calem
Tool Gatherer
Posts: 81
|
Post by calem on Mar 31, 2014 18:51:59 GMT
I think i would like to re-awaken this thread, since i could use the advice.
I've been a non-grid player/DM my whole life, never needed one, and never really worried about movement rates or anything. As long as it seems within the realm of possibility, there is no reason why i should say no (thanks, Chris Perkins, for the DM advice..never say no).
That being said, I am now playing with a fairly new group of players, most of which use grids in their play (pathfinder and 4e). Since bringing my friend aboard, he brought his battlemat, since it was bigger and more durable than my dry-erase panel. I love the mat, wet erase, since that is usually how i get the scene drawn on, and have even bought my own at this point (wet erase is far superior to dry erase for a mat).
But i still refuse to use the hexes on the mat for movement. It throws some of the players off, who want to move their minis around counting out squares like chess pieces...but i force them into gridless play really quickly. For players unfamiliar with "winging it," it throws them off, using their imaginations to control things like movements. Then, once they see that i trust them, someone always tries to stretch it...dude, you are a halfling..you cannot move as quickly per turn as the ogre. c'mon.
So how do you guys control these two things? I like dm scotty's painted rod, which allows him to measure players' movements, which is nice, but i like it even more free than that. I dont want to measure it at all, i want it to be all "imaginative." how do i force a bunch of people who only play WoW (grrrrr) into imagining a realistic view of movement? then, how do i keep it from being abused?
That being said, i do appreciate the idea of having a grid for "shifting," where a player can easily see how far they can move without getting an opportunity attack. It also helps to easily visualize cover...I don't know why, maybe it is just having the straight lines makes it easier to visualize, i dunno.
|
|
|
Post by ReliantLion on Mar 31, 2014 23:08:19 GMT
I think Scotty ignores specific initiative order (enemies take their turn together and players act together on their turn), and then do away with actions (in terms of move, standard, full round, etc.). Then you use phases for things like movement, spells and attacks. Different game systems would need their own modifications, to taste.
|
|
leolad72
Paint Manipulator
I am a DM; it isn't in my job description to "kid around"
Posts: 147
|
Post by leolad72 on Apr 5, 2014 19:11:43 GMT
In MY day, or rather my first official outing into D&D, we had limited resources and time. Specifically, we played during down time during Basic Training, and the use of grids and whatnot simply weren't feasible. We set out with dice, notebooks, pencils and worked with whatever our DM could throw at us. Our grid was simply the map our DM had come up with for the area, and he completely ignored spaces and distances. The gameplay was that of necessity: fluid, simple and we could focus on JUST the roleplay instead of mechanics, placement and movement.
If the guy can be taken seriously, I happened across an individual who claims to have run a game with Gygax AT the table. I'll have to pick his brain.
|
|
argiope
Cardboard Collector
Posts: 47
|
Post by argiope on Apr 21, 2014 22:48:25 GMT
Calem
My recommendation on shifting to gridless is invest in making a few sticks marked off with 1inch increments for 20, 30, & 40 foot movement. You give the dwarf the short 4" stick, the humans and others the 6" inch stick and the quick ones the 8" inch stick. That makes everyone honest on where they can move within a turn.
|
|
|
Post by whitefang on May 3, 2014 13:09:33 GMT
The biggest problem I have faced when it comes to Gridless Play is acceptance. Some players like Grid-play because they can, as someone pointed out, determine their best advantage by counting squares. Others dislike having any physical table representation at all because they prefer theatre of the mind. I've found that convincing players to compromise between the two is harder for my group/D&D social pool than DM Scotty makes it sound (Not that I disagree with DM Scotty. However, easier said than done in my experience...) I can also envision a few other problems with Gridless Play which, while easily fixed with wise preparation and consideration of how the rules would work, could become problematic if an issue creeps up on you despite your planning. Secret doors can be one that I see some people struggle with. Either they want to craft it directly onto the tile (Making it hard to make a secret) or they don't want to craft it at all, which contributes to a breakdown in suspending disbelief. Now, again, this is actually easily remedied, but I have seen (and had) some hitches on this issue. But in any case, aside from those minor hang ups, once you get everything resolved in transferring over, it should be smooth sailing. As to the secret door comment, I have that problem. I haven't made a secret door because if I put it on the map its not secret. If they find the secret door, its there for the half second it takes for them to walk through it then its out of play. With all the other terrain on my list, I cant justify spending the time to make it for 2 seconds of use.
|
|
|
Post by DMScotty on May 3, 2014 14:29:57 GMT
I agree with whitefang, If they find a secret door or area I just put the tile up against the tile they were searching that way there is no clue that it was there. That is unless you want it to be obvious. I don't "craft" secret doors myself as like whitefang I don't really feel they are needed unless the party is being pursed and they have to hide or something and try to hold the door closed if discovered.
|
|
|
Post by DMScotty on May 3, 2014 14:32:46 GMT
Here is the vid I did for my measureless experiments with 4E. It works pretty well once the players get used to it.
|
|
|
Post by whitefang on May 3, 2014 18:11:03 GMT
I'm gonna run this up the flag pole and see who salutes it. The biggest objection I hear about going gridless is the measuring stick so this could be the solution I was looking for. Thanks again.
|
|
|
Post by skunkape on May 5, 2014 21:13:23 GMT
I've noticed war gamers tend to have less of an issue going grid-less, we were basically trained that way to begin with!
|
|
Mortal Knight
Paint Manipulator
Current Game: Return to Serenity (Custom Campaign)
Posts: 194
|
Post by Mortal Knight on May 14, 2014 3:15:42 GMT
BOOO GOBLINS lol. The only short coming I have found in the few grid less games I have played is the extra work for the spell templates other than that my players adjusted really well and I still use a little bit of grid as you will see in my craftwar entry if the room calls for nice tiles on the floor I just use that as a grid bases. I figure if the tile is going to used for play might as well give those new rpers the chance to bounce back to the grided format a few times. It seems to bring them back into the mechanics of the game. I believe my biggest flaw in DM is that I don't allow more bad ass ideas just happen I try to invent a mechanic for it. I also have players in my group who believe the game is an anime or something and that leads them to the path of "well I'm going to do something my full-plate fighter can't do at all with a hundred pounds in armor on because that little rogue did it."
I have began to enjoy the gridless a bit more however I still lack in some materials and funds to really craft the nice spell tracker stuff. Plus is it just me or is creating hot glue textures freaking hard to make look consistent I suppose it is all about the practice you put in.
|
|
Mortal Knight
Paint Manipulator
Current Game: Return to Serenity (Custom Campaign)
Posts: 194
|
Post by Mortal Knight on May 14, 2014 3:16:28 GMT
Wow I read like the first page not even realizing that there were four of them lmao.
|
|
|
Post by DnDPaladin on Aug 13, 2014 7:34:29 GMT
i didn't play gridless yet, surely will try it, but i already see a lot of problems that will spun from it... i'm an analytical mind when it comes to possibilities..
the first major trouble is AoO... its harder for a DM to determine it without a grid, because you're ending up looking at your players and when they get near a creature you have to stop them and use a measuring stick. and if you did that without a reason you are just slowing your game down even more. so in the end. its not at all better for that.
second thing that goes along is how the measuring stick is not precise at all.with a grid you are precise as you see things as they are. and the grid do not move. looking at warhammer players (measuring everything) they often end up putting their pièces, "about" there, which is at best giving you more then you would, or at worse, less then you want.
third thing i see, as to do with people themselves... some people are more logical and less imaginative. thus a grid makes them comfortable with it. while being gridless hinders them because it forces them to take more time into thinking. an exemple of that are the tactician guys. that type of player will look at all his options, reguardless of you being grid or gridless. and that guy reguardless of if you give him a measuring stick or not. will use it a lot to see what he can and cannot do. i have a guy like that in my group. believe me, i'm using a lot of timer countdown on him for him to act. he thinks everything including his very wording.
fourth and last thing i found a problem with, is walking around corners. its easy to measure with sticks for straight lines. but what can people do when it comes to corners. as i said above, winding it is just strickly less precise. hence your character may actually move further then necessary just because you moved around a corner. sp again it all dépends on whos playing and what players are used to. but i know many players who are all about stats and nothing about roleplay. those players may be a bigger problem to gridless and movement in general.
overall i think gridless has no real advantages over grided plays. on my tables things go fast when they need to and slow when i dont push enough. we all know how to play with grids. i think playing gridless works better in an environment where your players aren't min maxers or tacticians. but when like me, you get both... being gridless may not be the right solutions.
of course this is entirely situationnal. but d&d is nothing but situationnal. i still have to try gridless, but i already see the problems above being a problem for me.
Question: how do you deal with corners and hindered terrain movement when gridless ? feels to me like you guys ignores most of the rules to satisfy your own gridless experience.
|
|
|
Post by thedmg on Aug 13, 2014 8:07:09 GMT
You should play gridless and then you will understand that everything you say is baseless. Attack of opportunity is when a character is within 5 feet of an opponent. Why would you need a grid to determine this? When you move through 5 feet you cause an AoO. Grids are less precise because you have to move in 5 foot increments, you can't move 13 feet on a grid. Diagonal movement is ridiculous on a grid, in gridless you just move. If people in your game are being that particular about rules and definition of what they are saying this usually stems from the fact that the DM is hard and fast on the rules and does not bend them. A true rules lawyer will bend the rules to suit, not play by the rules. If I am hugging a wall and I move passed the wall the width of a standard base, I am now 5 feet off the wall and can hug the wall along the next path. I generally measure from the middle of the base. Hindered terrain - so if it is half movement... I get to only move half the distance. If it is quarter movement... I only get to move quarter distance. It is not rocket science. Grids ignore common sense to satisfy the rule experience.
Grid games take a lot longer than gridless. Most of movement counting is generally a waste of time and the type of micromanaging that slows the game down.
|
|
sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
|
Post by sotf on Aug 13, 2014 8:52:07 GMT
Actually, my group kind of revolted after trying a session...and considering that most of the books used are technically owned by the store with the gaming library setup (There's a good stock of minis, terrain, books, and a lot of other things that have piled up there that people have donated to it for various things over the years) and I'm not the only one in the group who runs games, I'm just the one that tends to like running the story more than playing, or is at least most directly willing to volunteer.
It also leads to fights and complaints between the players as they plan things out about how far things are and what they can do, as well as ranges of things even with templates...it also ended up slowing the game down considerably compared to the previous rule that had been in play of using a 1 minute egg timer for each persons turn barring a few outside situations that might take slightly longer or new players figuring things out.
I have considered taking a different variant with a 2" grid and halving distances while opening up more internal movement inside it after a few games of Deadzone, but that's liable to be the same problem of the players liking the same basic rules to work from in order to frame their ability use in ways that make sense to them.
It's not really that different anyway as I kind of like the gridded battlemats to begin with for RPG stuff, mainly because if I need to draw things, I have a ready made scale to base it off of rather than freehand...which always leads to problems for me anyway.
|
|
|
Post by thedmg on Aug 13, 2014 9:16:08 GMT
I still find it funny that this is such an issue. You're just exchanging grids for a 1" increment ruler. In fact if I was moving diagonally with my movement of 8 (40'), I move 5 spaces on a grid, with one left (35'), in a gridless game I move 40'.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2014 15:28:55 GMT
Wargamers don't generally use grids, and never have. Since wargames were the birth place of RPG play, why the hell should we use grids? I started out gridless, and now I am back to playing that way again, I can't really see many ways that grids made the game any easier.. the are constrictive, overly complicate a basic, common sense issue, and, they detract from immersion in the scene.
But hey, don't take my word for it. Try it and see for yourself.
|
|
sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
|
Post by sotf on Aug 13, 2014 19:08:26 GMT
I still find it funny that this is such an issue. You're just exchanging grids for a 1" increment ruler. In fact if I was moving diagonally with my movement of 8 (40'), I move 5 spaces on a grid, with one left (35'), in a gridless game I move 40'. Part of it is that a lot of players don't like measuring them out and prefer the abstraction of the grid and it lets them think about available options even off the wall options. It also means that they can keep formulating ideas during the rest of the groups turns without interfering with what is actively happening. Adding an egg timer speeds things up as well Part of the thing is that there now are a lot of wargames that use some form of a grid that fed into D&D and several other RPGs...such as the WotC ones and even now you have Deadzone and the Clix games
|
|
|
Post by okumarts on Aug 13, 2014 19:17:21 GMT
I've always resented a grid. I use minis to enhance my experience, not confine my creativity. As a GM I make the final say about where people go and what they can do. It's about the story, not the logistics.
|
|
dmzane
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 150
|
Post by dmzane on Aug 14, 2014 3:24:13 GMT
I've watched all of dm scotty's vids on the subject and it's starting to click. I used to play 'theater of the mind' but now I'm all minis/grids which while fun it's also missing something. I'm going to test the waters next play session, but I don't see my players having any issues with it. They just want to play. It seems to me that the only resistance will come in the form of old habits associated with playing a grided system so long.
|
|
|
Post by DMScotty on Aug 14, 2014 4:44:53 GMT
If your players want precise play Descent the boardgame not an RPG.
|
|