D&D 5E Theatre of the Mind or Miniatures?

[Doctor Futurity]

TotM is just a mode of play. You're tracking where characters and terrain features and so forth are relative to eachother, as you put it, below, 'mentally' - eschewing any tools that might aid tracking (or visualization).

Although worth noting that my ToTM definition does not require that you track characters where they are relative to each other so much as that you track events and actions. ToTM works exceptionally well once you get over the idea that exact ranges and distance cannot....and should not....be calculated in ToTM style play. As it happens, 13th Age mechanics are really extraordinary* in demonstrating this concept, and if you play 13A with minis (but play it "straight" by the book) it really hammers home how much flex we lose by trying to codify actions on a board with minis (or in a ToTM environment in which everything is abstractly mapped out).

ToTM and board/minis play are really opposite one another. It took my group most of the last year to adjust back to ToTM play but once they recovered those lost skills (or in a couple cases gained them) they really took to it and never, ever drag out the minis anymore.


*With everyone being one of three distances: engaged/adjacent, nearby, or far away. Put 13th Age on a map with minis. Have a fighter slam into a gang of minions. Watch the player ping-pong through a half dozen of them on his round and the player will be like, "whoah...." double points for players expecting to be slammed down by having to be next to a minion to deal damage, or to be stopped by something like an opportunity attack. Once they unlearn these old mechanics its like a great and heavy shroud is lifted from their perspective on how combat can flow. (For those not in the know in 13A when a PC deals damage to a minion, all damage that is in excess of the minion's HPs spills over to the next minion and so on and so forth until you either run out of minions or run out of damage).(EDIT: ironically some of the most amazing maps I've seen that would be great for map/minis if you could figure out how to do it are in 13A Eyes of the Stone Thief Module....)

 

[Tony Vargas]

Although worth noting that my ToTM definition does not require that you track characters where they are relative to each other so much as that you track events and actions. ToTM works exceptionally well once you get over the idea that exact ranges and distance cannot....and should not....be calculated in ToTM style play.

So, what, exact ranges & distances can and should be calculated in TotM? That seems at odds with everything else you have to say...

ToTM and board/minis play are really opposite one another. It took my group most of the last year to adjust back to ToTM play but once they recovered those lost skills (or in a couple cases gained them) they really took to it and never, ever drag out the minis anymore.

They each have their uses, but 'opposites?' No. Not remotely. Doing things with or without a set of tools is all.

*With everyone being one of three distances: engaged/adjacent, nearby, or far away. Put 13th Age on a map with minis. Have a fighter slam into a gang of minions. Watch the player ping-pong through a half dozen of them on his round and the player will be like, "whoah...." double points for players expecting to be slammed down by having to be next to a minion to deal damage, or to be stopped by something like an opportunity attack. Once they unlearn these old mechanics its like a great and heavy shroud is lifted from their perspective on how combat can flow.

Much as I like 13A, I have to clarify this for anyone who may be getting the wrong idea. What he's talking about is Mooks. They're a bit like minions in that they're popcorn to crunch through and a bit like swarms in that the share a pool of hps. So when the PC kills several figures of mooks, he's not doing a 20th-level-5e-fighter style move-attack-move-attack-attack-move-attack thing, he's just engaging one mook figure, attacking it, and doing damage - if he does enough damage, two or more mooks can be removed (if he doesn't, he might not even drop the one figure). And, yes there actually is something like an opportunity attack in 13A.

And, while 13A handles TotM better than 5e, 5e does handle going back to minis better than 13A. 13A works smoothly enough with minis, but little is gained by using them. In 5e, you can pull out the tactical module, and though you might not gain as much from using minis as when playing 3.x/Pathfinder/4e, but you do gain relative to the default TotM mode.

(EDIT: ironically some of the most amazing maps I've seen that would be great for map/minis if you could figure out how to do it are in 13A Eyes of the Stone Thief Module....)

It's doubly ironic in that there are no big ol' mazes or mapping to be done in EotST. As neatly and evocatively as the 13A 'Living Dungeon' concept captures the over the top craziness of traditional D&D dungeons, it obviates the idea of mapping.

 

[spinozajack]

Sounds like 5e struck the perfect balance between not preventing theater of the mind, and not focusing on it either. Sounds ideal, actually.

I couldn't care less about 13th age, the only table top game I'll play is 5th ed and after that I'm moving on to VR and AR for good. I don't see the market growing for table top games when VR takes off. It's just too hard to keep a weekly game compared to docking into a virtual world once in a while, for however long you want, and with however many other thousands or even millions of players are there simultaneously.

Theater of the mind is a good default for D&D, but I'm glad there isn't 13A-like overemphasis on it with some narrative or arbitrary close / medium / far narrations. I can always imagine that close range is within one round's worth of movement, medium is two, and far is 3 or more. Anything more complex than that is pointless, and D&D already works just fine for theater of the mind.

A game that doesn't need a grid to be played well and using only your imagination is by definition supporting TotM game play style. I'll defer to others' experience with other systems that have improved on D&D's way of doing things, but D&D works, and works well, and has worked well for 40+ years for thousands if not millions of players who have never touched a grid and minis. And some editions are certainly more amenable to that than others, that much is without question.

People do often use grid paper to draw out dungeons in any edition, but that's something I would also try to do in real life if I were stuck in a maze or doing some tomb raiding / tomb robbing.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

So, what, exact ranges & distances can and should be calculated in TotM? That seems at odds with everything else you have to say...

No....hmmm...what was confusing here? I'm indicating that range and distance becomes less exact and more situationally dependent in TotM. "The harpies are on the horizon, closing fast -- Can I target them with fireball? -- Sure, they're close enough." You can use exact figures, yes. But TotM can be annoying if you try to mentally grid everything out, and it defeats the story/descriptive advantages of the method.

They each have their uses, but 'opposites?' No. Not remotely. Doing things with or without a set of tools is all.

To each their own, but I never used minis once until 2003 when I had a group get into 3.5 D&D that was heavy into minis. It was an excruciating change of pace. Years later, to contrast, it's taken my regulars about a year to full deprogram their way of thought from minis back to TotM. Minis are a set of tools, but for a different kind of experience that can (ironically?0 be achieved using the same rules, but with a completely different flavor.

Much as I like 13A, I have to clarify this for anyone who may be getting the wrong idea. What he's talking about is Mooks. They're a bit like minions in that they're popcorn to crunch through and a bit like swarms in that the share a pool of hps. So when the PC kills several figures of mooks, he's not doing a 20th-level-5e-fighter style move-attack-move-attack-attack-move-attack thing, he's just engaging one mook figure, attacking it, and doing damage - if he does enough damage, two or more mooks can be removed (if he doesn't, he might not even drop the one figure). And, yes there actually is something like an opportunity attack in 13A.

Yes I was assuming a certain familiarity with 13th Age....but the point stands that a fighter ends his action of attack with the last mook standing. He doesn't really risk an opportunity attack (or have to pop free) unless the GM has specifically created an environment which risks it (such as declaring the minions are clustered around a normal monster, perhaps).

And, while 13A handles TotM better than 5e, 5e does handle going back to minis better than 13A. 13A works smoothly enough with minis, but little is gained by using them. In 5e, you can pull out the tactical module, and though you might not gain as much from using minis as when playing 3.x/Pathfinder/4e, but you do gain relative to the default TotM mode.

I disagree....at least for the point I was making. Using minis with 13th Age helps people to realize the differences between 13A and 3.5/PF, by visual demonstration. I have used this technique for introductory one-shot games of 13th Age and netted 13A converts out of it every time. Seeing a visual representation of 13A's flow of battle helps more than anything to snap people out of the narrow mechanical rigor that 3.5/PF/4E trained everyone to follow for way too long. (I use a similar techniques for 5E but eschewing a map/minis entirely and putting the encounter in an exploit-rich environment that forces the players to think off of the grid. It works great)

It's doubly ironic in that there are no big ol' mazes or mapping to be done in EotST. As neatly and evocatively as the 13A 'Living Dungeon' concept captures the over the top craziness of traditional D&D dungeons, it obviates the idea of mapping.

That is certainly true.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No....hmmm...what was confusing here? I'm indicating that range and distance becomes less exact and more situationally dependent in TotM. "The harpies are on the horizon, closing fast -- Can I target them with fireball? -- Sure, they're close enough." You can use exact figures, yes. But TotM can be annoying if you try to mentally grid everything out, and it defeats the story/descriptive advantages of the method.

That's what I thought you meant to say.

Yes I was assuming a certain familiarity with 13th Age....but the point stands that a fighter ends his action of attack with the last mook standing.

Oh, mooks are cool for that.

I disagree....at least for the point I was making. Using minis with 13th Age helps people to realize the differences between 13A and 3.5/PF, by visual demonstration. I have used this technique for introductory one-shot games of 13th Age and netted 13A converts out of it every time.

I guess you could see it that way if you were just really evangelizing for one mode over the other in a sense that using one meant you could never use the other. That seems extreme to me.

I can't, for instance, agree that it's at all difficult to shift between them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sounds like 5e struck the perfect balance between not preventing theater of the mind, and not focusing on it either. Sounds ideal, actually.

I couldn't care less about 13th age, the only table top game I'll play is 5th ed

Wow, OK.

I mean, I want to see 5e succeed as much as the next loyal D&D fan, but there's no need to go misrepresenting it like that. If anyone were to believe you, it'd create unrealistic expectations.

A game that doesn't need a grid to be played well and using only your imagination is by definition supporting TotM game play style.

That's about every RPG, then, because that bar is sitting on the floor.

I'll defer to others' experience with other systems that have improved on D&D's way of doing things, but D&D works, and works well, and has worked well for 40+ years for thousands if not millions of players who have never touched a grid and minis.

Preposterous. 5e is the first ed of D&D to advocate for TotM as the default, and this poll shows that, even so, we're in the minority running it that way. D&D started as a miniatures wargame and never strayed far from its roots. Until 5e, it was probably 2e (before combat & tactics) that came closest to jumping on the storytelling role-not-roll bandwagon, and making a break with the assumed use of minis. But we're talking 5 years out of 40, there.

 

[thalmin]

(snip)5e is the first ed of D&D to advocate for TotM as the default, and this poll shows that, even so, we're in the minority running it that way. D&D started as a miniatures wargame and never strayed far from its roots. Until 5e, it was probably 2e (before combat & tactics) that came closest to jumping on the storytelling role-not-roll bandwagon, and making a break with the assumed use of minis. But we're talking 5 years out of 40, there.

Actually, 2e was over 6 years before Combat & Tactics brought in the optional assumption of miniatures. And were are nearly a year into 5e, so just 7 years out of 40. And I am not sure how much of Basic D&D expressed the use of miniatures. But yes, the assumption by game designers that miniatures were used was in place for the majority of the game's history. However, at least during 1E and 2E days, I think you will find the majority of games did not use miniatures. The game was very easy to play without minis (or tokens or whatever).
Third edition changed that, as combat became more tactical. And 4E made miniatures all but mandatory. Sure, you could play theater of the mind, but it was more work converting the game to work with that play style.
As for 5e, the default assumption is no minis, and the game plays very well that way. I just have a rough time running a game without the minis. They have become a crutch for me. I have a hard time breaking away from a nearly 4-decade habbit of using minis to describe the encounter, plus I like my figures (and continue to feed my addiction by buying more). BUT I do recognise the game runs a bit faster without the figs on the table.

 

[Grainger]

And I am not sure how much of Basic D&D expressed the use of miniatures.

BECMI didn't use minis at all (well, you could of course put them out, but it didn't have rules specifically catering to them). It even included an excellent mass combat system called the War Machine for resolving battles without minis; I will use this to resolve battles in my 5e campaign.

Anecdotal Evidence ahoy: I played and ran BECMI, played 2e (and knew people who played 1e) during the 80s and early 90s, and I never encountered the usage of minis, or any consideration of doing so (I realise that many people did, but it wasn't the norm 'round these parts). It was the non-gamers who assumed that D&D required a board and minis to play it.

 

[thalmin]

BECMI didn't use minis at all (well, you could of course put them out, but it didn't have rules specifically catering to them). It even included an excellent mass combat system called the War Machine for resolving battles without minis; I will use this to resolve battles in my 5e campaign. Anecdotal Evidence ahoy: I played BECMI, 2e (and knew people who played 1e) during the 80s and early 90s, and I never encountered the usage of minis, or any consideration of doing so (I realise that many people did, but it wasn't the norm 'round these parts).

Thanks for the heads up on their War Machine system. I will check that out.

Around our store, minis were almost always the norm (for 33 years), but we had some very good, even professional, painters from the very beginning, so that encouraged the minis use. Players liked having a painted mini of their character.

 

[Queer Venger]

I responded to the poll with miniatures, but I sometimes use TotM. I've been using mini's with D&D since 1e. Ive just always associated it with minis and its such joy to break out your character mini during a heated melee. I do alot of ToTM for small scenes, or solo scenes involving a single player who is branching off the main group to do her own thing, (scouting, spying).

That said, now that Im getting back into D&D with 5e after a very lenghty hiatus since 2e, I am loving these new pre-painted minis from wizkids. Im buying a ton of them and slowly building a massive collection, primarily monsters since I mostly DM. Last week I ran a heated ambush and broke out my greater Barghest minis and all the players where like "wow, those are really awesome monsters." The combat was enhanced by this. I really feel that mini's are a part of our hobby, but should not limit a good game of D&D if you dont have any. I like some of the posts here where players are using Legos, which work great for kids who dont have their own official/Wizkids minis.