I'm GM'ing a game for a few freinds who are new to roleplaying in a week or so. The problem is the venue where the game is held hasn't got the room for laying out maps.
so this has given me the idea to play without the grid. The thing is I'm completely unsure how to run combat without the grid. I'm sure there are plenty of threads about this subject already but I'm using my phone and the search function doesn't work well on it.
I think my main problem is with character positioning and distances.
So any tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
You as the DM will need to have a good spatial memory. It's more work for you, but completely doable. You will need to make sure people specify where they are more than might otherwise be needed.
I think I'll probably end up falling back to dungeon tiles, and play one room at a time since they're all new players. I might give it a shot when they players are more experienced. I like that I can make less of a separation between combat and out of combat.
We used to play for years without a grid. Worked fine until D&D3.x came around.
We had problems with positioning - sure (there's always that one guy who seems to have constant dimension door as an immediate action available to avoid damage/disadvantageous positions), but nothing major.
With rules (and feats) focusing more on tactical combat I felt the need for using a grid which in my opinion benefits especially the martial characters.
On the other hand the more technical presentation of environment it becomes of higher importance for me as GM to create the missing visuals by strong narration and evocative, vitalizing description of the surroundings to get the players attention off of counting squares.
Ruyan.
Long time player never used a grid until 3.0, and even then didn't always use it.
Back in the day to keep track of combat we used graph paper a lot of times.
I still to this day use graph paper when I'm not running an online game. Takes up so little table space and can be modified on the fly with a simple eraser! :D
Our group has only recently found out about combat grids.
so this has given me the idea to play without the grid. The thing is I'm completely unsure how to run combat without the grid. I'm sure there are plenty of threads about this subject already but I'm using my phone and the search function doesn't work well on it.
We find ourself at the table on yet another glorious night of revelry and eating of chips...
Player 8: "I move to flanking position"
<DM considers if that makes sense based on what's going on>
DM: "Okay"
<game continues on without the need for little pieces of painted plastic or grids>
I use maps to give a general gist of the land (generally drawn on the fly and looking like I should have done so with crayons) and this has worked for years and years. Newer players whine and snivel, "ZOMfrogS, but how will I know exactly how many boxes away I am, since I didn't pay attention when you said they were 20' away??????" Soon they chill and eventually they just accept that the game goes on without it and somehow we manage to muddle through.
I do confess that I get a sick little pleasure out of the bewildered horror that paints itself on the faces of those that hear I play these games without grids.
Only recently I have gotten into a game with grids and it is very very berry berry different. I find myself being told "no you cannot do that because you went diagonally", which I have a hard time imagining is doing anything for the immersive roleplaying environment, but is giving the table-accountants happy in their man-panties.
I hate playing with a grid and miniatures and everything associated with that. It reduces the game from a role-playing game to nothing but a tactical skirmish wargame, or Chess. I've always found that it completely kills my suspension of disbelief and pulls me totally out of the game, because at that point my character stops being a living, breathing, fully developed personality in my head, and instead is reduced to a piece on a game board.
Plus, everyone in our group regards minis and battlemats or whatever as nothing more than blatant money-sinks, and we refuse to take part in it supporting that.
When it absolutely cannot be avoided we will use a sheet of graph paper, but we feel ashamed about it, like we're bowing to the pressure of rules that were deliberately contrived to require a battle grid, to thus sell WotCs new prepainted miniatures (we were especially incensed after the rules moved from measurements in actual real feet to measurements in friggin' "squares!")
D&D 4E completed the transition of D&D from an RPG to a tactical skirmish boardgame, and that's why we threw it in the fire in disgust and happily embraced Pathfinder, but we still have to make a conscious effort to ignore the miniatures-and-grid-centric way the rules are written.
The only thing I've ever seen that hasn't make me feel dirty in regard to using minis are those printable paper marker PDFs or various monsters. Those I can actually respect as not just some forced money-sink, because you can print out as many orcs as you need instead of having to buy more and more of them. But even those still have the problem of sucking me out of the game and onto a gameboard.
Izar, some of us just can't manage all that information in our heads without some kind of visual representation. I know in my own case that trying to run the game without a grid, I very quickly lose track of who is where, what they're doing, etc. without something to look at. For me personally, that loss of being able to follow everything and picture location and keep track of where everybody is, that's far far more breaking of suspension of disbelief than seeing the characters laid out on a grid.
More power to those who can manage it in their heads, but I'm not one of them, and I'd rather use the grid and spent my time running/playing the game than try to keep mental track of everyone's locations without something I can look at.
My group plays via MapTool, so it's not costing us any money-sink investments to use. Though, in my old live group, we loved getting minis, and would always run out to get a new appropriate one when a new campaign started, so there's that.
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I'm trying to figure out how I'm a crap dude for using miniatures and being pretty rad at making miniatures look awesome.
Unfortunately 3.0 is designed to be played with a grid and minis. Half the rules kind of get tossed out or glossed when not using them. Prior to 3.0 there was really never a need for a grid, though you could still play with one.
Even games not as tactically minded as 3.0, I will still use maps and graph paper to help sometimes keep the flow of combat together, for example in a recent GURPS game, we used a map to track our movement and location in battle, but again that was just Paper and Pencil.
I have no issue using grids and minis though. It does not lesson my fun or make me lose my suspension of disbelief. Of course I have been playing RPGs since the late 70's.
I'm trying to figure out how I'm a crap dude for using miniatures and being pretty rad at making miniatures look awesome.
Eh, I think he was more getting into the business model side of things, but who knows. I wish *I* was rad at making miniatures look awesome.
Related: I, and most of the people I game with only very recently got into maps and such. As it turns out, even if your focus is squarely on the collaborative emergent narrative constructs that gaming creates, sometimes it definitely helps to have a visual representation.
Especially when you have a ratio of about 1 serious combat/20 hours of play time (not including things like a short bar brawl, or bandits who're unlikely to see that second round) it really adds gravity to these conflicts.
Having said all that - gridless combat is very different, and can be a fluid, fast-paced affair. Keep in mind what makes combat fun for each player/character, and make sure there's an opportunity to do so. I know that's general advice, but it's even more important in this scenario. Likewise, identify what it is about this encounter that makes it interesting, and be sure to incorporate it.
Some people really like it!
/goes back to trying to figure out how the heck one paints a mini :(
We never painted ours, we just bought the metal Reaper ones and made sure it looked close enough to our mental picture of our character(s). One of my players started getting into painting, but she never went far with it.
I have found certain classes play easier without a grid than others. If i was an archer for example, I really wouldn't care. If I was a controller mage, I really want that grid because so much of being a controller mage is about positioning and tactics.
Exactly this. People that have a "tactical mind" will always have a tactical mind. If the GM says "We won't use a grid" I immediately say "Cool I'm playing a Rogue". Being able to say I flank the target is a whole lot easier than actually trying to do it without drawing AoO. Archers are also a lot more powerful without the Grid. I 5' move to where I have a clear shot is a lot easier than actually having to find a 5' step to accomplish that. Feat selection is also a lot easier, no mobility, precise shot, and improved precise shot, are no where near as useful.
We play with minis and terrains. No grid. If you have any experience with minis with standardized bases (25mm = 1 inch), then you should be able to eyeball distances easily. Obviously, when two minis are in base-to-base, it is the same as when they are in adjacent squares.
But even when they are not, it should be easy to eyeball anything up to a good ten inches without problem. Otherwise, bring a ruler or tape measure. 1 inch = 5 feet, as others have noted. There are also billions of templates available to you, for measuring blast radiuses, etc. Remember that those of us who also play wargames have an entire industry's worth of this stuff for you to keep at your disposal. We don't need no stinking grids, and neither do you. The game was originally a wargame, anyway.
I recommend players use alternate means of measuring, from time-to-time. Over the decades, we have played with graph paper and pencils, minis on grids, computer printouts, scale terrains, and nothing at all but our imaginations. I personally believe you will become not only a better player, but a more spacially-aware person, if you mix it up every-so-often.
We used to play with a grid, but abandoned it due to combat taking too long. We do use a rough sketch on notebook paper or an unmarked white board to keep track of basic positions since it's easy to get confused about who is where. Works great, but it does require the GM and players to agree to cut each other some slack about stuff like positioning. Tends to be more of an adjustment problem for established players rather than newbies. And combat goes so much faster. I find it gives me a better feeling for the chaos of combat too. Our group is plagued with tactical thinkers and I'm as guilty as the rest. Give us a board full of squares and we completely lose track of the roleplaying as we kinda get lost in controlling the board. We do have minis for our characters, but it's more of a quick visual reminder what your PC looks like. Neither way of playing is wrong or inherently better or worse. It's just about what style the group prefers and what is more practical in the space. I would definitely suggest bringing either a pad of graph paper if you really can't let go of the squares or a small whiteboard.
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We do use a rough sketch on notebook paper or an unmarked white board to keep track of basic positions since it's easy to get confused about who is where.
Graph paper works great as well. At the start of combat, show the player's their positioning on your pre-drawn map. My group used this technique for years.
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For relative low levels, sure it can be done. For higher level i think that it's nearly impossible, especially when the combat goes from two dimensions to 3.
For relative low levels, sure it can be done. For higher level i think that it's nearly impossible, especially when the combat goes from two dimensions to 3.
In my experience going without the grid makes 3D combat easier. We played that way up to level 20 and since all players could fly by then it would have been really tough figuring out who was where on the map with squares. If you have to use calculus to figure out your exact movement anyways, just agree to guesstimate and move on. It's just a game. :)
(Not really a commentary on your game or anyone else's but ours. We really have brought the whole game to a screeching halt over a discussion of flight, parabolic movement, and how far that means you actually travel. And now you know why the GM decided that we couldn't handle maps with squares. :P)
The series of videos here might be helpful.
Feat selection is also a lot easier, no mobility, precise shot, and improved precise shot, are no where near as useful.
I've played without a grid, too, but aren't people in melee still in melee, even if you don't have a physical representation of their positions? Seems to me those feats would still be useful?
Combat in AD&D 1st and 2nd editions worked absolutely fine without minis. There wasn't a tactical combat mechanic or many rules for positioning, cover, concealment, etc. The GM adjucated it on-the-fly and in his head. There was no "five-foot step" or "move action" or standard action." It was all very abstract.
D&D 3.0 changed all that and put a tactical movement mechanic that was partly derived from the AD&D BattleSystem miniatures wargaming mechanic. In some sense, the tactical movement mechanics brought the game full-circle back to its roots as the role-playing supplement to the CHAINMAIL miniatures wargame of the 1970s.
Because the D&D 3.0/3.5/PFRPG combat mechanic is so closely tied to positioning, with threatened squares, spell area effects in squares, movement in squares, etc, character builds are centered around this mechanic. Eliminating the combat grid removes the tangibility of several combat feats and maneuvers, making some character builds more powerful and others weaker.
There are other game systems that don't rely on tactical postioning for combat, and those are better-suited for mapless games. (e.g. GURPS, RoleMaster, Classic D&D Clones, Amber DRPG, etc). The D&D Third Edition family of games really are focused around around tactical combat maneuvering, and I feel that removing that from the game takes away far more that it adds.
After reading this thread I want to be clear. By Gridless as you saying no map at all (Play takes place in your head only) or use a map but just not a grid on it (like a hand drawn area on a blank paper etc.)?
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I never meant to imply that anyone was a "crap dude" because they used minis, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I'd gone far too long without sleep when I wrote that and it probably came across as more hostile then I intended, so I apologize to anyone I offended. :)
Years ago, not too long after I started gaming, I actually used to think that using minis would be kinda neat, but my DM advised me against it, telling me that it was a bad idea because he'd previously played that way for years, and it always ended up totally pulling him out of character and out of the game, turning RPG fights into tactical wargaming exercises or games of Chess. I didn't understand what he meant until he ran a few game sessions for us using minis to show me what he meant.
With the way we normally played, from 1st Edition AD&D on up, we were in character the whole game (except for the inevitable jokes, Monty Python, and Army of Darkness quotes, and Ghostbusters references - those mostly from me.) Including during the fights - but when we played using the minis, as soon as any fights started all of the personalities and all characterization suddenly fell away as we stopped focusing on roleplaying our characters and thinking about how they would act in that situation, and instead started focusing simply on winning the fight, regardless of how our characters would normally think, acting in ways which were very tactically effective but were totally out of character. As soon as a fight broke out, when the minis were on the table everyone became a combat genius, regardless of the character's actual intelligence, emotions, classes, training or history.
That is my problem with miniatures. They seem to enforce wargaming thinking at the expense of roleplaying. Which is fine if that's how you like to play RPGs - I'm not calling anyone's gaming preference badwrongfun. But I and my group prefers more roleplaying focused games - we always speak in character in first person and never in third person (we would never say "my elf likes your dwarf and thinks we should have a drink together", we would address each other by our character's names and speak as if we were the characters.) This extends to the point where our characters personalities have direct impact on how they act in a fight. When we used minis the normally cowardly characters became brave, the stupid barbarian with a 7 intelligence became a Sun-Tzu level tactical genius, everyone was always totally aware of and obsessed with how many Attacks of Opportunity they would provoke when making any movement, everyone always made absolutely optimal use of their abilities... and no one said a single word in character; not one single taunt or threat or jibe or joke or any of the other things that had always been a standard part of roleplaying fights when we weren't using minis. None of the characters had any "character" anymore, but had instead become nothing but combat stats being maneuvered around a battlemat in order to win a tactical skirmish.
As soon as the minis came out, we just COULDN'T HELP but start feeling and thinking like we were generals and our characters were nothing but troops under our command, instead of our usual way of feeling and thinking like we WERE the characters and actually roleplaying their individual thoughts and feelings during the fight. Using minis changed the game from us being players roleplaying a character in a fight for his life, to us being generals dispassionately commanding individual units in a battle.
Sorry for the length of the post, but I wanted to explain and clarify my position - I don't think that people who like to game with minis are bad or doing anything wrong, and I wouldn't even refuse to play with a group just because they used minis (just as long as they didn't expect me to waste my money buying any! :)) I just wanted to explain how and why using miniatures royally frells with the roleplaying aspect of the game for me and the friends I game with.
But even still, sometimes when fights get so big that we need to keep visual track of everyone involved in it, we'll use a piece of graph paper and sketch out a quick map of the area, put the paper inside a transparent plastic sleeve, and use dry erase markers to mark our positions during the fight. But we'll still try to keep as much as possible as a visual in our heads to keep us grounded in our characters, so we continue to see our characters as CHARACTERS and not become detached and start treating them as nothing but Monopoly tokens on a game board.
Okay that's cool that you are totally cool with us wasting our money.
Well, I wouldn't exactly put it THAT way, and that's not actually anything near what I said.
What I DID say was that if I was invited to play in a game where minis were used, I wouldn't waste MY money buying a mini, because it WOULD be a waste of money for me - because I don't like minis.(*)
But it obviously wouldn't be a waste of money for you, because you DO like minis.
I would, however, quite happily draw a picture of my character and print it out and mount it in the manner of those printable paper minis Paizo has released, and since I drew it myself, it would be much more accurate than any sculpted miniature could ever be.
(*) [Although I DO absolutely LOVE my HorrorClix Cthulhu miniature! I never in my life thought I would ever spend over a 100 dollars on a miniature, but DAMN it was just too cool NOT to buy!]
Also, I was being polite and not putting anyone down. I would appreciate it if you would please not twist my words in a passive/aggressively hostile attempt at being witty.
Hmm...I get it now. I took "gridless" the wrong way.
Is a system that doesn't have so many mechanic elements tied to a tactical representation an option? I'm partial to Savage Worlds or Castles and Crusades. Either would involve less house-ruling to strip out or adjust for all the positioning bits.
This should help. This guys makes his tiles and doesn't do grids. It's pretty good and has inspire my wife and I to start making tiles to go gridless.
I guess I've just never had the mis/fortune to be exposed to players who switch mindsets like that. I really don't notice any difference in the RP capabilities of my players when using a grid and the few minor encounters we do from time to time where the GM says "this isn't important/long-term enough to set up a map for".
Not intending to insult your group or anything, it just boggles my mind that people can flip a switch like that just with the change of a little thing like the addition of the minis and grid.
I've played without a grid, too, but aren't people in melee still in melee, even if you don't have a physical representation of their positions? Seems to me those feats would still be useful?
Not really no. The phrase "I move to where I have a clear shot" completely negates the need for Improved Presice Shot. "I get behind them without AoO's" negates mobility. Precise shot, maybe, but the most you'll be down is -4 since cover is never an issue if you use the phrase above.
I've played without a grid, too, but aren't people in melee still in melee, even if you don't have a physical representation of their positions? Seems to me those feats would still be useful?
Not really no. The phrase "I move to where I have a clear shot" completely negates the need for Improved Presice Shot. "I get behind them without AoO's" negates mobility. Precise shot, maybe, but the most you'll be down is -4 since cover is never an issue if you use the phrase above.
Hmmmm... Yeah, I could see that. But I still think the GM might be able to cover that by saying "You don't really have a clear shot available for you this turn." And you might still choose to use mobility for narrow halls, or bramble patches. Or giants. Or the tarrasque. :P
It seems to me that just because you're not keeping an exact count of steps covered or a meticulous accounting of positioning it means that you're not going to have to pass through a threatened area, or fire at somebody who's got some "soft" cover.
I guess I'm just saying that, depending on how your GM handles the "gridless" encounter, there could still be a call for those feats, and a place to apply penalties for those without.
At least I know I have. ;P
I guess I've just never had the mis/fortune to be exposed to players who switch mindsets like that. I really don't notice any difference in the RP capabilities of my players when using a grid and the few minor encounters we do from time to time where the GM says "this isn't important/long-term enough to set up a map for".
Not intending to insult your group or anything, it just boggles my mind that people can flip a switch like that just with the change of a little thing like the addition of the minis and grid.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we played for 12+ years without minis or a mat of any kind, and the addition of them is now very jarring to us. That, plus we have all been very big Chess players at different times, and so the addition of a board and "game tokens" alters our perceptions of the game from one thing to another.
But I'm afraid I wasn't talking about just my own group acting that way. I didn't form my opinion in a vacuum with only my own group to base things on. I've played through campaigns with 4 groups that used minis, at different times, and their behavior played a large part in forming my distaste for their use. Each of these groups would be reasonably immersive roleplayers during pure RP moments, some more immersive in their roleplaying than others, but usually most of the players would have distinctive characters with full personalities.
But without variation, in all 4 of these groups, the moment the mat and minis came out and combat was announced, characterization and roleplaying dropped away and all roleplaying aspects of the game were jettisoned and it became instead a game of tactical miniatures combat no different than a BattleTech match. (And I'm not knocking BattleTech, I LOVE BattleTech!!!) The changes I observed while playing with these OTHER groups was FAR more jarring than the ones that occurred in my own group. My group at least TRIED to stay in character as much as we could, but we found the mat and minis so conducive to a tactical wargaming mindset that we just couldn't help but end up playing that way. Those other groups didn't even make an attempt at anyone staying in character or treating their miniatures as anything more than game pieces. It was like they were playing two entirely different games; a roleplaying game where they talked, and a wargame where they did battle. We would all be sitting at a tavern planning an adventure into a dungeon (for an example) speaking in character, roleplaying with actual characterization, but then as soon as we left the town and set foot in the dungeon, and the minis came out, all roleplaying stopped as the group seemed to almost switch modes. And when I tried to maintain character I was given odd looks, as if they couldn't understand why I would do such a thing, as if it was no longer the appropriate time to speak in character or even portray my character's personality anymore, for now was the time to become a general and command my game token in the most optimal way possible, his personality be damned, all hail combat optimization.
It was much the same feeling I get when trying to discuss roleplaying specifics with "character optimizers", those players who want nothing out of the game but to abuse the rules and build the most obscenely powerful characters that can possibly be squeezed from the rules. Trying to discuss things like building a character's motivations or crafting a history and background for your character, asking their character's favorite color or food, or even just the name of their character's parents, was completely outside the realm of their concept of the game and something they didn't understand. To them, the game is about building super-powerful characters and having them duke it out with monsters picked at random from a book, finding treasure and going back to the nameless "town" to buy more powerful weapons and then repeat the process, and anything beyond that was totally outside of their thinking.
The rules, props, and presentation of a game have a major effect on the way the game is perceived and played. When you have a character sheet, some dice, and maybe a sketch of you character in front of you, that is the focus of the game for you and your play will be affected accordingly. Likewise, when you have a board and pieces laid out before you, your mind automatically starts focusing on those pieces and the combat map. And it has been my experience that when players' focus shifts to the "pieces" it does so to the detriment of the actual characters those pieces are supposed to represent, the pieces become more important than the actual characters, and the roleplaying elements and traits of the characters slip away as the "game tokens" become the focus of the de-characterized "combat mode" that the game becomes when the miniatures and battlemat make their entrance. Probably not intentionally or consciously, but definitely subconsciously. I've seen it happen too many times with too many different groups to not believe it.
Anyway, that's all for me in this discussion. I don't want to seem like I'm being preachy, and I don't think I'm going to sway anyone to my point of view. I just wanted to make it clear that we aren't somehow a "defective" group that is "broken" because we couldn't adequately roleplay with miniatures.
I don't want to seem like I'm being preachy, and I don't think I'm going to sway anyone to my point of view. I just wanted to make it clear that we aren't somehow a "defective" group that is "broken" because we couldn't adequately roleplay with miniatures.
That's fair. I just find the whole thing bizarre, personally.
The phrase "I move to where I have a clear shot" completely negates the need for Improved Presice Shot. "I get behind them without AoO's" negates mobility. Precise shot, maybe, but the most you'll be down is -4 since cover is never an issue if you use the phrase above.
Saying phrases doesn't negate the rules. Saying you move to get a clear shot doesn't mean you can. A clear shot will still be a factor of the scene and how the DM handles it. Same thing with flanking without AoOs. You can't just say that and assume it will happen. It all has to flow from how the scene is described.
In my experience, its much more difficult to keep track of things like actual distance needed to move to get into a position, so you are more likely to be able to say "I move into position" without dispute in a gridless game.
True, but you can have mistakes made in a gridded game that forget to take those things into account, as well. They're still part of the rules, though, and if folks are paying particular attention, map or no map, those feats can still have use. =)
I actually agree that miniatures on a grid make the game more wargamey. D&D4, for example, is so grid-focused that it barely feels like an RPG to me. Of course you can roleplay with it, but the game presents itself very much as a wargame.
Pathfinder isn't as bad, but the grid still gets me at least partially out of complete immersion. I'm looking at the tactical view and thinking tactically, instead of looking and thinking from a more immersive first person view. I'm thinking more in terms of game mechanics instead of what makes sense in-character (which is quite often at odds with game mechanics).
Every single one of my most immersive combats has been in systems without a grid. Yes, everything is more vague and less accurately defined, but that's actually more realistic from a personal perspective than the precise chess-like movement you tend to get with a grid. You respond to how your character perceives the combat, instead of what the game mechanics tell you is possible. You can still be very tactical, but to me it's more in0character tactical and less pure game mechanical tactical.
For everybody here who claims that grid combat is just as immersive as non-grid combat, do you regularly bend or ignore the combat rules because it makes more sense that way? Have you ever seriously (for more than a single session) played a gridless system? And the occasional small gridless combat in an otherwise gridded system is no comparison; you still go into the standard combat mindset for that system.
Personally, I love the Theatre of the Mind (as WotC now likes to call it). I like my combat vague and visceral and unpredictable. Sure, you need a GM and a group that you can utterly trust, whereas with a grid, the rules specify the possibilities with such precision that the GM is only really necessary to control the opposition. And at that point, it has become practically a wargame. It's GM fiat that truly opens the door to endless possibilities.
At least, that's how I feel about it, and I felt it necessary to point out that Izar Talon is definitely not alone in this. I also don't mean that grid combat is inherently bad. That can be great fun too, and there's still plenty of room for roleplay there. But in my experience, TotM really can get a lot more immersive than grid combat.