That's a fascinating article. I do think the author is a little off base in his explanation of why gridless players find the grid to be anti-immersive (not surprising, since he prefers the grid). For me, the anti-immersiveness of the grid comes from the focus on physical map and minis rather than on my imagination. When playing gridless, I'm not spending any brainpower on processing data coming in through my eyes, which means everything is available to refine and flesh out the image in my head.
I think there's basically two groups that prefer gridless combat:
The indie-RPG, narrative-focused RPG players, who would rather consider the narrative implications of combat, rather than the details, and are comfortable with an abstract world from which things can be instantiated via player narrative control. That's what the article focuses on.
Which, I agree, is a little off base, because when it comes to 5E, it's the old-school DnD players that are at issue. And I think, for the most part, they
do want detailed, non-abstract combat, and want a concrete world, not one which players have metagame narrative control over. It's just that old-school D&D players are very comfortable with relying on the DM to arbitrate and decide on the fly. Moreso than players that favor the grid, I think.
But the description of why he likes grids, and why they make the game more immersive for him, is completely in line with my point of view. It's like he read my mind and wrote want I've trying to say...
I don't think that's a bad thing, since I regard DM fiat as a perfectly legitimate part of the game.
I would say that DM fiat is a perfectly legitimate part of
roleplaying. To me, DM fiat is not part of the
game. A game operates on mechanics, and DM fiat is a lack of mechanics. Basically, I want important things to be determined by the outcome of a game that represents the world, not by a DM's whims. It feels more real and immersive to me that way.
One thing I do wonder is what happens if you play with minis and detailed map but no grid. Instead of a battlemat divided into squares or hexes, just plunk down a whiteboard, draw the terrain, and put your minis down. Tell the players to eyeball distances and don't get too hung up on it; if it looks to you like your fireball can hit those five goblins, then that's what it does. (The DM retains the right to call shenanigans if someone is blatantly abusing this discretion.) For ToM fans, how much brainspace is freed up by not counting squares? For grid fans, how much precision is lost?
Yeah, my group has done stuff like that quite a bit, in other systems. I think it works fine in systems written with concrete units in mind, but not much that truly depends on exact positioning, like early editions of D&D. But I don't think 4E would work very well that way, at least not the way I've played it. There's still be need for adjudication practically every round.
Seems to me that most of that article is directed at mapped vs. unmapped, rather than gridded vs. gridless. I don't think the majority of TotM folks work totally without maps or references of some kind. (I know I rarely did.)
Maps and references that describe the environment, or maps and references that are also marked and updated during combat to track positioning and movement?
For the former, I don't think the article assumes those away. If it's just DM notes, everything still applies.
For the latter, the combat isn't strictly TotM any more, and starts resembling grid-based combat more.
