Gridless combats - How do you do it?

[QuaziquestGM]

Just remember that there are 2 reasons that we have maps:

1: so one person with good directional skills can give directions to another without having to be face to face. "see enclosed map"

2: so the guy with good directional skills can give directions to someone with poor directional reasoning skills with whom he is face to face. "see here on the map (points)?"

Some people are simply innately good at spatial reasoning (statistically, more often males) and some others have become good at it though training and practice but are better off with a map (military personnel, pizza delivery guys, cabbies...). Most people can handle navigation within areas that they are familiar, but cannot do so in other areas (where is the stadium bathroom again?). Also, many people who are fine in 2d become completely disoriented as soon as the flying rules come into play.

The point is, that not all "smart people" are "direction smart" and some players of the "can't track their modifiers" type will know exactly what is going on with the battlefield, and it is difficult to know which is which until you get there. If everybody in your group can eyeball 40 ft on a 1 inch:5 ft scale at a distance of 12 ft from the wall mounted white board then you should be fine going grid less, but if you have one guy who can't, then he will be miserable, and if most of the group can't and you can, then you will be spending most of your gm time measuring distances.

I often play gridless on a whiteboard with a group of 11, so my players run the gamut in both attention span and spatial reasoning. (and before anyone challenges my statistics as sexist, I'm a biology education graduate student currently taking my last advanced ed theory course.)

In determining if you go gridless or not, know your players and know your environment.

I'm playing gridless because I am playing in a room with desks and a white board, not because I don't want to use my battlemats and minis.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

*grins* Touche!

I suppose it's actually the combination of precision tactical displays and turn-based combat that irks me, but the latter is an inescapable element in combat-oriented roleplaying games. In any case, it's not about the simulation elements to me... it's about the narrative, the feel of the battle in the minds of the participants, and I feel that tactical combat detracts from it. Players busy studying the map and the minis or counters or whatever are less invested in the scene I'm attempting to paint in our collective imagination. I've used tacticals of varying degrees of complexity over the years, and I enjoy the level of excitement that seems to grip my players when they are encouraged to rely on the image within their heads. Sometimes it's not as accurate, but it's a fair trade as long as you make the effort to pick up the slack and treat the combatants fairly.

To be honest, due to my own proclivities, I interpreted the OP's question as a request for advice on running combat without a visual representation... but I could have been mistaken, and I've noted a number of really cool ideas for implementing gridless tacticals. Interestingly enough, despite the occasional Warhammer game, I've never considered trying this with D&D... and I'm intrigued. Enough to try it sometime.

Oh, I agree that you gain something and lose something whichever way you go. I just felt that someone needed to play Devil's Advocate. But QuasiquestGM (sp?) has done a much better job than I did!

 

[prospero63]

When going gridless, it is important to rememer to make measurements from the center of the base. If you don't do this, ranged attacks recieve a free 5 feet of range.

I don't necessarily agree. As long as all the measurements are consistent, I've found that neither I or any of the players I have gamed with are pedantic enough to care. We'd rather play DnD than "how to measure properly".

 

[QuaziquestGM]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=222000

The above thread is about running mass combat.

I'm quoting myself from the tread above to avoid retyping. Here is some of my experience with gridless combat.

_______________________

I've run major battles on several occasions for a "all comers welcome" 3.x game run for my university Sci-Fi club.

My methods vary depending on room set up (subject to what is available at the university)

In all cases, for mass combat I use a D100 initiative roll: (initiative mod x 5)+ 1d100...This provides 200 or so initiative slots so not everybody is bunched at 17 and 5, and if somehow 2 pcs or groups get the same score you can bump them a bit without people getting too whiny.

If I have a good table, then I use either a battle mat and/or hero scape tiles. .....(skip)

If I don't have a good table, but have a chalk board, then I will sometimes use "Sector" initiatives. I use this often when there are guards around a building, or if the battle goes around a lake or something......(skip, but you know what else I mention in the tread in case you are interested)

If I have a magnetic white board, then the ABC magnets come out. I use larger magnets for larger bad guys, have a 24 inch metal ruler, and abandon the grid in favor of movement and reach determined by the ruler. this results in circles instead of squares, actual cones, as many mooks in reach as can actually fit, and much more of a "hectic raging melee furball knifefight with swords, bazookas, grenades and flamethrowers" feeling when I start asking the mages "where do you want to center that fireball, choose in 5,4,3,2,...and then draw out the blast radius with the ruler....
I get 2 sets of what ever magnets I'm using. One set represents location, the other is placed on the initiative line with the critters name and current damage written next to it so I'll know what magnet is which hill giant going when. smaller magnets form magnetic travel games are used for generic mooks. I ran G1:Hill Giants this way with 11 pcs.

(the section below is not strictly relevant, but is included to give you an idea of my players, environment, and situation so that you can evaluate how much salt you need to take with my above comments. My games are a "club sponsored student entertainment and community education outreach program". I try to run classic modules for their "historical heritage" value and try not to compromise too much in accounting for rules changes. This was my old Friday night game that had teenagers from the local high school, college students, and military personnels from Hunter AAF. The pcs were 7th level. the kids had worked up from level 1, the 3rd ID guys showed up with equivalent level template stuff...and since they were about to be shipped back to Iraq <<<again>>>, what the hell?)

In one instance, I ran what was supposed to be an infiltration and room by room elimination in a multi story fortress on a ravine. I knew better. I had 14 pcs ranging in playing experience from 3 months to 1st ed veterans, ranging in age from 15 to 40, 4 of whom had flying pcs, and an SNA spam happy druid. 4 battle mats for the main floors, and 3 sections of the approach, towers, and roof tops on the blackboard. something like 100 gnolls, (UK:2 The Gauntlet). We were in initiative for nearly 2 hours of in game time, and played for 8 hours. Buff spells wore off and summoned creatures timed out. I had pcs on all 7 blueprint areas, at once; a group on the lower floor fighting while a group in a mid level was sneaking, while a group in a tower was looting, gnolls shooting down out of windows at the guys in the courtyard and in the air, while another group was in a spiral stair case....and of course large sections of fighting that amounted to 20 gnolls in 1 room, 8 pcs in another, all bottlenecked in a doorway.

 

[Mark Chance]

On a related note prompted by me being to lazy to Google or Yahoo!, are there gridless battlemats available for sale? I don't care for whiteboards too much, mainly because space is at a premium in my rather small house and whiteboards are too hard to roll up and store on the top of a bookcase.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

Just go buy a high quality plastic(like) tablecloth and use wet erase markers.

Or check the toy section of walmart for a reusable coloring mat.

(google fu)

books/the_backyardigans_backyard_adventures_coloring_mat.asp

coloring mat...with included roleplay game???
hum? I wonder what kind of Rpg?

This one is inkless:

inkless wall mat at target

 

[frankthedm]

Marine Vinyl is basically what battle mats are made from. A yard of that from the fabric store should work well. The back side should feel like dry canvas, rather than soft padding.

-Forget the "Vis-a-Vis" markers and stick with the fat barreled Children's Washable Markers. They are cheaper and don't look like a small "Sharpie" permanent marker!

-Red children's washable markers seem fine on mats in my experience.

-Rubbing alchohol works well enough to cleam most mats.

- To store it, roll it up (the cardboard mailing tubes you can find at office supply stores are the perfect size to store them). Don't ever fold it; the creases are a bear.

Sound advice.

 

[Mark Chance]

QuaziquestGM and frankthedm: You both rock my world.

Now for another question: How well does the paint-on whiteboard stuff work? I've some experience with the paint-on chalkboard stuff, and have found it less than impressive. If the whiteboard stuff works well, I was wondering how hard it would be to use it to treat the surfaces of my two folding tables.

 

[frankthedm]

Now for another question: How well does the paint-on whiteboard stuff work? I've some experience with the paint-on chalkboard stuff, and have found it less than impressive. If the whiteboard stuff works well, I was wondering how hard it would be to use it to treat the surfaces of my two folding tables.

Never tried the stuff, do you have a link to the product?

 

[Nebulous]

That's why I'd never go back to spoken descriptions, it's way too easy to miss something important. (Remember all those arguments that started: "Well, if I'd realized that's what you ment, I would've done this instead...")

Uh, yeah, i remember those. That practically doesn't happen at all anymore in 4e grid combat, at least in relation to movement and position. That said, there's still something nice about the freeform imagination of gridless play.