Things I hate

[s/LaSH]

I hate immaturity at the table. It's the reason I drifted apart from my first group ten years ago... they couldn't take the game seriously, and eventually stopped playing it.

That's about it, really... I've DMed ever since, and I like to think I'm doing a good job.

I use a grid most of the time. It makes the players come up with surprising tactics from time to time. Like the 'bait the clay golem' scenario (which took benefit from a golem's slow, mindless approach to combat to prepare a vicious trap), or the 700-strong battle to defend a city. When there's just the one monster, I won't normally break out the grid, but 3D (or at least 2D) thinking is important to these people.

Our shared mini collection sucks, incidentally. We've somehow managed to fudge our way through using Space Crusade figures and some other weird stuff - zombies often look like Genestealers around here. I'm surprised we managed to get a figure that could portray a wyvern accurately. We just use our imagination.

 

[green slime]

Rather than using a grid, I'd rather use a ruler, for measuring distances. That way you completely avoid wierd shaped "cones" to say nothing of the 3rd level arcane spell firesquares. The players rebelled before I got to explain, and insisted on a grid. Go figure.

 

[jdavis]

Imagine this situation.

You're a DM, but you're also a talented artist. You draw pictures of every place that your PCs go and of every room, so they get the best possible idea of what the places look like.

A grid's just a very basic form of that. Sure, you can argue that it requires less imagination if you describe it all, but is that really what's important? If I could, I'd put my players in a virtual reality representation of my world - it's still just as good a story, and if it helps them roleplay and feel immersed, who cares if it doesn't "challenge their imagination" or some such?

And does it really remove THAT much from your descriptions that you don't have to say stuff like, "You're at the south edge of the room, the nearest Imperial soldier is sixty-five feet away, just out of charge range, and there are seven of them?"

I would say a grid is a great aid to description. I'm just trying to get across the best possible view of my world to my players, and if a grid helps me do that without any real drawbacks, I'm gonna use it.

I don't disagree with you except much of what you are describing is what a map or a drawing will do whether it has a grid on it or not. The grid is just a grid printed over a map that is used to measure distances and it also helps to keep track of facings and character placement. Your first statement is true but it is because of the maps or pictures used not because a grid is overlaid on top them.

I strongly disagree with the statement that the grid lessens descriptive ability or that describing things without the grid makes you better at descriptions. The storytelling skills of a DM are not related to grid use in any way. Your either good at DMing or you are not. You should be describing things basically the same way whether there is a grid on your map or not and the grid really changes very little in the overall mechanics of the game. Storytelling skill and the ability to keep your players hooked and enthralled with your game is vastly more important of a issue than if you figure out distance in your head or with a grid. There is way too much importance being put on the grid issue.

 

[BryonD]

jdavis,

I think we are at a point of going round and round.

You insist you are not attacking my side. I go back and re-read the prior post and fail to see how I can see your comments as anything other than an attack on my side.

You deny saying that a grid hurts imagination, but you continue to use either/or language.

if you are discribing things based on room diminsions and not room content then you are missing the point of a good discription

a lot of people get tied down in the mechanics and rules of the game and loose track of the storytelling part of the game

so the players can picture the setting in their heads not on a grid map

Each of these quotes imply that there is a trade-off required.

Not true.

descriptive and storytelling skills and worry less about being 100% precise and exact with the rules.

Again, you misrepresent using a grid. Who worries about being 100% precise? A grid is simply a tool that can be used as needed. That tool adds to the value of the game. It sounds like an attack when you associate my desire to have that tool available with getting hung up on 100% precision. Or you compare my game play style to calculus, while yours is a fantasy novel. Obviously missing the point, and not by just a small amount.

Lastly, I think we have different definition of "tactics".

we focused on the tactics of beating the encounter not on the placement of our players on the map

This is another either/or comment that really makes no sense.

Anyway, I get the idea that maybe you don't really mean all the words you are typing. I think when you protest against my saying you are attacking you are telling the truth. But then when you are making a case defending your own position, you get attached to your case and overstate your intent, and end up saying things that certainly sound like an attack.

This is probably just as true of me.

 

[Psion]

I think worrying about benig precise to the scale of the grid is a ludicrous situation because the grid itself is an approximation. Do you really think that two characters invariably take up a 10' space abreast, or that weapons only come in 5 and 10 foot lengths? 5' squares is an approximation, and being faithful to them as the goal of the system instead of a means is ludicrous IMO.

If squares functional for you, use them. But being mentally enslaved to them is putting the cart before the horse. There is nothing wrong with running things by intent and consequence.

 

[BryonD]

I think worrying about benig precise to the scale of the grid is a ludicrous situation because the grid itself is an approximation. Do you really think that two characters invariably take up a 10' space abreast, or that weapons only come in 5 and 10 foot lengths? 5' squares is an approximation, and being faithful to them as the goal of the system instead of a means is ludicrous IMO.

If squares functional for you, use them. But being mentally enslaved to them is putting the cart before the horse. There is nothing wrong with running things by intent and consequence.

Who disagrees?

 

[jasper]

1. Players who don’t pay attention. I roll at 19 do I hit? Yes but you already swung this round. I am only halfway down the table.
2. Cry baby Dm or players. Wa! I died. Wa! You killed Ming in 1 round.
3. Army Dms. Okay everyone take 3 characters here is a platoon. I want to play D&D not Generals and Grunts.
4. some peeves have already been mention.
5. Gamers who do not give feedback when asked. Then complain behind you back.
6. gamers who think cleanness is next to impossible so why bother.


A grids some players need them, so don’t. And some would still have trouble if everyone was using twelve inches to the foot scale, and had laser range finders.

 

[Trepelano]

We use grids and minis. I paint minis and enjoy them. However, I have a few issues with grids.

1) Players who try to cast the "perfect" fireball as mentioned above. Especially when said fireball envelopes an the baddies standing right next to an ally.

I have seen one good DM soultion to this: Make the caster make a INT save (DC 15 + 1/per 5' radius). All failures result in the focus point of the spell being off by 1 foot x the diffirence - in a random direction. The above is used when the caster isn't aiming for a specific object. If he aims at a specific object then he hits it - but then be particular about the EXACT location of the impact surface within the 5' square.


2) Players who run jagged little paths to avoid AOA. This, of course, has its own built-in draw back, (less distance covered) but it just looks silly. I tell my players that if they do this - then their character does, in fact, run in a stupid-looking zig-zag fashion. Usually the unheroic mental image of a mighty barbarain doing the "funky chicken" in front of everybody is enough to dissuade this bit of metagaming.

In

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Re: Re: imagination

Your analogy is falls apart on so many levels. My character sheet is not trying to be a physical representation of my character. The miniature of my elven wizard IS trying to be a representation of my elven wizard. See the difference?

Well, it's not trying to be anything, its an inanimate object, ya? and if YOU are trying to make it a representation of your elven wizard, YOU are being foolish. The rest of us are using our minitures, dice, scraps of paper and (cool idea I picked up at my last con) scrabble peices to represent the location and movements of our characters. Most people like to pick out something vaguely representative so we aren't constantly asking "who's that", but no one snaps the sword off their mini when their fighter is disarmed...

Kahuna Burger

 

[Kahuna Burger]

2) Players who run jagged little paths to avoid AOA. This, of course, has its own built-in draw back, (less distance covered) but it just looks silly. I tell my players that if they do this - then their character does, in fact, run in a stupid-looking zig-zag fashion. Usually the unheroic mental image of a mighty barbarain doing the "funky chicken" in front of everybody is enough to dissuade this bit of metagaming.

tactical, intelligent moving is "metagaming"? Interesting new definition to add to the pile...

Of course if your players are so (immature? insecure? whatever it is that you telling them darting around looks "silly" and that causes them to play stupid chargers) they deserve the AoOs.

(in a recent game, I did in fact lightly roleplay out my "jagged little path" that I used to back out of a huddle, dart around and sneak attack someone. Didn't strike me as stupid in the least...)

Kahuna Burger