Your perspective in the game

[IronWolf]

Does the use of minis affect how you visualize the game? The "imagination vs. minis" concept spoken of whenever someone talks about using minis in a game made me think of this.

I think they affect the game for me. I don't think they have to affect the visualization, but I think you have to try harder to keep a deep visualization. Sure your perception of where everyone is at is easier to see, but it is easy to slip into only seeing the battlemat instead of the low walls, crumbling block or thick tangle of weeds you are probably in.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Movies, and people frequently call out for various camera angles and such.

We also cast all the PCs and most of the NPCs. Sometimes if it's helpful, we'll narrow it down to the look from specific performances -- like one NPC who the players knew was losing it when he went from John Cusack in Grosse Point Blank to the same actor in Being John Malkovich.

 

[kyloss]

and for me on dreams it first person, faded color, hollywood style-jump cuts and all and tect readable, sometimes even the tomclans/jag esque location time thing, as for minis it think the do take out a bit of the imagination while making tactics easier.

 

[The Shaman]

Something else?

As a GM, I tend to visualize the game as a comic book - each time I describe a location or some bit of action, I tend to view it as a couple of frames. For example, the adventurers come upon the scene of an ambush. The first frame is the vehicles, and the bodies lying on the ground. The second frame is the sergeant, ordering the men forward. The next frame is the men moving forward, followed by one of the characters seeing a body in a ditch, then a view of the body...

The perspective of each frame changes: the ambush is viewed from the perspective of those approaching the site, the sergeant is 'close-up', the paras advancing is seen from behind as they run forward, the character who sees the body in the ditch is 'close-up', the body is seen from the perspective of the player character, and so on.

I find this helps me to break down the location and the action in a way that makes it easier to visualize the scene and maintain the flow of events. Sometimes it works better than other times.

 

[der_kluge]

I'd say something like Diablo or Tomb Raider. I've never really thought about it.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we use miniatures, so we tend to view things from an overall perspective, i.e., "where is my character in relation to everyone else" and that's easier to invision from a tactical perspective from a 3rd person view.

 

[sniffles]

I usually visualize the game as a movie, at least during the action scenes. During character interaction I tend to see it as a book being typed up in my mind as it occurs. Most of the members of my group alternate between playing their characters in third person or first person. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how we switch between viewpoints.

As for dreams, I dream in full color, but I am almost always a spectator in my dreams. My dreams also rarely contain any people I know or familiar places. Usually the only times I dream about familiar locations or star in my own dreams are unpleasant dreams.

 

[Wormwood]

In the first hour of a session, I imagine D&D as if I'm reading a book.

After my fifth beer, I'm doing my best to imagine it as a D&D game.