D&D 5E Theatre of the Mind or Miniatures?

[spinozajack]

In keeping with the 5e philosophy, I generally run TotM. It's convenient, in that I don't have to pack maps or minis, and it also keeps the players' guessing, since they can't just count the minis on the table or double-check their positions. That leaves me freedom to adjust the number of creatures in a large combat, let a plot-important enemy get away or be captured, and the like, without the players noticing (or being sure, if they do notice).

And, TotM is the expected mode of play. Technically, the system doesn't do much to facilitate TotM, but I've been running games so long, it's not a problem. I was able to run Hero System combats TotM, and that's a more map-dependent system than any version of D&D.

Your post surprises me! I assumed most 4e style players would focus on minis.

But you're absolutely wrong about 5e not specifically being designed to facilitate TotM compared to both 3e and 4e:

1) Absolute positioning is rarely required. The only time you provoke OAs is when you run away, out of melee reach of your opponent. That's a narrative binary yes/no event. Super easy to do in TotM.
2) Few push X or slide X abilities and powers, and those that do exist are usually limited in frequency (Battlemaster push) or other ways.
3) No flanking or facing enabled by default. Rogues don't need precise positioning to to sneak attack, just an ally within 5 feet. Extremely easy to do in theater of the mind.
4) Movement being able to be broken up between attacks means the DM need only estimate the relative positions in his own mind to make a ruling as to whether the fighter can reach this other opponent after finishing off the first one. If anything, theater of the mind benefits players more due to this, since many monsters don't multi-attack and PCs don't drop that easily so it would rarely come up.

I'm sure there are many more. And there were actually a few design articles and interview questions with the designers during the playtests to make sure they were focusing on core default rules and assumptions to support TotM.

I am starting to think that your anti-5e bias makes you dismissive of all its highly successful design wins, several of which you're actually benefitting from.

Try playing 4e without a grid or punishing player abilities, many of which rely on precise positioning. Not so in 5e. 3e without a grid would more likely benefit players instead. All three are different, but 3e and 4e had a definite bias towards using a grid, and 4e basically required one if you were going to let players get the most use out of their positional abilities and hijinx.

I personally love minis for set piece battles and end game battles, but for casual skimishes, which could happen suddenly many times a session, I prefer to keep the game moving forward. Minis take time to set up, and the board to draw, and for many battles it's a pointless overindulgence that slows the progress of the story and makes most combats last much longer than they need to.

I can think of no greater endorsement for 5e supporting theater of the mind in its design, than the fact that 4e players and DMs are using it and enjoying it, and like me, busting out the minis they love when it's appropriate. That's very smart game design. Being flexible enough to support both styles of play without unduly hampering player abilities when they're used or not. I'm sure there are some cases where minis would be beneficial to PCs in 5e, but they are the rare case. So that makes it fine to use ToTM for the common case (non-final battles with not-especially interesting terrain or tactics).

Besides, on a theater of the mind, if there is a misunderstanding between a player idea of the locale of the battle, and the DM's (or other players), it's easy to bust out a pen and paper and just scribble it, and re-align expectations. Or draw it more precisely with colored markers on a board. So instead of it being a binary yes / no optional element, it's more like a slider, how much detail to you need to properly and fairly let players and monsters act accordingly and make the best of their abilities? If you want to push the BBEG over the cliff edge, you can just ask the DM if the BBEG is close enough to be pushed over. It's really powerful, flexible, versatile. I think you'll find, in a lot of scenarios, that minis are overkill and using them takes away time from other areas.

 

[Fralex]

I've started doing this weird thing where I take a tiny strip of paper I divided into sixths to represent 30 feet, I draw an environment on a sheet of paper without a grid, then I draw circles containing letters to represent each creature. Whenever a creature moves, I draw a line from its circle to its new position, and draw a new circle there, making sure the line is about as long as the number of feet (strip segments) it can move. 5e combats are short enough that this approach doesn't get messy, but then again I did it with just three players, one of which was also me. I also have these printable paper miniatures done in the Order of the Stick style that I love to use because they're so evocative and charming. For simpler fights I just use TotM.

 

[Uchawi]

I refuse to answer your poll because I play with both all the time.

Thank you. I am the in the same boat. There is value in both.

 

[baradtgnome]

Minis. Prior to starting D&D many a decade ago, me and the core of my core were hex based war gamers. The tactical aspect of the game is quite important to most. Also, one the the less ancient players has quite a collection of minis he very much likes to bring to the game. It would seem a blasphemy not to use them.

Having said that, I will use theatre of the mind when combats are very small and simple (which does not happen very often), or if I am forced to handle something that just does not fit neatly on the battle field.

example - last outing there was an encounter with a group of orcs and ogres who were holding a river crossing (50+ enemies) spread out over nearly 1,000 feet. I changed the grid distances so I could show where the groups were, and where the party members were and handled the individual combats theatre of the mind as they happened.

Interesting to note - our use of minis and some use of theatre of the mind has not changed over the years of play and the changing of editions. We do what comes natural to us and the supposed style of the edition has not influenced that style as far as we can tell with regards to minis vs TotM.

 

[Wuzzard]

When my current group played 3e, it was a mix, sometimes no minis, sometimes minis just sat in the middle of the table as talking points, sometimes minis were used but not a grid, with ad hoc positioning set up to explain a particular action, or maybe a grid was inferred in the patterns of the table cloth, sometimes a battle mat was put out and precise positioning was used. When we switched to 4e, it was battle mat all the time, as no one thought it was reasonable to use 4e rules without one, or without the dungeon tiles the rule book claims the rules were designed for. Now with 5e, we are back to using a variety of methods, depending on the situation. I would find it perfectly reasonable when not using minis at all, to sometimes use sketched maps on paper or a whiteboard, if that helps players understand where they are. This was usually the default in my 1e games, as players were always held responsible for mapping themselves, so they always had that reference to go by.

 

[Grainger]

Yes, with regard to earlier saying that I rarely use minis, I do nearly always use maps. I either sketch an area, or get the players to map a dungeon (I grew up with old-school!). I like the players to have a good picture of the area, even though we're not usually working with exact positioning.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Your post surprises me! I assumed most 4e style players would focus on minis.

That is not an unusual misconception, thanks to the divisive propaganda of the edition war.

Keep in mind, though, that I'm one of those old guys, I've started with D&D in 1980, and I've run all sorts of games in all sorts of circumstances, including games, like Champions! that were much more theoretically 'grid dependent' than 5e, when a play surface simply wasn't available - thus "TotM." I also ran Storyteller for years, and it has no support to speak of for the use of minis.

5e is so evangelical about TotM, I figured I'd go with it. The lack of mechanical support for the mode actually dovetails with the editions "DM empowerment" attitude. When you don't have rules for positioning, say, that work well without minis, the players simply must depend on the DM's moment by moment rulings. That leaves open degrees of freedom in coming up with an environment/scenario - or fine-tuning it on the fly.

But you're absolutely wrong about 5e not specifically being designed to facilitate TotM compared to both 3e and 4e:

I'm sorry I didn't make that clear: I didn't mean in comparison to 3e or 4e (you read that into it, somehow, since I mentioned neither).
No, I meant, at all.

Really, relatively few games make any mechanical attempt to facilitate TotM. Those that do avoid precisely measuring things like range, area, or positioning, using more abstract, not merely more or less granular, alternatives. A recent example is 13th Age, which, like 5e, captures the core feel of classic D&D, but does so less by hearkening back to classic mechanics. It uses abstract positioning - creatures are 'engaged,' close, or 'far,' rather than precisely positioned. The DM doesn't need to track relative positions to the foot the way he does in 5e, or to the nearest 5' square as in 3.x or 4e, or the nearest scale 'inch' as in 1e.

That's just one example, but if you're familiar with what a game can do, mechanically, to facilitate TotM, and go looking for it in 5e, you won't find much.

1-4)

I see where you're confused. Those are examples of 5e not supporting the use of minis & a play surface as well as 4e or 3.x (or 1e AD&D, for that matter).

Not supporting the use of a grid is not the same thing as facilitating TotM.

Try playing 4e without a grid

I have, and had no trouble with it. But, then, I've also run Champions! in that mode, and it's about as grid- (actually hex) dependent as a game can get. That 3e, 4e, and many other games provided more and better support for using a grid than 5e chooses to by default doesn't make them any less suitable for being run TotM, it just makes them better when you do use a grid.

5e, of course, /does/ add some support for play using a grid in the DMG, but, in befitting with it's DM-empowerment over Player-'entitlement' philosophy, they're in the form of DM resources, not player options.

Besides, on a theater of the mind, if there is a misunderstanding between a player idea of the locale of the battle, and the DM's (or other players), it's easy to bust out a pen and paper and just scribble it, and re-align expectations.

It's even easier to just let the DM's ruling stand.

I think you'll find, in a lot of scenarios, that minis are overkill and using them takes away time from other areas.

Like I said, I've run many games both with and without the use of minis, grids, and other visualization aids, and I'm well aware of the advantages of using them, and the readily-surmountable difficulties of doing without. 5e, perhaps in reaction to the controversies of the edition war, erred on the side of under-supporting the former and evangelizing the latter. Whatever the reason, the result is very much in keeping with it's theme of DM empowerment, which, as a DM, I certainly appreciate and take full advantage of.

 

[spinozajack]

Again, pretty clear that you don't see the difference between a system having extra support for minis optionally in the DMG through optional rules, and one that requires its use by assuming it.

For a fireball, knowing the exact range and radius in feet doesn't refer to a grid, and I can imagine quite well what a 20 foot diameter looks like, and imagine which enemies might be engulfed in it, even as a rough approximation of what I have in my mind's eye. Because, narratively speaking, you know whether the group you are targetting is bunched up, and I as the DM would know if the PCs are bunched up or could fit within 20 foot wide radius as well.

That is definitely supportive of theater of the mind. Anything that enforces strict positioning in the rules, like flanking or facing or AoO triggers (move from this square to this other square? AoO, or retreat from enemy without using Disengage. Not the same kind of decision process, at all).

I also find it funny that you think it's just "propaganda from an edition war" that makes people think that 4e fans prefer the use of minis whilst AD&D fans prefer not using them. I know this because I take what people say at face value, and that's indeed what they say. Also, it's what's written in the rules. I don't believe you can even try to play 4e combat without a grid, and certainly not play it effectively from the PC point of view. The game assumes one. The designers even admitted as such many times. I was paying attention when I watched the interviews with Mike Mearls on this issue, so yes, I do think you're living in a delusion if you expect anyone to believe that 4e doesn't assume a grid being used. That's total BS man.

As does 3e for the most part. 5e took a step back and designed most of its core, non-optional combat rules and abilities to not use those kinds of things. I think it's you making this an edition warry kind of thing. Lots of people like the use of a grid, but also appreciate the fact that you can now run combat perfectly well without one. As you are yourself doing, by your own admission. I'm getting more and more the impression that you view everything through an edition war lens, where you, being a 4th edition fan, are being persecuted. But then even when you admit that 5e's design allows you more game flexibility, and that you are using it, you still don't admit it's because the game was designed that way. So you're just arguing in bad faith. Go ahead, keep seeing yourself as a persecuted minority here, it's just not true. I love minis too, but I absolutely am certain that 5e not forcing the use of one through adopting simpler rules that don't require precise positioning (and the overall lack of push / slide "powers") is a large reason for its success.

The game design was validated by 150,000 public playtesters and now millions of satisfied customers. That is all the proof you need that it is a well-designed game for its intended market. Including 4e fans, who have also to a large extent jumped ship.

 

[EthanSental]

I use both. Totm for quick and small encounters and minis for larger and more dramatic encounters. With 7000+ minis and tons of dwarven forge and homemade scenery I like to use it when I can but don't want to waste gameplay setting up and taking down too much.

Whoa - 7000+ minis, NICE! having used metal for most of my playing days (1987 to current), i've just recently started picking up cool pre-painted plastic minis as well. Still grab the cool reaper and other metal minis, just need to make time to paint them.

As i mentioned before, we use them mainly for combat related, not so much for town/roleplaying parts.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Again, pretty clear that you don't see the difference between a system having extra support for minis optionally in the DMG through optional rules, and one that requires its use by assuming it.

The difference is really pretty minor. When you run a game that has a lot of detailed rules that leverage a grid or mini placement or whatever, you can always take it TotM by dialing that detail down and ignoring some of it. When you have a game that lacks such things, you can always add them in, going by natural language interpretations of whatever it does present, translating that to reasonable measurements, and taking it from there.

It's up to the DM to handle such variations.

For a fireball, knowing the exact range and radius in feet doesn't refer to a grid, and I can imagine quite well what a 20 foot diameter looks like, and imagine which enemies might be engulfed in it, even as a rough approximation of what I have in my mind's eye.

You can. And your players can worry about the fact that you just pictured a 20' diameter, when fireball is a 20' radius. Then the player targeting the fireball wants to know where everybody is relative to everyone else so he can place that 20'r sphere were it'll do the most good. Then maybe pi comes into it. Conversely, if you're playing 13th Age, the fireball affects something like 1d4 close enemies, more if you cast 'recklessly' and risk hitting allies. No need to picture a 20' diameter or radius sphere superimposed over visualized position of PCs & monsters on the imagined panorama of the imagined battlefield.

That is definitely supportive of theater of the mind. Anything that enforces strict positioning in the rules, like flanking or facing or AoO triggers...

Is just giving you more for use with minis. Taking that away isn't supporting TotM - it might be making the decision to use TotM, instead, easier, since the system gains less from using minis, but that's not the same thing.

I don't believe you can even try to play 4e combat without a grid, and certainly not play it effectively from the PC point of view.

I know for a fact you're wrong, because I've done it. In fact, 4e squares - and, particularly, the infamous square fireballs - are a little more convenient than you might expect for TotM, since they make visualizing what can 'fit' in a given area (be it an AE, room, corridor, etc) a little simpler. Less granular measurement simplifies such things, a bit.

5e took a step back and designed most of its core, non-optional combat rules and abilities to not use those kinds of things. I think it's you making this an edition warry kind of thing.

I gave my - positive - opinion of running 5e TotM, you dragged 4e & 3e into it.

It's true that 5e threw away or exiled to the option ghetto some stuff 3e and 4e did to make determining positioning, range & area easier using minis and a grid (& incidentally give players more options that leveraged that). But all 5e did was wind back to natural language and feet as the level of granularity. That's not facilitating TotM. It's not facilitating anything, really, which is entirely in keeping with being a little more style-neutral and trying to be 'modular' (open to variants, not modular in the programming sense). It also took away some player options, which isn't inconsistent with it's goal of promoting DM empowerment.

Lots of people like the use of a grid, but also appreciate the fact that you can now run combat perfectly well without one. As you are yourself doing, by your own admission.

Clearly, since the majority of respondents to this pole are using minis rather than TotM. I have to say, I didn't expect to be in the minority.

But I'm not going to lie and pretend that 5e actively facilitates TotM with it's mechanics. It doesn't: check out 13A to see what facilitating TotM looks like. You've probably never seen a game that does anything to make running TotM more convenient, so you figure just taking options away is all that's required.

But then even when you admit that 5e's design allows you more game flexibility, and that you are using it, you still don't admit it's because the game was designed that way.

One cool thing about RPGs is that the GM has complete flexibility, regardless of whether the system 'allows' it or not. I like that games like 5e admit instead of deny that. But what I really appreciate about 5e is the way it's projected that attitude. 3e, for instance, also admitted (Rule 0) that it couldn't force anyone to play by the RAW - but the community went ahead and obsessed over the RAW, anyway.

That is all the proof you need that it is a well-designed game for its intended market. Including 4e fans, who have also to a large extent jumped ship.

Again, you're trying to make it into a war. I'm running 5e & 4e, /and/ playing 4e & 3.5 - it's all D&D, and it's not like playing one edition is 'jumping ship' from another.

When it comes to 'well designed,' 4e and 5e - not coincidentally, I think, both with Mike Mearls on board - have broken D&D's long, poor track record when it comes to hitting design targets. 4e was designed to be better-balanced and to fix many perceived issues with 3.5, and it succeeded. 5e was designed to head off controversy, attract AD&D hold-outs, and empower DMs. And, it's succeeded brilliantly.

But, in the case of being 'designed for TotM' (ie, rolling back the controversial improvements 3e and 4e made to the use of a grid), that was never really the goal. The goal was to capture that classic D&D feel, which meant not having rules like 5' steps or flanking, but still having rules for spell AEs that cried out for precise measurement. So it doesn't facilitate TotM the way games actually designed to do so have: it still can't stop anyone from playing TotM - or with minis - and people are happily doing both.

Not because it's as good at either as a game actually designed to primarily do one or the other (or even, optionally, do either equally well), but because it succeeds (brilliantly) in /being/ D&D in that classic sense that makes us all want to play it (and not heap unwarranted abuse on it) again. When you really want to play a game, and can easily bring together a group to play it, you'll make it do for the way you want to play. Especially when it goes out of it's way to promote your Empowerment as a DM.