To grid or not to grid. New staff blog . April 11

[Gundark]

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For me it depends. The 4 hit point mooks in room 5? Just use TotM.

If we are talking about Thar the orc warchief and his 2 dire wolves who are the set piece encounter for the adventure ? Then yes use the grid.

 

[hemera]

We've always been a group of rough setup via minis. And by minis, I mean whatever is handy. Pennies, green army men, pen caps, all kind of grouped on the paper. It wasn't until 4e really that we went to a full grid system.

Though with the amount of friendly fire we experienced, we might should have in 3rd.

 

[KidSnide]

For most campaigns, the level of tactical detail will depend on the encounter. However, as a general guideline, I think the best solution is the encounter with the minimum overhead necessary to prevent player confusion. If there's a lot of moving around, miniatures or tokens are useful, but otherwise a sketch or pure theater of the mind can provide a faster, more exciting and more imaginative experience.

One other problem that I noticed as I added more (and better) miniatures into the game was that players would look at the mini to get their mental picture of what they were fighting rather than listen to the words used to describe it. That's fine if you have a terrific miniature collection (and a steady supply of new sculpts, so you don't "fight the same guy" over and over again), but I think many groups would be better served by a more abstract way of representing monsters and opponents on the battlegrid.

-KS

 

[El Mahdi]

I and the groups that I've played with have all preferred to use minis and grids with full tactical rules. I have however, started using TotM occasionally as of late. Or just using minis for basic relative position. I'm finding I like to use the method that most fits at the time, and switch between them.

For minis though, a Grid seems to be the most convenient (IMO), but I would prefer a way to do without it. Instead of a Grid, I have experimented with using cut lengths of ribbon or string for movement lengths instead (ala Wargaming). I like removing the visible grid from the eyes of the players as it seems to help remove some metagame decisions based on exact measurements (something real combatants usually don't have).

But I imagine that no matter how much I start to use other tools (be it TotM or rough relative positioning), Minis with full tactical rules will probably remain de rigueur for me and the groups I play with.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I not only voted to use whatever is appropriate, that is what I've done ever since I started playing. I've used TotM, grids, sort of grids, home made "dungeon tiles" sanded from old paneling, rulers on carpet, and probably some other things that I'm forgetting.

I also think that focuses on TotM to grid, as if it some kind of direct line covering the whole range, misses some other useful possiblities, such as "abstract positioning" and "zones". A lot of TotM when adapting from a more tactical game, like 4E, is actually an ad hoc combination of abstract positioning and zones. The fighter and the paladin are "in front, near the orcs" while the ranger is "off on the flanks, circling, avoiding the grell," and the wizard is hanging around "in back, near the door".

To support such options, we need movement/positioning widgets that can translate to the traditional N feet per move, but also function with some kind of positional roll.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I hate grids. I use a plain battlemap sometimes, but I still hate doing it.

Speaking more broadly, the grid and miniatures, etc. are needless distractions, a significant extra expense, and a barrier to beginners, never mind what thinking in battlegrid terms does to the design of the game itself. Miniatures are a viable hobby unto themself, but D&D does not need them.

Or in the poll language, "theater of the mind".

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

We have always had a grid in D&D. It was the map the DM drew or got from the module they were running or it was the map we drew out on graph paper as we adventured. Just over the years we went from looking at those maps saying where we where to having large mats or maps and placing a mini on them to represent where we were.

 

[Sunseeker]

I have always used a grid, it just makes my life easier.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I've had big groups of players the last several years - 8 or 9 when we were playing 3.5E, and now 6 with 4E. So, having a grid really helps to take the confusion out of combats, since I need to throw a lot of bad guys at the players to challenge them.

 

[BobTheNob]

We did a group analysis of what was taking combats to be so drawn out. Grids werent the number 1 item, but they were acknowledged as one of the contributers. When players micro-position where they stand, where that fireball lands, the best "tactical" positioning, its all takes time. This is the trade off (which was eloquently pointed out) between hyper-accurate positioning and speed.

The other thing Im not so hot on with grids is that they arent the theater of the mind. Its great when your mind constructs the image of what is going on. The more the grid is in place, the less I find this happens (for me).

I actually want a middle ground on this. A "zone" system, where players are just considered to be in zones.
* You break the battle area into zones which are linked to each other. Logical breakdown of the battle theater.
* Every participant is considered to be in a zone and zones can have multiple participants in them
* You can use a move action to move from one zone to another
* If you are in the same zone as an enemy, you can melee attack it.
* If you are in the same zone as an enemy they can AOP you (and vice-versa)
* Ranged attack ranges are measured in zones
* Area attacks target zones (for instance, fireball attacks all creature in a zone up to 3 zones away)

Its simplistic...but thats what I want, simple. It rewards placement (to a degree) and gives you something to build tactical challenge upon, at the same time doesnt do square-by-square micro-management. I have been going over iteration's of this in my mind for a while now, cant quite perfect it, but the principle of it seems to intrigue me.