Can D&D be played without all the mini rules?

After 2nd edition, the game went from a world simulation in our imaginations toward an exact measuring tabletop miniature game with books filled with rules about squares.

I tried and tried to play the game that I loved through 3.0 and 3.5, but everything lost its appeal.

I was one who welcomed a 4th edition, until I heard that it kept the mini gaming aspect. You see I was hoping for a resurrection of the game toward 1st or 2nd edition, but with more streamlining.

While there were rules that covered movement, combat and the like, they came second so to speak to making the world fantastic and our characters alive.

This mini / square game reduces all that to clumps of plastic for me.

Any suggestions on how to ignore the physical placement of the game as it currently stands and bring it back into the imagination?

So far it hasn't worked just because players are different and think differently and some seem to want to know exactly where everything is while others would love to have the old feel of D&D back while playing the latest edition. Roll some dice and move three spaces on the board. That absolutely kills D&D for me.

I thank you in advance for not fanboi blasting me and nitpicking over every word I've typed, but rather simply offering some true and helpful advice to my problem in the context that I'm trying to get across.

Well you can play without mini's.. but you just have to describe how far everything is from eachother, otherwise you imagination is youre own limit..

I haven't been able to run a succesful test of this, but Mike Mearls had a great post about this on ENWorld. I've though a lot about it and it seems LESS dependent on minis that 3e to me at least. With the imprecise positioning of 1-square diagonals, the spooky action at a distance forced movement powers, the firesquares, it seems fuzzy positioning.

I'm pretty sure that with players who trust the GM, and careful use of describable terrain, and a wee bot o fiat, it would work great.

Really? It seems much *more* battlemap-dependent than 3e to me. It seems like half the powers use the battlemap in some way -- pushing and pulling are much more ubiquitous special abilities than they were in 3e, and all those powers become very ... fickle if you're not playing with miniatures.

I've been only through one scenario and so far it seems there's a need for either miniatures or counters or other ways of keeping positions and such clear to the players and GM. Except possibly against solos. With bursts, shiftings, adjacent targets, cover, many powers that focus on shifting both yourself, allies or enemies, etc, it seems impossible to me to play without minis.

Rolemancer said:

Any suggestions on how to ignore the physical placement of the game as it currently stands and bring it back into the imagination?

So far it hasn't worked just because players are different and think differently and some seem to want to know exactly where everything is while others would love to have the old feel of D&D back while playing the latest edition. Roll some dice and move three spaces on the board. That absolutely kills D&D for me.

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First off, a comment: I think that -- assuming you're the DM -- you should try to go with what the majority of players want (or some form of compromise erring close to that)...so, if your players mostly want minis, then give them the minis because it'll make them happier, and happier means better gaming. Same goes the opposite way if that's what they want: no minis...give 'em no minis.

And now, some thoughts (none have been playtested for your convenience, but feedback is welcome in case I ever throw away/sell off my little plastic friends):

- Don't rule out the idea of a combat map. No minis, no keeping track of movement every second. Just have a basic layout of the room and its features set before the players, and keep the positioning in your heads. Remember that 1 square = 5 feet, and just guestimate how much people are moving around. You gotta be descriptive though, coz players will argue with you if you're not.

- Regardless of maps/minis or lack thereof, you may want to breeze through the lists of powers in the PHB, and just make a few mental notes of ones that deal with a lot of movement. Then consider the following points:

-> Are most of the powers dealing with roughly the same (or a small number of different) "ranges of motion"? If every power is only a 1 to 3 square push/pull/slide, then it's probably pretty easy to visualize 5 to 15 feet of movement as long as you keep your head on straight and your descriptions decent. Again, having a map might help a little though.

-> If the powers vary widely, try grouping those variations a little, and trim down the list to something manageable. If 15 powers are 1 square push/pull/slide, 15 are 2 squares, 27 are 3 or 4 squares, 10 are 5 squares, etc. try wittling them down into 3 categories: "minor push/pull/slide = any power with 1-2 squares", moderate = 3 or 4 squares, and greater = 5+ squares. Then, either keep this as description, or better yet...

-> Try to come up with some kind of alternate "rule" that gives the feel of these movement powers, without requiring you to track movement. For instance, "every time a creature is pushed, it receives a -1 to all of its defenses until the start of its next turn." Something like that basically assumes all attacks push a creature in a way that is tactically advantageous, and simulates the creature being off-balance or having its guard dropped temporarily. Remember to apply this equally to the attacks of the enemies, or else the PCs will become overpowered.

Those are just quick thoughts. While substantial numbers of powers and abilities refer to pushing/pulling/sliding and other movement-related things, you could probably wittle (sp?) all that down to just a few "categories" of movement, and then come up with some easy modifiers that can take their place.

If I recall correctly, this always seemed to be how the old editions worked anyway: any kind of "tactical" anything really just gave a few small + or - to somebody. +1 to hit for having higher ground; +1 to hit a target on foot when you are mounted; -1 AC when moving through difficult terrain (as opposed to having to lower a movement score or something); blah blah blah.


There you go.

It can be done, but the DM and the players have to be willing to accept more fuzzyness.

You have to go with the intent of the powers, not the rules as written. For example, the Rogue power "Bait and Switch" lets you switch places with your target and then shift one square. The intent is most likely so that a Rogue and his ally will end up flanking the opponent, so you can rule that's what it does without worrying about the actual positioning.

In a non-battlemat game, the players will rely on the DM to tell them the limits and effects of thier powers. You'll need to keep track of a lot more, and will have to be careful not to always allow the most optimal power usage. In other words, a pack of charging kobolds shouldn't always be clustered enough for an blast to hit all of them, etc.

How did you adjucate "Fireball" in 1st edition? Same deal here. Keep in mind, depending on how you trend with regards to ruling on placement issues, powers that involve shift/slide/pull/push will become more or less powerful, and you can expect your players to chose their powers appropriately.

For example, if you always allow "Bait and Switch" to result in combat advantage for the Rogue, that power becomes a lot more powerful than it is in a battlemat game where it won't always result in combat advantage. If you never allow it to result in combat advantage, the power becomes weaker. You'll have to balance it yourself.

Ultimately, it means more work for the DM.

our problem is that we play in the living room on comfy couches and no way to do a battlemat... too bad someone doesn't make a web combat program i could use on my wii.....

MCrow over at therpgsite has mentioned several times that 4e has been really easy for his group to play without minis. Unfortunately he's yet to give us a play report, or I'd point you to a thread about it.

thundershot said:

our problem is that we play in the living room on comfy couches and no way to do a battlemat... too bad someone doesn't make a web combat program i could use on my wii.....

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That would be pure awesome.

I actually find the Wii more enjoyable when surfing the intarwebz than my PC. Heck, checking the weather in other cities/countries (like Antarctica) is pretty fun on the Wii...can't say that about anything else!

I'm sure Nintendo could make D&DI alot better and faster than WOTC could (for many obvious reasons), and it'd be sweet to boot.