Quote from: One Horse Town;544588The other side of the coin is people who want character immersion. For those folk, i'm sure eyeballing positions, distances etc based on the character-eye view is appreciated.

Not all by any means.

For many the DM can't give them information by simple description, a picture being worth a thousand words and all. And the lack of consistency in pure description can blown immersion easily.

For some, maps and minis are more immersive.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544502I play without maps or minies most of the time and experience no problems with immersion or realism. YMMV. On the othe hand, i can still enjoy a game with miniatures and deep rules. If by mother may I you mean we expect the GM to present the world as our character's see it and make logical, consistent judgments about what occurs within that framework based on what we do, then yes I suppose I am playing mother may I. The GM applies the broad guidelines of the rules of course which isn't as hard or impossible to do consistently as you suggest ImO. But again YMMV.

This speaks for me as well.

Quote from: Benoist;544591Well good luck with that. You might need some psychological help, though.

To be clear, I don't mind whether you like it better with miniatures or whatnot. It's when you start making completely stupid statements like this that you're going out of the reservation and really sound like a total idiot who can't take his head out of his ass. People have been playing RPGs without miniatures for more than thirty years. It goes great for a great many of them, some of them here on this thread telling you they feel like they had accurate information and a good communication with their DMs, explaining to you how that works for them and all. And you're basically telling them they can't possibly have had any idea what they were doing that way. This is really dumb.

People are prone to poor judgement. They are really bad with numbers and games like D&D are in the end about numbers. This is a fact that any psy 101 course will cover.

Of course it doesn't mean that you and others don't enjoy themselves, of course you (and they) do. It doesn't mean that such games can't 'work'.

What it does mean is that you don't have a high ground when other people say it doesn't work for them.

Quote from: gleichman;544595Not all by any means.

For many the DM can't give them information by simple description, a picture being worth a thousand words and all. And the lack of consistency in pure description can blown immersion easily.

For some, maps and minis are more immersive.

I don't really disagree with you - i do both. I'm more than happy to eye-ball combats with less than a dozen combatants (both as DM and player), but get the grid out when we come to larger conflicts.

Proper maps also help greatly when your thief/rogue/whatever has scouted out an area and you're planning an attack - it's just a real-world representation of your PCs drawing in the sand with a stick after all.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544530it depends on the test. I must admit I doubt your ability to test fairly or accurately on this subject.

As do I. Of course I'm sure that means there's something wrong with me rather than gleichman, but luckily I can live with that.

Quote from: gleichman;544587You said it,  "And given that the GM arbitrarily sets that footage" yourself.

Does the GM not set the starting location of foes? It may be based on what the opponents were likely doing when the PCs busted in on them (or whatever) but that doesn't mean that no arbitration has taken place. The GM also decides movement on behalf of the NPCs based on what he finds plausible. No arbitration there either, I take it?

Remember that I'm not the one arguing that arbitration is bad. I'm the one arguing that it's necessary somewhere down the line whether you like it or not. Even if your rules are so airtight that there's no arbitration once the rubber hits the road, you still prepped the game.

Quote from: gleichman;544598People are prone to poor judgement. (...)

What it does mean is that you don't have a high ground when other people say it doesn't work for them.

You are telling me that hundreds of thousands, more likely millions, of people 'might' have had fun playing RPGs without grids and minis because after all, they have poor judgement and are bad with numbers, to then complain about me pretending to have the high ground? Dude, that's irony right here.

PS: Oh and by the way, claiming that D&D is in the end about numbers is completely missing the point of playing a role playing game IMO. The point is the make believe, the worlds of your imagination. It's not the number crunching, and I'm pretty sure a great majority of gamers would agree with me on that.

Quote from: beejazz;544605Does the GM not set the starting location of foes? .

It's not the starting locations that are the most interest (although they are of some certainly), but the locations thereafter and the consistency of location throughout.

Those (for simulation style play) cannot be arbitrary

Quote from: Benoist;544606You are telling me that hundreds of thousands, more likely millions, of people 'might' have had fun playing RPGs without grids and minis because after all, they have poor judgement to then complain about me pretending to have the high ground? Dude, that's irony right here.

Dude, everyone has poor judgement. It's part of the human condition. That's why we should always check our judgement against objective fact.

Basically, you think too much of yourself to ever stop and do that.

Quote from: gleichman;544539It's simple.


I describe the current state (i.e. position) at the beginning of a combat round for a game that uses range and line of sight rules (i.e. D&D in all in flavors and many others beside).

From there I describe the positions in what is mostly relative terms.

Example:

- PC Bob is at the center of the combat area, North is defined so that the directions in terms of angles can be given...

- Orc A is 45' away at an angle of 40 degrees from PC Bob.

- PC Tom is 50' south of PC Bob, at an angle of 170 degrees

- Orc B is 75' due west of Orc C

- A 4 meter diameter boulder 2 meters in height lies 20' to the west of PC Bob at an angle of 310 degrees. The 20' distance mark is the center of the boulder.


From there I ask some basic questions that can be answered nearly instantly with maps and minis- you attempt to answer nearly instantly without the use of maps and minis (no more than a few seconds per question). The answer must be accuracte (i.e. to the closest degree and meter) and complete.

Then I tell you how some of the PCs and Orcs move, and give another set of questions to be answered again.

The last time I offered this test here, no one would take it.

That's because this level of detail is not required to simulate combat. Some folks like a higher level of detail, myself included, but I have played a great many combats out where this level of detail was not even remotely attemtped, but I and apparently my fellow players had no trouble at all visualizing and enjoying the combat as played out. By insisting on this level of detail to define "simulation" you are creating a situation where you can easily prove your "subject" in this biased and flawed :"test" of yours to have "failed". How about this, present why the angles and exact, to the foot, ranges are required for a combat to be considered a simulation. Present why you think a further level of abstraction disqualifies a system from simulation.

You find no takers because we're not idiots to be sucked in by your shell game here, which starts as your presenting yourself as some sort of expert who's qualified to judge whether any system anyone else uses can be considered "simulation" or not, which is my first challenge to you. First prove to me why I should even trust your judgement over the judgement of friends and people I know and game with. You wanna talk "tests", there's one for ya.

Quote from: gleichman;544598People are prone to poor judgement. They are really bad with numbers and games like D&D are in the end about numbers. This is a fact that any psy 101 course will cover.

Of course it doesn't mean that you and others don't enjoy themselves, of course you (and they) do. It doesn't mean that such games can't 'work'.

What it does mean is that you don't have a high ground when other people say it doesn't work for them.

Gleichman this debate arose not because any of us said battlemaps were bad or that deep rules were bad, it arose because you derided attempts to play without battle mats or using rules light as mother may i, doomed to break immersion and realism. I am fine with people using miniatures and in depth rules. This is just a preference issue.

Quote from: gleichman;544610Basically, you think too much of yourself to ever stop and do that.

And when you say retarded stuff such as "D&D is all about numbers in the end", you are not self-centered at all, I suppose. Ask gamers out there what they think games like D&D and RPGs in general are about. I bet you they are going to tell you "let's pretend", the "make believe", pretending to be someone else, escapism, creativity... the worlds of our imaginations. Not "the numbers." Are they wrong? Well I sure think not. And I think you are taking yourself WAY too seriously, and considering yourself on top of a high ground you certainly do not hold, when you are claiming these people are deluded.

Quote from: gleichman;544608It's not the starting locations that are the most interest (although they are of some certainly), but the locations thereafter and the consistency of location throughout.

Those (for simulation style play) cannot be arbitrary

For context, in the rules I use, footage doesn't matter because things just aren't measured on such a small scale. A fireball hits a group of people, and a group of people is itself treated as if that were the unit of measure. You engage in melee, you're in the group that includes the target you engaged, and so on. Feet don't matter in a game measured in zones, groups, and landmarks for about the same reason that inches don't matter in a game measured in feet. And the zone based rules I'm discussing are more or less just a concrete expression of the way "abstract" movement is typically handled (IME, YMMV, etc.)

My experiences may of course be skewed by my habit of introducing new gamers, but new blood is kind of crucial to appeal to if the hobby is to survive.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544613Gleichman this debate arose not because any of us said battlemaps were bad or that deep rules were bad, it arose because you derided attempts to play without battle mats or using rules light as mother may i, doomed to break immersion and realism. I am fine with people using miniatures and in depth rules. This is just a preference issue.

That is not was caused this debate to arise.

What cause this debate to arise was the majority of this board rejecting the idea the 'mother may i' style gaming could be a real and a rational problem to some play styles.

Instead of say "yeah, that would be bad for you" or "could you explain why that's the case?", it replied with "social retard' and other ad hominem attacks.

That is what caused this debate to arise.

Quote from: beejazz;544615For context, in the rules I use

I should note that rules you use are not something I'm aware of. Thus examples from there are meaningless to me.