The flattening of Dungeons and Dragons

[KarinsDad]

A guy who runs some encounters seasons started bringing a sheet of plexiglass to pop down on the maps. It solves the fold issue and lets you use dry/wet erase markers as needed.

Yet another example of an old idea coming back into vogue.

We used clear acrylic and markers for decades to put over maps, or to just draw encounters on.

When Tac-Tiles came out, we stopped doing it (but still used markers). But now that our DM is running Keep on the Borderland Encounters and hence has a ton of maps, it's probably a good idea to dust it off.

Thanks for the reminder.

 

[KarinsDad]

IOW- I'd prefer the necessity for a grid, and physical representation of everything to go away. I understand why some people prefer that element in D&D, but I've always been a fan of letting the imagination do all the work, and a simple enough game that does not require much more than the occasional sketch on paper for clarification.

Not everyone's imagination is the same. Just because a DM describes something does not mean that everyone envisions it the same way.

And, not everyone is an audible relating person. Many people relate visually better, or with both audible and visual elements better.

And if most every detail has to be explained verbally, there's more opportunities for some people to be still laughing from the last joke, busy preparing some food, reaching for the rules book, thinking about their next action, etc. The more details that are in front of the players and obvious (like where everyone is located, whether a given PC/NPC is bloodied, etc.), the less time it takes for the DM to explain it and for the DM to re-explain it multiple times.

Quantity of verbal details does not equate to quality of verbal details.

Personally, the more help the DM has, the better. Going back to the "imagination only" days is a bad idea. There's a reason that some game elements were left in the past.

 

[nnms]

Yep. I've had too many instances playing BECMI and AD&D where people said "No, I was over by the dwarf!" and "I thought the monster was over by the pool" to want to go back to describing everything audibly when I want them to see it visually.