I have no problems with using miniatures and the like... my problem comes when combat in a role-playing game becomes needlessly complex.

Carefully counting movement in 5' steps, calculating line-of-sight, gauging area-of-effects and "nudging" special moves add a satisfying amount of depth to the tactics portion of combat, if you like that sort of thing.

The miniatures are there as a result of the need for visualization, not the other way around.  WotC D&D, as an example, would be rather difficult to play without miniatures handy... they're just needed to keep everything straight when all these various rule elements are interacting with one another.

Also, sometimes you just need a visual.  Even the most desriptive DMs can't always convey every single key detail of a complicated fight in an instant.  This isn't always the case though... after all, melee/ranged/magical combat can all be boiled down to very simple elements, if you so desire.

I don't like my combat to be overly tactical, I find that using a complicated ruleset contributes nothing to a game with creative players.  If anything, it will discourage immersion a bit, in the sense that they might be more inclined to "think inside the box", when the box is so clearly laid out on the table before them.  I like my combat rules to more represent my idea of combat... quick, deadly. Dramatic.  Everything happening in a blur.  All of these things are quite possible without visual aids.

DM: "He's about 20ish feet away from the lead character in the group, it's hard to say in the dark with everyone shuffling around."
Player: "The priest's blessing is still on me... I rush them!"
DM: "Heh, fearless!  Hmmm... alright, we'll say you can muscle your way past your teammates and get there in time.  Roll it."
Player:
DM: "Right in the gut, he's dead.  His partner retaliates."
DM:
DM: "His retaliation fails.  His sword hits the wall and you see a brief spark jump from it in the dark."

I see no difference between this and using a grid to count the squares to make sure that he has enough movement points to get there, and to make sure he suffers no AoO and is still within range of effect x and area-spell y.  The DM makes the call and the dice fall in literally seconds.  Works for me.

Quote from: joewolz;279727GURPS only relies on minis when you turn it up to 11.  Basic combat (i.e. sans hexes) is completely narrative based.

Very much agree with this thought.

 Many times its also a case of how a GM handles or runs combat scenes.


- Ed C.

I always thought of the minis as an extension of role-play. It was something I could do in between games. I used to love to shop for the perfect miniature to represent my character, or conversely, I would often make up a character to reflect a really cool miniature. I used to really enjoy trying to paint up the miniature for a favored character or NPC, trying to make it reflect the character as closely as possible. If I found a great monster that wasn't part of the D&D system, I would make something up to represent that monster. None of it was essential to role-play, but I remember that I and a lot of my players tended to think of the minis as an extension of the role playing just as much as a tactical game piece. Being able to say; "this is what she looks like," or "and THIS comes around the corner" was fun. To some extent we used the paint jobs as narrative devices, and this was satisfying precisely because we did do the painting outselves.

Of course this is mostly the reflections of a long time 1st edition player. Thigs are different now. The notion that minis are largely tactical representations is actually rather new to me, and I think it has a lot to do with changes in the marketing strategies of various companies, the presence of plastics and what not.

I would add that I think some of my most satisfying role playing moments have actually occured during combat. They come from situations in which part of the challenge of combat involves something a little beyond simply simply beating the enemy When characters have slightly different agendas going into a battle and the tactical options reflect that, things can get rather interesting.

E.g. a group I was running raided a brothel recently, at least partly due to information that the owner was holding several of the women against their will. Some of the characters cared about that and some didn't. I turned the game over to another player who ran it beautifully. It was a running battle with just enough danger at any given point that real fighting was always happening, but there were always a couple characters essentially free. And so a BIG part of that game was dealing with the customers and the prostitutes, trying to sort out who was a threat and who wasn't, protect the innocent, etc. The battle was an all-day affair, and the various player personalities were fully at stake the entire time.

Ah well.

I like a representational map - minis is almost a meaningless term in these debates because for some it means just actual miniatures, for others it means any type of physical representation, and some folks use the term interchangeably - because they help the GM and players get on the same page about what's happening.

I think shared expectations are vital to a game's success, whether we're talking about game concept, character concept, or what's happening in play, right now. I think a representational map helps out immensely with that.

There are many games I wouldn't want such a map for. These are games where the mechanics are such that participants are neither penalized or rewarded for tactical thinking.

But in the case where there are mechanics dealing with such things, it's nice to know where you stand (that's a pun, by the way). If you're trying to talk an NPC into a particular course of action and you think you're 5 feet away from the NPC but the GM has it in her mind that you're actually 10 feet away, you're not going to be penalized for said misunderstanding. The same thing can't be said of combat in games where there are penalties, etc.

Another thing: Combat is important to players. Most of the time, PCs don't face death during witty repartee. It isn't as if they're going to drop dead if the choose the wrong form of address. It could lead to combat or something else, but it per se isn't deadly. In combat, the stakes are high and because of that, folks really want to know where they stand...

Seanchai

I agree comabt is important to players, but I don't think the fear of death is really the main driver.  Most characters don't tend to die more than once over the course of a campaign, if that. To be honest I don't even remember the last time a character I played got killed.

But perhaps, more to the point, notice how even if the party is comfortably winning a fight, every player will want to do their bit of damage on their turn. Even if there is not real risk, the players are still fully engaged.

I think the thing about combat is that it's one of those few times in a roleplaying game player feel thay have control. I most other activities in a game you kind of rely on the GM interpretation of your action to get a result. In combat, if you hit you know you get to roll that 1d8+2 damage, and it would take a very brave GM to say "Don't roll damage, I think you did 3 points damage this round." But that is actually how a lot of skill systems work. The player rolls dice for a skill and the GM says "I think this happens now."

Quote from: estar;279679I see a lot of statement like this about 4th edition

Quote from: kogi.kaishakuninSIGH... 4th ed is stuck in a box. It is so heavily geared toward mini's that the amazingly balanced well thought out rules stymies creative off the cuff roleplay moments.

The question is this is true of any RPG that treats their combat system like a tactical wargame. GURPS, Harnmaster, Dragonquest (SPI), Fantasy Trip are some of the few which have their combat system as RPGs.

Note I can understand if you don't prefer this approach. It perfectly fine as a matter of taste to like a less complicated rules system. However is it a truism that it automatically  makes roleplaying more difficult.

If it doesn't then what that says about the 4 edition RULES discouraging role-playing.

Tactical role play wargaming is only role playing in so far as it is both representative of what actually happens in the field and participants act out the roles.  The screed against 4E D&D is that its combat system is too abstract to be called role play.  This is not to say participants may not act out the role of combatant in a fantasy world.  But it is saying the game is no longer representative enough of combat to qualify the decision making by the participants as role playing.  (obviously they are not physically acting out the roles, just the verbal and decision making aspects).

Combats that are all about manipulating the game mechanics and character abilities tend to break the immersion for my group. The more we look at rules in the books, numbers on the PC sheet, and see the battlefield in game terms, the harder it is to stay immersed in the game world. And if we're not immersed in the game world, it's tough to roleplay.

With miniatures, a grid, and grid-derived mechanics, combats tend to take so long that they feel more like a boardgame than an real-time imaginary movie in our heads.

A contributing factor to the matter is that the common player takes a literal view of thing.  If you say "I strike him with my sword.", then the common player imagines a single swing--as if one used a baseball bat--at the target; he then turns around and interprets this as being represented by that attack roll.  One attack roll equals one simple swing with a melee weapon, or one shot with a ranged weapon, and either you hit or you whiff.  Complicating the matter is that there is no benefit, commonly, for doing more than that; if the literal swing of a sword gets the same attack roll as the flowery description of gripping the blade in a half-sword manner and stabbing his target (something else that most gamers do not know to be possible), then they won't bother trying- this is the origin of the 3.0 (and later) trend of codifying combat maneuvers by way of Feats (and later, Martial Manuevers).

Quote from: estar;279679I see a lot of statement like this about 4th edition

The question is this is true of any RPG that treats their combat system like a tactical wargame. GURPS, Harnmaster, Dragonquest (SPI), Fantasy Trip are some of the few which have their combat system as RPGs.

Note I can understand if you don't prefer this approach. It perfectly fine as a matter of taste to like a less complicated rules system. However is it a truism that it automatically  makes roleplaying more difficult.

If it doesn't then what that says about the 4 edition RULES discouraging role-playing.

Total bullshit on every level.  Everyone needs to get over the old elitist lie that only rules light/ruleless games allow "true role playing."

Quote from: Gabriel2;280273Total bullshit on every level.  Everyone needs to get over the old elitist lie that only rules light/ruleless games allow "true role playing."

Damn it! I dropped a word

Note I can understand if you don't prefer this approach. It perfectly fine as a matter of taste to like a less complicated rules system. However is it a NOT truism that it automatically makes roleplaying more difficult.

Quote from: howandwhy99;280255The screed against 4E D&D is that its combat system is too abstract to be called role play.  

To abstract? I don't know what people are looking at as it is highly descriptive. I understand if the objection that it plays like a wuxia film all the time. (The kind where they leap in the air and stuff like that). But it is not abstract in the least.

Quote from: Soylent Green;279723I understand the idea of realism as a goal because it provides a common term of reference.

Not really, because people just argue about what's "realistic". Plus, you know, truth is stranger than fiction and all that. Stuff both good and bad or just plain weird happens in real life which if it were presented in a movie or rpg we'd say, "that's bullshit!"

I like to avoid those moments where everyone at the game table thinks it's stupid, so I never say my campaigns are "realistic". The themes may be realistic, but individual actions, some particular swing of a sword or hacking into a computer won't be.

Quote from: Soylent GreenBut in actual fact, when it come to me, I've never been in combat, neither have my players.

And even if you had, you'd still argue about what was "realistic". I once had two players who were IT professionals. One said "I hack into the GSM network so I can listen in to his mobile calls." The other said, "er, I don't think you can do that." Me, I wouldn't have a clue - but two professional guys who should have a clue had opposite opinions. In the end I said, "well, it's big corporation with billions of dollars and teams of highly-skilled people and the latest equipment and years to prepare vs one competent guy with a laptop and an afternoon. The odds are against you, roll the dice."

So I never aim for realistic, I aim for reasonable or plausible. Sometimes minis can help that, since they help us see things, sometimes they make it like a wargame and it all seems rather abstract. It's hard to feel the sweat and fear of a lethal combat when you're counting movement points. Balance.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279771I agree, that this is basically true, regardless of what game or edition you're talking about [...]

I don't think 4e is any more or less likely to resolve the "I rolled a 17" syndrome.

I don't know about D&D4e, but in GURPS 4e it's all so complicated that almost none of the players know all the rules, so they end up just describing what their character does, the GM tells them to roll and then describes the results. Excessively complex rules enhance roleplaying, how's that for a paradox?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;281120I don't know about D&D4e, but in GURPS 4e it's all so complicated that almost none of the players know all the rules, so they end up just describing what their character does, the GM tells them to roll and then describes the results. Excessively complex rules enhance roleplaying, how's that for a paradox?

I suspect that it might just be that none of your "cheetoh" players are keeners.
Usually, in a group you'll have a couple of people who'll do what you say above, and those will be the ones who's characters will never get much of the spotlight or will tend to fail in what they attempt.

Then you get the rain-man mega-nerds who've meticulously studied every last paragraph of the 2500 pages of GURPS rules (and for GURPS, read "shadowrun" or "D&D" or "Champions" or whatever), know every loophole, know how to twist and warp the spirit of the rules by sticking to the letter of the rules so that their characters suddenly have superpowers in a non-supers campaign, and end up shitting all over both the emulation of genre, immersion, and everyone elses fun all to get to be Mr. Wins-the-battle.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;281175I suspect that it might just be that none of your "cheetoh" players are keeners.

Some are, it's just that they're usually quite bad at it.

Speaking to other GMs, it seems that D&D is the only game which people regularly try to know most of the rules of. So if you don't play or run that then you're much less likely to have rules be very important. And if you do want rules to be important your best bet is to run D&D.

Quote from: RPGPunditUsually, in a group you'll have a couple of people who'll do what you say above, and those will be the ones who's characters will never get much of the spotlight or will tend to fail in what they attempt.

Not really. The tendency to obsession with rules or indifference to them seems to be a separate thing to how active, reactive or passive a player is during the session.

As for their regular failure, my impression is that you're imagining that players create characters by themselves without talking to a helpful GM. I can't see any other reason except GM spite for their characters tending to fail in what they attempt. If a player says, "I want a character who is really good at X," then the GM ought to be able to walk them through the rules quickly enough that they won't remember them, but slowly enough that they get the sort of character they like. Broadsword 90% is Broadsword 90%, whether it's a player ignorant of the rules or obsessed by them.

Quote from: RPGPunditThen you get the rain-man mega-nerds who've meticulously studied every last paragraph of the 2500 pages of GURPS rules (and for GURPS, read "shadowrun" or "D&D" or "Champions" or whatever), know every loophole, know how to twist and warp the spirit of the rules by sticking to the letter of the rules so that their characters suddenly have superpowers in a non-supers campaign, and end up shitting all over both the emulation of genre, immersion, and everyone elses fun all to get to be Mr. Wins-the-battle.

Yes, there's one of those in my friend's GURPS group. He's less a rules lawyer and more a rules rapist. The campaign is mostly but not entirely dominated by his fucked-up character doing fucked-up things, and he is frequently heard to say, "but I'm just playing in character!"

He tried that shit in an AD&D game of mine and I slapped him down, quoting another rule at him - he didn't try it again. The problem in the GURPS group is that he knows the rules better than the GM. So he never gets the slapdown he needs, and runs roughshod over the events of the session.

Minis might help them a bit. It tends to restrict what your character can see and do. But I s'pose then he'd just read the tactical rpg chapter which is basically designed for minis, and rape those rules, too.

But anyway that's not what most players are like. Most are pretty slack about learning rules, except for some reason D&D. Perhaps it's a cost-benefit thing - HarnMaster or GURPS or Qin or whatever they only expect to play for a few months, D&D they could play any time for decades ahead.