Tell Me About Your Experiences with Theater of the Mind 5E

[OB1]

IMO, your success with TOM will depend on how much both the DM and players embrace the concept of rulings not rules.

If you do embrace it, I’ve found that combat tends to be more cinematic, faster, and far more engaging than grid play and tends to lead to more varied outcomes than one side clearing the board of the other side.

For example, in a game last weekend, I had two PCs engaged in battle with enemies while a third was chasing after another enemy that fled the combat early in what was essentially a skills contest occurring at the same time.

My biggest tips for running are to think of distances narratively rather than objectively, track engagement as a condition, and use disadvantage rather than no if a declared action is on the edge of possible with the choice to try something else instead.

Also, I have a standing ruling that an AOE that hits one creature also hits any that are engaged with it. This alone easily resolves 90% of potential misunderstandings between mental pictures of the battle.

 

[robus]

I don't want this to come off as an attack on the game. I really do think 5e is a pretty well designed game for the most part - just not one that works well without a grid. This is particularly the case when you look at games like Unity, 13th Age, Fate, Dungeon World, Exalted 3e, and Edge of the Empire that have been designed from the ground up to be played without a grid.

You're absolutely right about the fact that the resolution given in the rules is very hard to translate to the looseness of TotM. It does require some flexibility in the interpretation of rules, so it definitely suits tables that are more "story" focused than "game" focused.

 

[Oofta]

IMO, your success with TOM will depend on how much both the DM and players embrace the concept of rulings not rules.

All I can say is that I disagree. I fully embrace rulings over rules, I don't think it has anything to do with it. I encourage my players to be creative and try to reward thinking outside the box. Combats in my games can be very cinematic, but they can also have enemies coming from (or hiding in) multiple locations, waves of enemies, etc.

I simply find it less rewarding to do TOTM, especially for large/complex combats. Keeping track of who's where (even in a general sense) is just more annoying than it's worth. When watching/listening to podcasts that use TOTM the impression I get is that they are either using a map and just pointing to where everyone is or the combats are relatively simple with less than 10 creatures (including PCs) involved.

I do get that some people over analyze, and waffle way too long on things like the exact best place to put that fireball. But when I tried TOTM they took just as long if not longer.

YMMV of course, and no one style fits all.

 

[5ekyu]

I mean, you say they're precise, but they aren't really. D&D miniatures rules don't allow for precise positioning. They only allow for positioning within 5 feet, which is a huge range.

If you look at fireball placement, for example, some people find it unrealistic that you can line up a fireball so that it hurts the area next to your fighter ally but doesn't hurt that ally at all. (And then they introduce house rules for scatter, or Arcana checks to aim correctly, or whatever.) What they don't understand is that it only looks precise, in the simplified model with the miniatures. Within the reality of the game world, the edge of the fireball doesn't brush right up against your fighter's feet; if you were actually looking at the scene, you would see the edge of the fireball stopping like 2-9 feet away from the fighter.

Likewise, if the party enters a room, and you describe a kobold in front of the far door, then you've already described the kobold's position with greater precision that what the grid says. In theater of the mind, you know that the kobold is in front of that door; but if you translate it into grid play, you only know that it's somewhere within a huge 25 square foot area.

Ok so you have this agenda definition of what precise needs to mean and that's fine and all.

.To me, as far as D&D minis on map vs rules go the "which 5'square" covers the degree of precision the ruleset supports. The only real unknown edge cases would be jumping which gets down to the half-foot. The fireball edge being 2-9' away from where you think it is on a grid, kobold in front of a door being more precise than being on a square which is in frant of a door - yeah you do you and all that jazz.

But that's cool.

 

[OB1]

All I can say is that I disagree. I fully embrace rulings over rules, I don't think it has anything to do with it. I encourage my players to be creative and try to reward thinking outside the box.

Wasn’t trying to say that not playing TOM means you are not embracing rulings over rules, rather that if you do want to do TOM you need to also embrace ROR.

In the longest running game I DM, we started with grid during the play test and have gradually moved to more and more TOM. I do still like either a grid or at least a drawn map for certain combats, especially when the stakes are extremely high, unless it’s against a solo.

In fact, solo combats is where TOM can really shine, especially against a mobile foe, and I tend to use those combats to give the PCs a chance to show off a bit (conversely, my BBEGs always have support).

The other great place for it is against Medium or lower difficulty encounters, which should only take 1 or 2 rounds and can be blazed through without having to set up a board. If you’re having trouble getting to 6-8 daily encounters, a few gridless Medium or Easy encounters can help without taking up a lot of playtime.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm uncertain which I prefer. In my experience, doing ToTM the way I like it done is harder, but it requires a lot less prep and can be slightly faster.

If I could, I'd do all ToTM. The problem comes in making sure that the scene everyone is visualizing is sufficiently similar to work well for everyone. I'm just as irritated as the players when it comes up that I didn't describe some element as clearly as I thought I had and now I have to step my description back a couple of steps to see where I lost them.

One of the things I want to do (though I have a hard time remembering it a lot of the time) is describe things in terms of a character's "move" or "dash" or short/long range of their ranged weapon instead of using feet and such. I think that can help the players ask less questions before acting. The more questions that get asked before acting, the less well I feel like I've done my job of describing things adequately.

One thing I do in ToTM is assume intelligent positioning decisions. If a player can make it somewhere without taking an opportunity attack, then I assume they do. If they can move forward, shoot, and then step back to get something into short range, I'll assume they do, or let them know that they can do that if there is a reason they may prefer not to.

A difficulty on the DM side is that my mental map is of necessity going to be more complex than theirs, because I am a visual thinker and a map in my head isn't optional. This can slow things down a bit, since I do have a rough idea about how many feet things are relative to each other, even if the player don't need the exact numbers.

So, the specifics of how it works out at my table are rather complex. I default to ToTM, which I'm always trying to refine, and I use a map when there is a set encounter in some sort of dungeon-like environment.