Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 4487970" data-attributes="member: 3400">I'd say that some kind of battle map is generally helpful. The first time I played with one was way back in the early 1980s at boy scout camp. We'd have people playing D&D in a big tent a long time after dinner and during other free times. But for a long time, a battle map was an optional part of the game. Any game really. And even when we used chits for relative positions, like the ones that came with V&V supplements and adventures, we'd just put them out on an otherwise featureless table and roughly describe the location.The way I see it, they can both help and hinder. They help everyone get on the same page as far as visualizing the action, layout, and relative positioning of everybody. Yet they can also limit what you can do. In the absence of a map, unless the DM were particularly rigid, you could often help define the location. In Cyberpunk, where hard cover is always a good thing, you might tell the GM that you're diving behind whatever cover is around and, even if he hadn't described something, chances are he'd include something to allow you to do it. With a battle map, if it's not already on the map, it's pretty much not going to be there. So it can act to constrain what is possible.</blockquote>