Tactical Boardgame?

[Walking Dad]

I disagree completely -- in my group we're still not using a board in 3E, because only spellcasting classes have powers that require measurements (for range and area of effect). You see, if the DM knows the distances at the beginning of the encounter, it's pretty easy to say: "Alright, you need to charge to reach them, or if you're hitting them with a Lightning Bolt, you'll get three with the spell." or that "The closest orc is about 65 feet away from you guys.". I'm not saying that using minis wouldn't help visualizing everything, but so far we've managed to play without them.

Qustions:
How many reach weapons are used in your group?
How many AoO specialists are in your group?
How did you determine if sombody has cover from another ceature to ranged attacks?
How did you determine how many players are in the area of a spell effect (burst, cone, ...)?

 

[Harkun]

I don't think that this "D&D Storyteller Game" has ever existed.

Oh but it did my friend, it did indeed and those were grand, grand days and nights filled with times of high adventure.

Will those days of great storytelling exist again? Yes, for sure they will but just not under 4th ed. I'm afraid, not in a system where you roll dice to govern a social interaction.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Then the argument that 4E requires minis is totally bogus then.

If one can play a 1E/2E wizard WITHOUT the use of some form of minis, there is nothing I see in the 4E rules that requires the use of minis. For example, the warlocks' curse and move is no more harder to describe than using freeform by a DM to describe the effects of a fireball.

So if you can do 1E/2E wizards without minis, what rules in 4E do you think require minis.

I haven't argued that 4E will require it more than any other edition. Looking at the rules we have seen I think 4E does seem like it may be tied to using a map if you want to use the rules as written, but no more than 3E I suppose.

Hasn't there been a post from a designer somewhere saying something like "Yes you can play 4E without a map and minis but you'll have to make some adjustments to do so"? I thought it was Mike Mearls.

 

[Fifth Element]

You called the prior post a straw man when it was not.
You called this last post an ad homimem when it was not.
Do you just not know what these terms mean? Or are you just attaching labels?

All that aside, I had responded to Hussar's post, not yours.

Good. You found the irony. Did you appreciate me attaching those labels? Did it help the discussion any, or did it just result in your responding to those labels rather than anything substantive I wrote?

 

[Imp]

I disagree completely -- in my group we're still not using a board in 3E, because only spellcasting classes have powers that require measurements (for range and area of effect). You see, if the DM knows the distances at the beginning of the encounter, it's pretty easy to say: "Alright, you need to charge to reach them, or if you're hitting them with a Lightning Bolt, you'll get three with the spell." or that "The closest orc is about 65 feet away from you guys.". I'm not saying that using minis wouldn't help visualizing everything, but so far we've managed to play without them.

It's like this. If there are a few occurences in a battle that would be cleanly adjudicated with a board they can be fiated with a relatively low risk of breaking suspension of disbelief (by which I mean, for example, the DM constantly ruling that the wizard's fireballs catch a couple of party members in their area of effect). The more map-specific elements that come up, the more the impetus is to use a board. There's almost never a reason to break out the map for a swordfighting duel in 3e, but if you have multiple area-of-effect spells with durations and missile fire from range and cover then visualizations become more compelling. (Reach weapons are pretty easy to wing in small numbers once you get the rhythm down.)

The quantity of map-specific elements counts, not just the fact of their existence. Stop thinking binary.

 

[AllisterH]

I disagree completely -- in my group we're still not using a board in 3E, because only spellcasting classes have powers that require measurements (for range and area of effect). You see, if the DM knows the distances at the beginning of the encounter, it's pretty easy to say: "Alright, you need to charge to reach them, or if you're hitting them with a Lightning Bolt, you'll get three with the spell." or that "The closest orc is about 65 feet away from you guys.". I'm not saying that using minis wouldn't help visualizing everything, but so far we've managed to play without them.

Actually, we're in agreement mostly

Spellcasting, by its very nature, requires measurement AND knowledge of where EVERYONE is on during their turn to best use their powers. The melee fighter and the bow wielding PC (since he no longer apparently has penalties for shooting into melee) pretty much only need to know what's adjacent to them which a DM can describe on the fly.

The only other character class that might require minis MIGHT, just MIGHT be the rogue depending on how strict your DM is in satisfying backstab/sneak attack conditions.

 

[billd91]

Perhaps there needs to be a few table rules about keeping the RP alive in combat too.

• The PC's Rule 0: You don't have to fight. You can always try to put your hands up and talk, thus temporarily suspending combat and voiding the initiative roll.
• In combat, use Diplomacy as be a Minor Action to try and talk your way out of a fight.
• In combat, use Insight as a Move Action to determine your enemies "true" motives (Hint: Most people don't want to kill you as an end in itself, most want something else - which means you can then bargain). Success means the DM must give you a clue.
• Write down your plot-driven goals (Max: 5 for the group (e.g., rescue Dwarven hostages)). Anyone who achieves one of these goals while in combat can shout "Quest complete!"; everyone gets an immediate and free (morale driven) Healing Surge and Action Point.

If there's a disconnect between the tactical elements of the game and the rest of it, it's a failing of the people involved. They're letting the shift in representation throw them, and they don't need to.
My Shackled City players do not let this throw them at all. They're still doing as much talking in character and making tactical decisions based on the skill, abilities, and personality of the characters. The combat really has just been an extension of their other role-playing in the game.

While it might be good to remind players that they could always try a parley rather than attacking everything, more important rules for combat should include having the players talk to each other in character. Discuss tactical options as their characters, shouting over the din of battle if necessary. Come up with general combat styles for their characters. Is the character direct and methodical? Is he a tumbling skirmisher? Does he always swing for the fences or sometimes use finesse? Does he rush right in or advance carefully? Look at the tactical play and then relate that back to the character's role playing as well.
Has a player been brash in RP but cautious in tactical combat? Encourage the player to square those two contradictory character elements into a cohesive whole.
And as DM, give the NPCs some fighting personality too. Talk trash. Boast. Swear and yell oaths. Help the players immerse.

Do these sorts of things and combat won't seem so jarring.

 

[billd91]

Oh but it did my friend, it did indeed and those were grand, grand days and nights filled with times of high adventure.

Will those days of great storytelling exist again? Yes, for sure they will but just not under 4th ed. I'm afraid, not in a system where you roll dice to govern a social interaction.

Oh Puh-leeze. There have been dice rolling options for governing social interactions at least since the first days of 1st edition. I don't know enough of the other D&D sets to know off the cuff.
It's not a question of the tools you use that will determine whether or not your game is full of grand days and nights full of high adventure. It's the quality of the game you produce with your tools.

 

[Spatula]

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.

When I started playing back in 80-81? we used MINIATURES (random capialization! yay!) and a battlemat (a big sheet of plexiglass taped over a giant page of graph paper, that we drew on with wax pencils) to tell our STORY. But I guess you win and get to speak for how things really were "back in the day," since you beat me by a year or two.

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.

There are other RPGs out there, you know... some don't even use dice.

 

[Andor]

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".

Nonsense. When I played D&D, 1st Ed, and 2nd ed a battlemat was a rare luxury. It made the game easier, but was by no means required. For that matter if someone did have a battlemat it was 50/50 whether it was a grid or hex based mat.

I don't think I've ever played 3e without a mat. It's possible, but so many of the characters abilities are possitionally based that I'd be leary of trying it without a very good group. lest it lead to arguements.

4e seems to be even more driven by the battlemat basis of combat, from the characters abilities, to the very fact that distance is given in 'squares'.