Playing Without Figures
In high school, I played and ran AD&D, 1st and 2nd Edition. I never used miniatures or any other counters to track position in combat. As time went on, I became a GURPS guy, which had an extensive hex-based combat system.
When d20/3E came out, I was so far away from Fantasy role-play, and set enough in my ways, that I wasn’t impressed with the changes (a gamer not likeing a new edition of D&D, never!). I didn’t really dig into the system till 3.5 came out. I was in the group that was mad that miniatures were listed as required, I mean this is D&D isn’t it? All you should need is dice, paper, and your books…
And I moved on. The funny thing is, sometime between when I stopped playing 2E, and now, traditional RPG’s became a thing that required minis to work. I know this isn’t really true, because I remember playing and having a blast without battlemaps and whatnot.
Just recently, I pulled out my old 1e core books from storage, and went through it. Best I can figure is I either ignored or winged tracking who was and wasn’t in melee, how tough it would be for someone to engage/disengage, and flanking/terrain advantages.
I mostly play 4E these days, and I’ve always so far used counters & maps/tiles to track combat location. What I wonder is, how tough would it be do hold all that stuff in your head, and would it make things more fun?
Are miniatures no different from initiative trackers, power cards, and hit point tracks? Just tools that take some of the cognitive load off the players? And does the clear representation of the battlefield that they provide impair the narrative of an encounter?
Comments welcome.
