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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7025561" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't think I agree with this. If it was just basically mentally running a game in your mind on a grid that you visualized, then what support would be needed? It would simply depend on the player's ability to keep this virtual grid in their heads and operate on it consistently. I'd expect a simplified grid type of system for this, and putting things in feet vs squares wouldn't be helpful to that. So, we must conclude that TotM is indeed a more abstract mode of play. HOW abstract is of course open to question. I mean, lets imagine the next less concrete sort of play than a grid. That would be some kind of approximately tracked positions where an X, Y space is still held to exist, and things have a position on it, but there's some degree of 'fuziness' as to where exactly a given thing is within this space. So the GM can say "well, there's some orc archers over thatta way about 100' near some trees and they're firing at you." He might further decide these orc archers are all within 20' of each other. This last point might only be elucidated at the time a fireball is cast at them by the wizard.Does 5e have 'support' for this level of abstraction? Well, the first question there is why is it using such a fine-grained position indicator as feet? Given that position is fuzzy wouldn't a more coarse measure of distance be simpler to use? Lets pass over this as the answer could be "yes, but we chose color over convenience." It would further seem to me that if this was the intent that more abstract formulations of AoEs would also be useful, something more close to 4e's bursts, blasts, and walls for example. Given that positions are a bit fuzzy anyway, why bother with exact statements of widths of arcs or paths instead of just reasonably quantified statements like "Everything in front of you" or "Everything in a straight line between you and X" or such? Again, you can argue "color", but this argument is getting a bit old isn't it? The best we can conclude is 5e supports 'color' but doesn't especially support TotM! In fact the easiest way to play it seems to be to actually put the figures on the table and measure things! I know from experience that we found this to be true. Contrast this with 13th Age (a good contrast being a D&D-like with otherwise fairly similar rules). Here the rules for TotM are quite explicit, things are grouped into areas with relations between them depicting proximity and AoEs are described in these terms. Its more abstract than 5e's system, but quite easy to run without a map (indeed there's little advantage to such a map, though a few counters to help track lots of enemies can be helpful). You can still 'map' things pretty clearly though in terms of where they are narratively and work out the practicalities of moving and whatnot without a lot of pain. The point being you can make it MORE concrete if you want without boshing it up. The point is, TotM isn't simply holding the grid in your head, it MUST include at least some form of abstraction. 5e (and 4e too) ALLOW such abstraction, but don't facilitate it in any real way.</blockquote>

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