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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rob626" data-source="post: 4335508" data-attributes="member: 58916">mapless updateI promised to report back after running a mapless 4ed game over Ventrilo.Players-FighterWarlockWizardRangerWizard (yes, two of them)(The cleric flaked and the paladin had to leave early)The short version: In general, I felt more liberated than I did in 3.x.  but a little more restricted than my 2ed games. Two skill challenges (a chase and a forest tracking challenge) run with no visual references.  Worked great.  Probably better than if we had used minis. One combat challenge (6 skirmishers) run with an initial crude sketch.  Worked great, couple of very cinematic moments allowed by narrative distance and pretty loose spatial relationships.The longer version:It was a fun session and any friction that was felt was due to the combination of me being rusty and not working from a published adventure.  We started off with a bit of roleplay as the pc's received their mission.  No maps, a funny voice or two, and off the party went.I started a skill challenge without the pc's realizing it.  I told the party that they were being paced by a group of humanoids.  The party went defensive but after a while the humanoids left a watcher and continued on their way.  The party chased down the watcher (success), drubbed him (combat success), and intimidated him into revealing plans (success).  All of the chase scene distances were done through description and dm hand-wavery.  It felt very fluid and everyone was involved.  Good encounter.Next the party arrived at a deserted village.  It was supposed to be a combat encounter but the party chose to investigate a different direction and so an unplanned skill challenge took place- tracking a group through a forest.  Again, description and a little nudging and the players came up with some very inovative ideas. Again they succeeded and their reward was enough time to plan an ambush.Next was a combat scene.  I gave a quick quick sketch on maptools of the encounter area.  I know- Cheater!  Well, we really did not refer to the sketch much past the initial setup. In all honesty we could have done without the sketch and been just fine.  I was getting lazy.  They fought 6 skirmisher type bad guys with movement all over the battlefield. The players were very flexible.  I let a couple of melee attacks from the pc's through that probably should have been out of range but the descriptions the players gave were high on the cool factor so I let it go.  Overall we struggled to wrap our heads around squares vs feet in description and how that translated in the story but once we recognized that was where the trouble was it was quickly corrected and things smoothed out.Was it all rosy? No.  It was a little clunky at times.  When I felt the action was slowing down or confusion was creeping in I opted for the player's point of view and adjusted even if it contradicted my mental image a bit.  If what the player was describing was way off then I corrected or restated so the image was clearer. The session would have been in big trouble if the players were less flexible in their views.I think that I tried too hard to reenvision and redescribe how the different powers looked during combat.  The fluff within them is actually not bad and stands as part of the mechanical description so confusion was the result when the descriptions got too far away from the stated power fluff.  This had an impact on the spatial relationships at times.  Next time I will stick with the fluff a little closer and we shouldn't run into as much confusion.In 2nd and 3.x editions it was up to the players to describe how each sword blow or magic missile landed.  In 4th it seems like this is pretty much laid out by the power the player chose to use, especially with the martial powers.So, overall, the session went well so long as both players and dm were willing to compromise.  Distances- especially in a skirmisher heavy battle- were not really a big consideration. We said feet but it really boiled down to either they were in range or not in range and how long it would take to get to either state.</blockquote>

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