Possibly useful game-table idea

[Lord Pendragon]

That dot idea is alright if you want that much metagaming.

Metagaming? If a guy's almost dead, a PC should be able to tell by just looking at him. Blood gushing out of the armor, arrows sticking out of flesh, etc. etc.

Seems perfectly in-character to be able to glance at your comrades and get a good idea of how hurt they are to me.

 

[Altalazar]

Metagaming? If a guy's almost dead, a PC should be able to tell by just looking at him. Blood gushing out of the armor, arrows sticking out of flesh, etc. etc.

Seems perfectly in-character to be able to glance at your comrades and get a good idea of how hurt they are to me.

Exactly - it isn't metagaming to have such information that would actually be obvious to the characters within the game.

You could even expand the idea in some ways - for other obvious effects. Like pointing a lamp at someone under a faerie fire, for instance... well... you get the idea.

I think it is a cool concept in general to make the players able to see at a glance things that their characters would see too.

 

[Gnimish88]

The group uses:

green = lightly wounded, less than 100% hit points

yellow = moderately wounded, less than 75% hit points

red = seriously wounded, less than 50% hit points

dark blue = critically wounded, less than 25% hit points
Quasqueton

Does add a whole new meaning to the term 'feeling blue'. ;-)

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Exactly - it isn't metagaming to have such information that would actually be obvious to the characters within the game.

You could even expand the idea in some ways - for other obvious effects. Like pointing a lamp at someone under a faerie fire, for instance... well... you get the idea.

I think it is a cool concept in general to make the players able to see at a glance things that their characters would see too.

Someone on these boards once in another thread explained how players had to hide under the table until it was their turn if they were invisble.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Someone on these boards once in another thread explained how players had to hide under the table until it was their turn if they were invisble.

Not too long ago my group of players decided they were going to try to sneak into the dungeon (past the guards) while all characters were invisible and under a silence spell.

When they acted on their plan they had not set up any way to communicate with each other, so I had them all write their actions down on paper so the others couldn't see - it was fun.

Another time, with the same group, they were fighting in an area filled with dust and debris. A dragon in this area would flap it's wings to cause the dust to rise, thus blinding the party. When the party got to that encounter I showed them a grid of the location, had them place their minis, and then when the debris started flying I got them to face away from the board. Then I asked them what they were doing, where they were moving, etc - that too worked quite well. They could hear what the other players said they were doing, but had to remember (especially for area spells) where each of them were, etc, without being able to look at the map. Meanwhile I could, since the dragon had scent.

Duncan