Here I am writing again about beloved miniature battle mats. I respect there are passionate differences of opinion on the subject, and no view point is necessarily wrong if you are having fun. I agree using nothing but a battle mat with hastily scribbled lines isn’t too much fun for me. It takes time, is visually unappealing and distracts from the scene. That’s why I invested in tiles and templates. Admittedly like many other facets of my hobby I may have gone a bit overboard, but with nothing more than a $30 investment one can have a set of basic dungeon tiles, little plastic rulers in 6 and 12 inches, and spell area templates.
Now coming in the New Year I’m about to run a more gothic horror-themed adventure path for my Sunday night crew, and I am seeing advice about ditching the grid and minis for imagination. Which again, I say is fine if that’s your thing. Personally I find discussions like this asinine and annoying:
“Where’s the other goblin?”
“What other goblin?”
“The one that was by the east door.”
“There’s no door to the east.”
“Well, wherever the other door is, the one we didn’t come in.”
“I guess you mean the north door. Or you mean the set of double doors to the west?”
“I don’t know, but one of those doors had a goblin near it.”
“If it’s the goblin I think you’re talking about, he’s dead.”
Not to mention that once I set down a battle mat or tiles that visually represent the scene, not only am I actually aiding my own descriptions (in which I always try to be as through as possible) but I am validating character choices made in feats, abilities and powers that would be much less effective had there been no tactical element.
I’ve been using miniatures of some kind since 1981, just because they were fun to have and see. Interestingly enough I owe the grid not to 3rd edition, but to 2nd edition and a player or two who decided it would be fun to take advantage of the fact there were no accurate visuals during combat. While most people roughly estimated their movement in feet and slide a mini around a table, these other folks would get away with ridiculous sets of movement and actions based on the fact we had no solid area mapped out.
I find that I have an overtly talented set of over 15 players that have no trouble whatsoever not only being drawn to the battlemat and interested in making cool tactical decisions that help command the ebb and flow of combat, but at a moment’s notice can switch up and look at me when there are insults thrown, noncombat maneuvers happening or a surrender or parley takes place. And of course I have done away with the grid when there are obviously pure role-playing elements where spatial relation doesn’t matter…except the time I lay one out to get some folks paranoid about imminent danger.
Sometimes I wonder if the mat is being too effective. Folks sometimes are so set and attentive of where everything is, they forget others are not, and come up with actions when called on in combat as:
“I attack!” (You attack what, where, and with what weapon?)
“Have that guy make a save!” (What type of saving throw? Why? What spell is being cast?)
But in general such things are still far and few between. I had also experimented with doing away with the 1.5 count of diagonal movement, but everyone seems to know it, and we’ll leave it as is.
In my opinion taking such a large part of the game rules based on the tactical element and making it fun is just another way our groups somehow excel over others who struggle with what I consider a pretty basic subject.
So in case anyone was ever wondering, please wonder no more, we’re not losing the battle mat!
