Doctor Futurity
Hero
TotM is just a mode of play. You're tracking where characters and terrain features and so forth are relative to eachother, as you put it, below, 'mentally' - eschewing any tools that might aid tracking (or visualization).
Although worth noting that my ToTM definition does not require that you track characters where they are relative to each other so much as that you track events and actions. ToTM works exceptionally well once you get over the idea that exact ranges and distance cannot....and should not....be calculated in ToTM style play. As it happens, 13th Age mechanics are really extraordinary* in demonstrating this concept, and if you play 13A with minis (but play it "straight" by the book) it really hammers home how much flex we lose by trying to codify actions on a board with minis (or in a ToTM environment in which everything is abstractly mapped out).
ToTM and board/minis play are really opposite one another. It took my group most of the last year to adjust back to ToTM play but once they recovered those lost skills (or in a couple cases gained them) they really took to it and never, ever drag out the minis anymore.
*With everyone being one of three distances: engaged/adjacent, nearby, or far away. Put 13th Age on a map with minis. Have a fighter slam into a gang of minions. Watch the player ping-pong through a half dozen of them on his round and the player will be like, "whoah...." double points for players expecting to be slammed down by having to be next to a minion to deal damage, or to be stopped by something like an opportunity attack. Once they unlearn these old mechanics its like a great and heavy shroud is lifted from their perspective on how combat can flow. (For those not in the know in 13A when a PC deals damage to a minion, all damage that is in excess of the minion's HPs spills over to the next minion and so on and so forth until you either run out of minions or run out of damage).(EDIT: ironically some of the most amazing maps I've seen that would be great for map/minis if you could figure out how to do it are in 13A Eyes of the Stone Thief Module....)
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