Tactical Boardgame?

[Fifth Element]

You can call whatever you want on it but its the truth.

I don't know how old you are but us old timers have done it for years. When I started playing back in 79 we never used anything, even scraps of paper. Back in the day, the DM told you a STORY, including a dramatic telling of how the combat was going. Some people I knew back then, even would refuse to use minis because they felt it destroyed the feel of storytelling and the RPG aspect of the game. Go try telling people who play Vampire the Masquerade or even Requiem that they should be using minis or a tabletop. RPGs are about telling a story and that INCLUDES combat.

This as I said is the prime problem. Those like the above poster is so convinced that they need tabletop that they can not even think of playing without it....thus we keep getting farther and farther away until we have what we do now which seems to be the D+D minis game on steroids.

I think your point would be better received if you didn't literally talk about "back in the day..." and belittle the preferred playstyle of many people ("STORY").

 

[Mephistopheles]

I call shenanigans on this.

There is simply no way to run the classic 1E/2E wizard WITHOUT the use of some type of marking system, be it as simply as whiteboard and marker or as detailed as a grid with minis.
There is just no way you can use the classic wizard spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt without the use of a "board".

I didn't use miniatures or a battle map until 3E so I'll have to disagree with you on this.

 

[Hussar]

Darn, you are on to us. I guess we have to admit now that 4E is perfect and has no flaws. /snip

Hrm, well, let's see. Let's look at the hot button phrases that we've seen chucked around in the past few months or so on this board:

I participated in a lengthy thread about Magic Wal-Marts. So much time was spent debating what that term actually meant that any actual discussion of the effects of buying and selling magic items in the game were completely overshadowed. Magic Wal-Mart could mean, depending on who was posting - a physical store where magic items could be bought and sold; a reference to the town wealth guidelines in the DMG that state that any item under X Gp could be bought, thereby rendering every town a magic Wal-Mart by default; any setting where you could commision the construction of magic items.

I started a very lengthy thread talking about the appearance of anime elements in WOTC art. Three quarters of the posts were debates over what anime actually meant and whether the presence of any Asian elements constituted anime.

I participated in a lengthy thread talking about pokemounts where it was shown that Shadowfax may or may not have been a pokemount and that Pokemon actually had very, very little relation to the actual mechanics of the game, other than the summonable ability.

Video-gamey has been tossed around as a criticism of 3e since before 3e was published. And, apparently can mean pretty much anything you or I could want it to mean.

If someone is incapable of making a criticism without using vague, and very reactionary language, then perhaps the critisism isn't as valid as you think.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Video-gamey has been tossed around as a criticism of 3e since before 3e was published. And, apparently can mean pretty much anything you or I could want it to mean.

I always assume they're talking about Galaga.

 

[AllisterH]

I didn't use miniatures or a battle map until 3E so I'll have to disagree with you on this.

Then how?

Truly not being snarky, but how can you use spells like fireball and lightning bolt which are all about positioning without the use of some type of visual cues?

Unless you purposely don't use such spells or restrict them to range, dropping a fireball behind enemy lines so that it just catches the backs of the front enemy combatants and using the corridors to bounce a lightning bolt past your fighter buddy requires either complete faith in players and DM (which works for ALL editions of D&D) or some form of markers so you know where the corridors and everyone is.

re: Age of playing
Er, I've been playing long enough to know the 1E tricks with using a fireball in a corridor to expand its actual area....

 

[Hussar]

/snip

This as I said is the prime problem. Those like the above poster is so convinced that they need tabletop that they can not even think of playing without it....thus we keep getting farther and farther away until we have what we do now which seems to be the D+D minis game on steroids.

I believe that you do have a point. We did play without minis for the most part back then because the combat system was so abstract that adding minis wouldn't have added anything to the game. Beyond, "I attack this orc or that orc" there were no tactical decisions to be made in those systems during combat by anyone other than perhaps the casters.

Where I believe you are mistaken is the idea that this is somehow preferable. That players do not welcome tactical complexity in the game. I believe that you are wrong there and that players actually do want a degree of tactical complexity. The popularity of 3e speaks volumes to that.

----------------------

Looking at Pramas' blog again, I'm struck by where he says that 4e plays like a CCG without the collectable aspect. This gets right to the heart of what I'm talking about with hot buttoning topics. Saying that a version of D&D plays like MtG is fighting words. People are going to react strongly to it.

But, stop and think for a second. What does he actually mean? A CCG without the C? So, it plays like a card game? 4e plays like Euchre? Oh, he means that it gives numerous strategic choices to the player outside of actual play, same as building a deck. But, why use these terms? There are any number of other games that allow strategic choices outside of the game - I pointed to Battletech earlier. You can customize your mechs to achieve a certain style. Why not say it plays like Battletech?

Or any number of another games where you can make these sorts of decisions?

The only reason I can think of is grandstanding. He points to something that lots of people don't like, says, Hey, this is like that, so everyone nods and says, well, heck, I guess it really is bad. It's trying to win marks in an internet debate.

If you have a specific criticism, it should not require you to use hot button terminology in order to make your point.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Then how?

Truly not being snarky, but how can you use spells like fireball and lightning bolt which are all about positioning without the use of some type of visual cues?

I was going to elaborate a little on my one line response anyway so I'm glad you asked.

I think the move to a greater reliance on miniatures and a battle map has something to do with the perceived design goals of empowering players with more concrete choices and simultaneously proofing the game somewhat against "bad DMs" as much as any real requirement dictated by the complexity of the rules.

For example, if the players feel that they can trust their DM the following exchange is fine:

Wizard: I'd like to cast a fireball on as many enemies as possible. How many can I get?
DM: Hmm, you can get 10 goblins but you might hit your allies in melee, or 5 if you don't want to risk hitting your allies.
Wizard: Hmm, what about the goblin leader?
DM: If you target him you'll hit him along with his 2 bodyguards.

And the player then takes his pick on the basis that the accuracy isn't important, he's got a few options and his spell will make a good contribution to the outcome of the battle.

By using miniatures and a battle map the arbitration shifts towards the lay of the battle map. The accuracy is greater and the player is less likely to feel that the DM is short-changing him (if he was inclined to feel that way for whatever reason).

So I can agree that miniatures and a battle map have merits but I've also experienced the merits of the style of play that comes with not using them. My own experience has been that combats have become longer in real time as the battle map encourages more tactical thought and attempts to optimise actions, while combats without them gave me a greater sense of "ownership" of the combat in the imaginative sense and were a lot quicker to resolve.

 

[Thyrwyn]

I have played & run every edition of D&D with and without a battlemat. I haven't seen anything in the 4e revealed so far that indicates that this edition will be any different.

Efects and areas have always had specific areas - it has never been an insurmountable problem. Without the mat you get arguments over "but if he could get there, then I should be able to. . ."; with the mat you get things like the inability to form battle lines on the diagonal (in any edition).

I found the mat to be more of a hindrance in 3e, in that it slowed combat down. I like that 4e looks like the mat may speed things up, which means I will be more likely to use it.

 

[Harkun]

Where I believe you are mistaken is the idea that this is somehow preferable. That players do not welcome tactical complexity in the game. I believe that you are wrong there and that players actually do want a degree of tactical complexity. The popularity of 3e speaks volumes to that.

I'll concede to the point that there are a lot of players who want that level of complexity, I guess what I'm saying is that it's sad that RPGs have gotten to this point. I literally have played with DMs who don't even allow their players to role dice, you simply tell the DM what you want to do and he crunches all the numbers behind the scenes and then tells you in a dramatic narrative how the combat went. To me this is what RPGs are all about, sitting around a table listening and telling a story and I'm sad to not only see new rules not support this but also see how the up and coming generations will not be able to experience this wonderful element of the game.

I have to say I love tactical games too, I play D+D minis, clix games, MTG etc, etc but if you do like that sort of thing why could we have not just made a more advanced form of the DDM game that allows for characters and progression and market that along with a more main-stream story telling D+D game.

 

[LEHaskell]

why could we have not just made a more advanced form of the DDM game that allows for characters and progression and market that

They do: it's called Dungeons and Dragons Role Playing Game.

OK I'm being facetious. Yes, people have expanded the role-playing options of D&D to resemble other more role-play intensive games; but, at it's heart, D&D has always been a role-playing game wrapped around a tactical combat system. DDM grew out of interest in developing a game which was SOLELY about tactical combat (or rather an interest in returning to D&D's origins in fantasy minitures wargaming). I don't think that this "D&D Storyteller Game" has ever existed.