Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 3870198" data-attributes="member: 40166">One nasty argument happened in a campaign I played in because minis weren't used in a particular encounter (despite a player asking that the DM draw it out), and the DM declared that that player's character was caught in a cone of fire (or the like; I don't recall). The player claimed that his character was out of range; he had stated he was staying back out of combat. The DM made it an issue and it got a bit ugly.More reasonableness on both DM and player would have helped, but it's hard to tell where spell effects are going without minis. It's easy to feel that a DM is being unfair by leaving certain targets out or catching the whole party in a spell, and it's easy for a DM to be unfair. Is the party lined up for a lightning bolt or grouped for a fireball? In a minis system, it's easy to point to the party on a map, but without that, unless they're in tight quarters, they can almost always plausibly claim they wouldn't be grouped like that, and probably honestly.If I feel like my character can do nothing to position himself so he doesn't get hit with a fireball with the rest of the party, I'm going to be frustrated. If my character is always somehow out of the range of a fireball no matter what, the DM may get frustrated, as well might the other players. Minis makes it clear when the party can position itself so not to be all caught in a fireball, and makes it clear when the DM can catch them all in a fireball.Yes, less tactical games could change that, but I'm thinking about the games I've played. A good DM and more accepting (probably less tactical) players would help this, but I am who am and the DMs I've played with are often less than perfect.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="prosfilaes, post: 3870198, member: 40166"] One nasty argument happened in a campaign I played in because minis weren't used in a particular encounter (despite a player asking that the DM draw it out), and the DM declared that that player's character was caught in a cone of fire (or the like; I don't recall). The player claimed that his character was out of range; he [i]had[/i] stated he was staying back out of combat. The DM made it an issue and it got a bit ugly. More reasonableness on both DM and player would have helped, but it's hard to tell where spell effects are going without minis. It's easy to feel that a DM is being unfair by leaving certain targets out or catching the whole party in a spell, and it's easy for a DM to [i]be[/i] unfair. Is the party lined up for a lightning bolt or grouped for a fireball? In a minis system, it's easy to point to the party on a map, but without that, unless they're in tight quarters, they can almost always plausibly claim they wouldn't be grouped like that, and probably honestly. If I feel like my character can do nothing to position himself so he doesn't get hit with a fireball with the rest of the party, I'm going to be frustrated. If my character is always somehow out of the range of a fireball no matter what, the DM may get frustrated, as well might the other players. Minis makes it clear when the party can position itself so not to be all caught in a fireball, and makes it clear when the DM can catch them all in a fireball. Yes, less tactical games could change that, but I'm thinking about the games I've played. A good DM and more accepting (probably less tactical) players would help this, but I am who am and the DMs I've played with are often less than perfect. [/QUOTE]

Verification