Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3684892" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, as I said, its not always wrong.  What I said was that you should not always force your map to conform to gamist limitations.  Not relevant except to the extent that we are talking about what sort of structure a skyscraper sized giant, or an intelligent squid, or a powerful magician would be able to and would have the desire to create.  When people talk about game realism, they are generally not talking about how closely it conforms to the real world (although they might be, and its worth noting that skyscraper sized giants, intelligent squid, and to some extent even particular spells are optional).  Strawman.  I didn't say you did.  I merely suggested that gamist considerations should not trump all other elements.  It isn't merely a matter of tactical elements trumping all other elements - because 3' and 13' wide corridors are just as valid tactical situations as 5' and 10' ones.  Rather, its making all the imaginary play spaces in the game ones that conform primarily to the gamist limitations of the game system.  This turns your RPG into a board game IMO.  The whole point of having a DM, is that it puts in charge of the game someone who need not be limited to rote mechanics.  Anything that can be imagined is therefore possible, and mechanically resolvable.And again, this is certainly true, but IMO a DM that decides to let gamist tactical considerations trump all others is taking a big step towards "deciding to go play a war game instead".  I didn't say that gamist consideration should never come into play - just that when they came into conflict with something else you should err on the side of that other thing.  The game rules should not be a straight jacket.Ok, I'll grant you that.True, but it is a different sort of imagination.  This is just a personal preferrence, but I feel that the highest level of play is emmersive play.  That is, the game is most enjoyable, when when in some sense the players are able to experience what the characters are experiencing.  Battlemats have a role in the game, but they are in my experience a barrier to that more often than not.  The only time I prefer them is when the tactical wargame element of an encounter is so intriguing, that it is worth sacrificing the emmersion for a while.Not necessarily.  Extra space in and of itself doesn't ensure anything.  Varied, realistic, clever, and even dynamic terrain leads to :dynamic, run-and-jump-and dodge affairsF rather than "stand and hack" slugfests as the many threads in house rules asking 'How can I make D&D more dynamic' will attest.  And, I find it odd that you are trying to tell me how the use of battlemats and minis effects the game if you don't use them.  It seems to me that if you don't use them, then you've probably got a reason for it that is congruent with what I'm suggesting.I didn't say that it does.  I suggested that 'making things work well on a 5x5 gridded battlemat' should not be your top priority, else it runs the risk of interfering with many other things an RPG does.  I think that is a quite different thing. Because, the world isn't so simple as that.  If you abstract the world to a 5'x5' grid, then you create something that lacks the necessary complexity to seem real.  You've made a game world, not a imaginary world you happen to game.</blockquote>

Verification