TSR Era D&D: Products of Your Imagination (actual slogan by the way)

WOTC Era D&D: Products of Us, no Imagination Required.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;545033TSR Era D&D: Products of Your Imagination (actual slogan by the way)

WOTC Era D&D: Products of Us, no Imagination Required.

I think you are selling 3.x wayyyyy short here. Yes, when the ramp-up to 4E was going on, the books sucked. Yet there was a lot of damn good stuff beforehand.

If you want to be disparaging of WotC D&D, it fits better to say WotC under Hasbro Just Wants Your Money.

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 wish we could, but I doubt you could get Benoist to agree to #1 or #3; he's too busy dealing with that shaft called 'his ego' that he's rammed up his own backside.

Edit: I've already agreed to #2 and #4. But no one cares.

Quote from: Marleycat;545027Geez, you're a jewel your mother must be so proud!!

Dead the last 34 years from cancer so it will be difficult to know. Not that you care in the least of course.

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.

It 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.

As described (both in its description and in its use) it's still basically freeform gaming ran in zero-dimensions.

And yet, the vast, vast majority of ACTUAL miniature games get by just fine without a grid (and, arguably, are WAAAAAYY more conducive to argument due to their one-on-one competitive nature).  How can this be?  :idunno:

It's almost like rulers were available to the plebs, now, instead of being restricted to the landed nobility.  

Beyond that, I often use a gridded mat for scale drawings.  This doesn't mean that the characters themselves have to be restricted to the grid spaces - PCs and monsters don't "snap to" at my table.  (Nor did they when we started doing this back in 2e days.)

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;545043And yet, the vast, vast majority of ACTUAL miniature games get by just fine without a grid (and, arguably, are WAAAAAYY more conducive to argument due to their one-on-one competitive nature).  How can this be?  :idunno:

I use the term 'maps and mins' as short hand. It may be point to point measure and models, or grid and tokens. Or even pure math (for those so inclined).

The details of the individual method don't matter. The consistancy, speed of use, and accuracy does.

Quote from: gleichman;545042Dead the last 34 years from cancer so it will be difficult to know. Not that you care in the least of course.

Actually I do. My mother died 11 years ago so believe it or not I can relate.

My mother died 6 years ago, on March 4th, from a Cancer that ate at her for years.

I too do know how that feels.

Good communication skills on the part of the DM are how you overcome the 'information bottleneck' in an RPG. Replacing the imagined scenario with a gameboard about which the players don't need to ask any questions is not addressing the issue - it's avoiding the issue by playing a different kind of game.

Quote from: gleichman;545009THIS IS YOUR REAL ANSWER!

It's because you can't imagine yourself restrained by the rules and the reality they represent. Thus you must be free of them. You must be a special snowflake able to alter that reality at whime.

Anything else you're going on about is simple denial of that core need inside yourself.

Brian, I'm not sure if this is relevant, but in my experience, the presence or absence of a map isn't tied to adherence to rules vs whim. I've mainly used maps for The Fantasy Trip, and I can see benefits of clarity and self-adjudication. These will certainly speed up the game, assuming players themselves have a firm grasp of the rules (they don't always). But with a conscientious, responsible GM, the "whim" factor is about the same for combat as it is for other game elements such as dungeon layout, NPC stats and motivation, etc.

Actually, my favored approach when not using a map, if there was any amount of maneuver, was to use a use a hidden sketch. Generally speaking, the GM needs a god's-eye view of the action. The players don't, necessarily. Any confusion that the players may experience in not having a top-down view of the action is probably more realistic in terms of reflecting the limitations on decision-making when you're in the middle of a melee, or even viewing it from the sidelines at ground-level (e.g., an archer). Granted, the confusion may be exaggerated by poor description skills on the part of the GM, or poor visualization skill on the part of the player. Subjectively, I've always found the visualization approach to be more vivid and more conducive to IC-POV, but YMMV.

Basically, I find this branch of the overall discussion to be no different from the general case. Taken to the extreme, it resolves to a lack of trust (in the motivations/competence/fairness of the GM) and a reaction that insists on shifting both knowledge, power, and control more in the direction of the player. I'm sure there are cases where most of us would find that reaction justified, but that doesn't mean there's anything fundamentally & universally wrong with leaving more things up to the GM's judgment.

EDIT: 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.

Quote from: gleichman;545009THIS IS YOUR REAL ANSWER!

It's because you can't imagine yourself restrained by the rules and the reality they represent. Thus you must be free of them. You must be a special snowflake able to alter that reality at whime.

Anything else you're going on about is simple denial of that core need inside yourself.

Saying it with caps and conviction doesn't make it true. It is pretty clear from this response you are just projecting things onto people you want to see.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;545067Saying it with caps and conviction doesn't make it true. It is pretty clear from this response you are just projecting things onto people you want to see.

The entire "mother-may-I" argument, summed up in one sentence.  

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545066But with a conscientious, responsible GM, the "whim" factor is about the same for combat as it is for other game elements such as dungeon layout, NPC stats and motivation, etc.

Basically 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.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545066The players don't, necessarily. Any confusion that the players may experience in not having a top-down view of the action is probably more realistic in terms of reflecting the limitations on decision-making when you're in the middle of a melee, or even viewing it from the sidelines at ground-level (e.g., an archer).

As a said many time, I find this line of debate (which has nothing to do with the subject we're talking about by the way) weak.

My players are doctors, teachers, accountants and engineers. Not trained warriors and wizards. Thus to play they characters correctly I find that the free use of a God's Eye view a useful tool to counter their lack of knowledge so that they may run the heroes the game is about.

That said, I do on occasion use hidden movement. The game still however uses a map and minis when I do so.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;545066Basically, I find this branch of the overall discussion to be no different from the general case. Taken to the extreme, it resolves to a lack of trust (in the motivations/competence/fairness of the GM) and a reaction that insists on shifting both knowledge, power, and control more in the direction of the player.

It'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.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;545067Saying it with caps and conviction doesn't make it true. It is pretty clear from this response you are just projecting things onto people you want to see.

It's what they are saying to me BedrockBrendan, I won't call them liars.

If they have a different reason, they need to give one besides "trust the GM" and "Rulings not Rules".

Brian, before I read your recent posts, just a heads-up that I edited mine, mainly to add a couple things.