D&D 5E Why I love 5E - the renewal of Theater of Mind

[DongMaster]

TotM is just not for some groups' combat, it is the whole gaming experience.

 

[houser2112]

TotM is just not for some group combat, it is the whole gaming experience.

You use TotM for everything? I suppose our group should try that. It would cut down on the time wasted drawing all those blacksmith shops and taverns.

 

[DongMaster]

You use TotM for everything? I suppose our group should try that. It would cut down on the time wasted drawing all those blacksmith shops and taverns.

No, not for combat.

Have too many painted miniatures and Dwarven forge terrain for that.

Everything else, indeed I do.

 

[Henry]

You use TotM for everything? I suppose our group should try that. It would cut down on the time wasted drawing all those blacksmith shops and taverns.

DM: The 'Smith's shop is a brick structure, 25ft by 30 ft. It will take one 30 ft move to make it to the front door.
Player1: I Open the door and saunter inside.
DM: I'm sorry, you took your move to get there, and your standard to open the door as a move-equivalent. You'll have to enter next turn.
Player2: How about me? I move through Player1's space, and engage the blacksmith in conversation.
Player1: Oh no you don't! You're trying to get into the blacksmith's good graces before me! I declare you hostile!
DM: I'm sorry, but the door to the blacksmith is only 5 feet wide, you can't enter...
Player2: Not if I TUMBLE through Player1!
Player1: You BASTARD!
DM: That will be a 25 to tumble, please...
Player3: Can I use my Awl Pike to trip him?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Likewise, I've run TOTM semi-RPG sessions of Car Wars (SJG) and Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader (the original GW one) and Inquisitor (also GW)... it's quite doable to use minis rules in non-minis play.

I don't doubt it. I've run Champions! in that mode when a play surface wasn't available, and it's far more 'dependent' on the grid (actually hex) than any ed of D&D. I never meant to imply you /couldn't/ (the OP said the same thing, so it didn't seem to be a point of contention) just that the rules have never done anything to facilitate it, while they have been written in ways that facilitate using minis (or tokens, chits or whatever) and a play surface of some sort.

As for 5E, Mearls explicitly stated that being well suited for TOTM style play was in fact a design consideration in one of the 5E-playtest era posts.

At least one. None the less, 5e doesn't have rules that actually do that. It just flatly states that the default mode of play is 'TotM,' then goes on to give rules for range, area, movement & positioning that are fairly typical of D&D in the 20th century.

D&D is "meant" to facilitate a number of play styles.

D&D has a long tradition of being adapted to a variety of play styles, worlds, settings and even entirely different genres. Most editions have come right out and said that you can change the rules however you like, and even games that maintain a pretense that you shouldn't can be. So that's a given, yes. Play it how you like. Always could.

The zietgiest of the community has changed over the decades, though. In the 3.x era, RAW ruled with an iron fist, 'Rule 0' notwithstanding. In all other editions, though, there was less resistance to variations of one kind or another - 5e is particularly strident about being 'meant' to be changed by the DM ('rulings not rules'), so if there can be said to be a mode of play it doesn't encourage or support, it'd be 'RAW' (sorta like: "here are some rules, but whatever you do, don't actually play by them.")

I'm not sure how well 5E facilitates grid-based combat as I haven't tried it yet, although believe the DMG gives guidelines for it,

As with so many things, it seems to fall between 2e & 3e in that regard. The DMG module for 'tactics' is little more than a token gesture toward using a grid to facilitate movement & positioning, the game already works fine for play on a surface using counters of some sort. If you can divide by 5 you can use a grid or hex to simplify play (just as, in 4e, if you could multiply by 5, you could complicate play by converting everything to feet if wanted).

None of that necessarily means it's delivering 'tactical' play, though. You can lay out a play surface, move mini's around, and measure everything carefully, and the combat can still devolve into simple focus-fire tactics, with static front & back ranks or the melee types surrounding a single monsters while others shoot it from a safe distance. By the same token, you can run a more dynamic and interesting combat with some tactical depth 'TotM' if the DM & players are up to the challenge.

but it certainly better facilitates TOM than the previous couple editions.

The rules don't seem facilitate TotM in any specific way. There's nothing about needing to know exactly where all the combatants stand relative to eachother in order to figure out who is caught in a cone, cylinder, sphere or other geometric shape, for instance, that facilitates TotM. To the contrary, 5e rules can be more readily resolved if some sort of surface and position tracking is used (even if it's just X's & O's on a sheet of graph paper).

What 5e does do is not facilitate TotM, but validate it as the 'default' mode of play.
Sometimes a little affirmation is all it takes to make people happy.

 

[fjw70]

Here is what Gygax had to say about minis in the 1e DMG.

USE OF MINIATURE FIGURES WITH THE GAME

The special figures cast for ADVANCED DUNGEONS 8 DRAGONS add color to play and make refereeing far easier. Each player might be re- quired to furnish painted figures representing his or her player character and all henchmen and/or hirelings included in the game session. Such distinctively painted figures enable you to immediately recognize each individual involved. Figures can be placed so as to show their order of march, i.e., which characters are in the lead, which are in the middle, and which are bringing up the rear. Furthermore, players are more readily able to visualize their array and plan actions while seeing the reason for your restrictions on their actions. Monster figures are likewise most helpful, as many things become instantly apparent when a party is arrayed and their monster opponent(s) placed.

Personally I go back and forth between minis and TotM. Both are great in the right circumstances. I actually ran a one shot 4e session TotM recently with any special rules.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't doubt it. I've run Champions! in that mode when a play surface wasn't available, and it's far more 'dependent' on the grid (actually hex) than any ed of D&D. I never meant to imply you /couldn't/ (the OP said the same thing, so it didn't seem to be a point of contention) just that the rules have never done anything to facilitate it, while they have been written in ways that facilitate using minis (or tokens, chits or whatever) and a play surface of some sort.

At least one. None the less, 5e doesn't have rules that actually do that. It just flatly states that the default mode of play is 'TotM,' then goes on to give rules for range, area, movement & positioning that are fairly typical of D&D in the 20th century.
[snip]
The rules don't seem facilitate TotM in any specific way. There's nothing about needing to know exactly where all the combatants stand relative to eachother in order to figure out who is caught in a cone, cylinder, sphere or other geometric shape, for instance, that facilitates TotM. To the contrary, 5e rules can be more readily resolved if some sort of surface and position tracking is used (even if it's just X's & O's on a sheet of graph paper).

What 5e does do is not facilitate TotM, but validate it as the 'default' mode of play.
Sometimes a little affirmation is all it takes to make people happy.

Oh, but the rules DO facilitate it. In ways that 3E and 4E do not.

3E and 4E make extensive use of arcs. Varied areas of effect. Things described in grid squares.

5E simply lists ranges. See, to facilitate gridded play, it must have solid ranges and reasonable shapes. But by describing them in ranges measured in feet (tho' meters would work just as well), and not using facing as a default, it is providing enough detail for grid, but no so much that the grid becomes nearly requisite.

Likewise, the change in Attacks of Opportunity. The move from move within reach triggering to leaving reach triggering is another concession to TOTM play... because in TOTM, it's easy to delineate - if you change targets, your old opponent gets the free hack.

And the 5E DMG has narrative options for area of effect in TOTM play. (DMG 249)
And the mob rules (DMG 250) and chase rules (DMG 253).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Oh, but the rules DO facilitate it. In ways that 3E and 4E do not.

3E and 4E make extensive use of arcs. Varied areas of effect. Things described in grid squares.

arcs? I am aware of nothing that uses an arc in any edition.

3e and 5e have varied areas of effect - lines, cones, spheres, columns, spreads, cubes etc. Expressed in feet. 3e gave you templates to facilitate using a grid, but aside from that, was no different than 5e. The templates didn't make it /harder/ to run TotM, they just facilitated using a grid. Grids, in turn, just make it a little easier to determine distances and positioning on a surface - using a play surface just makes it easier to handle distance, movement and positioning /than trying to track it all in your head would be/.

Squares are not exactly hard to visualize, especially since the correspond to the space occupied by a medium creature. Take three hobgoblins standing in a phalanx. Does a 15' long 45-degree cone catch them all? Depends on where the caster is and at what angle relative to the phalanx he can place the cone, considering that he's the vertex. Can a 3.5 cone-template? Maybe, it depends on whether they're lined up in a row/column, or along a diagonal. Can a 'blast 3' catch all of them? Yes.

5E simply lists ranges. See, to facilitate gridded play, it must have solid ranges and reasonable shapes. But by describing them in ranges measured in feet (tho' meters would work just as well), and not using facing as a default, it is providing enough detail for grid, but no so much that the grid becomes nearly requisite.

Neither 3e nor 4e used facing, either. 5e does not just list ranges, it lists precise geometric areas. Also, by 'just' listing ranges, it gets into questions like what the range is from the top of a tower to an enemy at ground level at a distance. In 3e, that's a simple calculation, in 4e it's an even simpler comparison - in 5e it's the Pythagorean theorem. And 5e does not just list ranges, it has rules for ranges, various area effects, movement, and positioning, all down to the foot. That's just more and more fiddly numbers to work with. That's not so great for TotM.

Likewise, the change in Attacks of Opportunity. The move from move within reach triggering to leaving reach triggering is another concession to TOTM play... because in TOTM, it's easy to delineate - if you change targets, your old opponent gets the free hack.

It looked more like eliminating the 3.x 'shift' form of movement. Essentially, in 5e, you can circle your opponent all you want. Depending on where another opponent is, circling the one you're engaging might let you engage him, as well (you'd be flanking yourself - but 5e doesn't use flanking), or you might provoke or use an action to disengage. It doesn't save the DM from needing to know exactly where everyone is relative to eachother. If 5e really were trying to facilitate TotM, it would have had to have gone further than that. To 13A's 'engaged' range with rules for engaging and disengaging from multiple targets, and no worries about circling around in the melee causing you to engage a new opponent or disengage from one of the ones you're already engaged with by leaving his reach.

 

[Sunseeker]

Personally I go back and forth between minis and TotM. Both are great in the right circumstances. I actually ran a one shot 4e session TotM recently with any special rules.

I have generally found that which one I use depends heavily on the scale of what's going on. Flying over the treetops in an airship? ToTM. Engaging in a fight with a hundred foes? ToTM. Fighting a single enemy in an enclosed area? Minis and map. Exploring a town? Pre-made maps are helpful for both sides, often such maps can be purchased from your local travel agency so I don't have to keep reminding everyone where everything is!

 

[Psikerlord#]

I agree with the OP: ToTM is perhaps the major drawcard of 5e for me. It's the default as far as I understand it. The grid etc are optional rules in DMG aren't they?

I've played 2e and 5e Totm, and 3e and 4e required grids (in my view, or at least that's how we played). I have fun with both. But... I greatly prefer TotM. It is just infinitely flexible. Any kind of fight can break out anywhere anytime and it is easy to resolve. PCs want a one session surprise side trek - no worries! Off they go. Woot! I love it.

Not needing mini's or mats is very liberating. It is also consistent with the primary advantage TRPGs have over computer games: that players can try anything anytime, and the DM can respond in kind.