What would D&D look like without the emphasis on minis & maps?

[Aaron L]

I use a peice of graph paper and map out the combats when I DM, and all the players are fairly good at keeping track of the combat in their heads. We've never used miniatures and most of us shudder at the thought.

 

[Farland]

After playing D&D for 15 years without maps and figs, I think that using figs is a huge improvement. Without them, combat usually consists of something like this:

Player: I swing. 22. I hit. 12 points of damage.

DM: Ok the orc swings. 12. He misses.

P: Ok, I swing. 19. I hit for 10 more. Is he dead? Good. I move to the next orc.

It becomes very repetitive. Of course the DM can embellish it with descriptives, but the combat soon becomes completely reliant on the DM. Only the DM can really say when a character can use certain feats, where spells are best placed, and so forth. This is essentially cutting both the options available to the characters and the interactions open to the players in half. Plus combat becomes basically arbitrary or random, i.e. based on DM decision.

DM: You managed to catch only two ogres in the fireball.

or

Player: I dropped my orc. Is there an orc near enough to me for me to use cleave?

DM: Umm. I guess so. Yeah.

Now you can argue that some people might find this style of play more fun, but it seems much less fun to me. The game has becomes infinitely more intricate and non-repetitive, as characters manuever to avoid AoOs, to take advantage of reach, choose to tumble, take 5 foot steps, cleave, etc. There is alot of variation before battle starts repeating. Plus, this is the best of both worlds: there is lots of strategy and tactics, but nothing is stopping the DM from giving rich descriptions of the results that the players' independent maneuvers resulted in.

Minis and maps forever!

 

[Psion]

Probably a bit like our table. Minis and matt out, but usually dominated by doritoes and soda cans and not used all that much...

Seriously, it's not hard and it wouldn't change all that much. Heck, I run it that way now (as only half-jokingly described above); I only use minis for especially complicated combats.

Monte had an article on this, but to summaraize:

• Use intent - Players say things like "I want to flank him" or whatever.
• Make GM calls - The GM decides what it takes, e.g., "okay, move equivalent action and you can flank him."
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[Planesdragon]

Imagine the designers of 4e wanted to make a game that doesn't force people to buy minis.

In my campaign, I've swapped out the D&D "map and minis" model for a more cinematic "engage opponent" model.

You can engage one or more opponents in "melee", and if your side outnumbers the other by more than x2, you get a "flanking" bonus. If someone does something that drops them out of the melee, everyone else gets an AoO chance--unless the dropout has a party member who can take a move action to cover their escape.

This nicely covers just about all the same information bits that a map and minis does, and has the benefit of being easy enough to grasp.

I can go into more detail if you like, RW.

 

[Psion]

I know what it would look like: White Wolf.

It's true. Considering d20 doesn't really run on stats, but modifiers (ie "dots"), we're already half-way there.

Dots aren't modifiers, they're dice!

Get it straight! D&D is halfway to ars magica and talislanta, not WW!

 

[WizarDru]

Get it straight! D&D is halfway to ars magica and talislanta, not WW!

Ahhh. Talislanta.


Good Times. Good Times.

 

[Praeco]

3E is further enhanced by using the tools, but doesn't require them any more than prior versions did. It can be adjudicated mapless just like the older variants. Did most DMs somehow lose this ability when 3E came out?

I think Attacks of Opportunity made it a bit tougher to adjudicate. AoOs make it so it tends to be quite important who is next to whom at any given moment, and what movement paths characters take. I'm not saying it is impossible to play without a map, it just may be more difficult and introduce more uncertainty than some are willing to deal with.

As Ranger Wickett said, getting rid of AoOs is possible (ala Call of Cthulhu) but doing so invalidates a lot of special abilities and feats and that would have to be compensated for.

 

[Wombat]

I have found the mats and minis more trouble than they are worth.

First of all, it overemphasizes the combat aspect of the game. Secondly only have 1 table, so if I am going to game and put out munchies, I have to move all of that to make room for the bloody mat. Finally most of my players can perfectly well imagine combat in their heads where it becomes more interesting and cinematic than merely placeholding on a table.

I love to paint minis as representations of the characters (and to serve as "Thank You" gifts at the end of each campaign), but I find all the emphasis on miniatures to be counterproductive.

As I have said many and many a time here, I got into rpgs to get away from miniatures battles, not to increase them!

I'll leave the American Civil War and Seven Years War miniatures shoving to my brother...

 

[billd91]

Re: Re: What would D&D look like without the emphasis on minis & maps?

A much less rule heavy game that runs a lot quicker. It would lose the war gaming flavor it has picked up and have a little less interest between a player and his character. Mini's and maps can take a lot of the GMs ability to move a story along, fudge an NPC escape for a grander confrontation later.

The way I see it, it has gotten back the somewhat war gaming flavor it had originally back when it first appeared.
Personally, I don't have a problem with this for the most part. For the standard dungeon crawl, I think it does reduce the power of monster hordes and that can be a little bit of a shame. Makes a fighter with a high AC in the front a really powerful obstacle for the monsters to handle even at low levels.
I think it helps reinforce combat rules and alleviates some ambiguities in play such as when players get into disputes about who's where and who can loot the nearby bodies.

 

[Melkor]

I'm trying out an idea on Saturday to see how my players like it. Throughout our 18 years of playing 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and 3rd Edition - we only played with minis during 3E games. Before that, we would always use narrative combat with a rough pencil sketch for visualization.

As someone mentioned above, most of my favorite combat memories come from those games. Who knows why, I guess I get a certain imagination detachment when I look at a 4" tall Dragon.....Ooooooh Scarrrrry!

Then again, combat with miniatures gives the players a lot of options, and makes visualization of the 'combat situation' much easier.

Saturday, I am going to run the smaller skirmishes by keeping track of everything on graph paper behind the DM Screen.....I'll narrate to the players, answer any questions (Can I move into a flanking position beside that Bugbear ? How far am I from the door ? If I cast a spell will that Troll be able to take a free swing at me ?), then move the game along.....I want to see how they like that.

For a couple of the major scenes, I'm going to use Master Maze stuff and minis......I think it will work well, but we'll see. I will post up a report after the game.