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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 274285" data-attributes="member: 4937">Karinsdad: You seem quite intelligent, but you also seem to be having an entirely different conversation than some of us.  Whenever the objection is made that the grid is an abstraction, you spend a great deal of effort proving what I would believe is generally well known - that a square grid is a poor abstraction.  But, when I find the square grid to be a poor abstraction, I'd simply do away with the grid until I reached a point where the grid was useful again.For instance, If I had a 5' corridor emptying into the middle wall of a 10'x10' room and a monster (say a bugbear) standing just inside the door, then I'd say "The narrow corridor you have been following widens into a small room 30' ahead.  Standing just inside the doorway is a Bugbear."  From that description it would be (I think) perfectly clear that to get through the door you must pass through the space that the Bugbear occupies.  If a player insisted on me drawing a map and trying to exploit the inadequacies of the square grid to avoid the obvious, I'd insist, "Forget about the grid and the rules and just role play.  There is a 300 lb bugbear just inside the door and he doesn't want to let you through."  IF the player continued to be obstinate, I'd inform him at the end of the session that I didn't want him to come back if he was going to disrupt the game like that.If again, the player came to an intersection of two 5' corridors I'd say, "The narrow corridor you have been following intersects at a right angle with an identical corridor 30' ahead.  Standing in the intersection with a drawn sword is a bugbear."   Again, I think it is perfectly clear that to move from this corridor to any of the other three, you have to move through the bugbear's space.  However, since I recognize that there is a little more space (on the diagonal) in the intersection than in the doorway, and if it came up, I'd probably allow the second character trying to tumble through that space a circumstance bonus of some sort (probably +5) since the Bugbear had to shift to the side to block the first character (if only ever so slightly).All this only become's unclear and complicated when we try to use the grid, which is really supposed to be there to help us.  If it instead hinders us, why bother?  It is not an essential element of role play.  I went 18 years without a grid and never felt uncomfortable adjudicating situations just like this, and indeed, I had to keep track of more things then because I had to rule which way things were facing (because you could get backstabbed, lose your shield bonus, etc.).Maybe I misunderstand and by showing how inadequate the grid is you are trying to prove that it is despencible.  However, it too often sounds like what you are trying to advocate is strict adherence to the rules and to stop worrying about how bad they can be in special situations because the solution is equally bad.I think what Artoomis is saying (and I concur) is that no system should be blindly adhered to, and that no player should expect to overrule the DM simply because the system says so (especially when the system is clearly flawed).</blockquote>

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