I dislike using miniatures in games, but I understand the desire for greater depth and description in combat.  This is one of the good things about the ICE games (MERP/Rolemaster2e/HARP) IMO, despite the charts.  They don't rely on miniatures, yet give players important tactical decisions to make during the game.  And the critical results can be extremely vivid!

:raise: Huh. Keep in mind I'm gonna talk 2nd edition here, but...have you played an oWoD game with all the options on?

W:tA had a shitload of combat options (including rules for minis) in the core alone, plus the later introduction of Klaive Dueling rules in the Player's - which fucking rocked on toast for Storyteller combat rules. I think Vampire packed all its good combat shit into the Player's guide too. I find your assertion there's nothing to the system for tactical options to be misleading. Fuck, they released a general oWoD sourcebook called Combat. IMXP, there were more tactical options in a Storyteller game than a 2e AD&D game, before Combat & Tactics hit.

That said, your GM has got to be ON to spin a good fight scene out of those massive hand-cramping dice-offs. If you let the description drag, it'll be one of the most boring combats ever played.

I agree with you RedFox.  I like the GAME part of role playing game as much as the ROLE part.  I just wish mini haters would agree to live and let live on this.  I never go around saying "you must play with miniatures or you're a dumbass", but I constantly hear people imply that there is something wrong with you if you like miniatures, or bitching about how certain games employ them.  If you don't like minis in an optional RPG, don't use them.  If you think D&D sucks because it's too miniature friendly...play something else.  I don't understand where all the hate comes from, really.

I never used minis before I got into Warhammer Fantasy Battles (in an 8 year period I played WFB almost exclusively).  I returned to role playing when D&D 3.5 came out.  Coincidentally, it put some emphasis on using miniatures and tactical combat.  It was the missing element for me, since, as a kid I never really understood how the whole miniature thing worked (and the fact that I didn't actually have any miniatures didn't help).  D&D 3.0 did a service IMHO in teaching us how miniatures were supposed to be used in the first place.  Really, D&D was always a miniature game, just look at the old rulebooks.  The use of miniatures was just explained very poorly, but most of the same rules are there, ranges, movement, positioning...and I hate to open up this can of worms, but, from a tactical miniature point of view AoO really went a long way to clearing up a lot of "can I do this" questions when it comes to using miniatures.

P.S.  I don't think it was my D&D 4th thread?

CA - with all due respect, I wasn't the one who brought up D&D.  I was responding to your comments in the OP.

So I was just kinda saying that even with those stupid little figures on the table (and let me tell you from someone coming back to the game after a long hiatus, 3.5 was a bit of a shock in the specificity of the mini aspect), we were still able to pull off both deep tactical play and role play.

But I digress - you are right, CA, that this isn't about D&D; though to leave it out completely might be as glaring as only talking about it.

Quote from: Christmas ApeI find, personally, that D&D in its 3.5 incarnation does very little of that for me. I find the rules fiddly and riddled with exception-based sub-rules, and the general use of AoOs tends to prevent fun combat options rather than encourage them. Minis are yet worse for this; by the time you get the battle map out, find the minis you want or need, set up terrain, and arrange everything, half the group is pouring through a new sourcebook and the other half has forgotten precisely why (or who!) they're fighting. I consider it an excellent game that totally fails to work for me or my group as it was intended to be played.

Obviously, individual mileage will vary.

This was largely our experience.  On one hand, if we didn't use the figures, D&D 3/.5 combat felt really "off", especially when factoring in AoOs, some of the feats, etc...

But with the minis, while combat worked a little better, the payoff wasn't worth it after stopping, getting minis, laying out the battlefield, etc.

What the tactical element of positioning of miniature-based play seems to add is an actual challenge of skill for the player, rather than just rolling dice and comparing the result to a table or target number or whatever. A game where you had to describe things in detail to recieve a mechanical bonus might pose a similar kind of challenge (Wushu does something like this, for example) as would one where you essentially treat combat or challenge-resolution as a kind of minigame where the actual combat is abstracted into actions in the minigame. The minigame might be a resource management system, a card game, or whatever you liked. The challenge of skill for the player is important to keeping the player's attention on what's going on, since simply rolling and saying "I get a 9. That hits, and I do... 5 damage. I punch him in the face and he pukes and cries," isn't really that engaging.

Quote from: grubmanI agree with you RedFox.  I like the GAME part of role playing game as much as the ROLE part.

I'm another of yours. I like both the roleplaying part and the game part of roleplaying game.

QuoteI just wish mini haters would agree to live and let live on this.  I never go around saying "you must play with miniatures or you're a dumbass", but I constantly hear people imply that there is something wrong with you if you like miniatures, or bitching about how certain games employ them.  If you don't like minis in an optional RPG, don't use them.  If you think D&D sucks because it's too miniature friendly...play something else.  I don't understand where all the hate comes from, really.

My problem with boards and minis is that there are certain rules in certain games that only make sense if you use them with minis and boards, but should make sense without them.

I'll cite as an example a game I like (GURPS) instead of a game I don't like (D&D), so I'm not accused of D&D-hater. GURPS has rules for weapon lengths (a sword is longer than a dagger, so using a sword is better), but those rules only make sense if you use boards and minis. If you don't use them, no weapon lengths. And I want rules for weapon lengths (as in The Riddle of Steel, Burning Wheel and Ars Magica 4th), but without the board and the minis, dammit!

Other than that, you're right. I can understand the dislike, but not the hate.

Quote from: Tommy BrownellThis was largely our experience.  On one hand, if we didn't use the figures, D&D 3/.5 combat felt really "off", especially when factoring in AoOs, some of the feats, etc...

But with the minis, while combat worked a little better, the payoff wasn't worth it after stopping, getting minis, laying out the battlefield, etc.

See, my group found that to be rather easily solved by simply having this stuff ready before the game.  

Usually the first thing the GM did before the game actually started, was getting out the minis necessary for each of the evening's encounters, and PC minis were always ready and either individually kept with each of our charsheets, or in a special box of their own for easy location.

The map board was just a wet erase mat.  If there was an especialyl complex layout planned, the GM would draw it out before hand, otherwise, it was just a matter of drawing some quick lines.  

Really not that difficult.  You wouldn't wait until half an hour into the game to actually write up your PC, and sure as hell most GMs are more than familiar with prepping all kinds of things before a game, so really I don't see what the problem is.

Quote from: Claudius... My problem with boards and minis is that there are certain rules in certain games that only make sense if you use them with minis and boards, but should make sense without them...

:ditto:

I have no problem with people who prefer playing their games with minis.  I just don't care for them myself, and prefer to play without them.  Thus it grates on me when a rules system assumes that minis will be used.

Also, there are ways to give players meaningful tactical options and/or descriptive combat without minis.

Quote from: Christmas ApeI require it to be fast, fun to play with, and encourage variety in tactical thinking.

I listen with bated breath. This is exactly what I would like to explore. I've been thinking about it a lot recently, almost to the point of trying to design my own system for it.

D&D has a lot of fun in its tactical options, but I'm not quite satisfied with it. it is very miniatures-based, which is one of those "cool if you like that sort of thing" deals. Most folks I've played with eschew the grid 9 times out of 10, which annoys me to no end when I want to know how many Owlbears I can catch in my Lightning Bolt spell. it seems like D&D without a grid ends up either a simple "I attack/he attacks," bit of pattycake, or else hampers the cool tactical options when they do come up. I'd really like to play more D&D with the grid. I call that "playing the game as it was designed."

However, I would love a game with gridless, but meaningfully tactical, combat. I don't think D&D is the source for it. I mean obviously, it's explicitly designed for the minis, and I find that their philosophy of "list all the possible maneuvers to create a big menu" approach is somewhat unsatisfying. What I'd like is a system of elegant simplicity that yields itself to a plethora of tactical variations.

What I came up with is a shameless theft of Vince Baker's Mechaton. (I started explaining it, but got pretty involved, so I moved it to its own thread. Short version: three pools, Attack, Defense, and Maneuver. You've got X number of dice that you can assign to the different pools, weighting resources toward the aspect of the fight you value.) Sounds like Burning Wheel, Fate, Agon and Riddle of Steel are being advanced as games that handle this concept interestingly. Anyone care to elaborate?

Peace,
-Joel

Quote from: DeadUematsuI like tactical combat but, for me, I do not think it's important. What I prefer to see in combat is a measurable progression that it is going somewhere on a round-by-round basis.

Could you please explain what you mean by this? I'm a bit in the dark here. What kind of "meansurable progression" are you talking about here? Where is the "somewhere" it should be going? If you simply mean the progression caused by repeated attack rolls and depletion of hitpoints, fine, but in that case I wonder why you made special note of it. It's kind of like saying "you know what I like in trees? Leaves." Y'know?

Peace,
-Joel

I don't use minis an awful lot, but i find that sometimes it's almost impossible to run a combat without them, whatever system i'm using. It's all about visualisation for me. Up against 6 Orc warriors, 3 archers and a shaman?

Non-mini scenario

PC 1: I charge into the Orcs' front line. How far is that?
GM: About 20 feet.
PC 1: Ok, i go for the right edge. That's nearer the shamen right?
GM: No, the shamen is at the back behind the front line
PC 1: Ah, right. Hey, PC 2, can you fire some arrows at the front line, while i try to skirt around them?
PC 2: Yep ok
PC 3: My Rogue tries to sneak towards an archer. Where are they again?
GM : 2 are flanking the warriors, one is guarding the shamen.
PC 1: Oh. The shamen isn't alone? OK. Perhaps we should go frontal assualt and let the wizard take the shamen then. Wiz?
PC 4: Um, can i see them clearly?
GM: They have cover behind the warriors.
PC 4: Bugger! um...

10 minutes later....right, we attack!
PC 1: Where are the archers again?

Mini scenario

GM (laying figures on the table): OK, these 6 orc warriors are shielding a shamen and archer and these two archers flank them. Place your figures about twenty feet away. What do you do?
PCs (a couple of minutes later): Right, we do this...

I might just be forgetful and have a forgetful group, but that sort of scenario happens a lot in larger fights. Minis speed things up in my experience, not slow things down. YMMV.

James - Man, I know I started on D&D...I was more continuing my thought from the other thread than anything when I posted that. I believe 100% that for some people, it's golden. I recall Kasumi over at tBP talking about his experience with minis and immersion; to whit, being more than a little concerned when the GM laid that Colossal Red Dragon on the table next to their tiny (in comparison) human minis. I get where that would work for a lot of people. Not for my group.

I figured I'd veer it away from D&D in the early stages just to try to spark more conversation on the topic in general. I actually meant to write it as "not JUST about D&D", but I'm dim. My stuff about Storyteller games was just that I saw the opposite of J Arcane's experience.

J Arcane - I dig that setup is the kind of thing you can largely do ahead of time, but to a degree that depends on knowing where the PCs are headed. I don't know about your players, but mine start the most unlikely fights, run from the ones I figure they'll jump on, arrange things to fight where -they- want rather than where the enemies want, summon weird-ass monsters, and generally wreak havoc with the ability to have terrain ready. I'm not suggesting it only works on the railroad, man, just that I have enough trouble predicting what NPCs they'll bother with, let alone when they'll risk their lives.

Melinglor - Dammit, that's something Vincent Baker's done I actually like, then...I've been toying with a system that works something like that, but with more possible pools. I sadly don't have anything more interesting to offer your bated breath, but what I'm hearing about REIGN's Martial Techniques sounds like it'll be right up my alley. I lack AP experience with the games you mention, so I'll refrain from getting too deep into explaining them.

One Horse Town - Fair enough; my group is largely content with scribbling an outline of the battle scene on a piece of scrap paper. It's not precise, but knowing precisely where everyone is in a combat is hard anyway, and I lean on the player's side in judgement calls. "How many orcs can I get in one fireball?" If it looks like about 5 on the map, I'll say 6. That I slip in more orcs than I need during prep isn't revealed, of course.... :keke:

Quote from: J ArcaneSee, my group found that to be rather easily solved by simply having this stuff ready before the game.  

Usually the first thing the GM did before the game actually started, was getting out the minis necessary for each of the evening's encounters, and PC minis were always ready and either individually kept with each of our charsheets, or in a special box of their own for easy location.

The map board was just a wet erase mat.  If there was an especialyl complex layout planned, the GM would draw it out before hand, otherwise, it was just a matter of drawing some quick lines.  

Really not that difficult.  You wouldn't wait until half an hour into the game to actually write up your PC, and sure as hell most GMs are more than familiar with prepping all kinds of things before a game, so really I don't see what the problem is.

In our case it was largely an issue of a limited selection of minis plus a relatively small gaming area that had to be cleared out again every time we moved into combat.

Ultimately, I have never found minis to make combat any more exciting or immersive than non-minis combat...though it did tend to serve to make D&D combat simpler.

Of all my group, only one comes from a wargaming background (and even he tends to eschew minis in RPGs), so that could well affect our preferences.

Quote from: One Horse TownI don't use minis an awful lot, but i find that sometimes it's almost impossible to run a combat without them, whatever system i'm using.

What about a system where the precise position of opponents isn't relevant?  Your example underlines why minis are very handy for certain systems and hard to get away from there, but doesn't really paint the general problem convincingly.

Dice rolls are omitted from this example narrative:

GM: You burst into the room to find Doctor Nein surrounded by his henchmen.  Some nearby engineers are refueling some kind of aircraft and the clamshell doors of the hangar are opening slowly.
Jack Speed: I blaze away with my .45 to try to get the hencmen to take cover!
GM: Your intense and accurate fire forces them to cower behind crates and machinery!
Dana DeNiall: I hold the Jewell of Darian close to my breast and begin summoning the Revenge Spirits while informing Doctor Nein that he is about to be entrapped for...
Dirk Blade: Fuck that.  I leap over the cowering Nazis and cleave Doctor Nein in the face with my blade, Silverfang!
GM: Whoah, a legendary blow!  Doctor Nein staggers back, his face a ragged mess!
Jack Speed: I'm gonna go figure out how to fly this thing.

Positioning in this case is handled in reverse -- rather than deploying and decoding it, the narrative (and the mechanics) forces it out.  Good rolls make things happen rather than events being fixed and rolls determining only quality of response to them.  I think that if you want to remove the minis from the game you have to adopt this kind of model to some extent, and it's enough of a shift in concept that most who are used to fixed representations will balk at it.  At least until they play it.  Well even then many will not be swayed.