Rules Never Prevent RPing? (But Minis Seem To Do So?)

[blargney the second]

I was talking about RP & minis with my new-to-RPGs girlfriend this weekend. She said that she has a bit of a hard time figuring out when to switch from having the mini as her avatar and when she should do it herself. We ended up deciding that in our next game, she'll hold her mini in her hand when we're out of combat so she knows how to act.

-blarg

 

[Hussar]

Lets just not drag this into a "black or white" argument about "every kind of map being equal to a gridlined battlemap with minis", okay? Because that simply isn't the case.

Why not?

I'm not being snarky, I just really don't see the difference.

In any game with combat you are required to come up with some method for keeping position straight. That's true of any game. There must be some method in place around the table for determining whether or not someone is where they say they are.

Now, you can do it completely mentally, or you can use minis. Either way, at the end of the day, it shouldn't make any difference. If communication is perfect, then everyone at the table knows exactly where everything is. If someone doesn't know, they ask. If communication is less than perfect, then problems occur since people act upon false knowledge as the fireball example above illustrates.

My point is, whether you do it in your head, with a bunch of stacked dice and gummi bears, on a nice felt board with a protractor and a ruler, or on a gridded board, there should be no difference. The only thing that minis do is show the locations visually that people are already visualizing mentally anyway.

Yes, I do believe that it is exactly the same. I fail to see the difference. There's no such thing as a "rough guess" of distances. If he's within melee reach, he's within melee reach. If he's not, its ranged weapons time. End of story. The only thing that minis do is keep everyone a heck of a lot more honest and a lot more accurate.

 

[GrimGent]

I've played other games that do this and it's up to the DM to decide what is worth while and what isn't.

Stunting in Exalted springs to mind.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Why not?

I'm not being snarky, I just really don't see the difference.

In any game with combat you are required to come up with some method for keeping position straight. That's true of any game. There must be some method in place around the table for determining whether or not someone is where they say they are.

Well, not EVERY game with combat, just every game with realistic combat.

For instance, Feng Shui, most combat-focused RPG I can think of, strictly orders in the book "The Map is not your friend".

Instead, you get Set pieces. The GM is supposed to tell players "there's Items X, Y, and Z at this location". and give the players a little bonus for using them in their stunts. For instance, In a construction site fight, we had a karate cop ducking in and out of the maze of steel girders, while a sorcerer used his Blast: Lightning to send arcs of electricity jumping between the lines. And a Maverick cop shot a barrel (which exploded). I never explained how the fight was going to the players, they were all seeing it with THX sound in their heads

 

[Hussar]

I stand corrected.

 

[Kem]

No not at all odd, in real life it can happen at anytime,

Yet only when there is a miscommunication of position.

Isn't that odd. I thought friendly fire was an ACCIDENT.

 

[JustaPlayer]

Yet only when there is a miscommunication of position.

Isn't that odd. I thought friendly fire was an ACCIDENT.

Quite so. An the reason it happens is because you can't look down on a situation and see where every piece of the puzzle is at any one monent. It's called the fog of war.

 

[Hussar]

Let's not forget that friendly fire is MUCH more common in modern terms when you are lobbing a whole lot more hardware around than you can with DnD characters.

Why would someone who can actually see the situation fireball the wrong position? In the example, there was nothing blocking his line of sight, he wasn't being threatened particularly, he wasn't forced to hurry up. Yet, he fireballed the entirely wrong place.

Why?

Because the DM's map didn't correspond to his own.

Friendly fire occurs when there is poor communication between units (usually). Someone is somewhere they shouldn't be. Friendly fire DOESN'T occur on a flat plane with no trees or smoke and when there is time to take in the situation.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

This argument somehow reminds me of the OotS strip in Dragon #346.

Vaarsuvius: "I am merely saying that if one wishes not to be within the radius of a maximized Fireball spell, it is somewhat foolish for one to be standing in front of a likely target."

Durkon (with blackened face): "It's called "melee", ye daft elf!"

 

[Hussar]

LOL, I just got that magazine yesterday. I giggled too.

I'm not saying that friendly fire never happens. Of course it does. Heck, my party tends to do it deliberately sometimes. The front liners both have the ability to ignore ref save damage, so, they leap in and the wizzie lets go. Doesn't always work, but it works most of the time.

But, that's a separate issue.

The point I'm trying to make is, I don't see the difference between a verbal map which the DM paints with the players or an actual physical representation of the same. Either way, you have the spacial relationships spelled out. Sure, the verbal version might not be as precise, but, it should be close.

Then again, I have a deep aversion to Calvinball, so, battle maps just seem the way to go for me.