Quote from: CRKrueger;545012Can we all just agree to this...

1. Some people immerse better with miniatures, this does not make them robots, they are not doing it wrong.
2. Some people immerse better without miniatures, this does not make them simpletons, they are not doing it wrong.
3. Using maps and minis shows everyone where things are without the need for questions to determine where things are.
4. Not all game systems or playstyles require the level of detail that maps & minis provide.

...and move along?

I agree with all said points and indicated as much in this thread. Repeatedly. My own actual experience with RPGs, which also was discussed on this thread, demonstrates this as well.

Quote from: Benoist;545084I agree with all said points and indicated as much in this thread. Repeatedly. My own actual experience with RPGs, which also was discussed on this thread, demonstrates this as well.

Then offer me an apology for saying that I've never played an RPG before, and that I'm social retarded, and the rest of your ad hominem attacks.

Quote from: gleichman;545089Then offer me an apology for saying that I've never played an RPG before, and that I'm social retarded, and the rest of your ad hominem attacks.

I won't in the present state of affairs, because of the way you choose to characterize the experience of people who do not share your opinion. Stop being so damn full of yourself and your own way to use miniatures and maps at a game table, accept the fact that millions of gamers have done it without those tools and actually enjoyed the experience without being necessarily fooling themselves or mentally crippled, and I will revisit my own reaction to your rhetoric from there.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545082Brian, before I read your recent posts, just a heads-up that I edited mine, mainly to add a couple things.

I'll pull the edited part over here to answer you.

Btw, this is a example of debating the subject on the merits by you. Nearly a lost art.

Quote from: Elliot WilenEDIT: I should say principled judgment. Also, I haven't read the May 24th playtest rules, so I'm not too familiar with the particular debate, but on a skim, your initial post over there strikes me as a bit of nonsequitur. The mantra of "rulings not rules" is perhaps vague to the point of meaninglessness, but as my edit suggests, there's quite a bit of difference between "whim" and "principled judgment". I find that having a competent GM who exercises principled judgment has strong benefits that can't be replicated through hard-and-fast rules which are self-adjudicated by the players. For example, the GM may be privy to information that determines whether a particular rule applies. Self-adjudication would require that players also have that information, which might not mirror their characters' knowledge.

I'm willing to give on the point the GM may have knowledge of rule application that the players for good reason do not. In such cases he should be free to withhold such information until it is applied (and maybe even beyond that). The most common case is an ability that a foe or object in the encounter may have.

However I don't consider this simple point reason to trust the GM with hidden processes that he's incapable of managing consistency and accurately. Be it the application of combat bonus rules solely by his judgement or mental 'maps' of the combat area.

BTW, I typically split my gaming time about 50/50 between GMing and as a player. So when I say a GM is incapable, I'm saying that about myself as well.

Quote from: Benoist;545093I won't in the present state of affairs, because of the way you choose to characterize the experience of people who do not share your opinion. Stop being so damn full of yourself and your own way to use miniatures and maps at a game table, accept the fact that millions of gamers have done it without those tools and actually enjoyed the experience without being necessarily fooling themselves or mentally crippled, and I will revisit my own reaction to your rhetoric from there.

As I thought.

It's a pity I can't put you on a ignore list, but I'll make an effort to skip over you in the future.

Quote from: gleichman;545095As I thought.

It's a pity I can't put you on a ignore list, but I'll make an effort to skip over you in the future.

Likewise, except I reserve the right to burst your bubble whenever I feel like it. Feel free to ignore.

Quote from: gleichman;545077Basically impossible. The typical human cannot manage a consistent process without fixed rules of how do so. That why rules exist in the first place.

What you're basically say is that everyone is a fine carpenter and they need never use a measuring device of any type to be so. It is on it's face a foolish claim.

I think your assertions here are based on the idea that the model of the game world, as represented by various rules, is 100% precise and exclusively relevant to the action. Do you use hexes? In the real world, people may occupy a space near hex A and hex B, but not exactly in the center of either hex. Or if you use analog measures, what about your turn sequence? Does it also have a continuous representation of time-and-motion, or is time quantized and sequenced in turns or phases? In my head, I can't maintain the precision of a game with strict measurements and procedures, but it's a spurious precision. I've said that relative positioning is useful, so your comment about never using a measuring device is a gross misrepresentation. As long as there isn't a systemic bias in judgment--something which is further minimized through the use of random factors in action resolution--I don't see a problem with estimation.

Furthermore, if you ever use hidden movement, then even with a detailed map and measurements on your side of the GM screen, the process of communicating information to the players verbally reintroduces your version of "mother may I" (which I think is narrower than the SA/4e-fanatic's line) since they have to rely on you to tell them if X is possible.

QuoteIt's not a lack of trust in the GM as an individual, it's the knowledge that people are flawed and commonly make mistakes especially when mentally 'mapping' an encounter.

It's also the idea that a RPG should be a shared experience based upon a common ruleset and the free exchange of accurate information quickely and effectively.

Both of these strike me as YMMV, really.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545103I think your assertions here are based on the idea that the model of the game world, as represented by various rules, is 100% precise and exclusively relevant to the action.

Yes- as limited by it's abstraction level, which is a pre-agreed upon matter for the gaming group. The abstraction level covers many sins while maintaining consistency and accuracy (to that level of abstraction).

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545103Furthermore, if you ever use hidden movement, then even with a detailed map and measurements on your side of the GM screen, the process of communicating information to the players verbally reintroduces your version of "mother may I" (which I think is narrower than the SA/4e-fanatic's line) since they have to rely on you to tell them if X is possible.

You don't understand, there's no information given in those rare cases where I use hidden movement. When such information does appear, hidden movement ceases and the figure is placed on the map.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545103Both of these strike me as YMMV, really.

The concept that people are flawed and prone to serious inconsistency is not in the realm of a YMMV issue. It is a fact.

If you care that they are flawed and inconsistent is a case if YMMV.

Quote from: gleichman;545116You don't understand, there's no information given in those rare cases where I use hidden movement. When such information does appear, hidden movement ceases and the figure is placed on the map.

Ah, I wasn't sure about that, but there's still the consideration of deciding when the information appears, which is entirely in the hands of the GM, even if the GM is (privately) following a set of rigid rules.

But getting back to the question of abstraction, I'm saying that a GM can generally stay consistent within a certain level of abstraction. This doesn't have to be done entirely in the GM's head; it'll also be in the form of notes. The basic idea that this is doable is fundamental to traditional RPGs. Some of the uses of "mother may I" in online discussion, on the other hand, come across as a pretty thoroughgoing assertion that the GM never has this ability and will always disempower the players if he's placed in a discretionary role. See: "GM Fiat", "No Myth", and other concepts used to advocate "player empowerment" and "narrative control".

Note that I'm not talking primarily about combat, here. In fact I think that combat is an area where structure and transparency are more required than elsewhere--but it's still relative, and the greatest pitfall for a GM isn't adherence to the rules, but bias.

QuoteThe concept that people are flawed and prone to serious inconsistency is not in the realm of a YMMV issue. It is a fact.

If you care that they are flawed and inconsistent is a case if YMMV.

Again, I think it's a matter of degree and focus, and also a matter of abstraction. The limitations of GM who has to decide whether to give me a +1 bonus on a d20 aren't nearly as serious as those of a GM who will decide, without resort to dice or any other well-defined mechanic, whether I can or cannot leap across a 20' chasm. Others will be very concerned about how a GM decides if an NPC is convinced by a PC's effort at persuasion--to the point of repeating mantras like "say yes or roll dice" or "let it ride".

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545143Ah, I wasn't sure about that, but there's still the consideration of deciding when the information appears, which is entirely in the hands of the GM, even if the GM is (privately) following a set of rigid rules."

Not, it's covered by the line of sights rules and is not in my hands at all. If I move in NPC to a location where they are visible- they are visible.

Really easy to determine with a map and mins in front of you.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545143But getting back to the question of abstraction, I'm saying that a GM can generally stay consistent within a certain level of abstraction.

If the abstraction is high enough, yes.

If the measure if feet and time scale in seconds, no.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545143This doesn't have to be done entirely in the GM's head; it'll also be in the form of notes. The basic idea that this is doable is fundamental to traditional RPGs.

I disagree.

And if the notes are indeed complete enough to allow it, they are a form of maps and minis to my mind.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545143Again, I think it's a matter of degree and focus, and also a matter of abstraction. The limitations of GM who has to decide whether to give me a +1 bonus on a d20 aren't nearly as serious as those of a GM who will decide, without resort to dice or any other well-defined mechanic, whether I can or cannot leap across a 20' chasm.

You are making a classic error here. The error of assigning a +1 bonus is going happen far more often the leaping a 20' chasm does, unless you're playing Mario Brothers the RPG. It is likely that effect of the former over the length of the campaign is greater the latter.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545143Others will be very concerned about how a GM decides if an NPC is convinced by a PC's effort at persuasion--to the point of repeating mantras like "say yes or roll dice" or "let it ride".

I'm not talking about social interactions in this thread. Only Combat.

Quote from: Benoist;545005Nobody's against the use of an erasable veleda board (which I mentioned in an earlier post, you'll note) if you find it more practical.

I'm specifically talking about an erasable surface ruled with a grid or hexes upon which tokens, markers, or miniatures can be placed and moved.  My point is that one can also roughly sketch out a room upon such surfaces or add vector lines, arrows, letter labels, and so on to such a surface.  What I don't understand is why a piece of paper or an unruled surface without markers is more desirable.  What benefits does your approach offer that sketching out the room and putting some pawns on a BattleMat that's already on the table not offer?

Quote from: Benoist;545005I get that. You want precision and clarity and you get that best through physical representations at the game table. It's cool. But not everyone is you, not everyone needs it, and some people might actually think that ruins their fun playing the game. Playing the other way, without miniatures and markers and the like, works for a lot of people, and it's functional way to play for them.

That's fair enough, so long as you understand that precision and details are being sacrificed and, with them, the meaningful complexity of player and character choices.  And at some point, if you look at Brian's old Elements of Tactics column on RPGnet, abstraction essentially eliminates meaningful choices for nearly all of those elements such that there are little or no real tactics involved in play.  

Resource Management requires meaningful resources to manage, but a game without fatigue or where ammunition is not counted eliminates that tactical element.  Dissimilar Assets requires combatants and weapons that have different strengths and weaknesses and making all characters and weapons similarly effective eliminates that tactical element.  Maneuver requires meaningful movement choice but abstracting movement into a single dimension (e.g., marching order) or abstract zones reduces or eliminates that tactical element.  It can all be reduced down to what Wizardry had to offer, which was a no-brainer rank decision (fighters in front, wizards and thieves in the back) and maybe a choice of who to attack along with a decision to leave combat that also becomes a no-brainer decision when the Pace of Decision is long and characters don't die in a round or two (cue the whining about save-or-die spells).  

For all intents and purposes, there are no real tactics in such a combat situation.  The tactics have all been abstracted out.  As long as you understand and want that, that's fine.  But even though I played Wizardry years ago, I'm at a loss to remember the attraction of combat where the only real choices are who to attack and to stay or leave.  

Quote from: Benoist;545005Reminds me of a quote attributed to Gary Gygax: There is no intimacy; it's not live. [he said of online games] It's being translated through a computer, and your imagination is not there the same way it is when you're actually together with a group of people. It reminds me of one time where I saw some children talking about whether they liked radio or television, and I asked one little boy why he preferred radio, and he said, "Because the pictures are so much better."

That anecdote is attributed to various people and almost certainly comes from the days of radio dramas, because I find it difficult to imagine what someone might listen to on the radio these days that would make them say such a thing.  Of course one could also say the same thing about books.  I once read a novelization of a Doctor Who episode before I actually saw the episode and I assure you that my own special effects were far superior to those of the BBC.  That said, do I really need to point out to you that radio dramas are a largely dead medium or that while publishers sold 2.57 billion books in 2010, people bought 1.33 billion movie tickets and 1.25 billion DVD and BD discs were sold in the US, which of course doesn't count all of the movies and TV shows that were rented ($16.3 billion) or the video game industry.  While I think there is certainly some truth to the idea that one's imagination can produce better results than a special effects studio (e.g., my point about the Doctor Who novelization) and certainly prefer role-playing with other people in the same room with me, the reality is that in the big scheme of things video killed the radio star much as computer games have eclipsed tabletop role-playing in terms of money, players, and hours spent playing.  There is a huge heaping spoonful of wishful thinking in that quote.

Quote from: Benoist;545005Many people prefer to play without miniatures because the pictures are so much better.

I have only rarely used miniatures and prefer to not use them, actually,  For the most part, the games I've played in used pawns, tokens, or dice to represent the PCs and combatants.  The purpose of using those markers and the map board is not to replace the imagination of the player and act as a literal representation of the game situation any more than the GM saying that an NPC looks a bit like Robin Hood is meant to lock the players into a literal image of Robin Hood.  The goal is to give the players and GM a rich, accurate, and consistent description of the configuration of things in the game world from which they can imagine what's happening.  And I'm not sure why you think a map board with some colored pawns on it is any more likely to destroy the imagination of the players than your sketch with some letters is.

Quote from: gleichman;545004Even with the diagram, there are huge problems, for one it doesn't have a scale (and isn't really drawn to scale) and that means that any options using AoE runs us back to 20 questions.

Sure, but it's an improvement over having no diagram at all with respect to an objective transferral of information, which is my point.

Quote from: gleichman;545004It would also serve poorly for any individually resolved initiative system and/or those with Zone of Control rules which is most of the games I play.

Again, it would still work better than a purely verbal description, from which I initially would have misinterpreted the arrangement of the NPCs, which is pretty significant.  

Quote from: gleichman;545004As described (both in its description and in its use) it's still basically freeform gaming ran in zero-dimensions.

It's pretty much always has a single dimension, even if it's reduced to out of range/sight, in range/sign and can attack with ranged weapons, and in melee contact with an opponent.  The only real tactical decision in such combats are to attack or retreat and who to attack.  The rest of the tactical complexity gets abstracted away.

Quote from: John Morrow;545162It's pretty much always has a single dimension, even if it's reduced to out of range/sight, in range/sign and can attack with ranged weapons, and in melee contact with an opponent.  The only real tactical decision in such combats are to attack or retreat and who to attack.  The rest of the tactical complexity gets abstracted away.

Indeed. And for dungeon crawling with D&D, that's a common outcome.

The design of D&D is about resource management, not tactical maneuver. So this is sort of expected.

But it does have some hybrid features (Range, Line of Sight, AoO for some versions), those using the RAW shouldn't be abstracted away. But another feature of D&D is that no one seems to use the RAW.

Quote from: John Morrow;545160I'm specifically talking about an erasable surface ruled with a grid or hexes upon which tokens, markers, or miniatures can be placed and moved.  My point is that one can also roughly sketch out a room upon such surfaces or add vector lines, arrows, letter labels, and so on to such a surface.

Well first let me repeat something here: I've played with and without miniatures. I've played with sheets of paper, with veleda white boards without grids, with tact-tiles with pre-mapped encounters, and tact-tiles sketching rooms and corridors precisely, and less precisely. I honestly think I've played in many of the ways we are talking about.

I'm not seeing any problem with using a map with squares and tokens and markers and drawing vectors on your mat and whatnot, if that is what you feel provides the best play experience for you.

My contention is that it's not because you think this is the optimal way to represent elements in the game that it ought to be for everyone else, or that all other alternate ways are inferior, only result in a complete chaos, a total lack of meaningful information and approximations, and automatically leads to the "20 questions" thing. That's what I am calling bullshit on.

Quote from: John Morrow;545160What I don't understand is why a piece of paper or an unruled surface without markers is more desirable.  What benefits does your approach offer that sketching out the room and putting some pawns on a BattleMat that's already on the table not offer?

What I have personally found is that putting a mat with a grid specifically in front of people changes the dynamic of the game for some players (not all). The more you pile on these sorts of abstractions, the easier it is to game the rules instead of playing the game, by which I mean, actually imagining what is going on as though you were there and reacting to the situations accordingly.

This is what some people here are talking about when they say the grid ruins their immersion. The game basically becomes the application of the rules on a board, the grid itself, and the effect this minigame has in the actual game world becomes an afterthought, a consequence of that minigame.

I have found that when players forget about the grid and when you actually tell them out loud that what they see on the diorama or white board is an approximation and not what is actually happening in the game world, and that it'd be cool if they thought about the game world first, the figs on the board second, it actually "clicks" with them fairly easily.

Having played AD&D with miniatures since the days of my 3.5 campaigns, I have observed an increase in the actual immersion of the players, because they just don't have to think in terms of rules to instead visualize the situation, whether it uses actual visuals on the game table or not, and act as though they were there. I cut the intermediary of the grid, with or without miniatures, and went back straight to the game world as a reference, asking players to use their imagination instead. And it works.

Quote from: John Morrow;545160That's fair enough, so long as you understand that precision and details are being sacrificed and, with them, the meaningful complexity of player and character choices.  And at some point, if you look at Brian's old Elements of Tactics column on RPGnet, abstraction essentially eliminates meaningful choices for nearly all of those elements such that there are little or no real tactics involved in play.  

Only Gleichman is claiming that people don't want to admit that. Of course you are losing absolute accuracy when you are not using precise means of simulation like a grid and miniatures. But there is a world of excluded middle between an abstraction that is usable to communicate directly between players and share an imagined space at the game table, and the total lack of meaningful choices and communication breakdown you guys keep saying this is about. I honestly -honestly now- cannot remember the last time I played a game in the last what, 25+ years, playing at dozens of different tables with literally hundreds of different people over the years, where this kind of complete communication breakdown ever occurred the way you are portraying it right now.

I appreciate that you feel like you need the grid and tokens yourself, but that doesn't make it something critical for anyone to enjoy an RPG effectively and consider they have meaningful choices in front of them as their characters in their mind's eye.

Quote from: John Morrow;545160Resource Management requires meaningful resources to manage, but a game without fatigue or where ammunition is not counted eliminates that tactical element.  Dissimilar Assets requires combatants and weapons that have different strengths and weaknesses and making all characters and weapons similarly effective eliminates that tactical element.  Maneuver requires meaningful movement choice but abstracting movement into a single dimension (e.g., marching order) or abstract zones reduces or eliminates that tactical element.  It can all be reduced down to what Wizardry had to offer, which was a no-brainer rank decision (fighters in front, wizards and thieves in the back) and maybe a choice of who to attack along with a decision to leave combat that also becomes a no-brainer decision when the Pace of Decision is long and characters don't die in a round or two (cue the whining about save-or-die spells).  

For all intents and purposes, there are no real tactics in such a combat situation.  The tactics have all been abstracted out.  As long as you understand and want that, that's fine.  But even though I played Wizardry years ago, I'm at a loss to remember the attraction of combat where the only real choices are who to attack and to stay or leave.

To me, it sounds like you are making the argument that choices and actual tactics are contained within the parameters of the rules themselves, exclusively. I think any wargamer would disagree with that.

I like to play wargames and role playing games. I consider myself to be interested in actual tactics, that is, actually applying tactics at the level of the game world, trapping enemies in a room with flaming oil, using high ground, ordering people around, making a plan to attack the keep, and so on.

I hate it when the rules become a minigame and that the "tactics" become whether I get an opportunity attack or not, whether taking a 5 foot step will reduce the cover of the opponent I'm trying to shoot at this round, and so on. These aren't the tactical situations I'm interested in. I'm interested in being immersed in the world, not having to deal with another layer of rules acting as a buffer between me and the game world. I don't want to have to translate whirlwind attacks and cleaves into actual moves in the game world in my head. I want the opposite: to describe those moves as though they happened live and then have the rules being tools used to adjudicate them in terms of successes and failures, die rolls and the like.

Quote from: John Morrow;545160That anecdote is attributed to various people and almost certainly comes from the days of radio dramas, because I find it difficult to imagine what someone might listen to on the radio these days that would make them say such a thing.  Of course one could also say the same thing about books.  I once read a novelization of a Doctor Who episode before I actually saw the episode and I assure you that my own special effects were far superior to those of the BBC.  That said, do I really need to point out to you that radio dramas are a largely dead medium or that while publishers sold 2.57 billion books in 2010, people bought 1.33 billion movie tickets and 1.25 billion DVD and BD discs were sold in the US, which of course doesn't count all of the movies and TV shows that were rented ($16.3 billion) or the video game industry.  While I think there is certainly some truth to the idea that one's imagination can produce better results than a special effects studio (e.g., my point about the Doctor Who novelization) and certainly prefer role-playing with other people in the same room with me, the reality is that in the big scheme of things video killed the radio star much as computer games have eclipsed tabletop role-playing in terms of money, players, and hours spent playing.  There is a huge heaping spoonful of wishful thinking in that quote.

YMMV, but that quote is actually true for some people, many of which might enjoy playing role playing games I'm sure.

Quote from: John Morrow;545160I have only rarely used miniatures and prefer to not use them, actually,  For the most part, the games I've played in used pawns, tokens, or dice to represent the PCs and combatants.  The purpose of using those markers and the map board is not to replace the imagination of the player and act as a literal representation of the game situation any more than the GM saying that an NPC looks a bit like Robin Hood is meant to lock the players into a literal image of Robin Hood.  The goal is to give the players and GM a rich, accurate, and consistent description of the configuration of things in the game world from which they can imagine what's happening.  And I'm not sure why you think a map board with some colored pawns on it is any more likely to destroy the imagination of the players than your sketch with some letters is.

There are different levels of accuracy and consistency that can be played in any number of ways in a role playing game. Some ways some people will enjoy, others some people won't, and vice versa. My point really is that your way is not the only possible way that works.

Quote from: gleichman;545150Not, it's covered by the line of sights rules and is not in my hands at all. If I move in NPC to a location where they are visible- they are visible.

Really easy to determine with a map and mins in front of you.

Right. Again, I'm not entirely sure where the extreme anti-map people are coming from. As I mentioned, when I played combats of any significant complexity, I often used a private sketch to keep track of locations. (EDIT: Also, drawing in a point from the other thread, I usually didn't GM combats with dozens of participants.)

QuoteIf the abstraction is high enough, yes.

If the measure if feet and time scale in seconds, no.

Abstraction and scale aren't quite the same thing. That might be a nitpick, but more to the point is the idea of an appropriate or acceptable level of abstraction. As I wrote above, I find that guesstimating distances is acceptable because the precision implied by a feet-and-seconds model is (a) spurious and (b) at a level which is often unknowable or unactionable to the participants (that is, they're not in a position to control events at that level of detail). The more detailed model isn't necessarily wrong, since stochastic "noise" reintroduces the variability and uncertainty which have been stripped out due to precise positioning and discrete time scales. But the more abstract model isn't necessarily worse. (As a side note, there certainly are pitfalls in the design of a detailed model. For example, if a person in motion happens to be behind an obstacle at the moment your turn to shoot comes up, a crude-but-detailed model would call the shot blocked. A more sophisticated model might allow the shot with a penalty reflecting the fact that the person is exposed x% of a given time-window.)

QuoteYou are making a classic error here. The error of assigning a +1 bonus is going happen far more often the leaping a 20' chasm does, unless you're playing Mario Brothers the RPG. It is likely that effect of the former over the length of the campaign is greater the latter.

First of all,  if the GM's judgment doesn't have a systematic bias, it doesn't matter, and I'm assuming that the GM doesn't have an agenda. Second, if the GM is consistent and isn't out to get you (a special form of bias) then the effect will apply equally to all and you can adjust for it. And actually, you can adjust for it even if the GM does single you out. In probability, it's an often-cited fallacy that "more trials means things will balance out in the long term". You are correct insofar as this is absolutely false, of course--a game where we bet $1 on a fair coin toss is more likely to come up more lopsided if we repeat the trial 100 times than if we repeat it 10 times. But when we're comparing events that have different distributions and different payoffs, the devil's in the details. It could be like comparing the iterative $1 coin flip with a single million-dollar bet on whether a woman in a bar likes me better than you.

QuoteI'm not talking about social interactions in this thread. Only Combat.

Fair enough...but after skimming the 5/24 playtest rules, I think the guidelines on advantage/disadvantage are really pretty clear. First, there are a number of specific cases. Second, the effect is strictly capped, which limits the effect of a bad call or bias by the GM. Finally, the GM does seem to have a catchall ability to grant advantage/disadvantage outside of the cases which are enumerated, but I get the impression that this is mainly intended for use outside of combat. In practice, I suspect that groups would naturally gravitate toward a common understanding of the frequency and circumstances under which "free form" advantage would be granted in combat. Since there are a fair number of cases enumerated, I'd bet most groups would just fall back on those, making on-the-fly judgments a relative rarity--and rarer still as certain practices become informally canonized in the group.