Combat without Miniatures

[Grinner]

The most basic mechanic in an RPG is the task resolution mechanic. Combat in many games is often a form of task resolution given special consideration, seeing as how many books dedicate entire chapters to it.

Having never really played anything outside of D&D 3.5, I've grown accustomed to D&D's favored method of modelling combat: miniatures. I've also come to realize that most games don't use this method.

This makes running combat outside of D&D and D20 Modern problematic for me. So, how do you all handle combat without miniatures? One of my concerns is how pointless ranged weaponry becomes when the concept of distance is removed from play.

[Sith_Happens]

This makes running combat outside of D&D and D20 Modern problematic for me. So, how do you all handle combat without miniatures? One of my concerns is how pointless ranged weaponry becomes when the concept of distance is removed from play.

Distance still completely exists as a combat concern (at least depending on the system), you just have to keep track of it some other way. It's the relative directions of combatants and objects from each other that is probably more abstracted.

[Epsilon Rose]

Actually all the games I know of, that aren't rules light, either use miniatures or could be adapted to them so easily that I didn't notice the absence. Could you give a few examples of the games you're trying to run?

[Grinner]

Actually all the games I know of, that aren't rules light, either use miniatures or could be adapted to them so easily that I didn't notice the absence. Could you give a few examples of the games you're trying to run?

The most immediate examples are World of Darkness and Warrior Rogue & Mage.

For me, it's not that the usage of miniatures can't be houseruled. It's that doing so is inconvenient for certain forms of play. Namely, chat and PbP games. Likewise, virtual tabletops often impose more problems than they solve.

[Knaight]

The most basic mechanic in an RPG is the task resolution mechanic. Combat in many games is often a form of task resolution given special consideration, seeing as how many books dedicate entire chapters to it.

This isn't actually completely true. Some RPGs don't use a task resolution mechanic, but instead use narrative control (e.g Fiasco), others don't really use task resolution per se but instead only use conflict resolution (e.g Dogs in the Vineyard). Yet others have a system that doesn't really warrant being called a mechanic (e.g Dread).

Pedantic nitpicking aside, take a look at Fate's Zones. It's a spacial representation of combat, but is heavily abstracted, and thus avoids issues of exact tracking and miniatures where those aren't particularly functional. The basics of it are that areas are broken up into zones.

For instance, say there is a grand ball room. There might be six zones: Lower Floor area, Right Staircase, Left Staircase, Right Balcony, Left Balcony, Raised Floor. Everyone in the same zone can interact in melee, everyone one zone away (lower floor to staircases, staircases to each other, lower floor, and raised floor, balconies to everything) can interact via thrown weapons, everyone two zones away (everything to everything, though some zones have disadvantages against others) can interact with projectiles. A quick sketched map makes this all simple, and the tactical dimensions still exist to some extent.

Zones are remarkably easy to steal, and they are your friend. Exactly how you implement them varies, but they are almost certainly worth playing around with.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

WoD really doesn't need mini's. It's combat rules are kinda light. Ya, unless you're sniping ranged weapons aren't a big advantage, but guns do as much or more damage than melee until you have artifact level weapons. You're either in melee or you're not, you're either close enough to close in an action or you're not. Much like with D&D "tanking" a lot depends on how the gamemaster and player's choose to view things and determine if they should break away from melee to go after a squishier and possible more damaging target.

[Yora]

What we've always done is to simply assume that you can reach any enemy in melee, unless players or the GM specifies that a certain PC or enemy is moving to a position that is difficult to reach. Even with up to 10 combatants, it's not really hard to roughly keep track of anyones position in your head.
If the warrior says he stands protectively before the mage, then enemies either have to circle around him to get to the mage, or have to push past him. If the fight takes place in a corridor or on a bridge, circling around may not be possible. And the GM makes a call what happens when the enemy tries to push past the fighter.
If a mage wants to throw a fireball at 10 goblins, the GM can just state that he can hit 7 of the goblins with the blast if he does not want to hit any of his allies.
Even in 3rd Edition D&D, that works without problems. The GM just calls attack of oportunity when it seems appropriate.

[MrLemon]

I second Yora

Playing without minatures works just fine for most fights. Sometimes, for the big epic stuff (15+ combatants, several bosses) we get them out on the table, but most of the time it's kind of unnecessary imo.
Also, you need to keep track of distances and positions in your head anyway once the mage starts flying around.

You just have to rely on your DM for aiming stuff, flanking, distance etc. If he says you'll reach that bastardly mage in two rounds, and there's 3 guys in the way that get AoO's, that's just it.

As a side note: Certain feats in D&D 3.5 really become obsolete without Miniatures, or are really hard to implement (Adaptable Flanker comes to mind)

[Totally Guy]

In Burning Wheel when you engage an opponent in the detailed fighting subsystem you both roll for position. Longer weapons give bonus dice to doing this. Then whoever gets the advantage from the positioning roll gives the opponent a penalty to their attacks.

Dagger versus spear? The guy with the dagger will have to beat the odds to get up close but if he does the guy with the spear will have a really hard time against him.

[Kuma Kode]

Well, I'm assuming you're considering a map and initials on grid paper to be mechanically equivalent to miniatures. If not, then... well, try that if you want exacting combat.

Fate's zones are something I've never heard of, but it immediately sounded like a simple and decent means of tracking areas if the zones are small enough (like in the example given).

For complex or important battles we break out the grid paper, but some kinds of encounters don't make that worthwhile. Flight, as has been mentioned, isn't easy to do with miniatures or grids, and running fights where monsters pop out of the woodwork while the group fights there way through the woods/the halls/the caves. For stuff like that, or random encounters in the street or road, we just kind of eyeball it. For small battles it works well.

Eyeballing it DOES require a lot of communication, though, and it takes a group that's really listening to not get confused, because if someone misses something, they're not just surprised to find they're in melee; their entire concept of the battle map is wrong. So long as the GM offers good examples of what to do, though, the group can calibrate.

If Ward runs up to hack the zombie with a fireaxe, and I tell him there's a second one immediately to his right and one appears out of the darkness to his left about 10 feet away, the group can communicate to find out specifics. Garrow might ask if she has a shot at that new one. If I say no, Ward's in the way, she can determine her angle relative to Ward and the other zombie. With multiple opponents and players, also tracing their own paths and figuring out their relations, the party can actually come up with a fairly detailed map of the battle without ever needing to specifically state everyone's exact distances to one another.

In other words, I third Yora.

[Grinner]

I do like Yora's idea from a GM's perspective. However, like Kuma Kode says, if not everyone visualizes the game as the GM does, then the game may begin to break down. The textual nature of chat and PbP games does nothing to ease this.

FATE's method sounds intriguing. I'll have to look into it further.

[Dumorimasoddaa]

I second Yora

Playing without minatures works just fine for most fights. Sometimes, for the big epic stuff (15+ combatants, several bosses) we get them out on the table, but most of the time it's kind of unnecessary imo.
Also, you need to keep track of distances and positions in your head anyway once the mage starts flying around.

You just have to rely on your DM for aiming stuff, flanking, distance etc. If he says you'll reach that bastardly mage in two rounds, and there's 3 guys in the way that get AoO's, that's just it.

As a side note: Certain feats in D&D 3.5 really become obsolete without Miniatures, or are really hard to implement (Adaptable Flanker comes to mind)

I've never played with miniatures, even in DnD 3.5, I'm used to wargaming (mostly both warhammers as well) but when a fight get's complex in my RPGs due to the combatants or the terrain my go to is to sketch a ugly quick and dirty map, it doesn't even need to be to scale if you mark the respective distances.
At a table top it's often even easier as one can use spare dice or what ever as tokens to allow easy re-positioning of relative units. Sizes and distances can be kept in ones head. More so when you have encounters that trail off to over 1km in distance while still having units engaged at the 100m line or in melee. Having a to scale battle map is purely a crutch in my mind, and most of my players seem to agree, a good number of people I've DM'd for have never played an RPG before it's only those who came in via DnD that find "mapless" play disconcerting or difficult and they have quickly got to grips with it.

But my number one rule is sketch it out, if you can use different colour pens when moving units and also cross the old position out. Always include an arrow if needed and use the pens in a certain order, black first position, red second, blue third (you can get a way with just two but I find 3 is easier to follow before you reset) In my sketches often on the same scrap paper I'm tracking wounds I give each unit a initial and add a number often super or sub script to differentiate same stat creatures in the same fight. using the notation or noting the initial next the wound/damage counter for said NPC. This alows me to see the full over view of the fight, who's where and how things are going at a glance how ever large amounts of crossing movement can get messy if you need arrows for them all another quick way is to add the round number of each repostion to the sketch.

With playing online as Dm you best bet is to just slap up a paint sketch of equal shoddy aesthetic merit Let each player either use it as a guide for describing actions or edit it when their moves are less easy to describe.

Tl;Dr I find quick sketchy maps are the perfect solution often using physical counters or one two letter marking for NPCs and PCs, when online I often provide such a sketched map to my players when asked for, just a annotated paint sketch, nothing fancy to alow my players to get the lay of the land.

[Communard]

I play 3.5 and PF and we've never felt the need to use miniatures, lack of miniatures doesn't mean you have to throw ranged combat out the window or anything like that, you just need to have a baisic knowledge of where everyone is in your head.

[JustSomeGuy]

You could keep a chalkboard or whiteboard to hand (with plenty of colours to ease confusion when things get hectic)?

[some guy]

Man, even 4th edition is fine without miniatures or maps. Granted, 4th edition kinda specializes in battles with a lot of opponents and when I ran battles for it without maps/miniatures there weren't that much combat participants. But still. It runs fine. Even ranged weapons don't lose their appeal.

Just use clear communication. "That monster will reach melee in 2 rounds."/ "If you take a step in this round and the following round, you can probably flank the goblin.", "You can choose to target all of the kobolds with your flaming hands spell, but you'll also hit Bob the Fighter, you can also choose to hit just the 3 kobolds to your right."

So yeah, it's fine as long as you can describe it allright and lots of opponents will make it a bit harder.

[Heliomance]

I've never used minis in combat, and I play mostly 3.5. Dm describes where everything is, and adjudicates any queries. Unless you're fighting in an enormous environment (or the enemies are specifically ranged and getting the drop on you), assume everything starts out in charge range. For area of effect spells, the DM makes a call as to how many enemies can be hit, and, if relevant, how many can be hit if you don't mind hitting your teammates as well. One DM had a system I like where he asked for Spellcraft rolls to do tricky placements to, for instance, catch an enemy in an AoE hut not the ally it was in melee with.