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

[howandwhy99]

Grid and tactical rules are always in effect throughout the entirety of play.

They only come out in front of the screen though when the players want to know where they are in relation to something else either 2 or 3 dimensionally.

Rules are always in effect, but become important according to the actions the players take. If a PC tries to right through an orc, then there are rules that come out to handle that.

I find it's easiest simply to have the grid out and handy with markers and terrain tokens if need be too. Miniatures are expensive, but characters don't need to be more than tokens either and customizing those can be fun too, not just highly detailed painting of miniatures.

The rules not submitted by the players never change for me once the game begins. So the grid dimensionality, being part of these, is always there, if not always in front of the screen.

 

[Sunseeker]

Ever since day 1 we've used minis on a chalkboard with a permanent grid drawn on it; however, the grid is in 10' square scale rather than 5' as it's intended more as an aid to mapping and visualization. (and, it's 50% easier to draw!)

3e's manner of insisting only one person can occupy a 5' square (as opposed to, say, 3 people fighting side by side in a 10' passage), and 4e's desire to cubify everything and count squares rather than feet, both fall in the category of grid-over-logic as far as I'm concerned.

Lanefan

You could make a "squeeze" check to fit those three people shoulder to shoulder in a 10' ride tunnel, there's usually some minor penalty for doing so. But understandably, when swinging a sword around, you don't want to squeeze in that tight since the distance from fingertip to fingertip is roughly equal to your height, and there's a 2' blade on the end of that.

 

[Cadfan]

It depends what you're going to focus on.

If you're going to give the characters 15 different ways each to chop up bad guys, you need a grid. Those 15 different ways each need an environment in which to live, where there are enough *things* to be interacted with in enough distinct ways that you can count up a large number of different options.

If you're going to make combat take up a significant amount of time, that time has to be spent *doing* things. And to do things, you need stuff to do those things with. A grid provides that. Additionally, a grid keeps those various situational combat tricks your characters may possess from turning into a "mother may I" scenario. For example, if your spell shoots lightning in a cone, a grid lets you know whether you can hit 2 goblins or 5. Without a grid, you have to ask a DM who will give an answer biased by whether he wants you to incinerate 2 goblins or 5. And as these things multiply over the course of a fight, a grid saves you the trouble of memorizing everything that happened before, so that DM judgment calls early in the fight are consistent with his judgment calls later in the fight.

On the other hand, if combat is going to be short and not involve a significant amount of variety, a grid is counter productive. You end up spending time creating things you'll never use, and you extend a combat session longer than it has a right to be for the amount of fun you're likely to get from it.

I kind of suspect that 5e is going to be the former type of game rather than the latter. Which means it will objectively require a grid for quality of game-play reasons.

But I could be wrong.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

But I could be wrong.

For D&D, probably not. I'll note in passing though that Burning Wheel achieves and uses everything you listed in its complex Fight and Range & Cover options, none of which even think about using a grid.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

For those of you interested in zones, you might like some of the posts starting here: Runeward Games: Zonal combat

There are several follow up posts after that one. You can use the right side bar to find them, by title. I thought he did a good job of covering the possibilities.

 

[Ratskinner]

It depends what you're going to focus on.

If you're going to give the characters 15 different ways each to chop up bad guys, you need a grid. Those 15 different ways each need an environment in which to live, where there are enough *things* to be interacted with in enough distinct ways that you can count up a large number of different options.

If you're going to make combat take up a significant amount of time, that time has to be spent *doing* things. And to do things, you need stuff to do those things with. A grid provides that. Additionally, a grid keeps those various situational combat tricks your characters may possess from turning into a "mother may I" scenario. For example, if your spell shoots lightning in a cone, a grid lets you know whether you can hit 2 goblins or 5. Without a grid, you have to ask a DM who will give an answer biased by whether he wants you to incinerate 2 goblins or 5. And as these things multiply over the course of a fight, a grid saves you the trouble of memorizing everything that happened before, so that DM judgment calls early in the fight are consistent with his judgment calls later in the fight.

On the other hand, if combat is going to be short and not involve a significant amount of variety, a grid is counter productive. You end up spending time creating things you'll never use, and you extend a combat session longer than it has a right to be for the amount of fun you're likely to get from it.

I kind of suspect that 5e is going to be the former type of game rather than the latter. Which means it will objectively require a grid for quality of game-play reasons.

But I could be wrong.

Let's say "incomplete". I feel like you need to add the words "mechanically defined" throughout your theory:

If you're going to give the characters 15 different mechanically defined ways each to chop up bad guys, you need a grid. Those 15 different mechanically defined ways each need a mechanically defined environment in which to live, where there are enough *things* to be interacted with in enough distinct mechanically defined ways that you can count up a large number of different options.

Trust me you can have tons of variety without a grid, but its not mechanically defined variety. The game I'm currently playing in doesn't really use mechanically grid-defined powers, and we have plenty of cinematic stuff. Just a few days ago my barbarian ran across a banquet table to jump into combat amidst the evil clerics at the other side. Without the grid, you have an infinite number of ways to chop up the bad guys.

I feel the opposite way about the way 5e is headed. I think it needs to "de-grid" to get back to more basic feel. Especially since combat takes so darn long in 3+e. I mean, I like combat to be a big part of D&D, just not the same combat for the entire session.

Also, you can do plenty of that stuff in your middle paragraph without a grid. My 2e group did it for years with no grid, just using open maps and measurement in inches. I've recently played a few games that use a "zone" method. That gives you a lot of the mechanical advantages/options of a grid without the speed cost.

Using Zones "How many targets in that zone can I hit with my Lightning Bolt?" can be answered with a d4 (probably defined either in the Lightning Bolt spell description or as a general note about Bolt spells. That's a lot quicker (believe it or not) than waiting for the Wizard's player to take a 5'step and carefully plot his spell squares to maximize the number of critters affected. (Honestly, most DMs I know, including myself, don't have their combat narrative so closely defined that hitting 2 or 5 goblins will matter. Its the pondering of geometry that seems to take so long.)

P.S. Y'know, as much as people seem to fear letting the DM decide things... I'm starting to think the DMG needs a big section on "How not to be a twit."

 

[Hussar]

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.

I've seen this done to great effect.

Now, adding this into D&D is going to cause the simulationist crowd's heads to collectively asplode! "What do you mean a fireball's area of effect is VARIABLE?" Love to see it, not holding out high hopes.

 

[Stormonu]

I love the look of miniatures and the chance to break out the Dwarven Forge dungeon pieces, but I've come to realize that TotM is usually a lot more fun for me, and generally a whole heck of a lot faster.

There's something about gridded combat that at some point just becomes cumbersome; it's too easy for players to step out of the moment and become generals moving their soldier pieces on the field of battle. Perfectly placed fireballs, tactical paralysis and square-counting can sometimes get on my nerves and gets a bit restrictive to some of the more wahoo or daring stunts someone might try.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Now, adding this into D&D is going to cause the simulationist crowd's heads to collectively asplode! "What do you mean a fireball's area of effect is VARIABLE?" Love to see it, not holding out high hopes.

Oh, yeah, we've never had an edition where a fireball might have a larger blast radius simply because of local conditions, like, say, the confined spaces of a goblin warren. Simulationists hate that kind of physics-obeying nonsense.

 

[The Shadow]

How shall I put this? I have been playing since the red box, and I have never, ever, even once, used miniatures and a grid. Nor do I have any desire to start. 4e's tight dependence on such things was a huge deal-breaker for me. (Yes, I know in principle it can be done in TotM - but it certainly doesn't come naturally.) As far as I'm concerned, 5e must enable me to play the way I've always played, or I won't bother with it.

At the most, in my group, we might sketch a room to get across a complicated shape. "The bad guy's standing here, X marks the spot."

I agree with whoever said that the people who use miniatures seem to be a distinct minority, at least around here.

I'd be willing to give zonal combat a whirl at some point, especially if the zones can simply be described instead of drawn.

Oh, yeah, we've never had an edition where a fireball might have a larger blast radius simply because of local conditions, like, say, the confined spaces of a goblin warren. Simulationists hate that kind of physics-obeying nonsense.

*snicker* I see what you did there...