Imagine, no Battlemat...

[Bloodsparrow]

You don't need a battlemat per sae, though I would rather play with then without.

Though there is one group I play with sometimes that seems to have bad battlemat luck so we just clear off the table and sketch it out on paper or in snack crackers. Then you just use a tape measure. It's Ghetto, but it works.

 

[Aaron L]

Never used a battlemat, and never will. The DM has a piece of graph paper and we tell him how we want to move, and he tracks movement, letting us know when AoOs happen, and will warn us (but we almost always know when we'll provoke one.) Everyone keeps a pretty good mental image of the battlefield, and we don't get the feeling that were playing some kind of wargame. We all hate minis and can't imagine playing D&D with them. We play Battletech sometimes and don't want that kind of feeling in our roleplaying game. Everything is in our heads, and we wouldn't have it any other way. We've played this way since 1E and we'll play this way til we don't play no more.

Not that playing in other ways is wrong or lesser in any way, of course!!

 

[Jakar]

Always played with one and I would not think of playing without one. To me at least, it does not detract at all from the game and the imagination used to play the game. We only use it for combat, and there is not a lot of it in our game.

I think what it comes down to is that everyone plays the game differently and no-ones playing style is any worse or better than anyone else’s.

 

[Black Omega]

My group has always used a battlemat, we're just used to it and it makes combat easier. It also helps that we get minis that look like the characters being run.

 

[ruleslawyer]

The earlier distinction between a battlemat and minis and "some kind of visual/spatial representation" is a good one. I don't really use a battlemat to run combats step-by-step, but rather because in 22 years of DM-ing, I have been confronted consistently with my players' request to draw a picture the moment that the PCs hit a room or other area of significant spatial complexity. I can't just show them the maps, since those have important details scribbled/printed on them, so I need some other visual representation tool. That tool serves as a reference point, not an imaginative centerpiece; it doesn't serve to distract from my descriptions or the players' imaginative interactions any more than the other reference points, like their character sheets, the module sitting in front of me, or the rulebooks do.

I am impressed by those posters who talk about using mats and minis as an actual focus for imagination. I don't have the energy or money to invest in creating the necessary production values, and I think that my players and I are probably just not given enough to visual immersion to conjure a stunning fantasy battlefield from a bunch of paper tokens and a flat grid with some dry-erase drawings on it. (There are some exceptions; I did, for example, roll two giant d6s across the mat to knock over the PC's miniatures at one point, simulating a giant boulder attack.) That said, I agree with Elder_Basilisk's point that mats often make it much easier for players to imagine and strategize more "cinematic" maneuvers without resorting to a sidebar discussion and twenty questions.

Finally, I think I might have to start using a mat and minis for Iron Heroes, since several of the class abilities in the game seems to rely on a heavy use of maneuvers and tactics.

 

[Sejs]

Did without a mat in previous editions.

Ended up approximating our own with rough sketches and guesswork. Some people had figures they bought and were preferable to. Others just used whatever; dice, lego men, little paper stand-ups with sketches on them. Many times monsters were just plastic cavemen, soldiers, dollar store bag-o-toys farm animals, etc.

When 3e came around and actually incorporated something we had been doing ourselves anyway and made it part of the rules set, we rejoyced.

I like the mat. Even if the mat wasn't in the rules I'd end up using a mat in some capacity or another. Did before, after all. And as for folks who moan about fig costs, etc - feh, I say. Plastic cavemen make great orcs, and you can get 'em thirty to the buck.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

They main thing I HATE about a map is square counting. I DESPISE it when the Wizard counts off squares in between his turns and figures out how to perfectly place his AE spell to get the bad guys but amazingly avoid anyone in the party. In a fluid moving battle there is no time for a Wizard to do something like that, and I don't like it when the players do something like that, but it's nearly impossible to avoid.

I've thought of going to a flat board and just using a tape measure for distance, but that is more work IMO and I still need something to draw my terrain on.

 

[Nebulous]

They main thing I HATE about a map is square counting. I DESPISE it when the Wizard counts off squares in between his turns and figures out how to perfectly place his AE spell to get the bad guys but amazingly avoid anyone in the party. In a fluid moving battle there is no time for a Wizard to do something like that, and I don't like it when the players do something like that, but it's nearly impossible to avoid.

I've thought of going to a flat board and just using a tape measure for distance, but that is more work IMO and I still need something to draw my terrain on.

Hey, i'm with you Flexor. I griped about that earlier in this thread. In the heat of combat a wizard just might not be able to precisely calculate the area of effect of a hastily thrown fireball. In a videogame...yes. That is a disadvantage of the board in that it promotes square counting, but for the most part i don't mind. I love my battlemat and minis.

 

[Quasqueton]

In the heat of combat a wizard just might not be able to precisely calculate the area of effect of a hastily thrown fireball.

One suggestion I've seen (and considered): let the Player pick a square, then roll 1d4 to determine which corner (intersection) of that square is used as the center of the radius.

Quasqueton

 

[Nebulous]

One suggestion I've seen (and considered): let the Player pick a square, then roll 1d4 to determine which corner (intersection) of that square is used as the center of the radius.

Quasqueton

I like that too. Adds some unpredictability to the situation. As flammable magic should be!