Quote from: rgrove0172;984218Title says it all. What's your preference? Got a main reason or is just what you prefer?

Hexmaps and counters, almost always.

Main reason is that I started with TFT Melee and GURPS Man To Man, which are arena combat games, using hexes and counters, usually with near-equal opponents and victory, death or dismemberment mostly determined by what specifically happens on the hex map. You can be three times as skilled as your opponents, but if one of them gets behind you with an axe, you may be about to die. So the play is about facing mapped tactical situation and figuring out how to move and what to do to maximize your chances of survival and victory. This is the main (or one of the main) focuses of play for me, and without mapped tactical combat, a RPG is missing one of the main things I enjoy about RPGs.

If you tell me I'm facing a combat situation, I always want to be able to see the layout of the land and the positions of everyone, and choose where to move and how to fight, and if that's not available and significant, then a lot is missing for me.

Quote from: Dumarest;984572Forgot to say I often will just use little square cardboard drawings with an arrow to indicate facing, like the ones that came with the TSR Marvel Super Heroes game and Vilains and Vigilantes still uses. Cheap and easy to make, and fun because you can customize far better than any figure you could buy.

I remember shortly after 3E came out, that D20 line that White Wolf put out a set of punch out counters for every monster in the Monster Manual. That came in very handy.

Quote from: rgrove0172;984218Title says it all. What's your preference? Got a main reason or is just what you prefer?

I definitely prefer theater of the mind. I kind of wish there was a different term for it, because I think it has connotations in the hobby. But basically that is why I am there to game and miniatures tend to pull me out of it. I like feeling like I am there in the room with the characters. I do think there is a trade off though. You definitely risk having more confusion over tactics and where people are positioned with theater of the mind. If miniatures need to be used, I'd prefer to use them just to see generally where things are rather than handling movement rules and such.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;984712I definitely prefer theater of the mind. I kind of wish there was a different term for it, because I think it has connotations in the hobby.

It does sound a little pretentious. Before I heard that term on the Internet, I just called it "not using miniatures" which isn't really satisfactory either. It is describing what you are not doing rather than what you are doing.

Quote from: Baulderstone;984718It does sound a little pretentious. Before I heard that term on the Internet, I just called it "not using miniatures" which isn't really satisfactory either. It is describing what you are not doing rather than what you are doing.

What about just "description"

Quote from: Baulderstone;984711I remember shortly after 3E came out, that D20 line that White Wolf put out a set of punch out counters for every monster in the Monster Manual. That came in very handy.

I was not aware of that. That was in my decade of RPG wilderness.

In that its the miniatures themselves (and silly stand in terrain) that distract me so much I tried an experiment. I figured if the objects used to represent the characters and environment were generic enough they wouldnt infringe on the player's imagination. (Far easier to imagine a chess piece is a Druid than a Thief miniature standing in, you know?)

So I took a 4'x4' sheet of plywood, trimmed it out and painted a graph on it, then aged it with ink and ash. Looked pretty neat. Then I hounded the craft stores for a month and bought every little piece of wood I could find (shapes, dowel pieces, blocks, etc.) and cut up some random pieces of lumbar - then stained them all to match. This massive chest full of wood bits were my miniatures and terrain. (I would set out some large blocks like 6"x 12" as buildings, lay down some straight pieces for walls, use some half round bits as tress and brush, drop in some barrels and crates etc.) It worked pretty well as I would designate pieces as being the various participants in the battle for whatever. (These pawns are the wolves, this Queen piece here is their Druid master... and so on)

I though it would be great, the answer to all my problems..and then I used it. It looked pretty neat out there on the table but instantly we werent seeing our characters in combat but little wooden pieces moving around a game board. Even with completely generic acoutrements the effect was the same. Project =failure.

Its TOTM for me from now on.

I'm happy with theatre of the mind (perhaps with an occasional drawing or something if positioning is becoming confusing) for more abstract systems.

But I also enjoy more tactical games using a grid and either miniatures or tokens. In college, I shifted to counters for my gaming due to the challenges of miniatures, but I still like the idea of miniatures.

Counters had some advantages: You can stack them more densely than miniatures when appropriate. Facing is more apparent. You can have various status counters, or counters for dropped gear. You can easily put a PCs counter on their horse counter (though I think I have used horse counters with miniatures). I have several sets of numbered counters in different colors (blue are the trolls, green are the orcs).

I haven't decided if we will use counters and deck plans for combat in my Classic Traveller games... My OD&D PbP are almost purely theatre of the mind.

Frank

Quote from: rgrove0172;984764I though it would be great, the answer to all my problems..and then I used it. It looked pretty neat out there on the table but instantly we werent seeing our characters in combat but little wooden pieces moving around a game board. Even with completely generic acoutrements the effect was the same. Project =failure.

Its TOTM for me from now on.

I'm going to make a wild guess that your experiment was slightly flawed in that you made the presentation too consistent.  You made it look abstract, but you made it look good at the same time.  I've seen similar issues in our group when I get a little too consistent in the presentation.

I also made some wood tiles for dungeon crawling.  But when I use them, I use Lego miniatures for characters, miscellaneous tokens for allies, and different glass beads as opponents.  It's ugly as hell.  So there's no tendency to see it as a thing off itself.  It's strictly spatial representation.  Even using Lego minis for opponents (ones that fit) can be a bridge too far for us.

What Steven said. My 13th Age players all had their preferred miniature that they brought with them for the very simple positioning system we used for that game (i.e., who was engaged with whom, who was off at far range, who was in closing range--but all the monsters were different sizes of six-siders.

Quote from: rgrove0172;984764
I though it would be great, the answer to all my problems..and then I used it. It looked pretty neat out there on the table but instantly we werent seeing our characters in combat but little wooden pieces moving around a game board. Even with completely generic acoutrements the effect was the same. Project =failure.

Its TOTM for me from now on.

Neat experiment!

We played our first couple months straight TOTM. Then we added minis to see what people thought. The main feedback I got from my players was that they liked minis because with 4 PCs, a pet bat, and up to a dozen bad guys in action, minis made it easier to keep track of what was going on.

Or, in the terms of this thread, the meta-gaming nature of keeping track of the bad guys was pulling them out of immersion. Whereas, the minis didn't because most of my player's imaginations revolve around how their characters act rather than specifics of the looks. (And with 6mm minis, it was pretty simple and cheap to paint a mini using their character's colors.)

This is one of the first posts on my blog, back in July of 2009. I'll repost it here, because it's easier on you all:

Abstract Tactics

That post title... that's like Military Intelligence or Jumbo Shrimp, right? An Oxymoron? Ummmm.... no. I'm really going to talk about abstract tactics today. I'll wait while the room empties...

OK. Everyone out who's going to leave? Good. That leaves the sleeping wino in the corner and that confused looking foreign tourist. Lets begin.

First the definition of tactics, from general RPG usage;

1. The use of miniatures to show exact position in a conflict.

2. Fiddly maneuvers which require knowledge of exact position to work. See miniatures.

Doesn't leave much room for "Abstractness", does it?

Until very recently, with the common use of GPS tranceivers, no one knew the exact position of anyone in an actual battle. In a general sense, that group was over there, and that other group was somewhere over there, but exact position? No. Clausewitz wrote: "The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently -- like the effect of a fog or moonshine -- gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance."

So... No one can use tactics in a real military battle? Of course they can!

Now the definition of tactics from Dictionary.com

1.   (usually used with a singular verb) the art or science of disposing military or naval forces for battle and maneuvering them in battle.
2.   (used with a plural verb) the maneuvers themselves.
3.   (used with a singular verb) any mode of procedure for gaining advantage or success.

I particularly want to focus on definition 3, although all three definitions are perfectly valid. Tactics are any mode of procedure for gaining advantage or success. Nothing about exact position, nothing about clear knowledge of the battle.

Player: "I'll delay my move in order to circle around for a better shot." i.e. maneuver for enfilade.
GM: "OK, you move down to last in initiative, but you'll get +X when you go."

Player: "Joe and I will keep their heads down with cover fire while you guys rush in, then you cover us." i.e. fire and maneuver aka leapfrogging.
GM: "Cool. Let's see how good you pull it off. I'll use your degree of success as a minus for them."

Player: "Rats! They're moving before we're ready! I'll rush my shot to get ahead of them, and maybe blunt their attack." i.e. getting inside of the enemy's decision loop - maneuver for disruption.
GM: "OK, take a -X, but you'll go before them."

These are abstract tactics, using GM rulings in place of rules. No miniatures are needed, and the participants don't have a definite idea of their opponents' disposition, but they are real tactics.

As designers, we can create rules for abstract tactics, taking the load off GMs by making ad-hoc rulings less frequent or unnecessary. By assuming a combat round of flowing maneuver rather than a static slugfest, and making rules to enable this, combat can be exciting without minis and grids.

Here's some techniques I use for abstract tactics:

1. Make combat rounds longer - I use one minute rounds to have time for maneuver.
2. Assume a lot goes on that's not detailed. Most shots fired in combat have no chance of hitting, In swordfights most swings are blocked and aren't ever going to connect. In a long round, I assume bullets are flying everywhere, sword blows are parried like lighting, and there's no need to roll because they are never going to hit anything. Players only roll when there is a decent chance that their shot will hit - i.e. their initiative.
3. Allow free maneuver - in a long round, you can move a long way. Only roll for skill checks when something difficult is attempted. If you're going to use gymnastics to vault an opponent to get behind him, you roll. Circling to the flank unopposed won't - it just takes time.
4. Use initiative as a tool. I allow trading inititative for bonuses or minuses - rushing a shot gains a minus. taking longer for maneuvering gains a plus.
5. Make cover count. I use abstract modifiers for cover - that cover might be worth a -25% penalty, or -2 dice, or whatever is appropriate - so I don't have to know the terrain, and neither do my players.
6. Make firing for supression worth doing. Using your initiative to provide cover for your buddies should gain you tangible benefits. I base those benefits on the degree of success the supression has.

Now what works in your games can be very different, but these techniques work fine in mine. Combat zips along, and it's still fun and flexible.

Quote from: ffilz;984771...
Counters had some advantages: You can stack them more densely than miniatures when appropriate. Facing is more apparent. You can have various status counters, or counters for dropped gear. You can easily put a PCs counter on their horse counter (though I think I have used horse counters with miniatures). I have several sets of numbered counters in different colors (blue are the trolls, green are the orcs). ...

Exactly. The facing and ID of everyone is clear. Especially now with computers and printers, it's pretty easy to make counters. (It wasn't that hard before with drawing and/or using photocopiers with shrinking features, and the various TFT microgames & programmed adventures came with a pretty good range of counters.) And now you can find player-made counters and usable images online too. The images can be fairly specific or more abstract (I've not had a problem with keeping my imagination going with flat counters - they're clearly representations, while a miniature (especially painted in detail) looks vividly like what the miniature is, which is rarely quite what is actually in the game.

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Being used to using very explicit rules for movement & combat, abstract combats tend to bother me because what determines who can do what, instead of being clear from the map & rules, becomes about communication with the GM and the GM's imagination versus that of the players. It can work fine as long as players & GM stay in sync, but it bothers me when they don't, especially when I think things would go very differently if we were using a map & counters. It particularly seems like a problem to me when there are some thoughtful detailed tactical players (e.g. me) and some impatient, apathetic, verbally insistent or aggressive players who want to do things that I'm pretty sure would not work at all like they expect if we mapped it out. Particularly with long actions and tactics that sound like they could work but would be entirely dependent on the shape of the terrain and where everyone is (e.g. outflanking, moving for a clearer shot, and in general choosing who is able to attack whom when and in what way, which is perhaps the main thing that determines what happens in a group combat with similar ability levels). It can end up seeming rather unfair and based on whether the GM can be swayed to think your idea will work or not, which can end up seeming a lot like a verbal persuasion game of what sounds cool, and also an emotional boundaries manipulation game of what can the players get the GM to allow because the GM doesn't want to disappoint the players by popping their balloon of what they seem attached to thinking is a cool idea. (e.g. the already-mentioned "I use gymnastics to vault over the enemy to get a rear attack.")

Nice post, flyingmice.

Something I like about abstraction is that it can keep the game more fresh. When we played D&D 3.x, the game had very specific rules for combat. At first that was fun as we learned how to use those rules. However, once we had those rules down, it lead to combat feeling very much the same. I got sick of it in a way that I never get sick of the far more abstract rules for B/X. We were playing the same tactical minis game several time every Sunday for a few years.

Another issue that I have with more tactical mini rules is that it very is a break from the continuity of the rest of the game. With abstract combat, the combat feels more part of the rest of the game. With 3.x, we would take a break from playing an RPG to play with minis for a while, and then go back to the RPG.

Another issue for me is speed of combat. I like combat to move very quickly when I GM. When a fight breaks out in an RPG, the players are usually pumped. The longer the fight goes on, especially with minis, the more detached the players get. The fight may have started with the player and an NPC exchanging cutting insults, but by the 30 minute mark, everyone is more likely to be just playing a board game, sliding their piece around for optimal success.