D&D General How do you really handle illumination in your games?

Once characters can cast some variation of light, flame, and continual light/flame, unless they are facing something that can cast equivalent darkness spells to cancel the light spells, generally easiest to assume the party has enough light to see things clearly. Of course, all that light might just warn things that like the darkness that something evil this way comes. Light sources can be seen from far greater ranges then the same light sources can illuminate.

So far, my experience as a player with VTTs is the fog of war can make things realistic as far as sight lines but often something gets entered wrong and the display doesn't work correctly. Then the GM spends a fair amount of time fixing the thing while the players wait.

I don't do VTT any more but when I did I would regularly throw in maps where light mattered and it was helpful. However, it was a pain in the ass to set up correctly and I'd never spend time in game to fix it. Anyway, I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore.

So for my in-person games it's mostly just a question of does the group have a light source and if not perception in dark places is at disadvantage, I also verify their darkvision range is. Remember, if anyone in the group need a light, they're likely illuminating the entire group so any enemy out of the typical 60 ft range of darkvision is going to be able to target the group and remain unseen. Even without that, some enemies have darkvision of 120 ft which few PCs have.

In addition if it's truly dark it's much easier to be obscured even with fairly minimal cover. If I really want a scenario where people are literally in the dark I'll use dense fog, magical darkness or smoke. I'll go as far as to only use enemy minis when they attack and then immediately take them off the board. The characters will still have a general idea of where the monsters are unless they've hidden.

On the other hand I've spent a lot of time in remote areas and even starlight can give a decent amount of light if there are no clouds. Once your eyes adjust you don't need that much so I really think about the terrain and what people might be able to see. You may have disadvantage and not know exactly what that giant-shaped-and-sized creature is walking towards you from several hundred feet away while crossing the desert but you'll still know it's something.

So for me it's a combination of the rules, my own experiences and judgement calls. Darkness can still provide variety to encounters but I only use them occasionally because they stand out more that way.

This topic came up in the "Benevlolent DM" thread last year, when someone asked what being a benevolent DM might look like. I shared the story of that time nobody realized they didn't bring any light sources:

CleverNickName said:

In the first adventure of the last campaign I ran, we had a whole party of Humans and Goliaths and Firbolgs...and nobody noticed during Session Zero that none of them had darkvision.

So they entered the dungeon, accidentally fell down a chute, and were dropped into an underground cave system. When I asked who was carrying the light source, everyone froze. Only one character had torches, and only by accident--they were included in his Explorer's Pack. Nobody had thought to bring any lanterns, nobody had a Light cantrip...they only had enough light for a few hours, and then they would be stumbling around blind until they found the exit.

Well, that didn't sound like fun to anyone. So before they ran out of torches, I replaced some Giant Rats with Giant Fire Beetles instead. They were able to defeat them handily, and they collected more than enough glowing glands to last the rest of the adventure. They found the exit, made it back to town, and geared up properly.

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Anyway. To answer your question, I enforce the rules for illumination in my games but I don't bash my players over the head with them. (We take Wheaton's Law very seriously.) My players and I trust each other enough to know what's fun, and to know the difference between "building tension" and "being a dick." So after a few tense hours of watching their supply of torches diminish and worrying about short rests in the dark, and a couple of combat scenes where everyone had to stay huddled around the torch-bearer, I dropped in some fire beetles and let everyone finally relax.

Broadly and generally speaking, I want the lighting addressed, but once it has, the effects are global. That means that the lighting illuminates the entire area around the party, regardless of where the actual light source is (since it can generally be moved about amongst the zone of control the party has as the torchbearer moves about). Of course, the breaking of stealth (by the party) is generally global as well.

Specific exceptions will happen -- and you run into situations like stealthors wanting to sneak in on the opposite side as wherever the light-bearer is at the moment or wanting the torchbearer as far forward as possible to illuminate the unknown end of the cavern (but that's a dangerous place for them to be) and then that becomes a logistic puzzle for the party. But those are the exceptions, not the rule.

I do my best and don't beat myself up if isn't perfect all the time.

When playing in person, I only draw out what they can see on the battlemat (or uncover portions if pre-drawn) and if things change so that what've I've drawn is now unseeable, I just remind my players what they cannot see and sometimes even remove minis from the table (noting their position in my head or on the DM map) temporarily while someone is out of view.

el-remmen said:

I do my best and don't beat myself up if isn't perfect all the time.

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This is just good advice for GMing in general! I am often my own worst critic.

Unless we're playing in a VTT game, I pretty much handwave illumination unless there is a dramatic reason to focus on it. Between Darkvision, every starting equipment package including torches and/or a lantern, tracking it is rarely worth the hassle.

I wish I could lean further into illumination and explicit language use, but my attention is usually on other things so it quite often gets forgotten.

Li Shenron said:

What I keep forgetting, is to handle regular areas of bright light vs dim light vs darkness. I would really like to make light sources ranges matter, but most of the time I just end up assuming that if one PC has any light source, then everyone can basically see a whole dungeon room at once.

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Maybe get a "light" token for the source-bearer to stand on? Orange is a torch, white is Daylight, black is darkvision . . .

The range doesn't matter much if no combatants are attacking at range. It's pretty sweet though to be the archer in the dark, aiming at the well-torch-lit frontliner.

Li Shenron said:

How precisely do you enforce illumination rules in your games, and how do you manage to keep everything in mind?

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I just check at the beginning of combat and when things change: who's holding the torch? Are you close to the torch or in the dark? If you have darkvision, are you taking your penalty for having a light source stuffed in your face?

The more I ask is the more I remember to do it.

I generally don't worry too much about consumables like torches and flasks of oil, but I do track illumination. I'll usually ask players what they are doing when they enter an area where it would matter, and like some of the other posters I remind them of the consequences of relying on darkvision (-5 to Perception is a big deal in terms of finding traps). I recently added a screen hooked up to a VTT to my tabletop game, and I rely on tokens with the correct light setting to reveal the map. We still use minis, so it requires a bit of extra maneuvering on my part to make sure those tokens line up with the correct PCs. But when we're in "exploration mode" I just use the token representing the group to reveal the map, and we place the minis when a combat situation develops.

Typically I run it by the book, leaving it to the players to know what they can and can't see (I trust my players with a lot of things to make sure they're following the rules). Usually the party runs with light sources, even with darkvision, because that disadvantage penalty is pretty severe when looking for traps and ambushes. Whenever I play, I try to keep a few torches and oil available, even if I have darkvision; I'll try for some form of continual light as well if I don't have a free hand.

My current group has all darkvision, plus one Devil's Sight warlock, so they try to go without light as much as they can (stealth has been a big priority in the last few adventures). They carry light sources, however, including an everburning necklace they keep covered, in case it's needed. This has led to them falling for several traps, but has helped them avoid getting noticed by larger groups.

Something that I've considered, but haven't implemented, has been to make darkvision not work while in bright light. This means that if the party has a light source, so long as everyone is in the bright area (which is going to be most of the time), they all see the same. If a character stays in the dim light area, they'll get some benefit from darkvision, but at the cost of being further from the party. This makes darkvision a fallback option, rather than the ideal.