Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Oh, but it is the position of the weapon that is important. Oh, but it is weapon style that is important. Oh, but it is the position of the shield that is important. Oh, but you cannot be accurate without facing.

Oh, but accuracy is defined by your preferences, not by a large range of factors to be considered, by which no game existing can be considered accurate or complex unless you prune the tree to the definition you prefer.

Colour me unimpressed.

Considering that we're talking about recent iterations of the D&D rules, weapon position, weapon style, and facing are pretty far outside the bounds of the discussion. But I'll bite.

Personally, I care about terrain and relative position of players, which have been fairly important to the rules as written for a few editions now. I'm willing to fudge a grid if I trust the other people at the table, but I want some sort of representation of people, monsters, boulders, cliffs, bad terrain, etc. that I can look at and use.

I want to know more or less exactly how close someone is to a cliff/table/boulder/rough terrain/etc, because I love positioning effects that I can use to hinder, incapacitate, or irritate my foes. There are DMs I've met that can fairly adjudicate that stuff on the fly, but it's a rare skill, IME. So I'd rather have some sort of common representation.

I find that more enjoyable by leaps and bounds, and my personal experience is that the time it saves in avoiding arguments more than makes up for the time spent fiddling with it.

Not even close. There's a certain level of precision in using a grid, but it's pretty much unnecessary. Negotiating out a combat verbally with the GM is no more handwaving than rolling an attack to see if the sword injured the target. It's just a different level of abstaction from the fighting action than using minis on a grid.

Perhaps I should have said "No one in this thread has come up with an example of mini-less combat that didn't involve vague positioning and using player narrative control." I can't say for certain that no one, anywhere, has come up with such an example.

But I'm quite happy to say that some physical representation is absolutely required for accurate positioning. I enjoy the game play that emerges out of accurate positioning, so therefore I prefer physical representations of the combat space.

There is a distinct difference between having a grid where my rogue and your fighter are standing next to an orc and the DM describing the scene with no referent. The first gives me an accurate representation of which abilities of mine are in play and what I need to do to set up or maintain my abilities. The second requires me to reference the DM's memory every time.

I've studied memory in the lab. Trusting memory is, frankly, a mistake. In simple terms, you re-write it every time you access it. Running a combat requires accessing it many, many times. The telephone game is instructive here. I wouldn't trust my own memory about this, so I'm certainly not going to inflict my memory on others or trust someone else's when we can bust out some coins, bottle caps, pogs, minis, or whatever.

Paper is a wonderful technology. It allows us to offload menial mental tasks to the environment, enabling us to spend mental resources on something we find more fun. I find there to be no particular virtue in refusing to do so.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Considering that we're talking about recent iterations of the D&D rules, weapon position, weapon style, and facing are pretty far outside the bounds of the discussion.

That's nonsense.

Discussion of the effects of X, without any ability to consider what X might be other than what it is are futile at best.

I am not arguing that the grid doesn't satisfy you -- clearly it does. But the idea that the grid is required for complexity, or for coherence/accuracy, is simply wrong.

However, that said, the grid itself creates its own fuzziness to combat, at least as it is used in WotC-D&D. I mean, if you can travel farther on a diagonal than not, or if you have a system where, say, either the world is divided into 5-foot chunks or exactly what terrain you are on in in question. Or where a horse requires a square space......Or, worse yet, a 200-foot-long snake requires a square space......I would say you have entered the realm of vague fuzziness with regards to actual location.

I mean, I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard as an answer to CaGI affecting some creatures "Perhaps the creature was always there?" or words to that effect.

No, I am afraid that the grid substitutes one form of vagueness for another. And, by fooling some folks into thinking that they have eliminated vagueness, it perhaps does a disservice to them in the bargain.

By all means, use a grid if you want to. If you enjoy it, or if you find that you need it, all the more power to you.

But please don't imagine that it is necessary for everyone, or that those who enjoy gridless combat somehow have more "vague" combats than you do.

After all, no one in this thread has come up with an example of mini-using combat that didn't involve vague positioning and using player narrative control.


RC

 

[xechnao]

...I want some sort of representation of people, monsters, boulders, cliffs, bad terrain, etc. that I can look at and use.

I want to know more or less exactly how close someone is to a cliff/table/boulder/rough terrain/etc, because I love positioning effects that I can use to hinder, incapacitate, or irritate my foes. There are DMs I've met that can fairly adjudicate that stuff on the fly, but it's a rare skill, IME. So I'd rather have some sort of common representation.

I find that more enjoyable by leaps and bounds, and my personal experience is that the time it saves in avoiding arguments more than makes up for the time spent fiddling with it.

Agreed. You can have all this without a grid. If you can't, I can design a way for you to do it if you so wish. Hell, we could do it even together.

But I'm quite happy to say that some physical representation is absolutely required for accurate positioning. I enjoy the game play that emerges out of accurate positioning, so therefore I prefer physical representations of the combat space.

There is no such requirement thus the reason of your preference is flawed.

There is a distinct difference between having a grid where my rogue and your fighter are standing next to an orc and the DM describing the scene with no referent. The first gives me an accurate representation of which abilities of mine are in play and what I need to do to set up or maintain my abilities. The second requires me to reference the DM's memory every time.

Agreed but the grid is not the only referent you can have. We can design other referents -perhaps even more intuitive than the grid.

I've studied memory in the lab. Trusting memory is, frankly, a mistake. In simple terms, you re-write it every time you access it. Running a combat requires accessing it many, many times. The telephone game is instructive here. I wouldn't trust my own memory about this, so I'm certainly not going to inflict my memory on others or trust someone else's when we can bust out some coins, bottle caps, pogs, minis, or whatever.

Paper is a wonderful technology. It allows us to offload menial mental tasks to the environment, enabling us to spend mental resources on something we find more fun. I find there to be no particular virtue in refusing to do so.

Agreed. Another one is language. If you think that there is any need of we can use paper to record down a bunch of things and solve the memory problem.

 

[xechnao]

I don't know about "most people" but that certainly wasn't my experience.

With a few minor exceptions, we played without minis for the first few years (mostly 2e and 3e). We finally started using minis after we got tired of having arguments caused by descriptions that directed us to take actions we otherwise wouldn't have (had we properly understood what the DM was trying to explain).

You might have (or be) a DM who never makes mistakes when describing scenarios, and kudos if so. However, for some of us minis are, while not outright necessary, of significant benefit nonetheless when it comes to the accuracy of our shared imaginative space.

You rather need some rules that the players can understand, agree and follow to avoid such confusion and arguments. You didn't have because D&D or any other product you were aware of did not have any and obviously you did not bother to house rule about it. Minis can be a handy substitute in this case. Not the only solution or the best solution. But a handy one -perhaps the most handy there exists if you have not bothered to design something.

 

[billd91]

Perhaps I should have said "No one in this thread has come up with an example of mini-less combat that didn't involve vague positioning and using player narrative control." I can't say for certain that no one, anywhere, has come up with such an example.

But I'm quite happy to say that some physical representation is absolutely required for accurate positioning. I enjoy the game play that emerges out of accurate positioning, so therefore I prefer physical representations of the combat space.

There is a distinct difference between having a grid where my rogue and your fighter are standing next to an orc and the DM describing the scene with no referent. The first gives me an accurate representation of which abilities of mine are in play and what I need to do to set up or maintain my abilities. The second requires me to reference the DM's memory every time.

I've studied memory in the lab. Trusting memory is, frankly, a mistake. In simple terms, you re-write it every time you access it. Running a combat requires accessing it many, many times. The telephone game is instructive here. I wouldn't trust my own memory about this, so I'm certainly not going to inflict my memory on others or trust someone else's when we can bust out some coins, bottle caps, pogs, minis, or whatever.

Paper is a wonderful technology. It allows us to offload menial mental tasks to the environment, enabling us to spend mental resources on something we find more fun. I find there to be no particular virtue in refusing to do so.

I'm going to repeat myself. It's not a question of accuracy. It's more a question of specificity. You prefer to play the game when a Character attacks the orc from a particular square that you can see right in front of you. But plenty of games, including 3e with a little good work on the descriptions, do not require that level of specificity. It's accurate to say, in a gridless game, that you want to move to melee range with an orc and continue to say how you move in relation to that. It is less specific than using a grid and minis.

For some people, a less specific game, even if moderated more by a DM rather than presented on a grid, has advantages, particularly in saving time spent on plotting out moves. I certainly prefer to use it in short engagements where setting up the battlemat would take as long or longer than the following fight.

 

[xechnao]

For some people, a less specific game, even if moderated more by a DM rather than presented on a grid, has advantages, particularly in saving time spent on plotting out moves.

Moreover this specificity refers to many things artificial. The less you have to deal with them, the more intuitive and the better (IMHO) game you can have.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The complex examples that were gridless rely extensively on DM fiat or player narrative control in terms of exactly where characters or terrain are in relationship to each other.

Of what value is complexity?

Of what value is simplicity?

How do they help you achieve the goals your are looking for at the table?

At my table, the value gained by not using grid + minis (lack of set-up time, flexibility in encounters, more narrative combat, less fiddly bits, less decision points) absolutely outweighs the value gained by using grid + minis (visual aid, simulationist positioning, complexity).

This is because at my table, combat is one of many very important things that the party is engaged in. Combat is not, as it were, the point.

I can have miniless combat that is complex enough to be vastly entertaining. I find it difficult to have minis combat that is not overly complex for my tastes.

So for me, abstraction is a very useful tool in combat, to reach the level where it is not really very important how many exact squares one person moves, takes up, or attacks into.

4e, largely because of the presence of a host of effects that relate purely to how many squares your plastic toy can move (slow, push, pull, slide, shift, among others), makes this difficult. The trade-off, ideally, is combat that is more fun than it would otherwise be. Personally, I don't find that combat gains more fun with these additional details. I don't need these additional details of spacing and positioning, any more than I need to know how a dragon flies or how big an outer plane is, or the exact height and weight of a halfling. They are extraneous things for me.

I accept that not everyone agrees with that, and that some have a whole mess of fun with minis. But 4e is not very welcoming of those that disagree with the main design principles on this subject.

 

[MerricB]

Fair enough. The point is that a business decision is involved, and, from the standpoint of making the game profitable, it is a good decision.

But it has consequences to gameplay, and, depending upon your personal preferences, those consequences may be good or bad.

It should be noted that AD&D used inches throughout - exactly the same as squares, effectively. (3e/4e and late 2e tend to use a grid rather than just measuring out stuff on the tabletop).

Cheers!

 

[WheresMyD20]

It should be noted that AD&D used inches throughout - exactly the same as squares, effectively. (3e/4e and late 2e tend to use a grid rather than just measuring out stuff on the tabletop).

Cheers!

Yes, AD&D 1e used inches as a measurement of distance since some players chose to use minis and a measuring system. (Not actually the same as squares since diagonal movement on a square grid isn't the same distance as orthogonal movement)

Anyway, pages 10 & 11 of the 1e DMG make it clear that miniatures are considered optional in 1e. The game was designed in such a way that you could use minis or not use minis and either way it plays just fine. Unfortunately, the game as it exists today was deliberately "evolved" in such a way that this option has effectively been taken away.

 

[Hussar]

I accept that not everyone agrees with that, and that some have a whole mess of fun with minis. But 4e is not very welcoming of those that disagree with the main design principles on this subject.

Now this I would agree with.

My next question would be, should it be? Is it better to support two options not as well, or one option really well. Where a person comes down on that question will probably depend on all sorts of factors, one primarily being, "does it support MY option?"

If you've decided to design a game based around a combat grid - and lots of games have done this - going all the way back to Star Frontiers for me - do we embrace it fully or partially?

3e only partially embraced it. You can play 3e miniless, but, it's not easy. You can use minis in 3e, but, while there are elements, particularly Attacks of Opportunity and Reach, which make playing without minis difficult, it doesn't actually add a whole lot of tectical options in play. 3e rules punished movement so heavily that bouncing around the combat map was usually a very bad idea. Many combats, once you got into base to base contact, devolved into 5 foot steps to gain flanking and not much else.

Now, this isn't always true, and I'm sure people are furiously typing exceptions right now, but, generally speaking, 3e didn't go very far to promote using a battlemap, but, went too far to not use one. (if that makes sense)

4e chose to embrace the battlemap (for whatever reason ) Which means that on the battlemap, you have a plethora of choices. Combat becomes very fluid with people moving all over the place every round, because the game promotes this style of play.

It does so, however, to the detriment of other play styles.

Personally, I think that's a good thing. I don't want a game that does a dozen different things in a half assed way. I want a game that is good at a small number of things. If I want miniless combat, I won't play 4e D&D. Not a problem, there's fifteen other games out there that will scratch my itch.