The Gaming Den

In my experience, a sloppy version of the Big Square method is what most people actually use when they lack a battlemat or something with squares.

That is, the character placement in most battles is vague and comes up rarely. A player will indeed say "I take cover behind the boulder" instead of saying, "I move 25 feet diagonally so that I appear to be behind the boulder with respect to Orcs X and Y but not to Orc Z which is behind the party."

Dynamic character's aren't really "anywhere within the big square"... they tend to have a fairly exact placement in the player's mind, but the understanding of who can and cannot be attacked is mostly implied.

There is indeed a loss of information this way, but it depends on the kind of realism you are going for.


When I used to roleplay, I prefered for things like character position to be clear: I used a battlemat. I still feel that it enhances the game, despite the extra preparation necessary. I feel (perhaps unjustly) that the added ambiguity will simply create edge cases where player and GM are at a disagreement over what positions for what characters were implied.

The only real problem I see with this system is passing through from square to square. It becomes important which side of a square you're on if someone is trying to stop you from moving through square B to square C.

Reach weapons need to be rebalanced as well (assuming you ever thought them balanced to begin with).

Still I think there's a lot of merit in formalizing a system that uses a simple battlemap as opposed to a complex one.

wrote:In my experience, a sloppy version of the Big Square method is what most people actually use when they lack a battlemat or something with squares.

Thats part of the whole point in doing it this way instead. Little squares don't get used, if you create a formalized system which IS used then you have made an improvement.

wrote:they tend to have a fairly exact placement in the player's mind, but the understanding of who can and cannot be attacked is mostly implied.

So part of the underlying idea here then is to ensure that the player understands that they can imagine what they like anout fairly exact (or bouncy running in circles) placement and thats just fluff.

Meanwhile who can and cannot attack who is formalized and not implied.

wrote:There is indeed a loss of information this way, but it depends on the kind of realism you are going for.

If you are already using a system LESS formal than this, or using a small squares system that rarely if ever sees its features used then you aren't losing anything.

Mind you you aren't exactly losing information anyway. The information that "I was in cover behind that rock" is essentially a state arbitrated by negotiating your characters available actions/options with your GM.

And in big fat squares its effectively still the same thing. You just cut out the grid based movement and subjective, non grid based, lines of sight arguments as the middle men and went straight to a system of giving it out for action or option expenditures.

wrote:I feel (perhaps unjustly) that the added ambiguity will simply create edge cases where player and GM are at a disagreement over what positions for what characters were implied.

The point is you are creating FORMALIZED ambiguity.

Yeah I know that sounds dumb.

But really, you are saying look, we don't care precisely which tiny five foot area you are standing in "On The Bridge" say what you like and we will all nod sagely and imagine something only remotely similar.

Meanwhile we all have easily agreed that you are in the big fat square we called "On The Bridge" and that means very specific things we can all easily agree on for targetting and movement.

Player GM disagreements over positioning now matter less, the only disagreement that matter is if the player is on the bridge at all, or not.

If you are having that disagreement you have bigger issues than square scales in your combat resolution.

wrote:The only real problem I see with this system is passing through from square to square. It becomes important which side of a square you're on if someone is trying to stop you from moving through square B to square C.

I feel rather happy about the resolution of that by allowing someone to enter an intercept state to prevent people moving into, or out of, a specific square, you don't care about the transition, its the destination or origin that matters, the edges take care of themselves.

Now, to a limited extent narrow doorways, or much worse a big fat square that consists of a highly constricted space like a long thin tunnel... well some terrain modifier to intercept, close combat or cover actions might be in order but, well. Lets say its something I haven't really properly addressed to my full satisfaction, at least not formally in my current implementation.

wrote:Reach weapons need to be rebalanced as well (assuming you ever thought them balanced to begin with).

Well you could stab with your longer reach, my system currently didn't even notice the difference. And right now I'm not sure I really care if it doesn't, did we REALLY need to make that differentiation?

I mean I'm using a system currently where your lucky if it mechanically notices a difference between bare fists and a great axe, why the heck do I care if you have a pike?

Now meanwhile in d20 reach is already abstracted with only five foot increments and wierd discrete AoO junk, when if you are really insisting on reach meaning something, well a foot of weapon length and half a foot of hieght or arm reach over your oponent could or should mean a lot, maybe to the point of entirely determining which party is on the offensive at all. But unless you have something both arbitrarily long AND jabby its meaningless when your scythe comes up against a dagger.

So lets just sigh and forget it. Let bygones be bygones and we forget that anyone ever imagined the use of specific reach mechanics. Spears work like swords only the name is spelt different.

If you must then attacking a reach weapon with a non reach weapon as a close range attack either grants them a free strike or a bonus to their retaliatory strike. Personally I'm not sure I want to.

wrote:Still I think there's a lot of merit in formalizing a system that uses a simple battlemap as opposed to a complex one.

Part of the idea is this, its as formal, potentially as rich and entertaining as a small squares system.

But its simple enough that if need be you could describe, not draw or layout with miniatures, JUST describe the map and character positions. And from a simple brief verbal description everyone knows exactly what the mechanics of the system have to say about their locations and their options.

I mean, I know its my pet thing but I see a lot of merit in anything at least trying to do that.

I agree that formalized ambiguity via a clear Big Squares Method is better than the random ambiguity most people use. No argument there.

Why don't you write a complete version of the Big Square Rules (d20?) and we can try and figure out what it's got going for it and what it doesn't? I feel like we're arguing about an unfinished product at the moment.

It should probably address:

- different area of effect types
- tactical formations and how they affect the area of effect types
- cover/concealment
- time necessary to move from one big square to the next
- interception, attacks of opportunity (for example: who gets to make opportunistic attacks on the guy that just tripped?)

Simpler rules are better rules, and removing the need for a battlemat or graph paper would be a boon for any system.

MUD rooms?


On a totally diferent note, has anyone here ever tried using a grid-free battle map for D&D, and go all wargamey with a knotted string and templates?

Catharz at [unixtime wrote:1181247380[/unixtime]]MUD rooms?


On a totally diferent note, has anyone here ever tried using a grid-free battle map for D&D, and go all wargamey with a knotted string and templates?

I did. It worked flawlessly, and made circular architecture possible.

the_taken at [unixtime wrote:1181252176[/unixtime]]

Catharz at [unixtime wrote:1181247380[/unixtime]]MUD rooms?


On a totally diferent note, has anyone here ever tried using a grid-free battle map for D&D, and go all wargamey with a knotted string and templates?

I did. It worked flawlessly, and made circular architecture possible.

Awesome, that's what I was hoping. I'll use that for the next adventure I run, which will probably be 'The Black Hand of Serbia', whatever that goblinoid army "wyrmlord" adventure was called.

I played low level 2e like that a few times and it worked fine for the most part.