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<blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 4908012" data-attributes="member: 2804">The one thing I really miss from 1e/2e is being able to play without minis. I miss the ability to just run games based purely on narrative description and scratch paper.I like minis and the battlemat for big set piece battles, but sometimes I just want to wing it as a DM without having the burden of thinking in advance what the terrain is, where the monsters are positioned on the grid, and so on.In 3e and 4e I just feel like if I don't have minis I'm cheating the players out of half the game.I have run 3e/4e without minis and it does work, but it heavily depends on the right player. I have one player that can't get out of the grid mindset. When I tried to tell him his PC couldn't position himself to flank in one narrative combat, he got really upset and we had a big argument about where everything was.We had these sorts of arguments back in 1e/2e days as well, but never with this undertone of his character being cheated out of his movement abilities. And honestly, I can't say I would have reacted any differently were I the player.I don't really have a solution to this, other than to say I just miss some of the spectacular narrative combats I remember back in the day. But my memories could also be colored with nostalgia.We rarely have rules arguments anymore and have played many a 4e session with nary a rulebook ever being opened. Something that never happened when we played older editions. For all the love I have for my old 1e/2e games, there were some huge game and night ruining arguments that came along with playing those editions. But still, I miss being able to run multiple sessions off two paragraphs of notes. Something I have not felt comfortable doing since 2e.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dragonblade, post: 4908012, member: 2804"] The one thing I really miss from 1e/2e is being able to play without minis. I miss the ability to just run games based purely on narrative description and scratch paper. I like minis and the battlemat for big set piece battles, but sometimes I just want to wing it as a DM without having the burden of thinking in advance what the terrain is, where the monsters are positioned on the grid, and so on. In 3e and 4e I just feel like if I don't have minis I'm cheating the players out of half the game. I have run 3e/4e without minis and it does work, but it heavily depends on the right player. I have one player that can't get out of the grid mindset. When I tried to tell him his PC couldn't position himself to flank in one narrative combat, he got really upset and we had a big argument about where everything was. We had these sorts of arguments back in 1e/2e days as well, but never with this undertone of his character being cheated out of his movement abilities. And honestly, I can't say I would have reacted any differently were I the player. I don't really have a solution to this, other than to say I just miss some of the spectacular narrative combats I remember back in the day. But my memories could also be colored with nostalgia. We rarely have rules arguments anymore and have played many a 4e session with nary a rulebook ever being opened. Something that never happened when we played older editions. For all the love I have for my old 1e/2e games, there were some huge game and night ruining arguments that came along with playing those editions. But still, I miss being able to run multiple sessions off two paragraphs of notes. Something I have not felt comfortable doing since 2e. [/QUOTE]

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