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Just different and not bad. Either way is fine, it's all a matter of preference. Personally I like your method best, it's what I use.

I never saw the point of maps and minis until I actually used them and realized how much time had been wasted over the years with arguments about what was actually going on in combat.

You can do it however you like, if it works for you and your group, but I prefer minis now.

Dry Erase Board. Save money, save time, save space. Unless you're buying Palladium minis!

I'm on the other side of the spectrum. Robin Laws has an essay called "The Map is not your friend" which totally altered how I did things. I never use maps. I've found the tactical chess-like manuvering that goes on with maps slows an already slow combat system down a bit.

Macgraith wrote:I just want to get the best balance of fun, speed, and not just give my players a birds eye view of the battle.

Why?

Macgraith wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Macgraith wrote:I just want to get the best balance of fun, speed, and not just give my players a birds eye view of the battle.

Why?

Because if you actually were in the room that the encounter is going on it, you wouldn't be able to see everything exactly as it is, and pick out the best target. Too many times I've seen people sit and debate with the group about which person is the best target, best spot to send an aoe fire ball, and all sorts of things that you wouldn't be able to do if that birds eye view was removed.

If none of the characters can see the enemy, then don't put the mini on the map.

If different characters see different things, I don't get the difference between saying "You can't see/shoot him from where you are" to somebody without minis and in saying it to somebody with minis.

Just as I don't see the difference between a character looking at a map and picking the best place to put that fireball, or in a player asking the GM, "Can I toss it somewhere where I'll get all of them? No? Well, how many can I catch in the blast?"

As I don't see the difference between players with a map debating the best person to attack, and in players without a map doing the same thing.

Macgraith wrote:I also don't have minis or a big map/dry erase board/grid. So the way I do it is actually the only way I can do it.

I've got nothing to trump that.

With all the feed back I'm getting, perhaps it would be a good idea to invest in such a thing, and do just what you're saying.

If you've got the money to spare, go for it.

But I've made do quite a few times with pencil and paper, just sketching the general battlefield.
In a pinch, I once used a chess set.

So there are plenty of other things you can do if you don't want to shell out the cash.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Macgraith wrote:I just want to get the best balance of fun, speed, and not just give my players a birds eye view of the battle.

Why?

I've a much different reason. I call it the 'Aliens' effect. RPG's are all about story. They're not about tactics anymore. War games are about tactics. War games use miniatures, nothing wrong with war games. WAr Games are the daddy of RPG's. However, in an RPG, with characters, story elements, etc, the best RPG is story oriented. Which gets to Aliens. In the movie 'Aliens', you almost never get a 'birds eye view' of the actions. At its most tactical, you get an approximation of what elemets are there (ceiling ducts, a long tunnel, corridors), but when the combats happen, the storyteller uses this shorthand to cut straight for the action. And in an RPG, a GM can do this too.

Laying out miniatures is anathema to this.

For starters, it *slows down* something that is supposed to be fast and exciting. Enforcing any chess-like rules to pieces moving it gets even worse. Using a map, dry erase board, whatnot, before every fight, there has to be a pause where "ok, you're here, and you're here, and the bad guys are here...". You're 'setting up' the board.

Secondly, it limits player creativity. If the players are in a bar, and one of them wants to swing on a chandelier and kick a bad guys, without miniatures, he just does it. Perhaps you give a difficuly (a gymnastics check, etc), but If you lay out miniatures, the GM has to lay out any and every objects involved (a pain). If you don't use a map, it gives players more leeway to extemporaneously use items that would 'logically' be in that setting, but you may not have thought of (chandelier, balcony, potted plant, etc...)

Thirdly the likelyhood of bad guys being in just the right orientation for such a tricks to work is small...... which is sad because swinging from chandeliers is something players should be allowed to do. Such tricks are so much more interesting if they happen quickly and interestingly, rather than with 'setting up time' as the character is trying to manuver the bad guys into *just* the right orientation.

Fourthly, no maps gaming allows for story elements to be used in the combat more easily. In medias Res, playing with perspective, etc. Akin to cinemaography. In fight scenes, cameras tend not to be tethered to the ceiling for a static view of the action, they shift, they move, and the perspectives are used to heighten tension. Not having a map/grid allows for those elements to be used.


In the Iliad, a great story is told, it's even a War, but a comprehensive map of Troy is never provided, but Homer managed. Just put in required elements, let the players fill in the rest, voila.

I guess it's a question of what your goal is. If your goal is a quantitative accurate representation of combat, pull out the map. It'll be fair, it'll be clockwork, it will also be slow. The more a stickler to detail you are, the slower it will be. However, if your goal is more one of fast, furious, action, throw that map away, or keep it only to the barest barest minimum.

Just because youdraw out where everyone doesnt mean you have draw where EVERYTHING is. Personally, I love having things marked out and lamented this fact when I played online, until I realized that OPEN RPG has a spot where you can draw everything out, which really helps in visualization.

DocS wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Macgraith wrote:I just want to get the best balance of fun, speed, and not just give my players a birds eye view of the battle.

Why?

I've a much different reason. I call it the 'Aliens' effect. RPG's are all about story. They're not about tactics anymore. War games are about tactics. War games use miniatures, nothing wrong with war games. WAr Games are the daddy of RPG's. However, in an RPG, with characters, story elements, etc, the best RPG is story oriented. Which gets to Aliens. In the movie 'Aliens', you almost never get a 'birds eye view' of the actions. At its most tactical, you get an approximation of what elemets are there (ceiling ducts, a long tunnel, corridors), but when the combats happen, the storyteller uses this shorthand to cut straight for the action. And in an RPG, a GM can do this too.

Laying out miniatures is anathema to this.

For starters, it *slows down* something that is supposed to be fast and exciting. Enforcing any chess-like rules to pieces moving it gets even worse. Using a map, dry erase board, whatnot, before every fight, there has to be a pause where "ok, you're here, and you're here, and the bad guys are here...". You're 'setting up' the board.

Secondly, it limits player creativity. If the players are in a bar, and one of them wants to swing on a chandelier and kick a bad guys, without miniatures, he just does it. Perhaps you give a difficuly (a gymnastics check, etc), but If you lay out miniatures, the GM has to lay out any and every objects involved (a pain). If you don't use a map, it gives players more leeway to extemporaneously use items that would 'logically' be in that setting, but you may not have thought of (chandelier, balcony, potted plant, etc...)

Thirdly the likelyhood of bad guys being in just the right orientation for such a tricks to work is small...... which is sad because swinging from chandeliers is something players should be allowed to do. Such tricks are so much more interesting if they happen quickly and interestingly, rather than with 'setting up time' as the character is trying to manuver the bad guys into *just* the right orientation.

Fourthly, no maps gaming allows for story elements to be used in the combat more easily. In medias Res, playing with perspective, etc. Akin to cinemaography. In fight scenes, cameras tend not to be tethered to the ceiling for a static view of the action, they shift, they move, and the perspectives are used to heighten tension. Not having a map/grid allows for those elements to be used.


In the Iliad, a great story is told, it's even a War, but a comprehensive map of Troy is never provided, but Homer managed. Just put in required elements, let the players fill in the rest, voila.

I'm not going to respond to the above, because it's a good post.

I guess it's a question of what your goal is. If your goal is a quantitative accurate representation of combat, pull out the map. It'll be fair, it'll be clockwork, it will also be slow. The more a stickler to detail you are, the slower it will be. However, if your goal is more one of fast, furious, action, throw that map away, or keep it only to the barest barest minimum.

It's not just what your goal is, it's what works for you.
My goal is often fast and furious action, but for anything other than a one-on-one duel, minis tend to make things go faster for me, simply because it takes less time for people to look at the enemy placements, numbers, and the terrain all on a map, than it does for me to describe it all. Not to mention it cuts down on all the "What?! I thought I was behind him!" and other confusion that often occurs when trying to play out a battle.
If that never happens with your group, groovy for you and yours.
Unfortunately, it happens with me and mine, and many other people who share your goal of swift combat.

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's not just what your goal is, it's what works for you.
My goal is often fast and furious action, but for anything other than a one-on-one duel, minis tend to make things go faster for me, simply because it takes less time for people to look at the enemy placements, numbers, and the terrain all on a map, than it does for me to describe it all. Not to mention it cuts down on all the "What?! I thought I was behind him!" and other confusion that often occurs when trying to play out a battle.
If that never happens with your group, groovy for you and yours.
Unfortunately, it happens with me and mine, and many other people who share your goal of swift combat.

The key is to establish GM superiority over the party from moment one, which is easily done by gathering the party, killing the youngest player, and eating his heart in front of the other players. Once you do that, they never complain about who is behind who, they never complain ever, ever, ever, again. It also solves many other problems like

Player: Hey! Where's my 'playing in character' bonus?
GM:Well, did I kill you and eat your heart in front of everyone?
Player: Er.... no.
GM: Well, there you go then.

Once you kill the guy and eat his heart, however, order pizza. It smooths things over with the rest of the party and helps get the taste out of your mouth.

DocS wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:It's not just what your goal is, it's what works for you.
My goal is often fast and furious action, but for anything other than a one-on-one duel, minis tend to make things go faster for me, simply because it takes less time for people to look at the enemy placements, numbers, and the terrain all on a map, than it does for me to describe it all. Not to mention it cuts down on all the "What?! I thought I was behind him!" and other confusion that often occurs when trying to play out a battle.
If that never happens with your group, groovy for you and yours.
Unfortunately, it happens with me and mine, and many other people who share your goal of swift combat.

The key is to establish GM superiority over the party from moment one, which is easily done by gathering the party, killing the youngest player, and eating his heart in front of the other players. Once you do that, they never complain about who is behind who, they never complain ever, ever, ever, again. It also solves many other problems like

Player: Hey! Where's my 'playing in character' bonus?
GM:Well, did I kill you and eat your heart in front of everyone?
Player: Er.... no.
GM: Well, there you go then.

Once you kill the guy and eat his heart, however, order pizza. It smooths things over with the rest of the party and helps get the taste out of your mouth.

I go with the traditional "heads on pikes" bit, but the whole heart-eating thing... there's something to that.

And it would go with my low-carb diet...

Macgraith wrote:I've just started GMing, and I'm not sure how to handle combat. A friend of mine that used to GM for us all the time always used this big grid sheet with minis and stuff, but I don't think that makes much sense. In the heat of battle you don't have a nice overhead view of everything, so I do combat vocally. IE I make them role to guess distances rather than seeing them on a grid, and I just describe everything in the area, rather than having it all down on paper.

So, should I be scolded for this and run to get a giant grid and minis, or am I doing something that is just different but not bad?

Well, in combat you don't have a disembodied voice describing the scene either.

As both grid and announcer are quite skewed, I'd say the only mistake you can make is to think one is actually superior to the other, rather than just your preference.

Noon wrote:Well, in combat you don't have a disembodied voice describing the scene either.

Speak for yourself.