Maps and Minis...

[Vanion]

[Lord Aramus]

we don't think of it as a communication failure.

I am a gm who counts.. when it is a player's turn, I count backwards from 5 to 0 and if the player has not declared an action by that point, he is still deciding what to do in combat and only acts to actively defend.

so having the battle drawn out and the (tokens, since I don't use figurines much) in front of them with a blast template or two.. allows them to do some seriously quick thinking.

"hmm.. with that group of stormies over there, this is the perfect time to test out my new batch of thermal deotonators...."
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[garhkal]

Thread resurrection.
We have had lots of new folks since this one was put up for everyone POV..
So what's your input into the situation?

A) do you use maps and miniatures?
B) if so, how do you account for those characters being 'stealthy'?
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[griff]

I have used maps with minis, maps just to show the lay out of the space, years ago we used Lego.casstle minifigs for D&D. I have thought about writing rules for Lego Star Wars the RPG.
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[DougRed4]

Great thread, and I find myself agreeing with the viewpoints shared by Vanion above.

As some of you have seen on my Death of Liberty thread, I like to use small, cardboard 1" (generally) counters.

They help give the players an idea of where they're at, what they would see, who is in what range, and a whole host of things that you don't get when you just simply describe things verbally.

Yes, I've done tons of verbal (only) role-playing, and I don't think it slows anything down or turns it into a wargame/miniatures game. Just last session, after I made scaled versions of each of their vehicles (as well as miniature ones to use on a huge map of the race circuit), one player remarked how it reminded him of Formula Dé (a racing game he loves).

I haven't used 'stealth' counters at all yet in our Star Wars game, but what I usually do is make regular counters for those characters, as well as different versions for when the character is invisible/being stealthy. To do this, I make a copy in Microsoft Word using the 'Washout' (or similar) feature, so the image is ghosted.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Dromdarr_Alark]

I only used a map and minis when my players were running through a fight club circuit that had interactive terrain like moving floors, rising platforms, spikes, and fire. I needed the map to keep track of everything and to have the combat be more tactical.

Otherwise, I try to keep it in the theater of the mind.
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[garhkal]

For those who do 'minds eye' tracking. How do you determine how many enemy are in range for grenades and other explosives?
How quickly someone can move up to a group of enemies for melee?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Dromdarr_Alark]

[shootingwomprats]

I will share what I do in my games.

First off I am narrative intensive. This means I want my players in character as much as possible. I want them concentrating on the story and the actions of their character. I ask them to narrate things from time to time so that they are involved in evolving the story. Occasionally I ask them to narrate their successes and failures (especially if it is a Complication or Spectacular Success).

To help set the mood and give the players an idea of how something may appear I will put pictures up on the map layer (they rest on the GM layer where they cannot see them, then I move them to the Map layer when the narration moves along). I explain that the picture is for flavor and to stir their imaginations, not everything that appears in the picture is there.

I have a token for each character on the Roll20 virtual table with an attached character sheet. As we move from one seen to another or a vehicle or what not, I will move the tokens to the appropriate picture. This helps to keep track of what players are where.

Occasionally my narrative skills are not up to the task, when this happens I will draw out a very quick and simple map. I explain it is not to scale and that ranges are approximate. When bad guys show up, I drop the appropriate number on the table and say they are roughly such and such meters away.

I don't tell my players what the difficulty is, but I will tell them approximate ranges. If they are going for cover I will tell them what to add to the Dodge roll if anything or else roll for the cover modifier if they choose not to dodge, trusting to range difficulty and cover.

I find this lose and abstract system works for my games. I have noticed the quickest way to knock your characters out of playing their characters is to drop a map on the table and start combat. I will admit that this approach does take a little getting used to but, its exceedingly fast. Toss in the occasional narration from a player and voila you got a yourselves a good time.
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[lurker]

[Naaman]

Our games are a little bit of both. When the situation is complex, we may request a map. But for the most part (especially in space battles) we just narrate.

But we dont actually se miniatures. We just sketch out a very, very rough map to show relative positions. And then ask questions like: " can I make it to that rock in one move?" Or "Does that guy appear to my character to be within grenade range?" Etc...

Fr space battles its much less necessary to draw maps because the only skills needed are gunnery, pilot and (maybe) sensors. You're either chasing or being chased usually.

[DougRed4]

I don't think it should be said (or even implied) that using maps and minis necessarily slows things down into a tactical exercise. Perhaps for some it does (slow things down), but for me - though it takes a bit more prep work up front - it actually greatly speeds up play.

I've run many games using only 'theater of the mind' and it too is good for what it's worth. With Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (an extremely narrative game, that doesn't even have things like ranges), I moved from completely spoken/narrative, to using counters. I found that it helped clarify simple things like which characters were together, which ones were actually up on the roof or in the ship, etc.

My games can crack along at a brisk pace as well. They generally only slow down due to a large number of players.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green