D&D 5E Battlemap Vs. Theater of the Mind

[houser2112]

As a player, I prefer a battlemat for all but the simplest of combats (like the "shanking a guard" scenario brought up earlier). I like being able to see exactly how many orcs I can hit with my fireball, or how to take advantage of choke points, or whatever I need to make an informed choice of how to spend my turn without having to ask the DM.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Do you find that there's a difference in the time drag of Battlemap combat as opposed to Theater of the Mind combat?

Let's assume pre-drawn maps to eliminate the time it takes the GM to draw.

It depends on the DM. If the DM is comfortable with making snap decisions about what monsters and PCs can do - who will be caught in an area, who can reach or get away from whom, etc - and uses quick, concise descriptions; and, if players limit themselves to declaring actions that don't require a lot of checking (I attack the nearest goblin, I move to get the best shot I can and fire at the archer in the loft) and playing 20 questions to figure out what their options are (where is the goblin archer in relation to the paladin, what is he hiding behind, is it flamable, what if I move to the right, can I get a clearer shot, etc, etc, etc, etc,) then a simple combat can go a little quicker in TotM. If, OTOH, the DM describes things in detail, carefully works out the ranges/areas/movement/etc the game gives him and each player asks for all kinds of clarifications of those descriptions before deciding on their actions, it can be a lot longer.

Using a play surface gives everyone a clearer idea of the game-level scene - relative positioning, who has cover, who wold be caught in a spell, etc - if you focus on that, and the rules are fairly clear, it can actually speed things up, and a grid or hex map can further speed up the use of minis on a surface, because it replaces measuring distances and drawing areas of effect and the like. But, just as with the 20-questions players, slowing down TotM, you can have players drawn to measure or count out everything that might affect any action they're considering taking.

Bottom line, it's the players (it might take only one to slow things to a crawl) and DMs, more than the system or the mode of play, that are fast or slow.

 

[iserith]

Bottom line, it's the players (it might take only one to slow things to a crawl) and DMs, more than the system or the mode of play, that are fast or slow.

^ So much this.

 

[ranger69]

When I DM I usually have 7 players therefore using a battlemap is often quicker and certainly easier than trying to recall everything. However, I have played TOTM in a small group, and it is fine with smaller groups.

 

[Uchawi]

Ever since I started playing D&D with the blue box, grids or battle mats help end arguments. I call it an equal trade.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This thread has inspired me to try using legos in my game tonight. Score fifty bucks for Lego! Hopefully it's worth it.

 

[DMCF]

Would have been a nice poll. I fall under BM > ToTM.

My players just seem to prefer BMs. I draw my maps haphazardly during live games. So what if dimensions aren't perfect? Momentum is key here.

I use ToTM but as previously mentioned, small interactions.

Is BM slow? Yes. That is why I offer a +1 boon to attacks and checks immediately announced at the start of the turn. You'd think it is OP but trust me, it's used 20% of the time. Still, every 5 minutes less of "uhh....ummm....well...." is something I'll take.

One thing about ToTM though is that sometimes you have players who tell other players how to play their character. I've got one. ToTM makes it a lot harder to say "move x squares here and do this!".

 

[Grainger]

I don't really like minis because I feel the game comes out of the imagination, and people start thinking the participants look like the minis when they're usually only an approximation. No-one ever finds a mini that actually looks like their character, and they start off by saying "well... he doesn't have the armour, and his hair is shorter..." but very quickly this gets forgotten, and it becomes what the character looks like.

Also, more generally, the minis then start to dictate the look-and-feel of your campaign. There are many ways to envisage a medieval or pseudo-medieval world, and I rarely find that any given fantasy art matches my interpretation.

Using a battlemat has its place (e.g. for more complex combats), but then I prefer to use very approximate pieces to represent everyone (different coloured dice) or very approximate stand-ins (e.g. very cheap plastic dinosaur toys) that clearly don't really represent what everyone/everything looks like. Likewise, a plain grid with hand-drawn lines is better than a printed dungeon layout for the same reason; I want to choose what my dungeons look like, and I convey that to my players by saying words.

That said, I use it sparingly, because everyone is looking down on the action, rather than imagining it in "first person" perspective. Case in point: in our last game, two Manticores attacked the party. I described how -after firing their tail spikes - they flew in at top speed, hungry for flesh, jaws open, coming right at the characters they targeted, biting and rending at them. If we had been using a map, this would have been lessened, I think, because it would have become abstracted.

So three thumbs up (I grew an extra one for the purposes of this post, because I feel so strongly about it) for Theatre of the Mind!

 

[Sage Genesis]

I find this topic a bit difficult because the term "Theater of the Mind" actually comprises two distinctly different styles. For the sake of argument I will call these "Measured Gridless" and "Vague Gridless".

5e is a Measured Gridless game. The use of a grid is not assumed, but it does include exact measurements and distances such as you would expect to get out of a grid. The difference between movement speed 30 and 35 is considered enough of a salient difference to call it out in the rules. Spells and abilities have their ranges and areas expressed in 5-feet chunks. Positioning and movement can be important because it triggers opportunity attacks or special powers. (Note that I'm not saying that everybody must play the game like this, only that the game presents itself like this.)

For a Vague Gridless game, look at 13th Age, The One Ring, or any of the Fate games. There are no distances in 13th Age measured in feet. What is the speed of an elf compared to a human? There are no rules for this because it's irrelevant. What is the range of Magic Missile? It's "one nearby or far away enemy". No really, that is a quote. How do you know which creatures can be caught in a Fireball's radius? Well, it affects 1d3 creatures in a group. So if you decide to chuck a Fireball at those gnoll archers up on the ridge, roll a die to see how many happen to be affected. (It's not as if they're perfectly stationary outside of their turns, nor is your aim perfectly accurate.)


In my experience, the differences between a game on a grid and a Measured Gridless game are fairly small. A Vague Gridless game can be lightning quick, however, because you truly do away with measurements. And if you take those assumptions into the design of the core system itself it allows you to make some fundamental changes which are big time savers. However, no edition of D&D has ever really been built with this type of play in mind. D&D was always and still is based on a miniature wargame. And so we still have today a Fireball with a range of 150 feet and a 20-foot radius, with a note about how the explosion spreads around corners based from the point of origin. Great for the Measured Gridless style of play, real lousy for the even faster and looser alternative.

Anyway, as to the OP's question:
Yes, there is a real difference in speed, but 5e doesn't provide it. You need to go further down the rabbit hole to get real, consistent speed differences.

 

[Grainger]

That all depends on how much you worry about exact positionings, though. I'll tend to say "yes, you can get, 4 of the 5 orcs with the fireball"... job done. Ranges again don't really slow things down. If I say "the manticore is 100 feet away" it's pretty much the same as saying "it's at long range". If someone chases a monster, I compare the movement speeds, but if someone runs faster than the enemy, it's little different to saying the enemy is "average speed" and the PC is "fast". It's only when you lay it out on a grid that you need to start counting things out.