D&D (2024) My preferred way of playing D&D 2024 is... miniatures or not?

[tetrasodium]

Use your imagination and make stuff up. But I play a lot of FATE where the players are encouraged to add things to the combat without asking the GM or needing to look at the map to see what’s available so that ports over to D&D. In fact, I find I have the opposite problem with minis. Players make the assumption that, if it’s not on a map, it doesn’t exist. For me, It creates more restraints and am less likely to make it up. If you’re using your imagination, there’s nothing limiting your expectations.

Fate has its own grid map analog suggested though. It has stuff like dfrpg's city/themes & threats sheets∆ and talks frequently about tracking stuff like scene aspects aspects with index cards. Fred Hicks even has a blog post somewhere explaining how you can pretty easy use a grid map with fate.

∆most fate flavors have some flavor of themes threats and high level themes/threats aspects that often go with a sheet of some form but dfrpg's makes a good example since it doesn't require much context to see it's use

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Fate has its own grid map analog suggested though. It has stuff like dfrpg's city/themes & threats sheets∆ and talks frequently about tracking stuff like scene aspects aspects with index cards. Fred Hicks even has a blog post somewhere explaining how you can pretty easy use a grid map with fate.

∆most fate flavors have some flavor of themes threats and high level themes/threats aspects that often go with a sheet of some form but dfrpg's makes a good example since it doesn't require much context to see it's use

Themes and aspects are not a grid. They are ideas and facts about a scene so they are much more malleable. And you can freely introduce them with declarations or FATE points. It’s a lot less rigid than a map grid where everything is predetermined.

Also, zones are much bigger than 5 foot squares which give way more room to introduce aspects. A single zone can be a series of rooms which gives you lots of free choice of what could potentially be in the next room.

I’ve seen index cards used on a grid too to track AoE and ongoing effects so they aren’t unique to FATE.

That said, you can still play FATE as a grid if you want. That isn’t really my argument though.

 

[tetrasodium]

Themes and aspects are not a grid. They are ideas and facts about a scene so they are much more malleable. And you can freely introduce them with declarations or FATE points. It’s a lot less rigid than a map grid where everything is predetermined.

Also, zones are much bigger than 5 foot squares which give way more room to introduce aspects. A single zone can be a series of rooms which gives you lots of free choice of what could potentially be in the next room.

I’ve seen index cards used on a grid too to track AoE and ongoing effects so they aren’t unique to FATE.

That said, you can still play FATE as a grid if you want. That isn’t really my argument though.

I used the word analog for a reason, the two systems are so wildly different that it makes things like index cards the effective equivalent. You are overselling purity of totm. I ran fate for most of 4e and some of 5e. Rather than continue this tangent into intro to fate 101 I'll post a video with will Wheaton &Felecia day playing fate with one of the guys from leverage because they make use of said analog.

Spoiler

 

[GarrettKP]

Both. Depends on the encounter.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Playing D&D I almost always want minis and a grid, as the game at its foundation is a tactical miniature combat game. That's why all abilities are defined by lengths and squares and radiuses and the like. Measurements wouldn't be used in definitions if we weren't expected to actually do the measuring.

Other RPGs though? Almost always Theater of the Mind.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I used the word analog for a reason, the two systems are so wildly different that it makes things like index cards the effective equivalent. You are overselling purity of totm. I ran fate for most of 4e and some of 5e. Rather than continue this tangent into intro to fate 101 I'll post a video with will Wheaton &Felecia day playing fate with one of the guys from leverage because they make use of said analog.

Spoiler

I wouldn’t say I’m over selling TotM, I’m just talking about personal experience. I’ve played DFrpg since it launched and still play it today. I’ve played Fate Core as well. So I know the systems pretty well and going back to D&D after a long hiatus (I stopped playing when 4e came out), I came back to D&D 5e with a different perspective of how to imagine a game.

 

[Bae'zel]

I use minis to help with the visualization, not because I want to count squares and measure distances in combat.

Same here, although occasionally I have to count some squares with younger players as they're dancing around the board willy-nilly (not a huge problem in and of itself, but I want to ensure that the Monk and Barbarian players fell special with their extra baked-in mobility features).

 

[zottel]

I mostly use TotM, with some of SlyFlourish tokens sprinkled in, when the occasion arises.

 

[Lazybones]

Modern VTTs make it super easy; I use Fantasy Grounds for my online games. For my in-person game, I use a fold-out wet-erase game board. I print tokens for the monsters on cardstock and draw the terrain with markers. First session my players used dice for their minis, but now almost all of them have minis that they created from one of the custom mini sites.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Both. Really depends on the kind of combats. And terrain.