I was never a stickler for that kind of thing - in fact, I played D&D for 35 years without every using grids, tokens or battlemaps. It was just when I started playing online that I was introduced to them for the first time, and I’ve found that they add an extra layer of interest to the game. YMMV.
Yeah, I genuinely enjoy the tactical combat in D&D on its own merits. You can certainly do combat with a tactical grid, but finding that perfect spot to drop a fireball so it only hits the monsters, or plotting out a route that sets you up for a sneak attack without pulling an AoO is it’s own kind of joy.
I see no problem with that kind of play. It’s up the the players and the D.M. to do whatever they prefer.
As a person more interested in story, I’m never going to look back fondly on the time I used a particular tactical move in a game because I happened to be in a certain place on a grid.
But you (by which I mean a player in a game using grids and battle maps), might look back fondly on the time they used the cover of the toppling columns to get up on the crumbling wall and surprised the evil wizard covering behind his minions with a good old knife to the back.
You’re right that it’s all about preference, but battles can be story too.
Aah, no, arguing with the DM during play is not allowed at my table. What I say happened is what happened. If a player disagrees about something, they’re free to take it up with me in the next room during the next pause break.
But then, I’m not a “tactical combat” kind of DM and I don’t play with those kinds of players. If we spend 20% of a night in combat, we’d all think it was a bit too much. We’re all there for the roleplaying, not the combat simulation. If I want that, I could play Warhammer (I don’t play Warhammer)
We’ve had more than one night of “well, of course you beat these mooks, let me describe the aftermath” rather than play out some piece of goblin-skewering tedium.
I’d say that can BE the story. We still talk about the time my bard landed a Dissonant Whispers on the fire giant lord, causing it to flee through the druids pack of summoned wolves and get torn to shreds by opportunity attacks. It was just a fun, cool moment that was made possible by seeing the layout of everyone. Obviously, it’s possible that a DM could have ruled it happened in TotM but it’s just as (if not more in my experience) likely that they would have said “Ehh… maybe he runs past ONE wolf…” On the grid, there was no question that I pulled off a clutch move and turned the fight around.
I’d say that at least every other session, someone pulls off some cool tactical move that the rest of the group congratulates them on and says “Man, that really made that fight easier/winnable” and it just enhances the game overall. If we’re all talking about it after the session, I don’t think it matters if it was a combat move or an NPC dialogue encounter so long as we’re jazzed up about something.
Sure. Point is that the DM has a lot of things they can/should be doing and I’d say that arbitrating distances in combat scenes ranks fairly low. Taking that “away” from them doesn’t really impact their “What a DM should be doing” catalog.
Edit: I originally said “describing combat scenes” but I don’t think a grid takes that away. Our GM still describes the action extensively even with grids/tokens. What the rolls translate to visually, how the opponents are reacting, quippy remarks from the bad guy who just resisted your spell, etc
I definitely don’t think one variety is better than another. In a lot of non-D&D games, we’re purely Theater of the Mind, and it can be glorious. But it’s been a very long time since I played D&D without a map.
I tried once, in a Roll20 group. The PCs joined in with the Wild Hunt to track a fey boar, but this section of the wild hunt had a short attention span, and once the PCs got too far ahead of the motley crew of giants and ogres and worg-mounted goblins, they became the quarry. They followed the boar down a steep scree-covered mountainside, and the Wild Hunt decided it’d be funny to start a landslide by tossing boulders down at them.
So that was the setup: PCs trying to kill an enraged fey-touched dire boar while they and the boar slipped and scrabbled down a mountainside, dodging giant-thrown rocks and avalanching boulders and seeing through enormous clouds of dust.
I’d hoped folks would get to that point, and I’d prepared for it by finding a cool photograph of a massive rock avalanche. I threw that up on the screen, and said, “This is for reference, but we’re going to do theater of the mind, here, rather than use a battlemap, because this scene is way too chaotic for a static map to represent it.” Most of the players got it, and asked me smart questions, like, “How far am I from the boar? Can I reach it this round?” or “I want to summon a giant stag on the slope above us, can I position it between us and the giants?” and it worked beautifully.
Except one player. Every time it came to his turn–every time–the game screeched to a halt. “I…don’t understand. Where am I on this picture? Can you put my character there? I don’t see the giant, where is it?” It was painful. Without a battle map, he was incapacitated.
I’m a little twitchy about trying TotM in D&D ever since that experience.
Yup. I played a lot of Organized Play stuff over the last 20 years (Living Greyhawk, Living Forgotten Realms, Pathfinder Society, etc.) at conventions and game stores, where I’d often be playing with a group of players who were new to me, as well as my home groups. In my experience, there’s often at least one player who’s either (a) never played without a battle map, and/or (b) just can’t visualize a combat situation without one. And, there’s often the one guy who wants to be a rules lawyer, and/or absolutely wants to play D&D as a tactical miniatures game.
If one has a group where everyone is good with TotM, and the social contract with the GM is good (i.e., no arguing with the GM’s interpretations), that’s outstanding.
I tend to have a mental model of the scene that’s useful both for description and determining who can hit who at any point, but I don’t sweat the small stuff like precise AoE for spells or exact ranges for weapons.
If it works for you guys, cool. I just found it weird to think that it’s an integral part of DMing. You say most of your sessions aren’t combat oriented so I assume you do a lot of DM stuff that isn’t related to Normal vs Far ranges on a long bow.
I did TotM exclusively in 1e – probably because no one could be bothered to decipher the inane distance rules – and gamed happily while doing so. In other versions, I’ve found using a grid to be satisfying as well. I tend to play a lot of support roles so take pleasure in seeing and recognizing the perfect setup for that Web/Grease/Hypnotic Pattern/Wall of Whatever. I’d think my character does as well, “Ahhh… you foolish gnolls just set yourself up for this, didn’t you?”
Oh, sure, I do that all the time when I’m running combat on a grid, too. I like the crunchy tactical combat, but watching a bunch of 7th level adventurers chase the last two goblins around the map is still dull.
Interesting tactical combat can create interesting story developments. For example, a few sessions back in the campaign my wife is running, during a fight with a necromancer, there was a memorable bit of slapstick that probably wouldn’t have happened if we’d been doing straight TotM. The rogue, who is comically untrustworthy (a major plot point earlier was that he had unwittingly been doing a side business smuggling unholy texts and symbols for the cult we were fighting) wanted to try a back stab, but the map made it clear that it would be impossible to get to the necro without running through a crowd of his minions, drawing multiple AoO. So he turns around and dives through the window, prompting a bunch of jokes about him being a coward. Second turn he spends running around the outside of the building. Third round he dives back in through the window on the opposite side of the room and backstabs the necromancer, dropping him. It was hilarious and epic, and probably wouldn’t have happened quite like that if we weren’t doing gridded combat.
(After that, we tied the unconscious necromancer to a chair, fed him a healing potion, and apologized for attacking him, because halfway through the fight our party realized that we were the assholes in the situation. Which has been the RP highlight of the game so far.)
I’m having trouble seeing how it couldn’t have gone off exactly like that in TotM play.
Well, the first place where it probably would have turned out differently would have been in deciding if he could cross the room safely. “The undead horde prevents you from crossing the room,” wasn’t a deliberate decision the GM made, it was a function of where the characters were visibly located on the map. In a TotM session, the player would have asked if there was a way to safely cross the room, and it would have been GM fiat if there was a route or not. If she decides, “Yeah, there’s probably a route across the room,” he doesn’t need to look at the windows. Also, having the windows shown on the map made it clear that this was an available route. Of course, “Theater of the mind” doesn’t mean, “No maps ever,” and a player could certainly have come up with this strategy looking at a non-tactical combat map, but I doubt that he’d have spent much time studying a non-tactical map in that situation.
Yeah, anything from grid combat could have happened in TotM but it’s often unlikely that it would have happened because it was the physical placement of the icons that inspired the action in the first place.
The debate over “simulationist” versus “Theatre of the Mind” is a perennial one, and really depends on whether your players prefer extended tactical wargaming versus maximizing the time spent in roleplaying. One way is not ‘better’ than the other but if your players are not all in agreement it means people will be frustrated either in not playing the game they want or sitting around while other people play a tactical combat minigame that they aren’t really interested in.
In general, I think most RPGs are pretty poor tactical simulations (especially those which elevate the player characters to the point that they are so resilient against physical injury that they can just wade into a melee heedless of injury or tactics) and most RPG designers actually know little about melee or firearm combat. Even the spare exceptions like Runequest or Mythras don’t really give the flavor of real combat, and overlooking a grid map on a table with figurines at well-measured distances gives a kind of omniscient point of view that is the antithesis of the grinder of a real melee. I think games run better and fights feel more realistic when the GM is asking the players what they want to do and letting them know what is possible versus measuring distances and doing movement calculations, tracking fatigue points, et cetera. Having a map or terrain give a flavor to the setting of a scene but the notion that you need to have these in order to make the game ‘fair’ begs the question of what the GM is for other than running the NPCs.
Stranger
Is “simulationist” the best antonym there? I don’t expect combat that takes place on a battle mat to be significantly more realistic than combat that takes place on a chessboard. I like games with tactical combat because it’s a kind of game I like, not because it’s a realistic simulation of actual combat. Likewise with “fair,” which is always a faintly ridiculous complaint in a game where one “player” has to authority to unilaterally declare that everyone else loses.
Definitely. It can be a fun puzzle to figure out how to maneuver into position to strike a killing blow, and a battlemap makes the challenge highly specific in a way that TotM doesn’t do. Again, I enjoy both approaches; they’re almost different games. When I play Swords of the Serpentine and my stone-mage makes granite hands reach out of a bridge to pluck enemies off a boat, that uses a different and more creative part of my brain than when I play Dungeons and Dragons and calculate the best place to stand to maximize my use of the Slow spell. And both use different parts of my brain from what I use when I play Kingdoms and need to create a compelling, devastating societal conflict on the fly.
I’m glad my life has room for all of 'em.
I’m assuming that players want to play on a grid because it is more evocative of a real fight than what they conjure up in their head, or dealing with the difficulty of translating the GMs concept of the battlefield to the players by words alone. Which is fine if that is what you want to spend time on the table doing but it takes time away from other aspects of the game, and it is isn’t intended to be a simulation of combat I’m not sure what the point is. I mean, some people like haggling at the village shoppe and arranging their pack list, and personally I feel like if you are that kind of player you should play Torchbearer which is less of a roleplaying game than an existential survival challenge, but personally I like narrative and more flamboyant interaction even if it does mean skipping over some of the nuances of the rules.
The combat rules of Runequest were actually written by people experienced in Society for Creative Anachronism (which, if not ‘realistic’ is about as close as you’ll get without full on HEMA training) and so it can be accurately described as ‘simulationist’…and it is fortunate that most fights are over in two or three rounds because each of those rounds will probably take half an hour with a party of 4 people even if they are familiar with all of the melee rules. The more streamlined rules in Magic World (using the same BRP system but without hit locations and all of the other complexities of fatigue, special maneuvers, et cetera) are 90% of the fun with 10% of the effort, and the GM can easily add some description or gin up a few random tables to give the combat some narrative flavor.
I’ve been playing around with Cthulhu Dark Ages which is, as it sounds, a European Middle Ages setting for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition and while I haven’t hosted a game yet it plays out quickly as well while still allowing the players the latitude to declare special maneuvers, deal impaling damage, et cetera. Of course, since you are likely to be consumed by a malevolent evil or have your face melted off while reading the ancient tome you took from one of the corrupted berserkers who just ravaged your homestead, physical injury is probably the least of your concerns. Better to have a high MOV stat and a good ‘Listen’ skill so you can run away from danger as fast as your puny humanoid legs will permit you.
Stranger
When I hear “simulationist,” I don’t really think of combat systems, I mostly think of stuff like making the party track rations and encumbrance, or spending a lot of time dealing with weather effects. I don’t really associate the term with combat, because any turn based combat system is inherently such an abstraction to begin with.
In my experience, people like the combat system in D&D and similar RPGs because they’re fun, not because they’re realistic. I mean, the amount of heavy lifting you have to do just to justify the concept of “hit points” alone… But it’s more fun if my barbarian can stand against a horde and take hit after hit without yielding, instead of him being incapacitated by a single dagger wound and later dying of sepsis, so I accept hit points because it makes a fun game. “Realism” isn’t really a concern, except at a really broad, largely character-driven level.
This.
A few people I know have run entirely factual, no magic, full on realism D&D campaigns. I never felt the urge to play in one. I was a member of a LARP group for a few years. Combat with boffers followed simpified rules. What made the group perfect for me was the mixture of reality and fantasy. I usually played a thief. Besides fighters (who gained no benefits from leveling up but had no restrictions on armor or weapons) you could also play a cleric, mage or monk. Besides most SCA groups using more dangerous weapons, I haven’t found one which includes a fantasy element. The reality of most of history is that it sucked for most people.