Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertsconley" data-source="post: 9625625" data-attributes="member: 13383">I found that the use of maps and minis is a better representation of a character's situational awareness than theater of the mind based on my experience in live action roleplaying, and outdoor activities like caving and hiking. The point of this[ATTACH=full]401248[/ATTACH]Isn't that the characters have magical sight that allows them to see through walls. The purpose of the map is to illustrate what they recall. Something I found players do far more poorly with is theater of the mind.  And this doesn't stem just from live action and the outdoors, I have been training novices on complex metal cutting and metal forming machines for forty years. I have long understood that this training is more effective when you combine the visual with the verbal.Because the use of maps and minis is there as a memory aide, the players would not see a creature or NPC approaching them through the room with the pond in the lower middle part of the graphic. They might hear them splashing through the water, but I would not take the token on the map until it was within line of sight. Specific to Roll20, when using fog of war and an already exposed area, is there a GM layer that the players can't see? So I place the token there and move it accordingly, then move it to the token layer when they are spotted.Because the map is there as an aide, it will be a graphical reminder when the NPC steps from that south corridor into their line of sight of the room with the pool of water.In addition, by adding a visual description to my verbal description, I found that for most players, it heightens the tension or urgency of the moment when they see a token or miniature of a creature like a giant centipede emerge from around a corner, compared to a verbal description alone. Adding the visual component makes the experience more vivid which for most players enhances their emotional experience while playing my campaign.Here is the transcript of what occurs around the 1 hour 40 minute markI will leave that for the readers to judge, as I have posted the transcript for them to read to provide context for the statement I made.It is an accurate description of the sound the giant centipede made after it was injured. I was inspired by a nature documentary that talked briefly about how some species of centipedes make a hissing sound called stridulation. While normal centipedes don't sound like steam kettles even when the sound is amplified, that's how the giant centipedes in my world sound.As for the anachronistic use of steam kettles, I am running a session in a medieval fantasy setting for 21st century players for fun. I had three hours in which to run this session, and knew the players in question. All three factors were sufficient for me to conclude that accurately describing the sound as that of a steam kettle was an economical and understandable way of describing what the centipede sounded like to this group.Throughout the decades, I have found that for most players, my campaigns and sessions run smoother and are more enjoyable when I use relatable analogies as part of my descriptions of what the players see or sense. And note that to be effective, I have to understand what is relatable to the particular group that I am running a campaign for. It's not about what I find relatable.Two years ago I ran my Deceits of the Russet Lord adventure at Shirecon, and I was lucky in that half of the group were big fans, like myself, of the Harn setting and all things medieval. And for the rest of the group, like me, those players were self-aware that not everybody is a medieval geek and were able to help pull everybody else into their enthusiasm for the medieval side of how I run things. Because of that, I was able to tailor my descriptions to be more period-accurate than I usually am with a group of random 21st-century players.The end goal here is to paint a clear picture of the circumstances within the time we have, using our limited verbal bandwidth as effectively as possible. The point isn't to tell the players what the answers to a mystery are, but to get them to feel that they are within a mystery that could be investigated and solved. Because if they don't get that, then it will make for a poor tabletop roleplaying experience.Out of the points all that I made in my reply to [USER=85555]@Bedrockgames[/USER], I am not sure why criticizing my use of maps and minis, as well as the use of a steam kettle analogy, reinforces the points you have been making. Frankly it comes off that you personally dislike my choices. Which is valid, but no more a basis for discussion than saying you like cars with blue paint and criticizing that I like cars with red paint.</blockquote>

Verification