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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6652056" data-attributes="member: 996">That is not an unusual misconception, thanks to the divisive propaganda of the edition war.Keep in mind, though, that I'm one of those old guys, I've started with D&D in 1980, and I've run all sorts of games in all sorts of circumstances, including games, like Champions! that were much more theoretically 'grid dependent' than 5e, when a play surface simply wasn't available - thus "TotM."  I also ran Storyteller for years, and it has no support to speak of for the use of minis.  5e is so evangelical about TotM, I figured I'd go with it.  The lack of mechanical support for the mode actually dovetails with the editions "DM empowerment" attitude.  When you don't have rules for positioning, say, that work well without minis, the players simply must depend on the DM's moment by moment rulings.  That leaves open degrees of freedom in coming up with an environment/scenario - or fine-tuning it on the fly. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear:   I didn't mean in comparison to 3e or 4e (you read that into it, somehow, since I mentioned neither). No,  I meant, at all.  Really, relatively few games make any mechanical attempt to facilitate TotM.  Those that do avoid precisely measuring things like range, area, or positioning, using more abstract, not merely more or less granular, alternatives.  A recent example is 13th Age, which, like 5e, captures the core feel of classic D&D, but does so less by hearkening back to classic mechanics.  It uses abstract positioning - creatures are 'engaged,' close, or 'far,' rather than precisely positioned.  The DM doesn't need to track relative positions to the foot the way he does in 5e, or to the nearest 5' square as in 3.x or 4e, or the nearest scale 'inch' as in 1e.  That's just one example, but if you're familiar with what a game can do, mechanically, to facilitate TotM, and go looking for it in 5e, you won't find much.   I see where you're confused.  Those are examples of 5e not supporting the use of minis & a play surface as well as 4e or 3.x (or 1e AD&D, for that matter).  Not supporting the use of a grid is not the same thing as facilitating TotM. I have, and had no trouble with it.  But, then, I've also run Champions! in that mode, and it's about as grid- (actually hex) dependent as a game can get.  That 3e, 4e, and many other games provided more and better support for using a grid than 5e chooses to by default doesn't make them any less suitable for being run TotM, it just makes them better when you do use a grid.5e, of course, /does/ add some support for play using a grid in the DMG, but, in befitting with it's DM-empowerment over Player-'entitlement' philosophy, they're in the form of DM resources, not player options. It's even easier to just let the DM's ruling stand. Like I said, I've run many games both with and without the use of minis, grids, and other visualization aids, and I'm well aware of the advantages of using them, and the readily-surmountable difficulties of doing without.  5e, perhaps in reaction to the controversies of the edition war, erred on the side of under-supporting the former and evangelizing the latter.   Whatever the reason, the result is very much in keeping with it's theme of DM empowerment, which, as a DM, I certainly appreciate and take full advantage of.</blockquote>

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