Maybe battlemaps aren't so bad...

[Dan Stack]

I've tended to be the type of DM/GM who avoids battlemaps. On a whim, after hearing a lot of the debate over battlemaps in D&D, for last night's Star Wars RPG I bought a small whiteboard and a bunch of different colored dry erase markers.

For the fight scenes last night, I made a rough scaled map on the whiteboard and had each player use a unique color marker to track where their character was while I did the same for the bad guys.

The effect was amazing. The environment became a character. Suddenly, characters were diving for cover, leaping over carbon freeze pits, using charge actions, trying to outmaneuver the bad guys. It made combar so much more exciting. The battles probably lasted a little bit longer, but they became so much more intense that it was time well spent. Ironically, it also seemed to add to the roleplaying, as the players would focus on specific opponents, get frustrated when they got unlucky, etc.

So I find myself revising my stance on the use of a battlemap with an RPG.

 

[DDK]

I think you just have a decent group of players. I like using mini's but at the same time, different groups do different things with battlemaps.

Some roleplay charging and diving and leaping and all that jazz whilst others reduce it to dice and manauvers.

Just keep the description happening and try and give actions to your NPC's and monsters like, "He swings his sword in a downward sweeping arc..." roll, roll, consult, roll, "...and slashes you across the chest for a staggering blow!"

That way people are encouraged to do the same with their characters. Also ask the players to describe their PC's actions and make a point of seperating the description from the manauver, for instance instead of saying, "I use power attack for +5/-5," make the players describe the action instead, like "I heave my weapon and with a low growl lunge forward putting all my strength behind the blow!" and then have them tell you the mechanics.

If you don't encourage it, people slip down a few gears naturally, I think, and end up just using mechanics which can make combat using battlemaps very dull.

 

[the Jester]

I love that there's no more of that "No, I was standing on the other side of the room" crap. If your mini's there, that's where you are.

I agree that it makes combat more dramatic- I have pcs leaping from boat to boat with their rings of jumping (that was in Piratecat's game ), running up walls, hiding behind cover, all that stuff... it's great. Since I started using battlemats, white boards, etc., combat has become intensely tactical.

 

[Klaus]

I love using battlemats. I am currently running the WotC adventure path (Speaker in Dreams will commence soon) and I always prepare a battemat (using 3d programs or somesuch) to create maps for the most difficult locales (like the Bladeworks in Forge of Fury, with its two bridges spanning a river that ended in a cascade and stuff).

This always help convey the notion of speed. The PC cleric is wearing full plate, so she moves 20' (4 squares) and can't run. The other PCs (both move 30'= 6 squares) move faster, and it feels so. That also makes the ranger PC adamant about not wearing medium armor.

Also, when the ranger's wolf moves 50' (10 squares) it makes the players go "oohhh" at the thing's speed.

battlemat-less combat is usually drab, but just slap a battlemat and the simple combat against 5 skeletons in a 10x10 room becomes exciting (in this case, the PCs waited for the skeletons at the doorway's threshold, decreasing the number of skeletons that could reach them.

 

[Tokiwong]

Yeah I agree Battlemaps re cool, I just started usuing one for my new game and I will never go back, it is just too much fun, and it makes the combat tactical and much more exciting as the characters vy for tacical supremacy in the battle map, it is fun, and brings everything into focus!

 

[megamania]

Battlemats are great. It allows me to give foes a chance against archers! Damn those archers and their feats.....

 

[Mark]

Ironically, it also seemed to add to the roleplaying, as the players would focus on specific opponents, get frustrated when they got unlucky, etc.

So I find myself revising my stance on the use of a battlemap with an RPG.

Yupper! The idea that roleplaying has to take a backseat if you use a battlemap just doesn't prove out from theory to practice. Defining the environment goes a long way toward freeing up the imagination and allowing the players to become even more immersed in the game. Battlemaps help tremendously. I think it's excellent that you were willing to keep an open mind and give it a shot. Congrats to you and your players on your newly intensified game!

 

[dave_o]

!

I'd love to use a battlemat, and I love painting minis - but, alas, I haven't gamed face to face in YEARS. All my gaming is done online, and obviously, being on 56k means no fun battlemat/whiteboard program action for Dave.

As far as making players want to do "cool stuff" during combat, simply offer a style bonus (a la Exalted) to rolls when a player describes something with sufficient coolosity.

It works wonders.

 

[Ace]

With my group Battlemats reduce the game to a Wargame.

We are so busy with manuever and position that roleplaying goes out the window.

 

[nopantsyet]

My experience and opinion are the opposite of Ace's. I can only see a battlemat reducing the game to a wargame if combat is the greater portion of the game, in which case it's a wargame already. It's awesome to bandy about dramatic battle cries and taunts and character embellishments during combat--which my players do--but the characters aren't in combat to "win friends and influence people," so to speak. They're there because influence didn't work, wasn't an option, or they just plain wanted a fight. And if the dice are objective and often cruel, then you must use circumstance to your advantage.

But as in all things, the group and how they play. We don't have alot of combat in terms of number of encounters. I put my players up against opponents that would kill them if left to a statblock competition, so they have to play well to survive. (Although frequently they out-maneuver me and will dispatch their foes much quicker than expected.) I guess you could say that's reducing it to a wargame, but since we spend more of our game in roleplaying situations, it's only accurate to say our combat is a wargame, which simulated combat is.

As an interesting out-of-game/real-life note, militaries specifically focus on eliminating the self-identity from combat units because it is in fact a liability on the battlefield. Combatants are to act on imperative, not on judgement, personality, or flair. (Despite what Alexandre Dumas would have us think. )