, it's all narrative. It's all fudging and sure, I guess yes or 'cause I said so no. Everything is a judgement call, it is all up to the DM. This can work great with the right folks in the right situation or it can sour a campaign / allow abuses.

Out of curiosity, but why is everything a judgement call?
The triggering condition for Opportunity Attacks remains the same wether the battle is displayed on a Chessex board, or in a VTT platform, or in Theater of the Mind.

Similar to sub-atomic particles, we don't know the exact location of a creature, even when a map grid is being used. All we know, is the range of space they could occupy at a given moment.

This is why if an AoE touches any part of a 'square', the occupant of the square is subject to the effect. The same principles also apply to Theatre of the Mind combat.

If 'Player X' has demonstrated a facility at optimal targeting of AoE abilities whilst using a Grid...the easiest solution is to assume, their capabilities are the same in TotM.

I grew up with AD&D primarily using Theatre of the Mind. Most of the people I play with, don't enjoy TotM for combat, and there does seem to be some correlation between disliking TotM Combat and what edition of D&D one started with in my sample of players.

[Easy e]

I prefer TotM for RPG. @Bjarkmundur is right on. It opens up the game for a more narrative experience.

If I want tactical play, I play a wargame. This is coming across much snarkier than it is intended, but to me RPGs are for a different experience than wargames. RPGs are more cooperative story-telling games, while wargames are for tactical win/loss situations (even though I think wargames still have a level of collaboration to make them be optimal).

The a quick sketch for clarity is fine, but full blown maps and grids is a turn-off to me in RPGs.

[Xervous]

If I want raw wargaming I’ve got plenty of titles to boot up. If I want narrative stuff I’ll check the setting driven channels on various discord servers or dip into PMs. TTRPGs for me have an overlap with certain styles of freeform RP in that the act of participating is itself the goal, rather than it being an act that produces a desired product (a narrative). My players’ characters don’t live because it makes a better story, they live because the players made choices in character that have left the characters alive.

When it comes down to combat, simple combats with forgone conclusions tend to border on cinematic descriptions of character victory or defeat. Not much detail is demanded for informed decision making so a grid is excessive detail. But when it comes to dangerous skirmishing I don’t want to be answering five questions a minute to give the players enough detail to make informed decisions as if they were their characters. Bringing in a grid at this point removes at least four out of the five questions per minute, leaving us with more time spent actually doing stuff.

[Easy e]

But when it comes to dangerous skirmishing I don’t want to be answering five questions a minute to give the players enough detail to make informed decisions as if they were their characters. Bringing in a grid at this point removes at least four out of the five questions per minute, leaving us with more time spent actually doing stuff.

Unless, as Bjarkmundur mentioned, you let the players take on some of the workload and make some assumptions for themselves about the surroundings. You can just nod along and agree, "Yes and" them, or "Yes but" them, "No but" or just say "Nah, there is no window there."

As a GM in TotM, you can relax a bit and let the Players steer for a while too. Let them have there cool moments and interesting set-ups. Narrate their actions a bit ore freely.

[dafrca]

If I want raw wargaming I’ve got plenty of titles to boot up.

I have always wondered why they walked away from the D&D Wargame, Battlesystem I think it was called. Seemed like a good idea for keeping folks "in the brand" so to say. Never had a chance to play it myself so I do not know how bad it was.

[Easy e]

I have always wondered why they walked away from the D&D Wargame, Battlesystem I think it was called. Seemed like a good idea for keeping folks "in the brand" so to say. Never had a chance to play it myself so I do not know how bad it was.

It was pretty bad.

Plus, wargames were being swallowed up by other fish they decided not to compete with.

[dafrca]

It was pretty bad.

Plus, wargames were being swallowed up by other fish they decided not to compete with.

Ah thanks. I was always curious but it was something I missed. :smallsmile:

[Waterdeep Merch]

Ah thanks. I was always curious but it was something I missed. :smallsmile:

I personally really miss the skirmish-sized D&D Miniatures Game. It was a lot of fun, if not always very balanced. Especially the roster. I played it with three other friends, each of us taking an alignment. I was Lawful Good, and boy did I learn suffering.

As for Theater of the Mind, I love D&D tactical combat, enough that I'll always set up maps and miniatures whenever I have the time. The problem is, I don't always. Especially since I tend to give my players a lot of freedom in how they approach their world, meaning I can't always predict where and what they might end up fighting. So roughly 80% of my battles become TotM so that I don't have to put us on a snack break while I draw up maps and fish through our mini collection for things that look close enough to whatever it is they're fighting.

I've recently begun an initiative to gather generic maps and nice 3D terrain/scatter in order to sidestep this issue, bringing my players the crunchy combat they love enough to make custom minis for every single campaign we play. The collection's in it's infancy, though.

[Sception]

Another point in favor of Theater of the Mind is encounters that just don't take advantage of the strengths of map & minis. The more tactical positioning-based combat that comes with map & minis can be great as a game in and of itself, but you don't exactly get that from plain rectangular dungeon rooms or empty open fields with 1 to 3 of a given monster. If your encounters don't have interesting terrain to navigate and a variety of monsters that operate in different ways at different ranges, then the time it takes to set up a map and minis mostly isn't worth it even if you don't have a blanket preference for theater of the mind to begin with.

In general, I like maybe one or at most two big set piece combats per session with a complicated map (difficult terrain, cover, clutter, intractable objects, active traps, pitfalls, multiple elevations, multiple interconnected rooms, etc) & minis (multiple types of enemy in multiple waves) prepared in advance, while basic attrition fights, random encounters, and such apart from those big set pieces are handled via theater of the mind.

[Petelo4f]

I'll be honest, I despise theater of the mind combat. The thing that makes DND combat fun rather than devolving into either a morass of rules arguments or an overly simplistic bore is the interplay of the tokens on the grid, maneuvering around terrain and the controlled spaces of hostile forces. Every single time I get stuck in theater of the mind combat I get bored out of my mind. All that being said, I ain't trying to yuck your yum. If you like TotM combat, have at it, it is your games, play them in the way that makes you happy. But for me, if I don't have the time to run a full combat with a grid, that I have planned out the terrain to create an interesting challenge for the players and myself, I just turn it into a "cinematic" skill challenge, and get in and out of it quickly.

[Corsair14]

I tend to do TotM for smaller combats. I find it is more like older editions instead of the skirmish game 5th has turned into and emphasizes role playing a bit more overall.

[Xervous]

Unless, as Bjarkmundur mentioned, you let the players take on some of the workload and make some assumptions for themselves about the surroundings. You can just nod along and agree, "Yes and" them, or "Yes but" them, "No but" or just say "Nah, there is no window there."

As a GM in TotM, you can relax a bit and let the Players steer for a while too. Let them have there cool moments and interesting set-ups. Narrate their actions a bit ore freely.

Well there’s a higher directive at work for my current group. They want the experience of playing their characters, of having those characters succeed and fail by the merits of their own choices. Stepping out of character to dictate elements of the scene has been described by some of them as using Skyrim console commands. Yes, sometimes things get weird and we have to address a glitch in the moment. Otherwise they’re happy to explore scenes so long as they have enough detail to make informed IC decisions. When lots of those for IC relevant details relate to positioning, that’s a sign we’d be better off with a grid for the given scene.

[False God]

I generally find it moves faster, and people are less worried about exacting tactical maneuvers.

However, there's a certain point when there is enough going on in the scene, terrain, objects, enemies, that it becomes difficult for everyone to track where everything is, and a map (even a rough one) really helps out.

So TOTM is my preference for small, simple fights, but not for larger and more complex ones.

[Easy e]

I personally really miss the skirmish-sized D&D Miniatures Game. It was a lot of fun, if not always very balanced. Especially the roster. I played it with three other friends, each of us taking an alignment. I was Lawful Good, and boy did I learn suffering.


Yeah, I think that was called Chain Mail* and it was..... solid. However, it never really caught on and died when a lot of Collectable Miniature Games (often called a Clicky, or clixs) also died.



*= Which IIRC was also a call back to one of Gygax's early works pre-D&D that was more wargamey in nature.

[KorvinStarmast]

For online play, I need to know where fights will happen and prepare a map ahead of time. Theater of the Mind becomes necessary for any fight I didn't plan. Fair point. ToTM is good for chase scenes too.

I think TotM is VERY dependent on the DM. It forces them to adjudicate even more, give even more rulings, and keep more things straight in their mind. Yes. And it requires trust between DM and players.

[Thunderous Mojo]

And it requires trust between DM and players.

Does it though? I played countless hours of TotM games with my brother DM-ing, and the only certainty was some crucial bit of information would be left out of the descriptions.🃏

It was insanely fun, and having an 'Unreliable Narrator' in a TotM game has it's perks.

[Imbalance]

Yeah, I think that was called Chain Mail* and it was..... solid. However, it never really caught on and died when a lot of Collectable Miniature Games (often called a Clicky, or clixs) also died.



*= Which IIRC was also a call back to one of Gygax's early works pre-D&D that was more wargamey in nature.

Chainmail definitely was not a Clix game. Those are made by Wizkids, where the figure base is a dial that replaces character charts for ease of use and dynamic skirmish battles. Chainmail was more of traditional wargame with miniatures. Chainmail minis are unpainted, unassembled metal that were not sold as "collectibles." But Mage Knight, `Mechwarrior, and HeroClix, etc. were prepainted plastic figures sold randomly in blind boosters similar to Magic cards. I'm not sure when Chainmail ceased print, but WK started in 2000, and MK is considered the first Collectible Miniatures Game. HeroClix is still being produced today, with minis in the hundreds of millions having been made and sold over twenty years.

[dafrca]

ToTM is good for chase scenes too.
Yes I agree.


And it requires trust between DM and players.
So true, TotM in a group where trust is at s lower level would just devolve into drawn out Q&A or even argument sessions. Been there, saw that for sure. :smalleek:

[Easy e]

Chainmail definitely was not a Clix game. Those are made by Wizkids, where the figure base is a dial that replaces character charts for ease of use and dynamic skirmish battles. Chainmail was more of traditional wargame with miniatures. Chainmail minis are unpainted, unassembled metal that were not sold as "collectibles." But Mage Knight, `Mechwarrior, and HeroClix, etc. were prepainted plastic figures sold randomly in blind boosters similar to Magic cards. I'm not sure when Chainmail ceased print, but WK started in 2000, and MK is considered the first Collectible Miniatures Game. HeroClix is still being produced today, with minis in the hundreds of millions having been made and sold over twenty years.

I could of swore there was a re-boot with pre-paints.... but I was not that into it at the time. Not clicks, but perhaps some sort of stat card?

I thought it was around the time X-wing was coming out.

[dafrca]

I could of swore there was a re-boot with pre-paints.... but I was not that into it at the time. Not clicks, but perhaps some sort of stat card?

There was, in 2003, and it was called "The Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game". Stat cards and grid maps too. :smallsmile:

[MoiMagnus]

Out of curiosity, but why is everything a judgement call?
The triggering condition for Opportunity Attacks remains the same wether the battle is displayed on a Chessex board, or in a VTT platform, or in Theater of the Mind.

There are more judgement calls in TotM because there are less publicly available information.

For example:
Player - I cast fireball on the 3 goblins on the back of the room.
GM - Hum... You can only target 2 of them, they're too far apart.
Player - I'm pretty sure they didn't have enough movement to get that far apart, especially with the difficult terrain, I should be able to target 3 of them.
GM - Well, I'm pretty sure they did. You can only target 2 with a fireball, you might want to cast another spell instead.
Etc.

Another example:
Player - And to finish my turn, I move to engage the dragon so that I can Aop him if he tries to fly away.
GM - Does that mean you take an Aop from the kobold guard?
Player - Wait, there is no kobold guard anymore engaged with me, he was killed by Tim.
GM - No, Tim killed the other kobold guard.
Player - But that totally change the situation! Tim, didn't you said you finished off my kobold?
Tim - Well, I'm not sure anymore if I specified clearly which kobold guard I was attacking.
Etc.

A board act as a public record of information. It is collectively updated by everyone, and can serve as a reference to prevent different peoples from having a different understanding of the situation (which would inevitably lead to judgement calls).

And especially if the GM is loosy in term of descriptions of relative positions of the creatures, it can become quite arbitrary, especially if the GM doesn't actually keep mental track of those and arbitrarily determine them the first time they are relevant. Additionally TotM facilitate "fudging with reality" as when you're editing the situation in your mind to fit a particular narrative, you don't need to change the board state to reflect the change you made in your mind.

(NB: I personally quite like TotM, but I can understand peoples that had bad experiences with it)

[Waterdeep Merch]

There was, in 2003, and it was called "The Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game". Stat cards and grid maps too. :smallsmile:

That's the one I'm nostalgic for. Chainmail evolved into that one, with the Chainmail sculpts being remade in prepainted plastic for the first few releases of D&D Minis. Some of those plastic miniatures are still used to this day in things like board games and the like.

They shelved it in order to make Warbands (I think that's what it was called?), which was practically DoA as far as I can tell. I certainly wasn't interested in it back in the day, and from what I can tell it quietly disappeared after just a year or two at retail.

[DarknessEternal]

It makes repetitive combatants (martials+warlock) incredibly boring. Your whole combat is just rolling the same dice over and over without any decisions to make.

[Demonslayer666]

It makes repetitive combatants (martials+warlock) incredibly boring. Your whole combat is just rolling the same dice over and over without any decisions to make.

Don't turn off roleplaying in combat and make enemies a bag of HP. You can still talk while fighting. Use Intimidation, Deception, or Persuasion along with your attack.

Move to flanking. Use the help action. Spend your inspiration and swing from a chandelier.

Be creative and ask the DM for useful information or make it up. "I grab a handful of dirt and blind him." "I push a bookshelf over onto him". "I shove the log under his feet and try to trip him up."

[Easy e]

Don't turn off roleplaying in combat and make enemies a bag of HP. You can still talk while fighting. Use Intimidation, Deception, or Persuasion along with your attack.

Move to flanking. Use the help action. Spend your inspiration and swing from a chandelier.

Be creative and ask the DM for useful information or make it up. "I grab a handful of dirt and blind him." "I push a bookshelf over onto him". "I shove the log under his feet and try to trip him up."

I find I get this type of play much more frequently with ToTM then I ever do with a grid.

[strangebloke]

I find I get this type of play much more frequently with ToTM then I ever do with a grid.

Neither TotM nor grid play influence this sort of thing, they're both fully functional in the game.

The main advantage grids have is that you can put things on it. Stuff like patches of difficult terrain that can be maneuvered around, bottomless pits, hanging drapes that block line of sight but not movement, etc.... you can have such things present in TOTM but as you put more things on the map TOTM becomes more and more difficult because there's only so many things you can visualize.

"Can fighter steve get to wizard gary with a health potion? Uh, well. Gary was chasing after the goblin last turn, and the goblin was across the room from Steve, and there's that big pit of acid in the middle of the room, and that would be in the way now..."

At some point its just quicker to make the map.

[DarknessEternal]

Don't turn off roleplaying in combat and make enemies a bag of HP. You can still talk while fighting. Use Intimidation, Deception, or Persuasion along with your attack.
Except, you can' though. There are rules.


Move to flanking. Use the help action. Spend your inspiration and swing from a chandelier.

Be creative and ask the DM for useful information or make it up. "I grab a handful of dirt and blind him." "I push a bookshelf over onto him". "I shove the log under his feet and try to trip him up."

In a fight to the death, why are you no actually taking the actions that cause death? We're not fighting some mindflayers to scar them emotionally.

[Samayu]

I played TotM for a whole session last night, for the first time... ever? I didn't enjoy it. There was nothing drawn on the board, so it was an empty room. Of course, it was an empty room, but I couldn't even picture where the combatants were. I couldn't picture the placement because I'd probably be wrong, so I had to concentrate on my character's abilities, and trust the GM.

How many of them can I hit with a 30foot cone?
Three, but there's one of your allies in it as well. Without an ally, you can hit two.

I didn't feel connected at all. It was just kind of a feeling of limbo.

Theater of the Mind is not something that any group can just start, and enjoy it right away. It requires practice.

[Chronic]

You aren't alone. Many have that same issue once combat starts, regardless of using the battle board or not. They shut off roleplaying mode.

I try and encourage roleplaying during combat, but it's hard to get that mindset going.

A good way to do so is to have the narrative continuing in the fight, by that I mean that the destruction of the ennemy isn't the be all and end all of combat. Instead trying to accomplish a different goal while fighting tend to push the players to use a larger variety of action, and it generally prevent them to go full combat mode because they often need to roleplay actions other than combat, significantly reducing the compartmentalization between roleplay and gameplay.
It also tend to force them to break their combat patterns this avoid a certain repetitivity in combat.

[JellyPooga]

I didn't feel connected at all. It was just kind of a feeling of limbo. I find the same thing about using a battlemap; I'm so focused on what's laid on a platter in front of me that I'm not thinking about my character and how they would react or the things that aren't represented, even if they were mentioned. It's all "play" and no "role" for me, so to speak.


Theater of the Mind is not something that any group can just start, and enjoy it right away. It requires practice. The same can be said of many worthwhile endeavours! I can only recommend you try again before judging too hastily.

[Demonslayer666]

Except, you can' though. There are rules.
...

The rules specifically point out that you can talk during combat.

PHB, page 190, "You can communicate however you are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take your turn."

[Xervous]

The rules specifically point out that you can talk during combat.

PHB, page 190, "You can communicate however you are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take your turn."

Well sure you can talk, but I’m calling munchkin if you argue that being allowed to talk as a nonaction during your turn means you get nonaction intimidate.

[Easy e]

In a fight to the death, why are you no actually taking the actions that cause death? We're not fighting some mindflayers to scar them emotionally.

One of the issues with D&D centric combat. You can only do the optimal damage dealing thing! Everything else is useless!

[Easy e]

Neither TotM nor grid play influence this sort of thing, they're both fully functional in the game.


Yes they are. I am talking about how one (in my experience) tends to influence one behavior over the other.

In theory, they are both the same, but in application I tend to see one generates a type of gameplay over another.

[Demonslayer666]

Well sure you can talk, but I’m calling munchkin if you argue that being allowed to talk as a nonaction during your turn means you get nonaction intimidate.

That's your prerogative. Seems a bit extreme to me. As a DM, I would not likely allow someone to use intimidation in combat, you are already using deadly force. Maybe trying and get someone to flee or surrender as you finish off their ally...heh.

I feel very strongly that using a skill does not require an action in many cases. For example, any knowledge check, perception to notice something, athletics while moving across a balance beam (it's just your move), animal handling to stay mounted when your mount bucks, or any time someone else does something to you that requires a check - like grappling and making an athletics check.

Simply saying "surrender" certainly does not require an action, but it could in the right situations make them consider it.

[Catullus64]

Well sure you can talk, but I’m calling munchkin if you argue that being allowed to talk as a nonaction during your turn means you get nonaction intimidate.

I like calling for players to make Intimidation checks in combat, particularly when they pair a successful or frightening action with well-chosen and menacing words. It helps make combat into a psychological contest just as much as a physical one, and it adds a dimension of rules-groudedness to deciding when the enemy morale buckles or breaks. Of course the DM still makes the intuitive call as to when opponents are beaten or injured enough for the check to be possible, or when a feat is suitably impressive as to be fear-inspiring.

Put another way, I already run most sentient enemies such that they flee or surrender if the fight turns badly enough against them, so it's neat for players to feel like they have a direct role in accomplishing that crucial morale break. I increasingly design encounters such that the enemies should win due to overwhelming force, but the heroes can win by killing or injuring enough to break their morale.

[Xervous]

I like calling for players to make Intimidation checks in combat, particularly when they pair a successful or frightening action with well-chosen and menacing words. It helps make combat into a psychological contest just as much as a physical one, and it adds a dimension of rules-groudedness to deciding when the enemy morale buckles or breaks. Of course the DM still makes the intuitive call as to when opponents are beaten or injured enough for the check to be possible, or when a feat is suitably impressive as to be fear-inspiring.

Put another way, I already run most sentient enemies such that they flee or surrender if the fight turns badly enough against them, so it's neat for players to feel like they have a direct role in accomplishing that crucial morale break. I increasingly design encounters such that the enemies should win due to overwhelming force, but the heroes can win by killing or injuring enough to break their morale.

And I’m not saying this is a bad thing, it’s great. But within the context of 5e it’s a big leap between the GM asking for a check and a player asserting that some interpretation of the rules entitles them to a check. The player asking if they can make the check? Ask away. The player demanding that the rules allow them to make the check? Not really the spirit of 5e.

[KorvinStarmast]

That's your prerogative. Seems a bit extreme to me. As a DM, I would not likely allow someone to use intimidation in combat, you are already using deadly force. Maybe trying and get someone to flee or surrender as you finish off their ally...heh.
In some situations it makes sense, in others not so much.

Simply saying "surrender" certainly does not require an action, but it could in the right situations make them consider it. Yep. Particularly after you just slew two of their comrades.

But within the context of 5e it’s a big leap between the GM asking for a check and a player asserting that some interpretation of the rules entitles them to a check. The player asking if they can make the check? Ask away. The player demanding that the rules allow them to make the check? Not really the spirit of 5e. I find your point worthy and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. (Basically, concur).

[strangebloke]

Yes they are. I am talking about how one (in my experience) tends to influence one behavior over the other.

In theory, they are both the same, but in application I tend to see one generates a type of gameplay over another.
I would agree overall, with the caveat that the grid is actually being used. If there's a pit on the grid and the player can see it, it stands to reason that throwing an enemy into the pit is something they're more likely to do. But by the same token, a lot of DMs I've played with are rather fond of a blank white room with four walls, which doesn't really encourage innovation on the part of the player.

Conversely, you can still have a pit there in TotM, its just going to be harder to keep track of as the list of unique features in the room (tables, barrels, enemies, players, pets) increases.

In some situations it makes sense, in others not so much.
Yep. Particularly after you just slew two of their comrades.
I find your point worthy and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. (Basically, concur).
Either way, sort of irrelevant to the question at hand. DMs can encourage roleplay in battle with or without TotM, its just (imo) easier to do so if you have a grid because players can see that the goblin is hiding behind a barrel of gunpowder.

[neonchameleon]

In the latest campaign that I'm running, I've made a decision to try going all-theater-of-the-mind for combat. Usually I make maps for every encounter, but since I've been shorter on time, and this is a fairly open-ended campaign, I decided to give theater-of-the-mind a try for the first time since I started DMing 5e.

So far, I'm pleased with the results; the players have been enjoying combat, and the fights seem to move fairly quickly. But aside from speed, I'm struggling to put into words why it seems to have been working so well. Like... it definitely feels different from running combat on a grid or tactical map; the fights seem like they flow more seamlessly in and out of the broader narrative. I'm interested if anyone who does a lot of TotM has ruminated on this, and can put into words why it feels better.

The thing here is I like TotM for the speed and fluidity and like the battlemap for the detailed action. Both have their uses, and I prefer TotM for (a) smaller games (five players is too slow to really take advantage of the speed of TotM IME), (b) faster/lighter games, and (c) games that don't really use things like AoE effects that I'd have to make adjudications for.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

In the latest campaign that I'm running, I've made a decision to try going all-theater-of-the-mind for combat. Usually I make maps for every encounter, but since I've been shorter on time, and this is a fairly open-ended campaign, I decided to give theater-of-the-mind a try for the first time since I started DMing 5e.

So far, I'm pleased with the results; the players have been enjoying combat, and the fights seem to move fairly quickly. But aside from speed, I'm struggling to put into words why it seems to have been working so well. Like... it definitely feels different from running combat on a grid or tactical map; the fights seem like they flow more seamlessly in and out of the broader narrative. I'm interested if anyone who does a lot of TotM has ruminated on this, and can put into words why it feels better.

If it helps anyone with making an argument, here are brief summaries of the fights which have transpired in the campaign so far:


This is a combat with only two actors, one player and one NPC. A brash local youth is blocking a bridge, refusing to let anyone pass as part of a grand gesture to win over a girl. One of the PCs decides to wrestle with him.

The players go hunting wolves, who have been made more aggressive and coordinated by the emergence of a new wolf-like demon leading the pack. They set an ambush for the pack, but are outflanked themselves; a tough fight, but they pull through.



While journeying through some highlands, a mound-spirit lures one of the party members away from the camp with an illusion; it then steals her voice and appearance and returns with the other party members to the camp. The voiceless player escapes the trap and returns the camp just in time to help fight off the spirit; a little "which one is the real one" business complicates the fight. Eventually the wounded spirit flees, still possessing the stolen voice.



The party tracks the spirit to its cairn, and under the mound they find a gateway to a strange underground wood of petrified trees. There the spirit attacks them with many shifting forms. They wound it enough to steal back the lost character's voice, but that character is struck down, and has only a few moments of speech again before death.



After meeting up with a replacement character, the party does what it was travelling to do; help a local clan scout against the Fir Bolgs who have been raiding their homesteads and pastures. They track the raiders, and eventually encounter and combat a group of Fir Bolg warriors, killing all but one.

While hiding in the woods with their captive, they are attacked by an unknown faerie assailant; the creature takes a few shots before fleeing after it loses the element of surprise.


While recovering from the faerie attack, the party is attacked by another Fir Bolg war party; they are captured and brought back to the war camp.

The players effect an escape and flee the camp. A deadly overland chase ensues, during which one of the PCs is knocked out and has to be carried; the party manages to whittle down their pursuers to four before being cornered at the edge of a waterfall. They stand and fight and, with the intervention of the faerie who attacked them earlier, triumph.


I'll preface this by saying our group might use a map for 1 battle per session max.

I don't think your explanation of why it works is far off. Staring at a map and trying to figure out in which square to place your character for the best stratigic advantage feels, to me, not very role playish. TotM just allows everyone to just imagine what's happening and go from there. My player are fine with when they fireball a horde of say 18 baddies who are moderately spread out and I say, "OK you got 7 in there". I also think there's a mechanical reality to it anyway; a character can't acutally go out there with a tape measure and figure out the distance each of 18 creatures are from numerous spots on a battlefield before an incantation.
I'm sure there are some players, particularly those who employ some tactics, who would struggle with not calculating the optimal spot to end up on a board each round. To those I'd say 'let it go'. The game is more enjoyable without getting caught up in the minutia every battle.

[Catullus64]

So I decided to try something a little different in last night's session to merge some of the benefits of a grid with theater of the mind.

The first encounter was frankly too positionally complex of a fight to go pure TotM; a fight against a giant semi-invisible hound, taking place in a magically animated hedge maze that shifts its walls and corridors to try to isolate and misdirect the PCs. So what I did was draw up a tactical map on Roll20, but I turned off the grid.

Any time someone wanted to move or place an effect, they had to describe it before measuring the exact distances; thus you had to describe your movement in terms of the landmarks and passages in the maze, rather than using units of distance. You had to commit to movements with only a rough idea of if you could reach the desired point, and with how much movement. It worked pretty well, though there were one or two confusions caused by players being unsure about what parts of the action they could and couldn't perceive. We definitely got players taking some creative actions, which is always good.

The other combat of the session was relatively simpler, but I still used the gridless map. It was an ambush where the party gets split by a falling portcullis trap, while enemies flank them using a secret passage. Sadly, due to a few tactical errors, a handful of nasty crits by the attackers, and the party being already low on spells and HP, this fight resulted in a TPK. But I'm very likely, I think, to use this gridless map approach in the future: it allows for more complex spacial arrangements without turning the whole affair into some sort of elaborate game of Dice Chess.

[Demonslayer666]

And I’m not saying this is a bad thing, it’s great. But within the context of 5e it’s a big leap between the GM asking for a check and a player asserting that some interpretation of the rules entitles them to a check. The player asking if they can make the check? Ask away. The player demanding that the rules allow them to make the check? Not really the spirit of 5e.

I'm not saying as a player to demand free checks, but they should certainly liven up combat by roleplaying and trying.

Sure, it's the DM's choice if there is a chance or not. But if you do nothing, nothing will ever happen.