My current DM of previously 3.5 and now SAGA refuse to use "visual combat aids".
I can understand not wanting to spend money and time on tiles and minis. Me myself won't buy minis, so I print tokens or use other stuffs such as chesspieces. But this DM say that a combat grid hinders roleplaying, to an extent that we can't even pull out a graph paper, an old chessboard or anything to help us see our positions. You have to ask yourself what hinders roleplaying more; a visual combat grid or 6 people arguing over their positions and ranges?
Himself say that he has the battle "clearly in his mind", which might be well and all but not everyone in the group has this "tactical memory" so misunderstandings is still prone to happen.
What to do? It's not so bad you'll leave the game for it, but every session you hope that he hasn't planned an encounter involving more than three oppponents...
How I got my group to start using a battle board was to run games myself, making all the effort to understand the relevent rules, pre-print maps and tokens. It changed things immensely, and now we never play without one (and I've not GM-ed the last three campaigns).
To start I made a D&D v3 version of "Jugger" (as in the movie: http://www.scifimoviepage.com/salute.html) as a one-off battle board game so that everyone could try out the board and other v3.5 combat things (such as Readying an action). It went down well and did the job - don't underestimate how many rules there are to learn to run a battleboard - probably the distraction of all those new rules and fiddling with gaming pieces is what your DM is concerned about.
Also, I'd suggest your DM would be better off running a different system. There are plenty of game systems that will work in his style, much better than D&D 3 or 4.
Which is the better approach depends very much on you and your group.
I'm not going to push it or anything, as this campaign has only about 10 sessions left before the DM moves away, so I may as well let him run it how he wants. But if I knew I was in a long-term open-ended campaign, I'd probably shop around for a DM who wants to play exactly the game I'm looking for.
Your DM may not be as good at description as he thinks. If he thinks the use of minis somehow hampers roleplay, he should learn his game history better. The whole roleplaying genre stemmed from tabletop wargames when Dave Arneson came up with the idea that individual characters on the battlefield could lead to some great storytelling.
I'd tell him that he may have the battle all planned out in his head, but he's not conveying it well enough for those outside of his head to understand it. With a large number of enemies, this is a situation where you can't just be a good communicator, you have to be a great communicator.
That said, the lack of a battle grid is up to the players and DM. If as a player you need more information on placement, then you should push your DM on specifics. Eventually he(she) will have to accommodate in some way (maybee even drawing the grid).
Like prevous poster, I run a good amount of roleplay and less battles in my game. If I started up 4e again, that would be my focus. ;)
This title may be a bit misleading but the general consensus is this:
My current DM of previously 3.5 and now SAGA refuse to use "visual combat aids".
I can understand not wanting to spend money and time on tiles and minis. Me myself won't buy minis, so I print tokens or use other stuffs such as chesspieces. But this DM say that a combat grid hinders roleplaying, to an extent that we can't even pull out a graph paper, an old chessboard or anything to help us see our positions. You have to ask yourself what hinders roleplaying more; a visual combat grid or 6 people arguing over their positions and ranges?
Himself say that he has the battle "clearly in his mind", which might be well and all but not everyone in the group has this "tactical memory" so misunderstandings is still prone to happen.
What to do? It's not so bad you'll leave the game for it, but every session you hope that he hasn't planned an encounter involving more than three oppponents...
Tell him, politely, that while it is great that he can see the battle "clearly in his mind" that you are not a mind reader and cannot see the battle "clearly in his mind." If he starts to describe it in detail tell him, politely, that you still cannot see the battle as he is mentally seeing it.
You should also try to tell him that combat itself is often less about role-playing and more about tactics and bashing in brains.
-DM works for the PCs. He's making it easier for him (which is debatable), not you guys. Majority rules. Group play not "I'm the boss, do as I say".
-Clearly "in his mind" isn't your's. No matter how good his narrative, no 2 ppl will see things the same way. Some are more disadvantaged than others, so grids/etc help make a more even playing field.
-Takes much more time to describe where 'x' is and so on. That's time better spent RP'ing out a dramatic scene, faciliating combat, etc. In his fervor to save time, ironically, he's wasting more of it.
-Detail; 1 little aspect of a room can change the entire course of the fight/scene. ex) A torch that was drawn in on a map was cleverly used to start a big fire which made the diversion necessary to succeed. Just assuming, "Yeah, there's light" wouldn't have gotten that end.
-Visual aids trigger ideas and jog memories which in turn push qualitative reasoning (RP, thematics) and quantitative reasoning (mechanical, combat, etc) better. Causes more initiative and creative problem solving when you have a point of reference to draw theory and conjecture from.
-More efficient; easier to make rulings when you have fixed points. Pushes gameplay forward for combat. Not needed in RP necessarilly, but it can be a boon.
Visual aids do just that, aid. He needs the help.
-DM works for the PCs. He's making it easier for him (which is debatable), not you guys. Majority rules. Group play not "I'm the boss, do as I say".
-Clearly "in his mind" isn't your's. No matter how good his narrative, no 2 ppl will see things the same way. Some are more disadvantaged than others, so grids/etc help make a more even playing field.
-Takes much more time to describe where 'x' is and so on. That's time better spent RP'ing out a dramatic scene, faciliating combat, etc. In his fervor to save time, ironically, he's wasting more of it.
-Detail; 1 little aspect of a room can change the entire course of the fight/scene. ex) A torch that was drawn in on a map was cleverly used to start a big fire which made the diversion necessary to succeed. Just assuming, "Yeah, there's light" wouldn't have gotten that end.
-Visual aids trigger ideas and jog memories which in turn push qualitative reasoning (RP, thematics) and quantitative reasoning (mechanical, combat, etc) better. Causes more initiative and creative problem solving when you have a point of reference to draw theory and conjecture from.
-More efficient; easier to make rulings when you have fixed points. Pushes gameplay forward for combat. Not needed in RP necessarilly, but it can be a boon.
This.
It's one thing to want to avoid visual aids due to monetary costs or perhaps a desire to TRY to have players mentally visualizing everything and the DM revelling in his own descriptive abilities and techniques, but it's quite another to simply refuse to do so - and to cite it as being a hindrance to roleplaying is flat out baseless. There is nothing about looking at the walls of a room drawn on graph paper and tokens of some kind displaying the positions of characters and monsters that hinders roleplaying. There is nothing about it that prevents him from STILL rambling on at length as to what things REALLY look like, where they are positioned, and what they are doing at any given moment. I've yet to have ever even heard anyone cite specific anecdotal evidence that the use of visual aids makes their players worse at roleplaying.
In particular these are visual aids for COMBAT. In combat actual roleplaying is largely already set aside in favor of simple, tactical excercises intended to establish victory/defeat and then the RESUMING of roleplaying. Unless you have a lot of villain/hero monologing going on, roleplaying and actual combat are reasonably exclusive.
Now, it just might be that his players WOULD be better roleplayers without the "distraction" of visual aids, but it might also be (and this is FAR more likely) that his players are NOT as good at visualization as he seems to want them to be, and that he, himself, is not as good at description as he wants/needs to be. This is actually proven by the very fact that at least ONE of his players (the OP) is here expressing a strong desire for visual aids. This rather proves his plan of absolute avoidance of visual aids is A FAILURE.
The OP says its not bad enough to want to leave the game over it - but it sure seems like it's close to that and that makes it bad enough that the DM needs to reconsider and alter his attitude and approach to the game a bit. It is a simple but POWERFUL statement to say, "I dread encounters involving more than three opponents." This DM needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
D&D is a game that was BORN out of tactical miniatures combat games. Therefore miniatures and visual aids in general may not be absolutely necessary to play, but they are NOT a hindrance to play, and have always been a potential positive factor since the beginning of the hobby. The combat portion of the game certainly always has and still does BENEFIT from NOT needing to rely on ONLY verbal description. 3rd Edition was intentionally designed to work better with miniatures without requiring them, but 4th Edition was designed to ALWAYS include miniatures or graphical visual aids of some caliber - even though it IS still possible to play without them.
Having a grid on the table that everyone can see, and which, I might add, the majority of people use and seem to roleplay just fine? Or,
Having the players get confused and need to pause repeatedly to ask about positions and environment because they can't keep track of everything like the GM allegedly can?
DM a short adventure, a one afternoon session should be fine. Invite your DM and your regular players to play. (I like to make pre-generated characters for one-shots just so the players aren't spending hours of prep time before the game. Some groups, however, have a strong opposition to this so it is up to you.)
Use a grid and combat tokens, make sure to role-play as much as you always would even in the fights. If it runs smoothly and their are few misunderstandings about positioning, maybe your DM will see it as a good thing.
Also, don't be afraid to ask each other questions.
I know, a shocking solution.....
In 2nd edition, it didn't really matter. You followed the general descriptions of placement "he's off to the side" "you sneak up behind him" and just went from there. Mostly, you would ask the DM if an action was possible given the circumstances and he would either say yes or no, how difficult it might be in general terms, and you made the decision to either try it or not. That play style can be fun for crafting abstract situations and without any "boardgamey" feel (not that I am anti-board game by any means), but it also has the drawback of being rather arbitrary and far less tactical.
In 4th, sheer batcrazy madness not to use a grid as you throw a lot of the carefully crafted balance inherent to classes like the bard and warlord out the window. I call shennenigans on anyone claiming to be able to precisely remember board position to the square by memory for an encounter of > 2 participants.
3.5 and 4E are both (very different) great games, but neither of them has ever hugely cared about complex masterworks of storytelling, at least not in the way that some other systems do. I spent five years of schooling playing 2E with about 10 people in a stairwell where we were lucky to even have character sheets so I totally understand where your DM is coming from, but when I wanted to continue that style of play I moved on to games like World of Darkness and 7th Sea and maybe that's what your DM needs to do too.
4E demands battlemaps and minis; and 3.5 asks for them politely but firmly. If you're playing without them you're shooting yourself in the foot, and from the 4E side of things once you take them away there's not a lot of system left. Make sure your DM understands that and buy him a copy of something by White Wolf for his birthday.
Remind your DM that while it's his campaign, it's your game too, and players are entitled to have fun playing a game and not be lectured by the DM on the One True Way to play.
Also - lies! DM is god! All hail! I really do think this is an unhelpful way to look at things; collaboration rarely rises to the creative heights of a single author. The DM presents the game, and then the players make a judgement as to its worth, and turn up to it or not. The DM will never improve unless he's given the chance to stand or fall on his own merits.
Haven't helped changed his mind though about visual aids while he is DMing. It may be one of those cases of "difficulties to learn an old dog new tricks".
While I no longer need to participate in his "gridless" 3.5 campaign, the problem still remains that I want to play Star Wars, and that I want to play it as a Jedi. It would've been easier maybe to just pick one of the other classes, equip myself with a blaster, grab for cover and shoot until it it stops moving.
A combat grid does hinder roleplaying.
A combat grid hinders roleplaying about as much as combat itself hinders roleplaying. And D&D is NOT designed as a purely roleplaying game. Combat is geared more towards tactical positioning and what attack you are going to use and less towards roleplaying out the combat. Therfore a combat grid, for the most part, makes combat easier for those involved.
A combat grid does hinder roleplaying. It really does. It's subverting your thinking into tactics and positioning every time you look at it; it's linguistic determinism applied through game aids. But that's the game that 4E is, and I understand that to a much lesser extent it's what the combat portion of 3.5 is. That's the system you've chosen to play, now live with it.
No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. It may hinder roleplaying in your group, but that does not apply to everyone. All of my favorite and most interesting combats have been run with some type of visual aid, if not a battlemat and miniatures, then a piece of paper with positions marked, or a computer screen, but something.
Thinking about tactics and positioning does not necessarily hinder roleplaying. In some cases, it enhances it. I had one player who needed some type of visual aid all the time, even for wandering around town. No one else used it, they just told me "hey I'm going to see the armorer" or whatever, but she wanted to see the shop and place her miniature there. There was nothing wrong with this, and in fact she roleplayed constantly. In fact, she was probably the only one who really enjoyed roleplaying walking the streets and searching for a specific shop.
To the OP, there is absolutely no reason that you cannot RP combat with or without a grid. Also, while 4e doesn't absolutely require the grid, the rules do assume that you are using one. D&D evolved from a miniatures game, so I strongly contest that the board somehow precluded roleplaying. IMO, combats have been easier to run and more enjoyable in pretty much every edition with a battlemap. Of course, my first roleplaying experience came from an actual board game, so I may be biased.
A combat grid hinders roleplaying about as much as combat itself hinders roleplaying.
A combat grid hinders roleplaying about as much as a predisposition to combat hinders roleplaying.
Possibly I didn't explain what I mean when I said "it's linguistic determinism as applied to game aids". It might have been more accurate to say linguistic relativity.
People think in terms of the tools available to them. People solve problems with the items nearest to hand.
Think about playing Doom, or for that matter Halo if you want a more modern example of a pure first-person shooter. It is entirely possible in the game engine of those games to have a series of lights spell out a message in morse code that the player must decipher to work out in what order to walk over patterned squares to unlock a door.
As a player, you'd never think of that. You'd never think that that might be a possibility. There is a gun right in your hand. You are intended to solve problems with your gun. By contrast, imagine firing up Doom and finding all your weapons were replaced with bandages and medkits; you would immediately understand that your relationship to the monsters in the game was intended to be something different and that killing them was probably not the goal.
Check out Animal Crossing; some animal in your town has a problem, you know that it's going to be solved by giving them something. Because that's the tools the game presents. It's technically possible that the game developers could have coded it so that you solve the problem by walking around their house three times clockwise and then pushing A, B and START, but that's not what the menus, the inventory system, and the prominence of the shopping district are telling you.
We solve problems first and foremost with what's in front of us. If what's in front of us is a blank table, we solve them with our pure imagination. If what's in front of us is a list of strange items and utility powers that's how we'll approach things. And if we're looking at a battlemap, it'll be combat.
Yes, we can choose not to use combat, but the notion that human beings are beings of infinite cognisance who run through the entire range of possible options before making a decision simply isn't true. We turn to our nearest resources, and only move on from them if we find them incapable of the task. And the thing about combat is that if it hasn't solved your problems, it's only that you haven't used enough.
Go run the experiment. Take the Irontooth encounter from Keep on the Shadowfell and run it as a test case. Get two groups of 4E virgins, put them outside the waterfall, and give one group a battlemap and the other a blank table. Watch which group uses stealth, or tries to lure the kobolds out, or makes a plan, and watch the other group charge in and start expending daily powers.
Go run the experiment. Take the Irontooth encounter from Keep on the Shadowfell and run it as a test case. Get two groups of 4E virgins, put them outside the waterfall, and give one group a battlemap and the other a blank table. Watch which group uses stealth, or tries to lure the kobolds out, or makes a plan, and watch the other group charge in and start expending daily powers.
You seem to misunderstand the use of a battlemap; you reveal it AFTER you've rolled initiative and combat starts.
This is at least how I did in the Irontooth encounter. And yes, the players tried to stealth and lure out the kobolds.
You seem to misunderstand the use of a battlemap; you reveal it AFTER you've rolled initiative and combat starts.
This is at least how I did in the Irontooth encounter. And yes, the players tried to stealth and lure out the kobolds.
Let me ask you this: when do you roll initiative? When does combat start?
:D
While D&D is a roleplaying game, don't forget that it is a game and not a Broadway play. The game mechanics of rolling dice, moving your piece around a combat board, marking off resources used, etc., are all part of the game, and for many players an equal part to the roleplay for what makes the game fun.
TBH, every time I've played a mapless game, it was horrible, because there was always the person who said "What do you mean? YOU SAID I WAS 20 FEET WAY, HOW DID I GET HIT?"
And, no offense to the DM, but if he can keep track of 5 monsters and players in his head over the course of an hour as combat usually takes, he should be working for NASA or some crap like that.
What you SHOULD do is draw the map at the very beginning of combat, plot it out each turn, to see if he's really doing it right. If he is, he'll have no problem with you double-checking. Odds are, though, that he's full of B.S., and won't let you double-check, because he's afraid of being found out.
Let me ask you this: when do you roll initiative? When does combat start?
When the DM says to roll initiative, either combat starts by the NPCs or the PCs "making the move". Surprise actions is one small exception.
Years ago, before I had ever even heard of D&D, my friends and I would play all manner of roleplaying games. We did sci-fi, fantasy, pirates, superheros, you name it. We didn't have a system. We didn't keep track of levels, inventory, or even names sometimes. It was pure roleplaying. However, this was only possible because we all shared a sense of propriety. We knew without even asking what was acceptable and what wasn't. No one of us was in a DM position; we all contributed equally. We played hero and villain alike, sometimes against ourselves. We regulated our own abilities, because there was no hard limit.
However, I've come to accept that I need a number-system in order to play with people who may not share my preconceptions about how medieval fantasy should be. In the same way, we need stats to have a real, stable system for determining character abilities.
In the same way, when playing with people who don't share your exact sense of spacial orientation, we need a visual reference for character positions.
1) Thematics, dramatic improvisation, personification, RP in general, bla bla bla
2) Empiricial data, game mechanics, systematic concepts, etc."
On that line exists the player's style. That is to say, some lean towards more tried & true PC optimization (#2), others are gunning for Best Supporting Actor (#1) by good RP. It ebbs and flows, back and forth often enough, but eventually, you get a feel for PC 'x' and their comfort level, capability, and ambition between the two. And it varies depending on mood, caffeine consumption, race, class, dice, and bla bla bla. Lots of things.
A comfortable median average hopefully will surface...you (they) achieve balance. This keeps things in perspective, AS THEY SHOULD BE. Or, as Ben Franklin said, "Everything in moderation." Extremes of either are bad.
The same holds true for the for the game itself, specifically, what the DM is controlling & providing for his players. Forgoing any semblance of a map, grid, graph, minis, tokens, or otherwise seriously skews the balance heavilly in favor of thematics & storytelling, perhaps paying lip service at best to the actual mechanical fare of the game. It is out of balance (IMO).
Consider all the "how-to" bits in the PHBs over the years in many editions. They explain a charge, flanking, difficult terrain, area of effect, etc. etc. all by those gimmicky little minis running around a map in their illustrations. Why would they do that? I like to think game designers that do that for a living know what they're doing, so, consequently, I fall in line and take a page from their book, no pun intended. There's a reason there, not just a predilection to/against it...
Normally, I'm all about bringing forth better RP form my players; truly, it is easier to gravitate towards #2 given fixed points of quantitative data being easier to grasp than an open-ended creative dynamic (#1).
But it is achieved by GIVING them incentive, providing tools, compelling NPCs, XP bonuses, whatever to engender better RP. Not TAKING AWAY likely tools of the other end of the spectrum and forcing them to work w/ less by default. ie) It's easier to trim the fat than to go hungry and deal w/ fallout.
Maps/minis can and have facilitated both aspects of polarity. I see it every Sunday in my living room like clockwork, but that's just me and mine. It's a peripheral tool to be sure, but a valid/helpful one.
Or, as I'm want of saying, "Right tool for the right job."
A combat grid hinders roleplaying about as much as a predisposition to combat hinders roleplaying.
Um, this is unmitigated crap. You can successfully roleplay a character or entire party whose personalities are solely dedicated to mindless mayhem. Perhaps your definition of roleplaying is a little skewed.
People think in terms of the tools available to them. People solve problems with the items nearest to hand.
Neither of which has anything to do with using visual aids. You can either describe or show people the tools available to them - neither is inherently superior.
We solve problems first and foremost with what's in front of us. If what's in front of us is a blank table, we solve them with our pure imagination. If what's in front of us is a list of strange items and utility powers that's how we'll approach things. And if we're looking at a battlemap, it'll be combat.
You're focusing too much on the term "battlemap". Think of it more as just a map. I've seen people be much more creative with their movement, skills, and use of powers because they can actually see what their options are. No DM, no matter how good, can completely describe an area orally. He may forget something, or not even have thought about it, whereas using today's "battlemats", especially the preprinted ones that come with many adventures, you can actually see where every piece of furniture is, what items are on a particular table, and judge accurately how far it is from the staircase to the thug you want to leap on.
Yes, we can choose not to use combat, but the notion that human beings are beings of infinite cognisance who run through the entire range of possible options before making a decision simply isn't true. We turn to our nearest resources, and only move on from them if we find them incapable of the task. And the thing about combat is that if it hasn't solved your problems, it's only that you haven't used enough.
Um, this is sociobabble. If you are truly "roleplaying" then you should be asking yourself what your character would do in a given situation, based on his personality. Defaulting to combat is a player choice that has nothing to do with whether or not you are using miniatures.
Go run the experiment. Take the Irontooth encounter from Keep on the Shadowfell and run it as a test case. Get two groups of 4E virgins, put them outside the waterfall, and give one group a battlemap and the other a blank table. Watch which group uses stealth, or tries to lure the kobolds out, or makes a plan, and watch the other group charge in and start expending daily powers.
Um, I don't think you understand how to use these maps. You don't just lay it all out in front of people before the encounter even begins. You're more than a little condescending towards people who use miniatures, especially considering you don't seem to understand how to use them effectively.
A combat grid hinders roleplaying about as much as a predisposition to combat hinders roleplaying.
Possibly I didn't explain what I mean when I said "it's linguistic determinism as applied to game aids". It might have been more accurate to say linguistic relativity.
People think in terms of the tools available to them. People solve problems with the items nearest to hand.
Think about playing Doom, or for that matter Halo if you want a more modern example of a pure first-person shooter. It is entirely possible in the game engine of those games to have a series of lights spell out a message in morse code that the player must decipher to work out in what order to walk over patterned squares to unlock a door.
As a player, you'd never think of that. You'd never think that that might be a possibility. There is a gun right in your hand. You are intended to solve problems with your gun. By contrast, imagine firing up Doom and finding all your weapons were replaced with bandages and medkits; you would immediately understand that your relationship to the monsters in the game was intended to be something different and that killing them was probably not the goal.
Check out Animal Crossing; some animal in your town has a problem, you know that it's going to be solved by giving them something. Because that's the tools the game presents. It's technically possible that the game developers could have coded it so that you solve the problem by walking around their house three times clockwise and then pushing A, B and START, but that's not what the menus, the inventory system, and the prominence of the shopping district are telling you.
We solve problems first and foremost with what's in front of us. If what's in front of us is a blank table, we solve them with our pure imagination. If what's in front of us is a list of strange items and utility powers that's how we'll approach things. And if we're looking at a battlemap, it'll be combat.
Yes, we can choose not to use combat, but the notion that human beings are beings of infinite cognisance who run through the entire range of possible options before making a decision simply isn't true. We turn to our nearest resources, and only move on from them if we find them incapable of the task. And the thing about combat is that if it hasn't solved your problems, it's only that you haven't used enough.
Go run the experiment. Take the Irontooth encounter from Keep on the Shadowfell and run it as a test case. Get two groups of 4E virgins, put them outside the waterfall, and give one group a battlemap and the other a blank table. Watch which group uses stealth, or tries to lure the kobolds out, or makes a plan, and watch the other group charge in and start expending daily powers.
Thank you for sharing your opinion on the topic. But, the truth of the matter is that just because a combat grid hinders your game does not mean that it hinders everyone else's game. No offense, Greg, but you seem to be under the impression that your way of playing D&D/opinions on D&D/gaming are the only ones that matter. And that simply is not the case. You say that a gaming grid hinders roleplaying. That is fine, for your group. But you fail to understand that that is only your opinion. It is not a universal fact. The very fact that people here have said that combat grids do NOT hinder roleplaying should clue you in that your opinion does NOT apply to everyone.
We solve problems first and foremost with what's in front of us. If what's in front of us is a blank table, we solve them with our pure imagination. If what's in front of us is a list of strange items and utility powers that's how we'll approach things. And if we're looking at a battlemap, it'll be combat.
I assume that when you say "we" that you are referring to your gaming group. And I make that assumption because my gaming group has solved puzzles while in combat and while using a combat grid.
my gaming group has solved puzzles while in combat and while using a combat grid.
Not only is this a possibility, it's actually made more interesting by having a visual. For instance, the usage of traps has become a lot more interesting and interactive when I have a map for the players to explore, and search on. I can draw on symbols and hints to later plots on a map grid. How about hazards? It's more difficult to say "and about ten feet, a little off is a 2x2 pool of dark, murky water" and just leave it to imagination. Using a visual aid (personally, my maps are gridded "ghostline" posterboard), I say the same thing, then they look and see the pool of water...and they are less likely to forget about it. Suddenly, the water, the furniture, all those little details become part of the adventure. Maybe there's combat, maybe not...but having a visual world to interact with is a wonderful thing.
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(Different subject same topic)
Roleplaying is something more than just enjoying obsessive control of your character...it's letting the character experience and grow, and developing them through their senses and experience, finding out how they handle and look at things. You do not need a visual aid for this, nor does one hinder it. By removing the distraction of visualization of minor details, more focus can be placed on other aspects of the character, so in that sense, it's a good roleplaying aid.
I admit, there are some kinds of players, who want to see a grid as a combat board game. The kind of players who look at DMs for visual clues as to what they are planning, it's a form of metagaming. The best way to discourage this? Stop using your grid to give away your method! I will use a semi-unrelated example...when I started 4e, I decided to use quite a few traps. But I was new and didn't remember the stats on perception, etc. So I found myself opening the DMG when a player entered a room with a trap. Players soon caught on that when I reached for the DMG, there was a trap in the room, and started actively searching the room. So I started keeping the DMG open at all time, and consulting it randomly for no reason to stop this. My point is...when players come to expect a behavior from you, they will play that way. From what it sounds like, your touted "roleplay heavy" group has a pavlovian response to the battle grid...there's RP mode and there's battle mode. And this is a disservice to players. If your maps are giving away too much information, then there is something wrong with your maps...(this is why I use gridded posterboard, because I can draw only what the players actually see).
Edit: A quick apology, because I meant to quote multiple posts here, and it sounds like I am talking to one person, then against the same person. I am disagreeing with another poster, and agreeing with one...I'm kind of tired...
Character sheets are also visual aides. Maybe you can suggest to him you don't need a character sheet. "100 points of damage? Nah, I'm still up. I imagine that I've still got some hit points somewhere. It's all clear in my mind."
:D
No offense, Greg, but you seem to be under the impression that your way of playing D&D/opinions on D&D/gaming are the only ones that matter.
No, I'm under the impression you don't need to be patronised by having me bring anything less than my strongest and most vehement opinions to the debate. This is the internet. I'm not insulting you personally, I'm just elaborating a belief, firmly held, backed by reason, and if I'm wrong then that's something you should be capable of confronting on an equal footing.
To rebut the general with the singular, by the way, is not a strong argument. Against the argument, "Human thought is influenced by the tools at hand," to say, "On one accasion we overcame that influence," is not a succesful counterpoint. Nor is the more general "At my table it doesn't work like that" - it's anecdotal. If you think my argument is internally inconsistent or contradicted by research then let's see you make that point. A thousand sailors claiming to have personally sighted a concave horizon didn't make the Earth round; it was simply a thousand cases of a well-documented optical illusion subject to disproof with astronomical measurements and some relatively simple mathematics. Doesn't anyone have the logic to shoot me down rationally over "game design is a language and it's subject to linguistic determinism"?
I use miniatures - I love miniatures - I'm just saying that by going down that route 4th Edition has set its back against some of the finer nuances of roleplaying.
I've heard "the battlemap goes down when combat begins" and "combat begins when the DM calls initiative"; I've heard it said elsewhere, "the DM calls initiative once players are on a battlemap". In 4th Edition it's crucially important where players are when combat begins, how far they are from the enemy, how many of the enemy they can see, and who has line of sight to who - that's information they need before deciding to engage in combat, and that's all information derived from the battlemap. Grid based positioning is part and parcel of 4E thinking at any time that combat is a possibility, not merely when the first attacks are made.
And the more you back away from that - handwave distances prior to combat, decide line of sight by DM fiat, describe space rather than show it - sure, the more you're able to offer alternative problem resolutions, which is great, but simultaneously the further you are moving from 4th Edition. You're not working with the rules when you do that stuff, you're subverting them and creating exceptions to them.
I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do that - you should - I'm saying that that's the dilemma you're in. It's a choice between battlemaps and non-combat roleplaying, and sure, you can have both at the same time because the map doesn't completely eclipse non-combat roleplaying, but it detracts from it.
And all that, of course, is before you start looking at the character sheet.
I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do that - you should - I'm saying that that's the dilemma you're in. It's a choice between battlemaps and non-combat roleplaying, and sure, you can have both at the same time because the map doesn't completely eclipse non-combat roleplaying, but it detracts from it.
And all that, of course, is before you start looking at the character sheet.
There is no choice unless you make it a choice. You can roleplay with figures. You can roleplay on a board. There is nothing whatsoever in that concept that affects your ability to imagine.
So I took that "character sheet" link, and it becomes more clear.
That's more than three quarters of the sheet. We're left with character name, weight, height, alignment, skills, perception, and languages known. The 4th Edition character sheet is very unsubtly telling players that the solution to their problems is combat.
You make a statement here that does not fit. Sigh...in middle school they teach you the different between fact and opinion on paper. You have a) a statement about the content given to combat, b) the presence of non-combat information, and c) a conclusion that non-combat is eliminated. You posted one possibile interpretation of the data. It's not the only valid one. I could say that 1/4 of the character sheet is devoted entirely to RP stats. And I would then say therefore that 4e is an RP friendly game, because it shows RP support.
But what is a character sheet for? Well, it's a quick reference of needed stats. How many times will I need to know my character's height? I mean, everything I really need for RP purposes is right there, on the front of the page. By moving the items I need around to the back, I only make referencing the game rules more inconvenient. Between combat, feats, and skills, you should have all the tools you need to handle a situation, combat or not.
So back on topic...no, there is no reason to think using minis or a battle grid would damage RP. It may be that the DM in this case wants to control the game in his head, or simply that it's how he's used to doing it. If the group is good with it, not a problem. I've played without props before, it's...different. I always come back to using minis, it's not something I would want to play a game without, because it provides a lot of depth.
"...But thou read black where I read white..." -Blake
To rebut the general with the singular, by the way, is not a strong argument. [snip] Doesn't anyone have the logic to shoot me down rationally over "game design is a language and it's subject to linguistic determinism"?
Maybe not, but like you said, it's the internet, where formal argument passes for conversation. I'll give it a whack.
I studied Linguistics in university. I've only got a BA, which doesn't make me much in an academic field like that. You're not really anyone until you have a doctorate. The professors didn't put much stock in linguistic determinism or relativity. Sapir and Whorf were largely pooh-poohed.
The problem with saying that our language limits our ability to perceive the universe is that it suggests a couple things that don't appear to be true. One example I recall is that euphemisms should change the way we think about the things to which they refer, right? So when retarded replaced stupid it should have changed our view of the people we now call developmentally challenged, but instead it acquired the negative connotation of the previous word. Special education carries none of the positive connotation of "special." We have to keep cycling through politically correct language because the idea defines the word, not the other way around.
Spanish has a much more robust system of subjunctives than English. Does that mean Spanish speakers are more aware of the difference between reality and fantasy than English speakers? Chinese almost always omits plural markers on nouns. Does that lead them to not consider the quantity of something? Hopi apparently doesn't use tenses, rather marking between the manifest and unmanifest. Are the Hopi therefore surprised when their crops are ready for harvest?
Moving to determinism in general, to say that the options before us are what shapes our behavior ignores most of invention. We beat each other with sticks for a long time but made the leap to beating each other with chipped stone, then bronze, then iron, then gunpowder, then blowing each other up, despite the steady availability of sticks. I can say the same thing about any technology, so it's hardly a niche case.
D&D provides us with options, but we do regularly buck them. It provides us with campaign settings but we make our own. We don't like dragonborn so we invent some proud warrior race with apostrophes in its name or we import klingons. If we can do that, why can't we find ourselves on a battlemat and decide we don't like combat and should like to seduce the kobolds and ply them with liquor and fancy parties?
So I refute that D&D tricks us or traps us through linguistic determinism into nugging it out on the battlemat.
I agree with the weak version of your position, though. I think D&D tempts us into combat with a pretty sophisticated combat system. It's not that we don't think we have other options, it's just that this option is good. And the powers are good, too. I don't need to do as much invention as I do in a game like Spirit of the Century or White Wolf because I'm already happy with my options (not that it's not also wonderful fun driving motorcycles through parade floats in SotC, just a different kind). When I kick my enemy out onto a ledge with Leaf on the Wind and the fighter drives him into the chasm with a Tide of Iron I'm left grinning and thinking, "Man, I'm glad we didn't talk our way out of this!"
No, I'm under the impression you don't need to be patronised by having me bring anything less than my strongest and most vehement opinions to the debate. This is the internet. I'm not insulting you personally, I'm just elaborating a belief, firmly held, backed by reason, and if I'm wrong then that's something you should be capable of confronting on an equal footing.
Most people can make their point without sounding like condescending asses. You fail at that.
Nor is the more general "At my table it doesn't work like that" - it's anecdotal. If you think my argument is internally inconsistent or contradicted by research then let's see you make that point.
How about this - you're the one making the absurd claim, the onus is on you to prove it. So far you've just voiced an opinion and challenged everyone to prove you wrong. That isn't how it works. You think human beings are so limited that they can't think past the miniatures on the table, feel free to produce some evidence beyond your overly broad generalization.
No one can challenge the internal consistency of your argument because you haven't made one. You've made on huge sweeping generalization and drawn a conclusion from it.
Doesn't anyone have the logic to shoot me down rationally over "game design is a language and it's subject to linguistic determinism"?
Again, feel free to dial your ego back bub. You're neither the smartest nor the most interesting person I met today.
I use miniatures - I love miniatures - I'm just saying that by going down that route 4th Edition has set its back against some of the finer nuances of roleplaying.
And we say that you're wrong. See, you make one unsupported statement, I make one back. You say having a map and miniatures limits the abilities for roleplaying, I say that having and accurate depiction of the area adds many opportunities for imaginative roleplaying. You haven't supported your position any better than I have, so perhaps we'll just have to chalk it up to opinion.
I've heard "the battlemap goes down when combat begins" and "combat begins when the DM calls initiative"; I've heard it said elsewhere, "the DM calls initiative once players are on a battlemap". In 4th Edition it's crucially important where players are when combat begins, how far they are from the enemy, how many of the enemy they can see, and who has line of sight to who - that's information they need before deciding to engage in combat, and that's all information derived from the battlemap. Grid based positioning is part and parcel of 4E thinking at any time that combat is a possibility, not merely when the first attacks are made.
Again, none of what you just said has ANYTHING to do limiting roleplaying. At some point, where ever that may be, the game transitions to a point where a visual aid is put down. Maybe that is a scawled map on a piece of paper or maybe its a battle mat, but beyond providing players with a more accurate depicition of where their characters, monsters, and everything else is, this has no impact on roleplaying.
And the more you back away from that - handwave distances prior to combat, decide line of sight by DM fiat, describe space rather than show it - sure, the more you're able to offer alternative problem resolutions, which is great, but simultaneously the further you are moving from 4th Edition.
I think I understand. By "offer alternative problem solving resolutions", what you really mean is "just make stuff up if it sounds cool". Well, ya, as a DM I am always interested in players having interesting ideas about different ways of doing things and I'm quite happy to "bend" rules to let things happen that are interesting or unexpected.
You've very hung up on the relatively few things that a battle map makes concrete - distances, cover, etc. Those are relatively minor aspects of the situation, and there are certainly as many benefits to having an accurate depicition of a scene (seeing an apparently random piece of furniture that you can use which a DM might never have thought to describe) as there are drawbacks from not being able to fudge line of sight or whatever.
I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do that - you should - I'm saying that that's the dilemma you're in. It's a choice between battlemaps and non-combat roleplaying, and sure, you can have both at the same time because the map doesn't completely eclipse non-combat roleplaying, but it detracts from it.
And again, please stop stating your unsupported opinion as fact. Battlemats are FOR combat. By definition, if you are using a battlemat, you are in combat, so pretty much there isn't a lot of non-combat roleplaying going on.
Let me describe to you how I use a battlemat. I can't help but think that you've used them in an odd way or something. As DM, I describe the scene as per your preferred method and have people generally describe where they are etc (near the door, sitting at the bar with the wench) and their actions and we only switch to a battlemat and tactical combat when combat starts. At that point I put down the mat, have people put their minatures roughly where they said they were and we go from there. The initial position of combatants is frankly only of marginal importance - it is once combat begins that having an accurate depicition becomes really useful.
They have used just as much non-combat roleplaying as you do. The only difference is that once combat starts, they now have an exact map of locations and critters to make decisions.
.... you can have both at the same time because the map doesn't completely eclipse non-combat roleplaying, but it detracts from it.
No. It does NOT detract from it.
Once again, it is YOUR OPINION that a combat grid detracts from roleplaying. It is NOT FACT that a combat grid detracts from roleplaying.
I've got a large and varied group I usually play with. 1 DM (myself), roughly 8 PCs.
I've had this group slow combat to a crawl while they rollplayed, grinding out numbers to ensure they lived. Nothing mattered but the + bonuses on character sheets, the grid, and the dice.
I've had the same group forget to update positions on the map because they were too busy roleplaying through combat. That night, outside of the BBEG fight, the map served to do little more than remind player 8 where players 1 and 2 were, having gone through the turns of the 3-7 since then. That was, of course, assuming the map had been updated that turn. (I would note that we ceased using the map altogether after the BBEG fight, I do believe opting to take seats on our end of the fight, relating allies space in the fight as to where they were around the table)
The effect of a map (stop calling it a battlemap, please? you're intentionally trying to be biased towards it not being a useful tool for other things, like exploration) on roleplaying is inherently tied to the group. It only hinders you if you let it. It only aids you if you let it.
Roleplaying is all the DM's prompts and the Player's responses. Trying to say it has anything to do with anything else or saying it is unavoidably affected by something else is failure in the ability to roleplay, not a fault on the system used.
ACTUALLY ON TOPIC!
Carry a graph notebook. One with like, 4 squares an inch. (mine measures 8x10.5, and I use it as a DM tool for putting all my maps on the same page that can be scribbled on) Jot things down. Don't try to recreate a full map and every single thing in the room. Just enough so you can keep up. For example, if you know there's a balcony on the far end of the room, don't draw it out and label the height and all that. Just outline the square. You can remember what's there. (if the map gets busy, add in things, like a "b" for balcony and an "a" for altar, so at a quick glance you know which is which)
If your party wants to see it, share. If the DM says you don't need it, tell him you're jotting things down so you can recall them more quickly, and thus, not slow down the game. Eventually, you'll either use a map, or find a happy balance using your own map to keep up with his mental image. Or, (hopefully not), be finding a new party/dm.
I don't actually bring dice to the table. I can imagine them rolling and clearly picture the result.
Plus, if you're the DM, you can wave your hand and change the results just in case you think of something more interesting than a 1-10 result.
I don't actually bring dice to the table. I can imagine them rolling and clearly picture the result.
Well when I play other people's games, I don't bring a character sheet. I consider it a detraction from my ability to improvise.
Well when I play other people's games, I don't bring a character sheet. I consider it a detraction from my ability to improvise.
Amateur. I imagine my own players. They absolutely love how I DM. That's what their voices tell me.
Amateur. I imagine my own players. They absolutely love how I DM. That's what their voices tell me.
I imagine my own game. Gets rid of the rules lawyers, because I'm always right, and answer is always on page whateverisayitis.
In any case, if you're playing a 2.0 game or earlier, that method might be fine. But if you guys are playing a 3.x or a 4e game and he doesn't even allow you guys to see a MAP, he's out of his mind, and probably either cheating or fudging the situations. Both 3.x and 4e (4e more so) are dependent on ranges, positioning and the like... and how in the HELL does he determine cover?
Seriously, your DM is either really set in 2.0 thinking, cheating, or fudging. Bring graphing paper with you, and draw what he says is there, and let's see if what he is stating actually matches the map on paper.
I don't actually bring dice to the table. I can imagine them rolling and clearly picture the result.
Kind of reminds of one DM in a FR game I previously played with who insisted that he keep all our character sheets and rolling the dice for us during the session, so that we weren't distracted by dice and numbers.
I think it was more an obsession of control-freakism, because for one session, the Paladin I played managed to get his ass handed by every opponent, got his hand cut off and finally suffered the mandatory "fall" (despite doing anything remotely evil).
Maybe not, but like you said, it's the internet, where formal argument passes for conversation. I'll give it a whack.
Thanks!
I'm on board with the idea that linguistic determinism as it applies in its original context of communicative language is dubious at best. However, there's a much stronger argument for it in languages which are specifically designed to order thought, such as programming languages. There's a much stronger link in these languages between description and action - action is entirely predicated on the way it's described - which suggests that where a language is formed entirely of tools, linguistic determinism may be very much alive.
I think as far as the concept applies to game design its truth should be self-evident. Look back at the old LucasArts point-n-click adventure games, where the list of available verbs is circumscribed and clearly displayed on screen - there, thought is very literally defined by the tools available. Theoretically the game could have allowed the player to press an obscure key combination to open up a dialogue window and type in the unlisted "Psychic Attack" command - but the player isn't going to think of that, or suspect it, because the game is displaying a purportedly comprehensive list of available verbs.
It's the same issue in 4th Edition; battlemaps and miniatures draw the player's attention to the "combat" chapter of the rulebook, where a number of combat actions are set out in excruciating detail complete with comprehensive mechanics, and then a small subsection mentions the possibility of "improvised actions" with little guidance to balancing them or circumscribing their effects.
Hey - in kind of a sidenote, I've spent the last weekend at Canberra's Phenomenon games convention. Some 20-odd games running, most in multiples of five sessions, and the only one I'm aware of that used dice, mechanics, or miniatures was the 4th Edition game, which was fun but definitely one of the weaker games on offer. If playing diceless, or systemless, or mapless sounds scary to you, please take the time to poke your head outside the 4E world and see what the rest of the roleplaying community are doing.
Thanks!
I'm on board with the idea that linguistic determinism as it applies in its original context of communicative language is dubious at best. However, there's a much stronger argument for it in languages which are specifically designed to order thought, such as programming languages. There's a much stronger link in these languages between description and action - action is entirely predicated on the way it's described - which suggests that where a language is formed entirely of tools, linguistic determinism may be very much alive.
And many people feel that a battle map enhances the game when they are in combat. There is no evidence that proves that a battlemap detracts from roleplaying. None at all.
I think as far as the concept applies to game design its truth should be self-evident. Look back at the old LucasArts point-n-click adventure games, where the list of available verbs is circumscribed and clearly displayed on screen - there, thought is very literally defined by the tools available. Theoretically the game could have allowed the player to press an obscure key combination to open up a dialogue window and type in the unlisted "Psychic Attack" command - but the player isn't going to think of that, or suspect it, because the game is displaying a purportedly comprehensive list of available verbs.
Of course those games are going to limiting, they are video games, and by their very nature they are limited only to actions which their programming allows. A battle map does not limit one's actions in a roleplaying game. It is merely a visual aid. When using a battlemap a player is still only limited by their imagination. And if one's roleplaying ability is somehow hindered by a battlemap then it is the fault of the player, not the fault of the battlemap.
It's the same issue in 4th Edition; battlemaps and miniatures draw the player's attention to the "combat" chapter of the rulebook, where a number of combat actions are set out in excruciating detail complete with comprehensive mechanics, and then a small subsection mentions the possibility of "improvised actions" with little guidance to balancing them or circumscribing their effects.
If a player lets the battlemap draw their attention to the "combat" chapter when they are not in combat and then subsequently lets their attention be drawn to a certain small subsection then it is the fault of the player for allowing that to happen. it is not the fault of the battlemap. And if this does happen to a number of players it does not mean that it happens to everyone who uses a battlemap.
Hey - in kind of a sidenote, I've spent the last weekend at Canberra's Phenomenon games convention. Some 20-odd games running, most in multiples of five sessions, and the only one I'm aware of that used dice, mechanics, or miniatures was the 4th Edition game, which was fun but definitely one of the weaker games on offer. If playing diceless, or systemless, or mapless sounds scary to you, please take the time to poke your head outside the 4E world and see what the rest of the roleplaying community are doing.
20-some games does not constitute the entire non-D&D roleplaying community. Go to GenCon and see how many non-D&D roleplaying games are using dice and systems and maps.
And just because people do not like the idea of using a diceless or systemless or mapless system DOES NOT necessarily mean that they are scared of them. There are many other reasons as to why people do not enjoy dicelss or systemless or mapless systems.
And your constant attempts to make it seem like people who do not enjoy your preferred style of gaming are somehow scared or inferior to you is getting old and tired. Your style of play is NOT inherently better than anyone else's. It is merey different.
This title may be a bit misleading but the general consensus is this:
My current DM of previously 3.5 and now SAGA refuse to use "visual combat aids".
I can understand not wanting to spend money and time on tiles and minis. Me myself won't buy minis, so I print tokens or use other stuffs such as chesspieces. But this DM say that a combat grid hinders roleplaying, to an extent that we can't even pull out a graph paper, an old chessboard or anything to help us see our positions. You have to ask yourself what hinders roleplaying more; a visual combat grid or 6 people arguing over their positions and ranges?
Himself say that he has the battle "clearly in his mind", which might be well and all but not everyone in the group has this "tactical memory" so misunderstandings is still prone to happen.
What to do? It's not so bad you'll leave the game for it, but every session you hope that he hasn't planned an encounter involving more than three oppponents...
Get him to use counters/tokens on a grid map so at least he doesn't cheat you over your tactical planning privileges.
Else: Get your own group running, or supplant the old one with a new GM.
Another option is to use a grid of your own. When in combat just break out a grid and the players break out their minis and then use dice to represent the monsters. And be insistant on asking the DM, "Are the positions of the "orcs" correct?" For all intents and purposes he cannot make you NOT use a grid as it is not breaking any of the rules of the game. If you are playing at his house he might be able to get away with it, but if he does then there are bigger problems with him besides his reluctance to not use a grid.
Actually, though this sounds quite a creative solution, it could get confrontational, especially if sprung as a surprise. Imagine saying "You cannot make me NOT use a grid . . ." to the DM, during a battle he's trying to get you to play. Personally I could not see that going well.
The general most successful way of making a change in someone else's behaviour is to start in a neutral situation, and get to the point directly and simply. That would mean away from the game, and definitely not during a combat, because then you are asking for immediate change.
Perhaps after a good session, so you can start "Great session! But can we talk about using battle boards for the combats again?". Depends on the group dynamics whether best done with the group discussing it, or done one-to-one you and the DM.
Be prepared with a list of what *you* are *really* willing to do to help get grids to work for the group - e.g. have you bought the idea of running an example session? Keep focussed on positive stuff if you can - it's effort to change (and learn the rules), but if you are enthusiastic and can meet the DM halfway in a friendly fashion, he could well find it difficult to refuse.
Despite your best efforts, be prepared to respect a firm "no" from the DM - it's his game to run after all - at least you'll know where you stand.
And just because people do not like the idea of using a diceless or systemless or mapless system DOES NOT necessarily mean that they are scared of them.
Feel free to share your anecdotes of the convention-quality diceless games you've played and your critique of their specific weaknesses.
For that matter, feel free to share your thoughts of the programming languages you've learned and how they're specifically not analogous to game mechanics.
I mean, because you can do that, right? You're talking from a position of experience, I assume?
Feel free to share your anecdotes of the convention-quality diceless games you've played and your critique of their specific weaknesses.
Who said anything about the quality of diceless games? >YOU< are the one who said that those who do not like diceless games are afraid to play them. I was merely pointing out that your opinion was not fact. It is arrogant and egotistical and extremely rude to say that people who do not enjoy a certain style/type of game are simply afraid to play those systems. And it is more arrogant, egotistical, and rude to insinuate that those people are behind the times and/or inferior to people like yourself. It is great that you enjoy a certain style of roleplaying. Just do no presume to tell me that the style of playing and games that I enjoy are wrong. There is already enough elitist snobbery in the gaming community already. Why add to it?
For that matter, feel free to share your thoughts of the programming languages you've learned and how they're specifically not analogous to game mechanics.
It is not rocket science to know that a roleplaying video game is completely and totally restricted to actions allowed by its programming. Anyone taking an intro to Java class can see that. For example, imagine a wall in a video game. Now imagine a player wants to take out a sledgehammer (which he has) and wants to smash through that wall. The only way he can smash through that wall is if the programmers specifically coded it into the game that the wall could be smashed. If not then the person can attack that wall until he dies of starvation or his hand cramps up and that wall will still be there. In a pen and paper role-playing game the players are free to attempt virtually anything. The only limitations are their imagination and the imagination of the DM. If the player in the video game example is playing pen and paper D&D and wants to smash through the wall he is free to try it and it is not automatically doomed to failure because it was not coded into the game.
I mean, because you can do that, right? You're talking from a position of experience, I assume?
What is your experience? After all, you are the one making the claim that those who do not like diceless, systemless, and/or gridless roleplaying games do so because they are scared. You are the one making the claim that battlemats universally restrict roleplaying for everyone who uses them. Yet the only "evidence" you have provided is your personal opinions on the matter, and when others respond with contrary opinions of their own you act like their opinions do not matter. It gets real old real quick when people arrogantly try to tell others that the way that they play D&D is wrong.
Once again, your way of playing D&D is not the only way to play it. Your way is not inherently better than anyone else's way. Your way is only different.
Actually, though this sounds quite a creative solution, it could get confrontational, especially if sprung as a surprise. Imagine saying "You cannot make me NOT use a grid . . ." to the DM, during a battle he's trying to get you to play. Personally I could not see that going well.
The general most successful way of making a change in someone else's behaviour is to start in a neutral situation, and get to the point directly and simply. That would mean away from the game, and definitely not during a combat, because then you are asking for immediate change.
Perhaps after a good session, so you can start "Great session! But can we talk about using battle boards for the combats again?". Depends on the group dynamics whether best done with the group discussing it, or done one-to-one you and the DM.
Be prepared with a list of what *you* are *really* willing to do to help get grids to work for the group - e.g. have you bought the idea of running an example session? Keep focussed on positive stuff if you can - it's effort to change (and learn the rules), but if you are enthusiastic and can meet the DM halfway in a friendly fashion, he could well find it difficult to refuse.
Despite your best efforts, be prepared to respect a firm "no" from the DM - it's his game to run after all - at least you'll know where you stand.
Another option would be to simply stare blankly at the DM as he describes the encounter and tell him that you do not get it. Keep on telling him that he is not making sense and that you cannot visualize the situation he is describing. Then ask him to diagram the encounter for you. Do this for every encounter. Eventually he might get the hint.
Who said anything about the quality of diceless games?
I did. I said they were better. You said that was an unfounded opinion, and you suggested that it was wrong to suggest you were afraid or unwilling to try them. I was assuming you were saying that because you had, at some point, tried them. It sounds like I might have been wrong, which leads me back to the conclusion that either (a) you're afraid to try them, or (b) you're unwilling to try them. What's internally contradictory about that?
It is not rocket science to know that a roleplaying video game is completely and totally restricted to actions allowed by its programming.
You've (again) missed the point. I'm making a distinction here between the programming language and the game coded in that language. A language is a set of tools with which, theoretically, you can make any application. However, the way the language is structured means you're more likely to do things in a certain way, because the language itself is explicitly designed to structure and codify thought. The language design must therefore be influential of the nature and expression of the programmer's thoughts. Python teaches you to think in lists; BASIC in sequences; Pascal in arrays. When your language is specifically designed to translate your thoughts into effects, linguistic determinism must have a part to play.
So what I'm saying is that game aids can be thought of as a kind of language. They're ways of expressing, clarifying and visualising your intention in order to translate it into an in-game effect. Battlemaps, power cards, dice, miniatures, initiative tracks and character sheets all structure our understanding of our character, our intentions and the game world, and the limitations of those structures thereby both expressly and impliedly limit our intentions and actions.
What is your experience?
*shrug* I've been GMing for 20 years, I've run most major systems published in the last three decades and a good number of indy ones, I've created my own games both system-oriented and systemless and run them to general satisfaction and applause. The most common feedback I get from players is that my games are the best they've ever played, and I'm regularly sought after to run games by both players that I know and friends-of-friends.
I've blogged on videogame design at The Dust Forms Words for three years and on 4E design at Eleven Foot Pole for four or five months. I've been published on gaming at Kotaku, PalGN, Hyper Magazine and BigPond GameArena, as well as various non-gaming works on a variety of websites and anthologies and the development of an original television series from pitch through to concept pilot. My articles on game design have been featured on Slashdot and through the Carnival of Bloggers.
In addition I've been an active wargamer for most of my life and a CCG player from the 4th Edition of Magic: the Gathering. I've been a regional champion in two different CCGs and attended the nationals for both of those games.
I've been a constant attendee at the Australian convention circuits for both science fiction and gaming. I'm a regular speaker on panels, I usually run games both systemless and dice-based, and I attend international conventions (most recently the Tokyo Game Show) as often as funds will permit.
Currently I'm running two D&D 4th Edition games, I'm in two more along with a Star Wars Saga game, and about once a month I'm called upon to do a systemless game for friends or acquaintances.
It is my anecdotal experience, derived from all of the above, that games and the actions of gamers are specifically and measurably influenced by the physical aides primary and ancillary to the game, and that for this reason battlemaps and minis actively inhibit roleplaying. If anecdotal isn't good enough for you I'm going to direct you to the collected consensus of the blogosphere as distilled in the writings of (for example) of Corvus Elrod, Chris Bateman and Raph Koster. (Google any of those names plus "games language" or "games grammar" to get in on the conversation.)
To use your "game language" thought process, my group uses this neat language called "fun", where no system or visual aids will inhibit anything we choose to do. We use them like punctuation, to add structure and organization to our story. But the meat, the important stuff, all of the roleplaying (that isn't retconned with a DM line like "no matter how hilarious, we can't actually do that"), lies in the middle.
Simply put, if dice, a map, stats, whatever, inhibits your roleplaying, it's your own damn fault. Stop assuming that everyone else has this lack of ability that seems to cause you to lash out so passive aggressively.
So what I'm saying is that game aids can be thought of as a kind of language. They're ways of expressing, clarifying and visualising your intention in order to translate it into an in-game effect. Battlemaps, power cards, dice, miniatures, initiative tracks and character sheets all structure our understanding of our character, our intentions and the game world, and the limitations of those structures thereby both expressly and impliedly limit our intentions and actions.
Games aids CAN BE thought of as a kind of language. That does not necessarily mean that they are a kind of language for everyone. You see game aids as a limiter. Others do not. The only true limit on one's intentions and actions is their own imagination (or lack there of). Many people are fully capable of and do overcome these "limitations" that you say are caused by battlemats, power cards, dice, miniatures, etc.
*shrug* I've been GMing for 20 years, I've run most major systems published in the last three decades and a good number of indy ones, I've created my own games both system-oriented and systemless and run them to general satisfaction and applause. The most common feedback I get from players is that my games are the best they've ever played, and I'm regularly sought after to run games by both players that I know and friends-of-friends.
I've blogged on videogame design at The Dust Forms Words for three years and on 4E design at Eleven Foot Pole for four or five months. I've been published on gaming at Kotaku, PalGN, Hyper Magazine and BigPond GameArena, as well as various non-gaming works on a variety of websites and anthologies and the development of an original television series from pitch through to concept pilot. My articles on game design have been featured on Slashdot and through the Carnival of Bloggers.
In addition I've been an active wargamer for most of my life and a CCG player from the 4th Edition of Magic: the Gathering. I've been a regional champion in two different CCGs and attended the nationals for both of those games.
I've been a constant attendee at the Australian convention circuits for both science fiction and gaming. I'm a regular speaker on panels, I usually run games both systemless and dice-based, and I attend international conventions (most recently the Tokyo Game Show) as often as funds will permit.
Currently I'm running two D&D 4th Edition games, I'm in two more along with a Star Wars Saga game, and about once a month I'm called upon to do a systemless game for friends or acquaintances.
It is my anecdotal experience, derived from all of the above, that games and the actions of gamers are specifically and measurably influenced by the physical aides primary and ancillary to the game, and that for this reason battlemaps and minis actively inhibit roleplaying. If anecdotal isn't good enough for you I'm going to direct you to the collected consensus of the blogosphere as distilled in the writings of (for example) of Corvus Elrod, Chris Bateman and Raph Koster. (Google any of those names plus "games language" or "games grammar" to get in on the conversation.)
All impressive credentials, but none of it proves any of your claims. They have helped to mold and shape your opinions and viewpoints on gaming, but that is it. They do not make you right. Nor do they make you wrong. They just make you unique. Yet, despite all of that experience you cannot see how horribly wrong it is to tell people that their way of playing D&D is wrong, that they are behind the times, and that they are afraid to of anything that they claim to not enjoy.
Yet, despite all of that experience you cannot see how horribly wrong it is to tell people that their way of playing D&D is wrong, that they are behind the times, and that they are afraid to of anything that they claim to not enjoy.
To be clear, I'm not (in this thread) intending to tell anyone they're playing D&D wrong. 4E uses battlemaps; it uses minis; that's the game. If you're not playing that way you're missing out on the best of what 4E has to offer.
What I'm saying is that, as a result of that, you're going to have a less deep roleplaying experience (although a substantially more awesome combat one).
Alphasquirrel - I'm still calling them battlemaps because I'm talking about the maps that 4E requires to be played the way it's intended - that is to say, the maps used in battle. If it seems I'm ignoring you, it's partly because I am, not because you're not making intelligent posts, but simply because Mock makes more generalised and argumentative assertions. It's the squeaky troll who gets the grease, I'm afraid. (I say that in a friendly tone; if people didn't violently disagree with me on forums I wouldn't bother coming to them.)
Mock - To be clear again, I'm not saying that you can't roleplay with battlemaps or other game aids - I'm saying it's harder, and shallower. When you give someone a hand full of power cards, and ask them what they're going to do, they're going to look to their cards to see what they can do. When you have a map out, it's harder for the DM to dramatically fudge distances to allow well-intentioned ideas to work. When you have a map that shows tables and chairs but doesn't show tapestries and drapes you're going to have people interacting with the tables and chairs more often than with tapestries and drapes. There simply can't be any argument that the limitations of your aids impose soft limits on your players' interaction with and comprehension of their environment. The lens through which you see the world defines your understanding of and role within that world.
Mock - To be clear again, I'm not saying that you can't roleplay with battlemaps or other game aids - I'm saying it's harder, and shallower. When you give someone a hand full of power cards, and ask them what they're going to do, they're going to look to their cards to see what they can do. When you have a map out, it's harder for the DM to dramatically fudge distances to allow well-intentioned ideas to work. When you have a map that shows tables and chairs but doesn't show tapestries and drapes you're going to have people interacting with the tables and chairs more often than with tapestries and drapes. There simply can't be any argument that the limitations of your aids impose soft limits on your players' interaction with and comprehension of their environment. The lens through which you see the world defines your understanding of and role within that world.
And by trying to assert that your "way" is better than every other way you are in effect telling people that they are playing the game wrong, or at the very least you are coming across that way.
And one can argue that the aids no impose limitations but instead enhance the overall game experience. I would argue that many game aids do not impose soft limits on the players interaction and comprehension of the their environment. Instead, those aids help to them to visualize the environment. Any "soft limits" are in fact part of the rules of the game. The lens through which you see the world clarifies one's understanding of the world and helps the player to visualize their role in that world.
And who is to say that a well-intentioned idea has to work? Just becaues an idea is well-inentioned does not automatically mean that it has to succeed. If you want to be able to "fudge distances" (and the myriad conotations that that can stand for) then that is fine, but please bear in mind that some people do not want to "fudge distances." They like just fine the framework that the rules provide.
Case (example) in point. In my game a while back the group entered a large cavern that was intersected by a chasm near the entrance they came through. On the far side of the cavern were some dwarves with a bunch of siege weapons. The siege weapons opened up on the group and the mage asked if she could lob a fireball at a concentration of trebuchets and try to burn the slings on them. I told her that they were out of range. She asked if she would be in range if she moved up to the edge of the chasm. The answer was No. Her idea of a fireball was a very good idea and a very well-intentioned idea. But it simply would not work in that situation. I do not care how good or well-intentioned her idea was I was not going simply going to fudge the distance to reward her. There was nothing to reward in that situation, and if I had rewarded her it would have been a false reward with nothing of merit behind it because it would have cheapened the challenge of the encounter. This is not indicative of every encounter, but it certainly is a good example of why some people would not want to fudge things.
If playing diceless, or systemless, or mapless sounds scary to you, please take the time to poke your head outside the 4E world and see what the rest of the roleplaying community are doing.
I think a better way of expressing the disconnect is that 4E has a very strong tactical and gamist drive. Playing 4E without maps and minis is to throw out the crown jewel of the system. It's a bit like buying a rolls royce and hacking the back off to make a pick-up truck.
Greg is totally correct in saying that you can have a lot of fun roleplaying diceless, where the game is not primarily brokered by mechanics but by conversation. I've done it (mainly at conventions), and enjoyed it. But I harbour no misconceptions that 4E is the right (or even adequate) tool for the job. And this is basically true of any edition of D&D. If you want to get into the narration, put your D&D rulebooks away. Trying to hybrid D&D mechanics with a narrative-driven encounter will just frustrate your players.
I think a better way of expressing the disconnect is that 4E has a very strong tactical and gamist drive. Playing 4E without maps and minis is to throw out the crown jewel of the system. It's a bit like buying a rolls royce and hacking the back off to make a pick-up truck.
Some would argue that playing 4th edition without maps and minis is like miniature wargaming without the wargaming.
Greg is totally correct in saying that you can have a lot of fun roleplaying diceless, where the game is not primarily brokered by mechanics but by conversation. I've done it (mainly at conventions), and enjoyed it. But I harbour no misconceptions that 4E is the right (or even adequate) tool for the job. And this is basically true of any edition of D&D. If you want to get into the narration, put your D&D rulebooks away. Trying to hybrid D&D mechanics with a narrative-driven encounter will just frustrate your players.
Yes, Greg is correct in that people can and do have fun playing diceless systems. But Greg also tries to assert that his way of playing is the only way to play the game.
But this DM say that a combat grid hinders roleplaying,
...
Uh...
Yeah, he pulled that out of his ass. Ask him what the REAL reason is.
Another option would be to simply stare blankly at the DM as he describes the encounter and tell him that you do not get it. Keep on telling him that he is not making sense and that you cannot visualize the situation he is describing. Then ask him to diagram the encounter for you. Do this for every encounter. Eventually he might get the hint.
This still sounds quite confrontational (passive-aggressive, and very obviously manipulative).
The DM might get the hint. Or you might trigger an argument.
I guess if you and DM can deal with the kind of relationships where problems slowly build and escalate, then at the breaking point you have a big blowout argument, it clears the air, and you then get on with life again, this sort of approach will work quite well.
I'd still recommend a separate conversation which you have prepped for.
This still sounds quite confrontational (passive-aggressive, and very obviously manipulative).
The DM might get the hint. Or you might trigger an argument.
I guess if you and DM can deal with the kind of relationships where problems slowly build and escalate, then at the breaking point you have a big blowout argument, it clears the air, and you then get on with life again, this sort of approach will work quite well.
I'd still recommend a separate conversation which you have prepped for.
Sometimes confrontation is the only way to go.
Sometimes confrontation is the only way to go.
Yes, sometimes.
If I were in the OP's shoes, not this time, not for me. I was in a similar position five years ago, which went well - but I'm not today, and I don't know his DM . . . so I hope the suggestions are being picked up by the OP and perhaps one tried.
I'd be interested to know what was tried, and what the results were?
Seriously, all you have to do is reposition them when you move. Then you can play the actual battle out in your head, describe your cool moves in great detail, and whatever else you enjoy about roleplay.
Upthread I mentioned that I'm in a 4e game that doesn't use minis. Our DM doesn't care for them. However, more than once he's had to ask us exactly where we were standing during a fight, and set down a couple of dice to represent us so we could show him where we were.
Sooner or later you're going to be in a fight, and one of the players will get distracted for a second and miss another player's move. Someone's mind will wander, someone will forget where his teammate is standing, we're only human. "Okay, am I still 20 feet away? Okay, where is Rhogar standing? Okay, is Calla far enough away so I can use my dragonbreath without hitting her?" With minis, you can glance down and instantly know where everyone is, so you can dispense with the questions and roleplay your heart out.
What do you use for a random impartial determinator in a systemless game? Or is it just cooperative verbal improvisation?
Games have an element of chance (gambling), strategy (chess) or both (strategy games with dice, like many tabletop RPGs) in them, and a systemless game would make me think of improv acting, not an actual game itself. Unless, of course, it is a murder mystery where the players perform all the actions their characters perform. Even then, I count it as being improv acting with a prearranged setting, and no challenge resolution system besides the decision of the story lead.
Personally, I've found that minis are quite useful in combat for determining range, and vastly reduce the number of arguments and misunderstandings about positionning in combat.
Outside of combat, the mat serves as a handy protector for the table. Dice eventually leave marks on wooden tables, and spilling pop is also bad for the table.
Question for greg:
What do you use for a random impartial determinator in a systemless game? Or is it just cooperative verbal improvisation?
I know it was aimed for Greg, but I'll butt in with what I've seen :D
Which is that games I have seen (on bulletin boards and forums) have looked a lot like improv acting/creative writing sessions. The only "determinator" is that the group sticks together and works at it. There were some rules in that you generally could not gainsay another player's action, or make them do stuff. Although of course characters could discuss and argue endlessly. The only games that I observed were DM-less.
Personally, I found it not to my taste, but I am sure with the right group of like-minded friends it would be a blast :-)
[edit: No reason you couldn't play DnD 4.0 like this. Just use the source material for inspiration and go. Players could also voluntarily restrict themselves to "within the realms of what the mechanics might allow an X level character to do" if they wished. A similar thing happens in LARP when players RP on forums (i.e. they generally restrict themselves to things their characters are capable of in-game). I would still call this a game.]
To be clear, I'm not (in this thread) intending to tell anyone they're playing D&D wrong. 4E uses battlemaps; it uses minis; that's the game. If you're not playing that way you're missing out on the best of what 4E has to offer.
What I'm saying is that, as a result of that, the people I play with are going to have a less deep roleplaying experience (although a substantially more awesome combat one).
Fixed that for you.
I have played D&D with dice and battlemaps. I have played it with no dice, miniatures, or any sort of visual aid besides the character sheet. I have played it entirely on maps, where all exploration, and even wandering around town was done on a map. And this has all been done with the same group of players.
And you know what? Their roleplaying didn't change through any of it. They roleplayed just as much as they always have. Our experience didn't feel any shallower because of it.
I see being less able (or even less-inclined) to roleplay because there's a map on the table being more or less along the lines of being unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. Maybe you can't handle it, but don't try to apply your problems to me and my group.
Would've been so much easier if he just drew the thing himself. Oh well, the next session is my turn to DM and there it will be 4E and tiles.
Question for greg:
What do you use for a random impartial determinator in a systemless game? Or is it just cooperative verbal improvisation?
Just coming back to answer this - but before I do, once again, to everyone else, I'm not suggesting 4E should be played without game aids. It's not that kind of game. It benefits from them. It loves them. I love them. You guys love them. We all love our 4E maps and minis. That's the game this is. What I'm saying is that as a result, it's a certain type of game, and it does things well, and it doesn't do other things well, and it's never going to be the kind of deep soul-searching introverted character game that you'll get from many of the other products on the market. If even one person in a hundred makes a different decision as a result of having a battlemap in front of them, the battlemap's clearly had an influence on player actions, and while it's nowhere near 100 in 100, my contention is that the level of effect is noticeably higher than 1 in 100.
Okay: to systemless games. I've had this discussion elsewhere, but largely it depends on the game. And I'll confess that when I say "systemless" I'm often referring not only to actually systemless games, but to mechanics-lite games that don't have stats or dice but do, technically, have a system.
True systemless games come in two flavours. One is really nothing more than collaborative storytelling, where conflicts are decided either in favour of who speaks first, or who tells the better story. The GM's role is typically to direct the story, ask questions that help to detail the world, story and characters, and to pace the story over three acts. These games can be really great with the right players, but they can also be quite structureless. They're absolutely not for everyone and they tend to be what people who are against systemless games are thinking of when they criticise the medium.
The other sort of systemless game has the GM arbitrating all conflicts. Every question of "Can I do this?" or "Who kills who?" is immediately resolved by the GM without reference to rules, dice, or stats. Threats are clearly identified by the GM - players usually have a good idea that attacking the alien will be a bad idea before they do it, and can therefore avoid doing it and look for other options.
Because under this system there's no randomness, players are less likely to take risks. They're more likely to carefully examine situations before committing to courses of action, and they're more likely to have their actions informed by their characterisation and their relationships with the environment. Typical questions players ask are, "Can I defeat the alien if I attack it? What about if I have a phaser?" or "How long will it take me to repair the communications circuit?" It's a style of play very well suited to character-driven games, to horror games, or to puzzle driven games such as mystery stories. These games have challenge, danger, structure, without the players having a guarantee that they're safe and without them knowing anything about the plot in advance. I can't recommend this style of play highly enough.
Then you go to the next level of game, which are not systemless but mechanics lite. These sort of systems either avoid character statistics in favour of giving players mechanics whereby they can directly influence the plot (Prime Time Adventures, The Valedictorian's Death), concentrate not on the character's abilities but rather their relationships with other characters and with themselves (Nicotine Girls), or use systems of absolute competencies where individual characters are infinitely good at certain tasks with only minor overlap of competencies between characters.
Hope that's helpful. I run a pure systemless one-shot game for two players called Blue Charlie that I regularly demonstrate; someone was asking me a couple of months ago whether I'd demo it over the internet - I think I could now be talked into that, if anyone's interested. I also run a bunch of five player convention games that use an "absolute competencies" system but they really wouldn't work online.
Well I managed to frustrate the DM by drawing up a map on a graph paper over the encounter. The reason was that all the other players used my "personal battlemat" very frequently during combat and the grid had to be constantly changed because what I apparently drew wasn't what he described.
Would've been so much easier if he just drew the thing himself. Oh well, the next session is my turn to DM and there it will be 4E and tiles.
Cool. Go Mock26, go Mock26 . . . :D
Well I managed to frustrate the DM by drawing up a map on a graph paper over the encounter. The reason was that all the other players used my "personal battlemat" very frequently during combat and the grid had to be constantly changed because what I apparently drew wasn't what he described.
Would've been so much easier if he just drew the thing himself. Oh well, the next session is my turn to DM and there it will be 4E and tiles.
That's a step in the right direction. Hopefully he'll see that it isn't working for your group without a map. Or maybe you'll get extra tidbits in the description that aid you map (such as room dimensions, using distances to approximate monster location, etc).
I would guess it'll take a few sessions. And there's no telling if having a 4e session tiles will make him see your point of view, or give him time to simmer and be more against he.
If you're lucky, he won't give you map/minis, but will help you design your own map, and maybe having a smaller map that doesn't dominate the center of the table will give you some weird happy medium. (/wishful-thinking)
Just coming back to answer this - but before I do, once again, to everyone else, I'm not suggesting 4E should be played without game aids. It's not that kind of game. It benefits from them. It loves them. I love them. You guys love them. We all love our 4E maps and minis. That's the game this is. What I'm saying is that as a result, it's a certain type of game, and it does things well, and it doesn't do other things well, and it's never going to be the kind of deep soul-searching introverted character game that you'll get from many of the other products on the market.
But that just isn't the case. Playing ANY version of D&D as a deep, soul-searching introverted character game pretty much means you're putting rules mechanics in a secondary or entirely non-influential position in your groups gameplay. It wouldn't matter if 4E is heavily reliant on maps and minis or not - you'd overlook it when and where it interfered with your overriding desire for a roleplaying approach.
If even one person in a hundred makes a different decision as a result of having a battlemap in front of them, the battlemap's clearly had an influence on player actions, and while it's nowhere near 100 in 100, my contention is that the level of effect is noticeably higher than 1 in 100.
But that ONLY affects your tactical decisionmaking and adherence to combat rules. It does not adversely affect the deep, soul-searching, introverted character roleplaying except insofar as the individual player chooses to let it - and that TOO would be at least in part a roleplaying decision on the part of that player.
I just don't see how use of combat grids, battlemaps, minis, etc. affects a players roleplaying decisions in the adverse way that you seem to be insisting it does.
Playing ANY version of D&D as a deep, soul-searching introverted character game pretty much means you're putting rules mechanics in a secondary or entirely non-influential position in your groups gameplay.
Well, yes, I'm in agreement there, at least so far as "secondary" rather than "non-influential". Unlike many other systems, D&D doesn't mechanically support roleplaying - it merely allows it. But...
It does not adversely affect the deep, soul-searching, introverted character roleplaying except insofar as the individual player chooses to let it - and that TOO would be at least in part a roleplaying decision on the part of that player.
You're making the essential mistake here of thinking of humans as a perfectly rational beast that considers the full suite of possible options and weights them appropriately before making a decision. It's not true; humans are more likely to overlook options that aren't immediately in front of them and disproportionately weight the ones closest to hand.
When you ask someone, "Would you like tea or coffee?" yes, they might sometimes say, "Actually, do you have hot chocolate?" but they're much more likely to choose from the two options you've offered. Equally when you're playing with maps and minis they still can (and will) talk, puzzle solve, and think outside the box but much more often will choose from the choices implicit in the game aids, being movement actions, generic standard actions, and the use of powers.
It's just like wallpapering a room with hundreds of images of the number "15" and then asking someone to think of a random number. They can come up with any number at all, sure - but each and every time they're going to have to move past the number "15" to get to it.
Equally when you're playing with maps and minis they still can (and will) talk, puzzle solve, and think outside the box but much more often will choose from the choices implicit in the game aids, being movement actions, generic standard actions, and the use of powers.
Only for those of limited imagination.
Only for those of limited imagination.
We're all people of limited imagination, Mock. Show me your list of every conceivable name for a character, and I'll show you how people you've personally met and characters you've previously played, encountered or heard about dominate the first 200 entries. We're creatures of experience, and superior creativity and uniqueness is nothing more than being able to more subtly and relevantly recombine ideas we've previously encountered than those around us.
The description that a DM gives is also a tool and can limit the players.
Exactly! Now you're getting it. And description is a flexible tool; you can use it to veer players towards combat, or discussion, or puzzle solving. Whereas battlemaps and minis are a blunt tool; they only go one way.
People like that need to be taught a lesson.
We're all people of limited imagination, Mock. Show me your list of every conceivable name for a character, and I'll show you how people you've personally met and characters you've previously played, encountered or heard about dominate the first 200 entries. We're creatures of experience, and superior creativity and uniqueness is nothing more than being able to more subtly and relevantly recombine ideas we've previously encountered than those around us.
Yes, we are all people of limited imagination, but you are missing my point, and I suspect that you are doing so deliberately.
You said, and I quote, "Equally when you're playing with maps and minis they still can (and will) talk, puzzle solve, and think outside the box but much more often will choose from the choices implicit in the game aids, being movement actions, generic standard actions, and the use of powers." That simply is NOT a universal truth. It is merely your opinion, erroneously presented as fact. My point is that some people have a broad enough of an imagination that their choices are NOT inhibited by game aids, and that those who let their choices be inhibited by games simply lack the imagination of other players.
As for character names, so what if they might be influenced by people I have met. That proves nothing about game aids limiting one's choices or inhibiting roleplaying. You are merely making up an imaginary connection between the two.
Exactly! Now you're getting it. And description is a flexible tool; you can use it to veer players towards combat, or discussion, or puzzle solving. Whereas battlemaps and minis are a blunt tool; they only go one way.
No. They do NOT only go one way. Battlemaps and minis enhance a DM's description of any given situation. They do not force players into a limited set of actions. It is the DM's description and the Players' attitudes that veer players in a given direction. It is NOT the battlemap. And if some people do let a battlemap and/or minis affect their decisions, then that is clearly the case of the player, not a case of the game aids.
But, since you will not accept this, give us several clear cut examples of how using a battlemap and minis will force players into combat. How about 3 examples?
Yes, we are all people of limited imagination, but you are missing my point, and I suspect that you are doing so deliberately.
No, I'm really not. You keep coming back to this concept of the perfectly rational human, who before taking any action considers all possible options and weights them with unerring precision. You say that some or all of us are this perfect human, and that if we just give it the old college try we can make rationally perfect judgements that show no environmental bias on each and every time we open our mouths. And I'm saying that that's not a view of humanity that's borne out by science, experience, or the slightest application of common sense.
We disproportionately weight what's in front of us. We show a bias to things that are close at hand. That's not something we're doing deliberately, it's something we're doing subconsciously. It's built in. We can't help it. We don't usually know we're doing it. But there's countless examples of it throughout human thinking. Consider déformation professionnelle, the endowment effect, the mere exposure effect, and the phenomenon of anchoring. They're all scientifically verified forms of cognitive bias wherein people unwittingly place undue weight on their personal environment and experience in the context of the total range of options open to them.
Like I say, it only takes one person in a hundred to act different because of a battlemap being in front of them to validate what I'm saying, and I'd say that 1 in 100 is a very, very low threshold compared to the reality.
But, since you will not accept this, give us several clear cut examples of how using a battlemap and minis will force players into combat. How about 3 examples?
I am not saying, and have never said, that battlemaps force players to do anything. I'm saying they influence them, on a steady and unconscious level, to prefer one style of play over another.
Picture the DM who says, "You've walked into a room. Three kobolds sit around a table. What do you do?"
Then picture the DM who says that, and then lays out a battlemap, places the (weapon-wielding) miniatures for the players on one edge of it and the (standing, weapon wielding) kobolds within thirty feet of the players. It's theoretically exactly the same situation, but one is filled with subtle cues saying, "Attack them!".
In the second situation players have been made explicitly aware that the kobolds are within a charge move of them; their attention has been subtly drawn to the fact that the kobolds are armed, and that so are the players. If the kobold minis are identical there's another layer of subtext in there that says these kobolds are generic rather than unique, and the fact that there are no miniatures for the table, light sources, or other non-monster features of the room focuses player attention on the kobolds as being the primary objects to interact with in solving the encounter.
Just as in the same way that advertisements influence on the subconscious level as well as the conscious level, so too does each decision a DM makes, and the decision to use battlemaps has a specific, observable effect that may be disregarded to varying levels but is non-negligible.
No, I'm really not. You keep coming back to this concept of the perfectly rational human, who before taking any action considers all possible options and weights them with unerring precision. You say that some or all of us are this perfect human, and that if we just give it the old college try we can make rationally perfect judgements that show no environmental bias on each and every time we open our mouths. And I'm saying that that's not a view of humanity that's borne out by science, experience, or the slightest application of common sense.
We disproportionately weight what's in front of us. We show a bias to things that are close at hand. That's not something we're doing deliberately, it's something we're doing subconsciously. It's built in. We can't help it. We don't usually know we're doing it. But there's countless examples of it throughout human thinking. Consider déformation professionnelle, the endowment effect, the mere exposure effect, and the phenomenon of anchoring. They're all scientifically verified forms of cognitive bias wherein people unwittingly place undue weight on their personal environment and experience in the context of the total range of options open to them.
Like I say, it only takes one person in a hundred to act different because of a battlemap being in front of them to validate what I'm saying, and I'd say that 1 in 100 is a very, very low threshold compared to the reality.
I am not saying, and have never said, that battlemaps force players to do anything. I'm saying they influence them, on a steady and unconscious level, to prefer one style of play over another.
Picture the DM who says, "You've walked into a room. Three kobolds sit around a table. What do you do?"
Then picture the DM who says that, and then lays out a battlemap, places the (weapon-wielding) miniatures for the players on one edge of it and the (standing, weapon wielding) kobolds within thirty feet of the players. It's theoretically exactly the same situation, but one is filled with subtle cues saying, "Attack them!".
In the second situation players have been made explicitly aware that the kobolds are within a charge move of them; their attention has been subtly drawn to the fact that the kobolds are armed, and that so are the players. If the kobold minis are identical there's another layer of subtext in there that says these kobolds are generic rather than unique, and the fact that there are no miniatures for the table, light sources, or other non-monster features of the room focuses player attention on the kobolds as being the primary objects to interact with in solving the encounter.
Just as in the same way that advertisements influence on the subconscious level as well as the conscious level, so too does each decision a DM makes, and the decision to use battlemaps has a specific, observable effect that may be disregarded to varying levels but is non-negligible.
Battlemaps and minis can influence the actions of some people. But that is NOT a universal truth. And you have NOT been talking about the 1 in 100 people who "prove" your point. You are, in essence, talking about the 100 in 100 people. You keep making broad, sweeping generalizations. I am merely pointing out that what you view as a universal truth is not in fact a universal truth. And it only takes 1 in 100 people to prove my point.
And in the examples you present, battlemaps and minis can influence one's actions. But, that does NOT mean that they restrict roleplaying. The purpose of the battlemap and miniatures it to provide a visual aid to enhance the combat experience. And as such it is pefectly valid to think that if the DM is pulling out the battlemap and miniatures that it is time to fight. That is, after all, the primary purpose of these specific game aids. However, if the DM is pulling out the battlemaps and miniatures BEFORE the players have stated that they are in fact attacking then ultimately the "blame" falls upon the DM for this.
Also, intelligent and rational players know that a miniature's pose (standing, weapons drawn, fierce continence, etc.) does not predisposition the character or even the player to a certain course of actions. It is merely an artistic norm for the miniature industry.
I will admit that battlemaps can influence the actions of players, but it would depend on how they were used. If they DM only pulled out the battlemap and miniatures just for combat then players could be anchored to a combative attitude when they see those game aids. But, if the DM pulls them out only after the players have decided to attack then the aids are NOT influencing the players' actions. And if the DM is pulling them out before combat has been declared then the blame falls on the DM. If the DM uses battlemaps and miniatures to represent every aspect of the game then the battlemaps do NOT influence the players to attack. They players will know that all friendly, neutral, and hostile miniatures will be represented on the battlemap. They will then rely on the description of the DM to determine their course of action.
When used properly and with the right players game aids enhance the roleplaying experience. They do not inhibit or restrict roleplaying. They enhance it.
I agree that if you use maps exclusively as battlemats, then yes, each time one is rolled out it will make the players incline to think "here there be combat".
I do not agree that this is necessary. I personally, am a very visual person, and would prefare "tactical" maps and miniatures in many non-combat situations as they help me immerse myself into the setting.
I think that is such maps are used regulary in non combat situation it can break the "Pavalovian conditioning"
of "maps=combat". Once the players get used to that they step into a tavern, or a market square, or a palace, etc. and there is a map of the place with NPCs and everything and no-combat ensue, they will not automatically have inclination to start visualizing the situation as combat-likely. Even more – is some situations they might also consider usage of skills and movement options (disguising themselves as beggars in the market square, for example, if they notice appropriate beggers mini/token) when they pass through or jumping on the roofs) before a combat situation arise.
Picture the DM who says, "You've walked into a room. Three kobolds sit around a table. What do you do?"
Then picture the DM who says that, and then lays out a battlemap, places the (weapon-wielding) miniatures for the players on one edge of it and the (standing, weapon wielding) kobolds within thirty feet of the players. It's theoretically exactly the same situation, but one is filled with subtle cues saying, "Attack them!".
Perhaps a better way to make the point...
No miniatures or maps.
DM1 says: there are three kobolds in this room in a group in the centre. They each have a short swords and a spear.
DM2 says: there are three kobolds in the room playing cards. They're arguing about whether one of them cheated. He's claiming that he's being victimised by one of the others because Hetta prefers him.
DM1 is signalling what she's interested in and what she expects the players to be interested in. DM2 on the other hand is signalling something different.
If the players want a non-combat encounter with DM1 they're going to have to work a lot harder to get DM1 to give them a hook.
Now, this should make it clear that it's not actually a matter of maps vs no maps. It's not the map and miniature as such that's pushing towards combat. The DM can point the players towards combat or not without maps. However, the information provided by a map is much more salient to DM1's style than DM2's style.
Maps:
DM3 just puts down some random tokens.
DM4 puts down miniatures of weapon-wielding kobolds.
Assuming we like miniatures at all, why are miniatures preferable to just tokens? I imagine the answer must be something like they help us to visualise what's happening. If so, then a kobold with a weapon will make it even easier to visualise fighting the kobold, and slightly less able to visualise talking to it.
Conclusion. If you, the DM, are gently nudging your players to a non-combat resolution, putting down the map straight away, before they decide to go into combat is going to be counter-productive. If you, the DM, are gently nudging them into attacking, put down the map.
Lemma one. Players are not automatons. We're talking about nudging, not controlling.
Point two. There's nothing particularly bad about this. It's not true that a combat-heavy tactical RPG is intrinsically worse or less virtuous than a relationship-heavy RPG. They're just different.
I actually find that role-playing is easier when it's more detached from the success and failure of the story. About fifteen-twenty years ago there was a vogue for investigative scenarios, advertised as scenarios which you had to solve using role-playing not combat: e.g. where you had to find out who was the cultist who was trying to open a portal to chaos/cthulhu/etc. In those kinds of scenarios, role-playing was firmly subordinated to trying to stop the cultist. Playing a smooth-talking dilettante was going to have better in-game effects than playing a foul-mouthed ex-soldier. In a combat-heavy tactical game, role-playing is to some extent cut free.
I will admit that battlemaps can influence the actions of players...
Okay, great, that's really all I started out arguing. Thanks for an invigorating and robust discussion!
But, if the DM pulls them out only after the players have decided to attack then...
Okay, and that's a valid point in and of itself. There's then another issue, in that you get this conversation:
DM: You enter the room and see three kobolds around a table. What do you do?
PLAYER: How far away are they?
DM: Thirty feet.
PLAYER: I mean from each other.
DM: Ten feet.
PLAYER: So they're all thirty feet from me?
DM: No, just one of them.
PLAYER: Well, if I attack will I be able to get into base to base with all of them?
DM: Are you attacking?
PLAYER: No, I want to know what happens IF I attack. Because if I can't tank them all on the first turn we might be in trouble, we should maybe talk to them instead.
DM: Well, you can get into base to base with two of them.
PLAYER: What about my dragonborn breath? Can I get all of them?
DM: Yes but you'll also hit one of your allies.
PLAYER: What? How?
DM: *sigh* I'll get out the battlemap.
PLAYER: No, no, I haven't decided whether I'm attacking yet. What are they saying?
DM: You can't hear them from this distance.
PLAYER: How is that even possible?
DM: Here, I'll show you.
Positioning is key to a player sizing up their options in 4th Edition. So many of a player's most effective abilities key off positioning; knowing whether you're in an appropriate position to enter combat can be pretty vital in knowing whether to press a tactical advantage or bargain from a position of weakness. It even matters for roleplaying; that cocky thief may be more likely to tell a yo mama joke to a minotaur if he knows he can run to the door without triggering attacks of opportunity, but much less likely to if he's going to be running a gauntlet of brutes.
While only getting out the battlemap once combat starts is definitely an option open to a DM, it's very often a very frustrating decision for players. Just watch the face of your fighter who discovers he's one square short of being able to get into base to base with the artillery after the battlemap comes down - that's a player who isn't impressed by your withholding the map. Positioning is part and parcel of 4th Edition and the solution to the influence of the battlemap is not just to bring it out later in the encounter.
Still... to put it in D&D terms, I think at most the minis give a -2 penalty to some people's roleplay checks. To a level 1 roleplayer (one who just started playing D&D and isn't comfortable with the group yet), this can be devastating. But a level 20 roleplayer (who already has 15 ranks in his roleplay skill and a feat that allows him to take 10 on his roleplay checks even in combat) will shrug off the -2 penalty like it was nothing. And a level 30 roleplayer has an Epic Destiny feature that allows him to ignore any penalties incurred from using minis.
I mentioned before, the 4e group I'm in doesn't use minis. However, we still use the power cards, and the other players in my group are horrid at describing combat. While the rest of the game is roleplay-rich, our combat often sounds like, "I use 'Reaping Strike'... 17 vs AC hit? Let's see... 8 points of damage." That's not a 4e slam; my co-players just haven't been playing D&D very long, and especially not in roleplay groups. I really don't think minis would make things any worse, but it would cut out some of the "Am I here or here" questions.
We disproportionately weight what's in front of us. We show a bias to things that are close at hand. That's not something we're doing deliberately, it's something we're doing subconsciously. It's built in. We can't help it. We don't usually know we're doing it.
Of course, but roleplaying is NOT just choosing between combat or conversation. Roleplaying IS the conversation.
You insist that putting out a battlemat is a cue to warm up your dice. Fine. I'll go along with that. But what if that battlemat and the minis are out ALL THE TIME as has been the case since I started playing D&D three decades ago? We started with 8.5x11 graph paper and a dozen or so metal character minis. We soon found this great stuff at local office supply stores - plastic coated graph paper in 3' or 4' wide rolls. We'd buy a five or six foot sheets and tape it to a ping-pong table and use wet-erase markers on it. later we used Chessex battlemats. I've played every version of D&D since day-1 with a combat grid and minis on the table at all times. Are you suggesting that this so dominated my thinking that I seldom actually roleplayed over the last thirty years because there was such a strong suggestion by the gear that our only choice was to fight? That every player I've gamed with has suffered likewise?
I wouldn't say that it doesn't have an influence - I'd only insist that it does not overwhelm and predominate your "roleplaying" choices to the extent that you say it does, including the choice TO roleplay rather than fight. HOW they are used and the the system being used will also have a difference. Just as a DM can "suggest" resorting to a combat option just by producing a battlemap and minis, he can suggest the opposite by NOT immediately producing a battlemap and minis.
That hasn't been an entirely unconscious decision for myself and others - it's actually been a tool to use. Often as well I've drawn out the room and placed minis and then given further verbal description with conscious and unconscious emphasis on NOT assuming that just because the map is drawn and minis in place that the best/only solution is combat.
I am not saying, and have never said, that battlemaps force players to do anything. I'm saying they influence them, on a steady and unconscious level, to prefer one style of play over another.
And I'd say that there are more variables at work than you suggest when it comes to influencing roleplaying in D&D.
Picture the DM who says, "You've walked into a room. Three kobolds sit around a table. What do you do?"
Then picture the DM who says that, and then lays out a battlemap, places the (weapon-wielding) miniatures for the players on one edge of it and the (standing, weapon wielding) kobolds within thirty feet of the players. It's theoretically exactly the same situation, but one is filled with subtle cues saying, "Attack them!".
In the second situation players have been made explicitly aware that the kobolds are within a charge move of them; their attention has been subtly drawn to the fact that the kobolds are armed, and that so are the players. If the kobold minis are identical there's another layer of subtext in there that says these kobolds are generic rather than unique, and the fact that there are no miniatures for the table, light sources, or other non-monster features of the room focuses player attention on the kobolds as being the primary objects to interact with in solving the encounter.
And now picture additional situations where EVERY encounter always has a map and minis placed for it and every time the players have resorted to combat but freqently get their asses kicked. Then, when they start to listen to verbal description and not just assume that they are there to roll dice that they CEASE being influenced by the mere presence of a battlemat and minis. Isn't that possible?
For example, a friend plays a wretched little warlock known to the rest of the party only as 'the host'. His body is the physical prison for some malevolent otherworldly entity. None of his powers use the standard fluff. instead tentacles and appendages rend his body, introducing poison, flame and vile energies to his opponents.
There is a concept utilized in Japanese comics (and occasionally in western comics as well) involving juxtaposing detailed finely pinned ultra realistic art with abstract iconographic art. Realistic art offers weight and visual beauty and impac, more abstract simplifed images allow for easier immersion into the characters and situations. Both are valued and used.
If one believes that one type of gaming is inherently stronger or weaker than another, perhaps ones own biases color his perceptions. Confirmational bias is not unheard of. I know that the players I run for have an amazing time playing 4th ed DnD. They definitely aren't suffering from using a battlemap or limited by having a list of defined powers. And i'm quite certain that they aren't doing it wrong.
Okay, and that's a valid point in and of itself. There's then another issue, in that you get this conversation:
DM: You enter the room and see three kobolds around a table. What do you do?
PLAYER: How far away are they?
DM: Thirty feet.
PLAYER: I mean from each other.
DM: Ten feet.
PLAYER: So they're all thirty feet from me?
DM: No, just one of them.
PLAYER: Well, if I attack will I be able to get into base to base with all of them?
DM: Are you attacking?
PLAYER: No, I want to know what happens IF I attack. Because if I can't tank them all on the first turn we might be in trouble, we should maybe talk to them instead.
DM: Well, you can get into base to base with two of them.
PLAYER: What about my dragonborn breath? Can I get all of them?
DM: Yes but you'll also hit one of your allies.
PLAYER: What? How?
DM: *sigh* I'll get out the battlemap.
PLAYER: No, no, I haven't decided whether I'm attacking yet. What are they saying?
DM: You can't hear them from this distance.
PLAYER: How is that even possible?
DM: Here, I'll show you.
Positioning is key to a player sizing up their options in 4th Edition. So many of a player's most effective abilities key off positioning; knowing whether you're in an appropriate position to enter combat can be pretty vital in knowing whether to press a tactical advantage or bargain from a position of weakness. It even matters for roleplaying; that cocky thief may be more likely to tell a yo mama joke to a minotaur if he knows he can run to the door without triggering attacks of opportunity, but much less likely to if he's going to be running a gauntlet of brutes.
While only getting out the battlemap once combat starts is definitely an option open to a DM, it's very often a very frustrating decision for players. Just watch the face of your fighter who discovers he's one square short of being able to get into base to base with the artillery after the battlemap comes down - that's a player who isn't impressed by your withholding the map. Positioning is part and parcel of 4th Edition and the solution to the influence of the battlemap is not just to bring it out later in the encounter.
Given your example I find it highly unlikely that a battlemap and minis will influence the characters in any way. The players are looking for a more detailed explanation of the situation and the DM is obliging them. If players are already contemplating attack distances then any possible desire to attack is already present in the player's mind. The battlemap and minis will not influence the player in anyway. The battlemap and minis will merely clarify the player's mental image of the situation.
Given your example I find it highly unlikely that a battlemap and minis will influence the characters in any way. The players are looking for a more detailed explanation of the situation and the DM is obliging them. If players are already contemplating attack distances then any possible desire to attack is already present in the player's mind. The battlemap and minis will not influence the player in anyway. The battlemap and minis will merely clarify the player's mental image of the situation.
...
I got the impression that his point was that a battle map would make the situation a LOT less of a huge pain in the ass for everyone, players AND DM. With a map you don't have to constantly ask "Where is (PC or NPC)" or "Where is everyone standing" or things like that that could be told in a microsecond if you had a map.
Exactly! Now you're getting it.
My point was your argument against maps and minis can be used on descriptions in the exact same manner.
And description is a flexible tool; you can use it to veer players towards combat, or discussion, or puzzle solving.
This depends greatly on the descrition itself. A detailed description can aid greatly toward these goals. A poor one can hinder roleplaying.
Whereas battlemaps and minis are a blunt tool; they only go one way.
Maps can help greatly in puzzles. Especially for thing that are be too complex to visualize.
Also you need not use one or the other. You can utilize both at once.
My point was your argument against maps and minis can be used on descriptions in the exact same manner.
Yes, and you're exactly correct. You've made my point better, apparently, than I have. The DM has a range of tools to influence players; the better the DM, the more precisely and subtly he can guide the players into a certain path while making them think it was their idea.
And battlemaps and minis are a tool, and they're a blunt tool because they only go in one direction. And because 4th Edition has made them a core part of the game, the game as a whole has a tilt in the direction of what battlemaps do.
Yes, and you're exactly correct. You've made my point better, apparently, than I have. The DM has a range of tools to influence players; the better the DM, the more precisely and subtly he can guide the players into a certain path while making them think it was their idea.
So are you advocating that it is the DMs job to railroad the players while trying to maintain the illusion he is not?
While that is a possible approach it is hardly the only one. When I DM, i try to offer what the group I am playing with wants, but talking about it explicitly both before a campaign starts and after sessions on occasion as well. Currently the setting is a very open sandbox and the characters actions pick and define the storys they wish to play in. I don't have to guide them at all, i just have to be nimble and flexible enough to keep the story in front of whichever direction they choose to go.
Okay, and that's a valid point in and of itself. There's then another issue, in that you get this conversation:
DM: You enter the room and see three kobolds around a table. What do you do?
PLAYER: How far away are they?
DM: Thirty feet.
PLAYER: I mean from each other.
DM: Ten feet.
PLAYER: So they're all thirty feet from me?
DM: No, just one of them.
PLAYER: Well, if I attack will I be able to get into base to base with all of them?
DM: Are you attacking?
PLAYER: No, I want to know what happens IF I attack. Because if I can't tank them all on the first turn we might be in trouble, we should maybe talk to them instead.
DM: Well, you can get into base to base with two of them.
PLAYER: What about my dragonborn breath? Can I get all of them?
DM: Yes but you'll also hit one of your allies.
PLAYER: What? How?
DM: *sigh* I'll get out the battlemap.
PLAYER: No, no, I haven't decided whether I'm attacking yet. What are they saying?
DM: You can't hear them from this distance.
PLAYER: How is that even possible?
DM: Here, I'll show you.
You have just selectively chosen to highlight combat related options in this "example". I could just as easily construct a hypothetical conversation in which the DM uses a map and minatures and yet no one engages in or even asks about combat.
Do you have a point? I suppose. Sure, moving to minatures and maps may have some minor impact on players decision making, but frankly my experience has always been that players are already inclined to behave in certain ways that have nothing to do with the ruleset. Players who are inclined to find combat solutions to problems will do so regardless of the game they are playing.
The degree of influence of minis vs no minis on this is pretty minimal.
That's time everyone loses, time spent **** around, time not gaming. It is invariably easier, succinct, and more pragmatic to answer a, "Where am I?" bplayer inquiry by pointing to the mini/icon player 'x' chooses AND IS RESPONSIBLE FOR w/, "There *at map point*."
All the gray area descriptive narration entitles is dangerous and wasteful. Think of the difference between writing out 'x' and typing it out on your terminal now. The later is affording you way more tools at your disposal to make sure you do it better:
-Faster (can anyone handwrite 55 wmp?). I know I can't. Letting someone visually process data (from a map) is much faster and engenders more complex concepts like geometry, spatial awareness, tactical reasoning, etc. that word of mouth only simply cannot muster.
-More detailed (a picture is worth a thousand words). You can describe every little thing that might make a difference, or, you can draw it in and not have to keep explaining it. Furthermore, you're gonna' miss things. We're visaully-oriented as humans (#1 sense). As you draw out map 'x' you will begin to draw more closure and realize more details that your inner monologue would not afford you. ex) You describe a door vs. you draw a door...and which way the hinges swing/points of cover on it, etc. You describe a bar. You draw said bar, noting the torches near it in relation to the alcohol and the impending fire a PC is jogged into now.
-Inspirational; my main reason for using them. An illustrated or drawn in piece may be enough to jog a train of thought or inspire a new strategy/idea. It is the difference between text-based learning and hands-on. The later will groom you faster. Having a visual frame of reference is enough to go on for a PC to gauge (to himself) w/out making the game pause AGAIN to ask space/distance for a spell, feat/power specific ability, etc.
-Saves time; how many times must you answer "Where is 'x' again?" Map is static and updated accordingly. Constantly reitterating your point and updating on-the-fly eats up the clock, can confuse players, puts undo attention on 1 aspect when you're really juggling several (HP, spells, environment, your friends, your enemies, etc). Lot goin' on.
That's other time you can be describing more important thematic aspects, you know, the ones that drive the game, not the terribly exciting narration of "30 ft to 'x', wall are stone, etc." The map will do that for you, but faster, easier, and often, depending on illustration, w/ better detail.
-More accurate, like spell check. The map is a point of reference that everyone can use. We need those checks and balances to make sure we're all on the same level and playing fair/accurate. 1 filter (the DM's monologue) sucks compared to several @ the same table w/ a "teacher's edition" (the map) to make sure everyone is up to speed. How many times has, "Wait, I thought he was over there." happend? It sets fixed points that allow us to focus on the unfixed ones more readilly, w/ greater speed, and sets precidents for independent variables and all those weirdo contingencies we never see coming out of left field. All are easier visually expressed, not verbally.
-Language; can be a matter of nationality. I have a Japanese American girl in our party. Her English is good, but when she can look for herself, count off the squares, see the cover, know immediately where the fire is, etc., it's much easier for her.
God, all that wasted time in the previous drawn out back n' forth....
That's time everyone loses, time spent **** around, time not gaming. It is invariably easier, succinct, and more pragmatic to answer a, "Where am I?" bplayer inquiry by pointing to the mini/icon player 'x' chooses AND IS RESPONSIBLE FOR w/, "There *at map point*."
Bravo, good analysis, and explains why I should use a battlemap even when the game system does not have so many rules to use it as DnD v4. I do.
One thing though: In narrative-driven games without a map, this data that you are describing generally does not exist until requested (OK, perhaps one or two issues are in the DMs head, but most of it is never even thiought about, unless the question arises). Instead the DM is open to suggestions that are fun and work with what he has already described. A game without a battlemap is like a written story or comic strip (where you cannot see outside the frame). Consistency in background data - such as how far away a wall is, is not always maintained 100% over time, with emphasis placed on other aspects of the scene. Lots of detail is never even covered. This can be a good thing - but not usually in DnD 4.
One problem with the DM referred by the OP is that he claimed that he did have a mental picture that covered use of the DnD v4 rules - such as range/cover/movement options. This is impossible for a normal humamn being - perhaps a savant could do this, but definitely not most people.
Personally, as a DM, I'd run a battlemap every time. But I have played in games without it, and as long as the style of play and type of game match, it works very well indeed. I remember games of Werewolf, Feng Shui and 7th Sea as a player, done without maps, very fondly. In my opinion, maps would have spoiled the combats in those games.
...
I got the impression that his point was that a battle map would make the situation a LOT less of a huge pain in the ass for everyone, players AND DM. With a map you don't have to constantly ask "Where is (PC or NPC)" or "Where is everyone standing" or things like that that could be told in a microsecond if you had a map.
I am not trying to start this up again with Greg, but earlier in the thread he said that battlemaps inhibit roleplaying. That is what led to this multi-page discussion on the topic.
Bravo, good analysis, and explains why I should use a battlemap even when the game system does not have so many rules to use it as DnD v4. I do.
One thing though: In narrative-driven games without a map, this data that you are describing generally does not exist until requested (OK, perhaps one or two issues are in the DMs head, but most of it is never even thiought about, unless the question arises). Instead the DM is open to suggestions that are fun and work with what he has already described. A game without a battlemap is like a written story or comic strip (where you cannot see outside the frame). Consistency in background data - such as how far away a wall is, is not always maintained 100% over time, with emphasis placed on other aspects of the scene. Lots of detail is never even covered. This can be a good thing - but not usually in DnD 4.
One problem with the DM referred by the OP is that he claimed that he did have a mental picture that covered use of the DnD v4 rules - such as range/cover/movement options. This is impossible for a normal humamn being - perhaps a savant could do this, but definitely not most people.
Personally, as a DM, I'd run a battlemap every time. But I have played in games without it, and as long as the style of play and type of game match, it works very well indeed. I remember games of Werewolf, Feng Shui and 7th Sea as a player, done without maps, very fondly. In my opinion, maps would have spoiled the combats in those games.
A small dry-erase board and some colored dry-erase markers can go a long way towards helping a DM explain a situation. It is quicker and easier than a battlemap and is great for doing a rough sketch of a room, especially if combat is more than likely NOT to take place (such as unoccupied rooms and such).
I am not trying to start this up again with Greg, but earlier in the thread he said that battlemaps inhibit roleplaying. That is what led to this multi-page discussion on the topic.
I'm not seeing how that has anything to do with my post.
I'm not seeing how that has anything to do with my post.
Then go back and reread the rest of the thread that Mock26 referenced.
Your initial comment was addressing Greg's post, ignoring the context of the rest of the thread and the discussion that lead up to it.
Mock26 was letting you know that.
You aren't seeing anything that has to do with your post because you haven't read the topic yet...