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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grainger" data-source="post: 6598692" data-attributes="member: 6779234">Actually, thinking about this some more, I stand by what I said, but I think we're talking at cross purposes. What you say is true enough, if you slavishly follow the measurements and movement rate in the rules, but I don't do that: I just use them as a rough guide:Player: "The manticores are just out range. Can I move forwards to get the manticores in range?".Me: "Yes".Job done. And it's no different at all to the player saying "can I move from long range to medium range?" and me saying "yes".I seldom have encounters where distances matter very much (pretty much like a game where you only deal with ranges in terms of "short", "medium" and "long" in fact).Actually, now I think of it, every D&D game I've played in (note: none of them are 3e or 4e) used Theatre of the Mind, and none worried too much about ranges. So in my experience, miniatures are a rarity, as is worrying about measured distances; I am actually the only DM I've encountered who uses grids at all, and I only do so in exceptional circumstances!And herein lies our disagreement, I think, because we have different assumptions about what "off grid" means. My way of playing is pretty quick - negligibly slower than using "long", "short" etc. as ranges. [and come to think of it, I have played a game with vague range bands - the FFG Star Wars RPG - and yep, it was pretty much the same as how I've always run (and played) D&D].As far as I'm concerned, the measurements are in the D&D rules are there for people who (optionally) play on a grid. Otherwise, IMO you shouldn't fret about them too much. No wonder, though, "Theatre of the Mind" seems confusing, or takes too long, if people are measuring things to the foot and trying to keep that all in their heads! And no wonder they're giving up and "going back" to grid style play. Crikey, that's way too much work when you're running an encounter. Do people really use the distances and movement speeds religiously in Theatre of the Mind?! <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/worried.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":-S" title="Uhm    :-S" data-shortname=":-S" />I feel like the scales have fallen from my eyes. All those people saying - when 5e came out - that they'd need to remember how to play gridless, or that they found it too hard - now makes sense!I don't want to say BadWrongFun, but... why make it unduly complicated, and have to give up and go to grid-style play*?*There's nothing wrong with grid-style play if you want a more tactical experience, of course, if that's what you actually want, rather than feeling that you need to use it, because theatre-of-the-mind is somehow too difficult or slow.</blockquote>

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