D&D 5E Review of New Players Handbook Posted at Acts of Geek...

[pemerton]

I also tend to not worry about things to the level of 5' increments, regardless of how the rules are written or the edition we're playing. To me, the various concepts of facing, 5' steps, precising flanking and positioning are all too simulationist / wargamy to bother with. Our group much prefers just getting on with the action and the story rather than measuring out movement on a grid. I still use the various rules for things like disengaging, allies within 5' for sneak attack, etc. We're just not that precise about it, meaning that generally it is assumed that monsters and characters in melee are within 5' of each other and therefor required to disengage if they want to avoid opportunity attacks, and that unless something specific and unusual is going on, the rogue in a grand melee with allies also in melee is going to be able to get sneak damage every round. Accordingly, the mage is also pretty much guaranteed to hit their allies with a fireball cast into melee as well.

To me, that reads like you're using a de facto "zone" system. Which makes perfect sense. I used much the same approach when I used to GM Rolemaster.

For 4e I generally use gridded maps and tokens because I think the forced movement powers in particular, which are such a big part of the system (at least as my group plays it), need this level of precision. One thing I miss with this approach, which I used to enjoy in RM, is being able to make Perception/Observation a bigger part of combat. In my RM games we would often use Perception checks to work out which enemies a given PC was aware of, which meant that having good Perception skills gave a meaningful advantage in combat beyond detecing invisible enemies. In a grid-and-tokens game it is very hard to replicate that sort of thing.

I've had no problems when I've DMed and with the number of DMs I've played with.

First I would always recommend players to ask questions for more details that would pertain to what they have in mind

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Second recommendation is for the DM to explain details that may hamper their actions before they take them and ask questions in return

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I would take the players at their word that they wanted to move as far into the room as they can while staying out of reach.

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It needs to be understood that a character cannot have a battle awareness to always anticipate whether their planned action can be accomplished or done. Just as in real life a character doesn't have the ability to see the entire field of view from above.

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Players need to go with the flow just as DMs need to go with the flow.

I've extracted what seemed to me the most salient parts of your post. You start by saying you've never had a problem; then you list a whole lot of advice about players and GM discussing back and forth about the details of the ingame fiction; then you state that players have to accept that their PCs will be acting on imperfect information and "need to go with the flow".

I believe you when you say this works for you. But I find it hard to believe that you can't see how some other players might find the degree of ingame detail "nebulous and vague" - and find the need for player/GM back-and-forth evidence of that vagueness. I also find it hard to believe that you can't see how some other players would find that sometimes, rather than "go with the flow" of what they regard as a bad or unfair call, might try and argue their case with the GM.

 

[pemerton]

Theater of the mind certainly does not work for everybody, and in D&D it often requires some effort to clarify who is where doing what to whom.

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This approach only works if a) the players are willing to trust the DM rather than argue over positioning details, b) the DM is willing to be reasonable, and c) the DM is careful to always warn players when they're doing something with possible unforeseen consequences.

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A review that delved into these issues would be very interesting. Sadly, this was not that review.

I'm not posting to defend the quality of the review. (I've got an opinion about that, but it's irrelevant for present purposes). I'm just explaining that I think it's fairly clear what the vagueness and arguments are that the reviewer is worried about: the vagueness that arises over positioning details (which you seem to agree with in your point (a)) and the possibility of arguments if (a), (b) and/or (c) break down in some fashion (eg the players don't trust the GM on some particular call, perhaps becaus the GM wasn't reasonable or didn't warn the players).

I think these are reasonable concerns to have about a system which sets out to combine 5'-increment action resolution, incuding OAs, with theatre-of-the-mind. Not everyone will share these concerns. Maybe only a minority will. But I don't think that minority are obviously crazy or fundamentally mistaken.

For example, I'm looking at the warlock invocation that lets your Eldritch Blast push a target 10'. Suppose that the player of the warlock wants to use this to push an enemy adjacent to the fighter, so the fighter can engage it without having to disengage from the fighter's current enemy. GM judgement calls on positioning can have a big impact on whethe or not that invocation, used in that way, is effective or not. A completely impartial and reasonable GM might still make calls that a player finds unfair, or inconsistent with the impression the player had earlier been given of who is where.

Rolemaster has very little forced movement, and most of it is triggered randomly (by crit results) rather than by the exercise of player agency. So in a situation like the one I've just described I'd be happy to toss a coin - heads the enemy ends up adjacent to the fighter, tails and they didn't quite make it. But in a game which makes forced movement an important player ability, I think the pressure for precision can be greater, at least with players who are oriented towards the game in a certain sort of way. That's why, in 4e, I generally use a grid.

 

[Silvenger]

Is the drow subrace in the book?

 

[Pickles JG]

Is the drow subrace in the book?

yes

 

[Bacon Bits]

This approach only works if a) the players are willing to trust the DM rather than argue over positioning details, b) the DM is willing to be reasonable, and c) the DM is careful to always warn players when they're doing something with possible unforeseen consequences. If the DM tries to play "gotcha" games--just having the skeleton warriors take OAs instead of warning the player--then it's going to go badly. But "gotcha" games tend to go badly anyhow.

I get where you're coming from and agree with you that you need reasonable players and DMs for theater of the mind. However, I'd point out that you probably don't want to be telling your players about literal unforeseen consequences. If you tell them about them, they're not exactly unforeseen, are they? I think you're trying to say you should warn players about consequences their characters should be able to foresee, but it's not entirely clear from your wording here.

 

[Dausuul]

I get where you're coming from and agree with you that you need reasonable players and DMs for theater of the mind. However, I'd point out that you probably don't want to be telling your players about literal unforeseen consequences. If you tell them about them, they're not exactly unforeseen, are they? I think you're trying to say you should warn players about consequences their characters should be able to foresee, but it's not entirely clear from your wording here.

Er, well, yes. Not very well written on my part. How about: Consequences, unforeseen by the players, which should be foreseeable by the characters?

 

[Silvenger]

yes

Unholy Lolth! That's great! Thanks!