Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;985733I groan.

You don't say?

Quote from: Bren;985722You don't have (nor does anyone else have) anywhere near enough data to draw that conclusion.

Theres a question mark at the end of the sentence, hence it was more of a question than statement.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;985733Theater of the Mind.

I've reached the point that when the referee gets out the map/grid and figures/counter, I groan.  TFT is okay with one or two PCs but with a large group,  you're done for the night once that damned grid comes out.

I like combat to be PART of the experience, not a totally separate event.

Im right with you. Playing a tactical miniatures game can be fun but I dont like it mixing with my RP. Keep the action in my head and not on the table in front of me for sure.

I have done both, and also a hybrid using minis or markers on a free form table.

My preferences are using Theatre of the Mind or tokens to show relative positions but no measuring.

The one exception is for Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok in which combat is played on a hex grid with rules that actually make it fun. Sort of a miniatures skirmish game, but also engaging roleplaying elements.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;985733Theater of the Mind.

I've reached the point that when the referee gets out the map/grid and figures/counter, I groan.  TFT is okay with one or two PCs but with a large group,  you're done for the night once that damned grid comes out.

I like combat to be PART of the experience, not a totally separate event.

I gotten pretty quick at it. The trick is to keep the setup within the time you take to verbally describe the area. Using the miniatures and grid to reinforce what you are describing. Don't try to set it everything out to the Nth degree but enough to serve as a reminder where the major details are. For example I have a scribe desk with scrolls and stuff. It rarely exactly like the miniature but it a useful reminder to the players that "Hey there is a desk with scroll and shit on it.".

Also I am not into movement points. The grid is a quick measurement tool, and it still begins with the players describe what he wants to do. The miniature is a reminder to me that I heard the player correctly and to the party as an aspect of situational awareness.

If using the stuff is bogging the game down the referee needs to rethink his technique and organization. It will never be as fast as theater of the mind but it doesn't need to be a slog either.

Ok, so some things I like about using miniatures or tokens/counters:

It's easy to see and manipulate marching order.

It can be used to give a quick idea of how things are laid out. At this level, it can be used with mostly theater of the mind combat, but we have a rough idea of who is where without asking questions every time someone's turn is up. This is the level I used when I played OD&D face to face. I would lay out a pencil or two on the table (no grid) to show walls and doorways.

While there are games where theater of the mind works and is fun, I also enjoy games where there is a more tactical combat. Of the games I played any great amount, D&D 3.x was the most rigid. It was fun, but did become too much. I have also enjoyed games that weren't so rigid, we would still count hexes/squares for movement, but things like attacks of opportunity and flanking were not so rigidly handled. The latter is how I play RuneQuest 2. In these games, combat may still take a while, but with players who enjoy it, it's fun. In those games, there are typically only a few combats in a session (depending on session length), and in those games, I don't do things like mega-dungeons, those would be too much of a drag with 1-4 combats per session (in some of them also, characters are a lot more fragile, so one good combat may be all a party can handle without a retreat to camp for rest and healing).

These days, especially with almost all of my gaming being play by post, theater of the mind rules. I may never get to play those tactical games again... (sadly, my favorite from college is not only very tactical in combat, but also very strategic in choosing how to spend treasure to acquire a good mix of mostly potions and other limited use magic - casual players just don't seem to be committed to the exercise).

Frank

Quote from: AsenRG;985711I'm sure they could, but for most people they seem to have the opposite effect?

I like Big Andy's and Chirine Be Kal's responses on this. But, judging from this thread, I think you're partially right, but I wonder if that's dependent on how the minis are used.

Looking at other threads, most of the old-style players and GMs seem to like strategy and tactics type play, but then in this thread complain about that type of play using minis. So it may be it isn't just the presence of minis, but how the minis create "too much meta-gaming" and convert a roll/role-playing game into a wargame.

The most "tactical" we get with minis is checking range and movement. (And we use hex/grid, so there is no measuring tape involved.) So the minis are 90% there to remind people how many bad guys there are. Minis certainly don't slow down our game, since the time spent physically moving the mini replaces the time spent asking "can I move to be close enough to hit the bad guy". But our game doesn't really consider strategy or tactics -- and my players will role-play even in combat, which is fun.

Quote from: Tod13;985922I like Big Andy's and Chirine Be Kal's responses on this. But, judging from this thread, I think you're partially right, but I wonder if that's dependent on how the minis are used.

Looking at other threads, most of the old-style players and GMs seem to like strategy and tactics type play, but then in this thread complain about that type of play using minis. So it may be it isn't just the presence of minis, but how the minis create "too much meta-gaming" and convert a roll/role-playing game into a wargame.

It is interesting that those who got into the game from wargaming don't seem to want to keep that aspect in the game. I suppose for them, if they wanted to do that part of it, they'd be doing a wargame.

QuoteThe most "tactical" we get with minis is checking range and movement. (And we use hex/grid, so there is no measuring tape involved.) So the minis are 90% there to remind people how many bad guys there are. Minis certainly don't slow down our game, since the time spent physically moving the mini replaces the time spent asking "can I move to be close enough to hit the bad guy". But our game doesn't really consider strategy or tactics -- and my players will role-play even in combat, which is fun.

My D&D group, OTOH, are trying to do tactics. We are playing the party with a shield wall of hirelings between the wizard and the enemy and adapting to terrain and doing skirmishing or setting up choke points and all the 'real life strategy' we can pull out of the game... ...until you ask to measure distance. We use minis (or more often dice) to set up relative position, but grids and tape measures don't come out. S/M/L range for the javelin crew is whatever looks like it would be S/M/L range. As my DM says, "it's not like the initial setup I'm giving you was designed down to 3-4 significant digits, so if you are diligently measuring the distance between you and your enemies in 5' increments when I know you are 'somewhere between 100 and 120 feat apart,' you're inventing false precision."

Quote from: Willie the Duck;985932
S/M/L range for the javelin crew is whatever looks like it would be S/M/L range. As my DM says, "it's not like the initial setup I'm giving you was designed down to 3-4 significant digits, so if you are diligently measuring the distance between you and your enemies in 5' increments when I know you are 'somewhere between 100 and 120 feat apart,' you're inventing false precision."

I probably should have mentioned that in our homebrew, we have a max range for magic or missile weapons that is based on character level. So, it is pretty binary. :-)

Huh. Not only do I not find mapped combat slow (once the GM knows the rules, and requires players to say what they do right away when it's their turn), and find that it pulls me into my character's position to be on the map, and makes me feel excluded/dissociated to not be able to see the map during combat, but I have also seen using counter placements outside combat draw players into a situation and to do interesting things that wouldn't happen if they didn't have a counter showing where they were at the moment.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;985932It is interesting that those who got into the game from wargaming don't seem to want to keep that aspect in the game. I suppose for them, if they wanted to do that part of it, they'd be doing a wargame.

I came in from wargaming, so maybe yes.

I think part of it for us is that the majority of the group has no wargaming experience (or inclinations), and tend to be the types that never quite learn all the nuances of the rules.  They need the GM or one of the other players to somewhat interpret the grid for them, beyond the obvious rough positioning aspects.   If the player has to ask, "Can I do X?" then the grid isn't helping all that much, but still has the other costs (setup and imagination issues).  

Of course, it might be that if we used the grid more, that over time these players would learn.  Past history doesn't seem to suggest they would, at least not at any discernible speed.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;985984Of course, it might be that if we used the grid more, that over time these players would learn.  Past history doesn't seem to suggest they would, at least not at any discernible speed.

It helps when the referee acts as a mentor and a teacher rather than looking for gotchas. My basic trick with this is have the player describe first and then worry about the moving the piece second (or roll for that matter). The experienced players will just reach out and move the mini himself. For those unsure or new to how I use minis and maps, after they are done, I move their miniature for them. Then politely ask for confirmation. Then move on the next player.

It helps to be causal about using the grid as well. There are times when I will count hexes/squares precisely but that for situations where the PCs are racing the clock and every second counts. Other wise I eyeball it and if it looks right, the miniature is moved and that is that.

Quote from: estar;985986It helps when the referee acts as a mentor and a teacher rather than looking for gotchas. My basic trick with this is have the player describe first and then worry about the moving the piece second (or roll for that matter). The experienced players will just reach out and move the mini himself. For those unsure or new to how I use minis and maps, after they are done, I move their miniature for them. Then politely ask for confirmation. Then move on the next player. ...

I do something like this, too, and find I can have even children and players with no rules knowledge fighting as effectively as their characters should. If they move or act in a way I think their character would understand has problems, I explain that to them and modify the details of the move to suit, unless they say they want to do it that way anyway. Even without learning the rules, most players I've done this with have tended to learn how to move and act pretty well in combat by watching what happens and from how I describe what happens.

I don't narrate actions in rules and numbers, as much as I can avoid it. That is, I don't say "Orc 7 takes the All-Out-Attack maneuver and sidesteps two hexes and does an attack for +2 damage, but rolls a 12 which misses with the -3 penalty for running over those dead bodies during the attack." Instead I put my hand on the orc's counter and  might say something like "The hairy orc roars and charges maniacally with his axe, putting all his weight into a swing at Budrik, but he stumbles a bit on Grom's body, misses, and seems to be unready to defend himself at the moment."

Quote from: estar;985986It helps when the referee acts as a mentor and a teacher rather than looking for gotchas. My basic trick with this is have the player describe first and then worry about the moving the piece second (or roll for that matter). The experienced players will just reach out and move the mini himself. For those unsure or new to how I use minis and maps, after they are done, I move their miniature for them. Then politely ask for confirmation. Then move on the next player.

That has been my approach to teaching systems since I first started as a teen.  It was very effective with my first group in high school, and worked more or less as you have suggested.  For most rules, it does work great.  Some of the current players, for a few tactical grid things, not so much.  We are hitting our 30 year mark this fall (albeit playing different systems over that time), and there are some tactical aspects of rules in any system that simply will not stick, no matter what I do.  And it is very much a rules thing, too.  

For example, if one of them is playing a lightly-armored archer, then they get the idea that avoiding melee is a good idea in most situations.  If they've got a burly friend, they'll say, "Hang back about 50 feet from Joe and start shooting."  If I tell them an orc is edging around the flank to try to get at them, they'll react intelligently.  Put them on a grid, and it's as if that part of their brain simply turns off.  That orc can execute the same plan, and I still need to explicitly say that it is rounding the flank with blood in its eyes for the light bulb to even flicker.  

For a long time I fought it, until finally I just accepted it.  Reminds me of a high school kid I tutored in college.  She was well ahead in almost all high school math, nailing the complicated parts of trigonometry, but had a blind spot about certain basics in geometry that were killing her ability to get the right answer.  

At least it makes switching from the grid, then off, then back again a trivial exercise.  I've made a virtue out of necessity there.