Quote from: Justin Alexander;1006495Short version: People lie.

I've never had problems with that kind of shit.  Mostly because, I suspect, things the players don't tell me during their turn don't count.  "You said two turns ago you were with Bob.  You never said you were moving.  You're still with Bob."

Why the hell do people make this out to be so damn difficult?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1006596I've never had problems with that kind of shit.  Mostly because, I suspect, things the players don't tell me during their turn don't count.  "You said two turns ago you were with Bob.  You never said you were moving.  You're still with Bob."

Why the hell do people make this out to be so damn difficult?

Same approach here, and I don't know either:).

Quote from: AsenRG;1006620Same approach here, and I don't know either:).

I'm in a similar but different boat.  The people in my groups generally don't try stupid tricks like that, to the point that if there is confusion about where someone is, it's probably because I didn't communicate something clearly or didn't hear what they said.  Thus, I'll usually cut them some slack (that is, take their word for it on their intentions).  

I find that a lot easier than playing with people that try stupid tricks.

Sounds good, but it kind of misses my point:  if you run the game in an orderly fashion, asking each player turn by turn what they are doing, you really shouldn't have a lot of trouble keeping track of what's going on.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1006644Sounds good, but it kind of misses my point:  if you run the game in an orderly fashion, asking each player turn by turn what they are doing, you really shouldn't have a lot of trouble keeping track of what's going on.

I usually use figures or counters or marks on paper as memory aids but rarely do the players notice them, even when playing in person. At my age, I need memory aids.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1006650At my age, I need memory aids.

What were we talking about?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1006644Sounds good, but it kind of misses my point:  if you run the game in an orderly fashion, asking each player turn by turn what they are doing, you really shouldn't have a lot of trouble keeping track of what's going on.

And quite aside from that my game's combat system is based on visual positioning, the point is this: with minis and maps, I don't have to.

You could, with exactly as much justification, claim that a real GM doesn't need to work from prepared notes, and should be able to keep all setting and adventure details in his head.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1006661What were we talking about?

The kids on my lawn.

There's one objective aspect about visual aids, whether X's and O's or Dwarven Forge dioramas with award-winning painted miniatures...it allows you to express a large amount of spatial information, to everyone around the table at once, in a single glance, a fraction of a second, less time than it takes to speak a single word.

You may not like miniatures for the feels, whether boardgamey, or what have you, but visual expression is a far more efficient way to express visual and spatial data.

Also, no type of visual aid would require a grid to get that near-instantaneous information transfer.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1006682There's one objective aspect about visual aids, whether X's and O's or Dwarven Forge dioramas with award-winning painted miniatures...it allows you to express a large amount of spatial information, to everyone around the table at once, in a single glance, a fraction of a second, less time than it takes to speak a single word.

You may not like miniatures for the feels, whether boardgamey, or what have you, but visual expression is a far more efficient way to express visual and spatial data.

Also, no type of visual aid would require a grid to get that near-instantaneous information transfer.

Its the grid I dont like. A rough sketch or other map works well enough, if needed

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1006595Nonsense.

Requiring the party to specify a "marching order" before entering the dungeon is all that is necessary.  I've been running RPG combat without miniatures for 45 years and I have never, EVER had anybody pull "the goblin is over there and I'm over here."  Because I keep track of turns and ask each player what they're doing in turn.  If you want to get "over there" you have to MOVE "over there."

Use miniatures and a map if you want, and have fun.  But don't talk nonsense.

I'm not talking nonsense. I'm talking about my own experiences and observations from almost as much time playing with maps & counters, in comparison to my experiences to the times I've tried to GM or play in combats without maps. Your experiences are apparently different, but what I wrote is accurate about my own experiences.

It's not just an issue when players intentionally try to "pull" something, but happens when people don't have the same imagination of the situation or what's practical and how long it takes, etc., which needs to be filled in by the GM unless there is a map and rules. I imagine you're excellent at doing that and presenting it to your players, so it doesn't seem like an issue to you. But I don't have that skill, and when I've played with other GMs and good well-intentioned players and they switch between some mapped combats and then doing some fights TotM, I've seen these sorts of problems and been rather disappointed by them.

And I've seen many of them not notice and/or not mind that the person who says they're attacking first is the one the GM lets get to the foe they want and attack, whereas I can tell it would likely play out rather differently if we actually used a map and the rules were used to see who manages to get to whom and what the side-effects of the specific moves are based on where the furniture and all the various people are, etc. Even just running solo combats in Melee with one or two PCs and a mob of foes, I've tried to run it TotM as I think it would play out, and then actually play it out, and see it play out quite differently in ways I can't track in my head.

And I'm someone extremely interested in tactical details. Many players are not, or don't follow the GM's descriptions all that well, and would have to ask about who can reach whom and so on, which is a different thing from being able to look at a map and see where the figures are at a glance (and also possibly see opportunities that the GM doesn't notice).

Abstract positioning, if done right, could contribute something I'm not sure I've seen in any existing game: A way to capture the elements of distance and timing that really matter in hand to hand fighting. Games generally deal with questions of where you are and when you act in ways that are totally unlike the way range and timing work in combat sports or fights. The reality is that range is dynamic, and order of actions is a lot less important than who is in control of distance and the flow of the action. D&D's traditional approach to this is actually pretty honest and clear:  the game doesn't really know how to handle it, so it all gets abstracted into a random initiative roll and a to-hit roll, and you shouldn't sweat the details. Or, equivalently, you can make them up in whatever way you enjoy most. Games that get very concrete about initiative and distance - The Fantasy Trip, Runequest, GURPS, etc., often result in something that is good as a game, in the sense that it is fun and the player can 'game' it to find advantageous strategies. But it isn't any closer to the way distance and timing work in fighting.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1006912Abstract positioning, if done right, could contribute something I'm not sure I've seen in any existing game: A way to capture the elements of distance and timing that really matter in hand to hand fighting. Games generally deal with questions of where you are and when you act in ways that are totally unlike the way range and timing work in combat sports or fights. The reality is that range is dynamic, and order of actions is a lot less important than who is in control of distance and the flow of the action. D&D's traditional approach to this is actually pretty honest and clear:  the game doesn't really know how to handle it, so it all gets abstracted into a random initiative roll and a to-hit roll, and you shouldn't sweat the details. Or, equivalently, you can make them up in whatever way you enjoy most. Games that get very concrete about initiative and distance - The Fantasy Trip, Runequest, GURPS, etc., often result in something that is good as a game, in the sense that it is fun and the player can 'game' it to find advantageous strategies. But it isn't any closer to the way distance and timing work in fighting.

This is something Burning Wheel attempts to capture.

Quote from: ffilz;1006995This is something Burning Wheel attempts to capture.

That's right, and it is one of the better ideas in BW. It is one of the reasons I seriously toyed with the idea of running BW, although its many other quirks kept me from overcoming the activation energy to starting a campaign. I used the system there as a starting point for an abstract positioning system I wrote for a home-brewed system, though it was really just one of those busy-work rules projects that didn't go anywhere.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1006595Requiring the party to specify a "marching order" before entering the dungeon is all that is necessary.

I think this is a key aspect of the old-school dungeon play that has been overlooked. When not in "combat time" the party moves as a single unit (formation set by their marching order). Then _after_ the party makes a coordinated move each turn you can handle individual player actions.