Dragonblade
Adventurer
You can play 3e without minis. But without tactical representations of your character's locations, you will have to rely on DM fiat to adjudicate a lot of combat. Especially AoOs.
Since combat was almost entirely run by DM fiat back in 1e and 2e, I don't think this is a big deal at all, though it does require a shift in thinking that some people aren't comfortable with. Especially those used to playing 3e with minis.
What minis does is put tactical decision making out of the DM hands and puts it into the player's hands. Without minis, players are almost entirely reliant on DM sketches or descriptions to determine their actions.
When I went back to no minis play for a short time, we found that combats and encounters suddenly became much more descriptive. The DM was forced to explain everything in detail and also maintain the positions of the all the characters and enemies in their head. At first it was a little mentally draining, but once our imaginations got back into shape we found that it became easier to do and even simple combats became much more exciting and memorable.
The drawback however came in the excess time spent arguing character positioning, arguing whether an action warranted an AoO, and so on. We found that combat time increased by about 25 to 30% at first. Also some players brought up the concern that the usefulness of feats based on combat positioning was entirely in DM hands. Some players were uncomfortable with choosing a character ability that they had no control over how much they got to use it.
Also its critical that the DM understand their role shift. Without minis, the DM has much more of a responsibility to be a neutral party and not unfairly adjudicate against the PCs. With minis and chess-like tactical positioning, the DM takes a much more adversarial role while controlling the monsters and NPCs the players fight.
As the DM and people got better at describing things, and began to trust the impartiality of the DM, that excess arguing time went down and became just a little bit more than with minis combat. It also had the side benefit of making all the players much more attentive to what was going on even when it wasn't their turn. A player could no longer carry on a side conversation and not pay attention.
In a nutshell, I'm a big fan of removing minis. However, my current group loves them and so I accept them. But you can play without them in 3e and probably even more so in 4e based on what I have heard about monsters being easier to run and so on.
Since combat was almost entirely run by DM fiat back in 1e and 2e, I don't think this is a big deal at all, though it does require a shift in thinking that some people aren't comfortable with. Especially those used to playing 3e with minis.
What minis does is put tactical decision making out of the DM hands and puts it into the player's hands. Without minis, players are almost entirely reliant on DM sketches or descriptions to determine their actions.
When I went back to no minis play for a short time, we found that combats and encounters suddenly became much more descriptive. The DM was forced to explain everything in detail and also maintain the positions of the all the characters and enemies in their head. At first it was a little mentally draining, but once our imaginations got back into shape we found that it became easier to do and even simple combats became much more exciting and memorable.
The drawback however came in the excess time spent arguing character positioning, arguing whether an action warranted an AoO, and so on. We found that combat time increased by about 25 to 30% at first. Also some players brought up the concern that the usefulness of feats based on combat positioning was entirely in DM hands. Some players were uncomfortable with choosing a character ability that they had no control over how much they got to use it.
Also its critical that the DM understand their role shift. Without minis, the DM has much more of a responsibility to be a neutral party and not unfairly adjudicate against the PCs. With minis and chess-like tactical positioning, the DM takes a much more adversarial role while controlling the monsters and NPCs the players fight.
As the DM and people got better at describing things, and began to trust the impartiality of the DM, that excess arguing time went down and became just a little bit more than with minis combat. It also had the side benefit of making all the players much more attentive to what was going on even when it wasn't their turn. A player could no longer carry on a side conversation and not pay attention.
In a nutshell, I'm a big fan of removing minis. However, my current group loves them and so I accept them. But you can play without them in 3e and probably even more so in 4e based on what I have heard about monsters being easier to run and so on.
