I've been collecting dwarven forge terrain for about 8 years, and I paint it myself. I can tell you using terrain w/ things like 3d printed and painted minis, Syrinscape in a gaming room with SONOS surround /sub (largely for building mood with music and occasionally a sound effect), and ChatGPT to assist me with the story and descriptions, along with also having miniatures of the monsters in my games is something that creates an incredible cinematic experience. I recently tried to play at another table that is 100% theatre of the mind after running my own with all the toys, and I can't go back to it - not alone. It's not been cheap by any stretch but there is no doubt who the players are attacking, how far away they are etc. Regardless of all the bells and whistles though I am a HUGE story guy.

One of the things I've found over the years is that minis and maps help all the players "get on the same page". With ToTM everybody has a slightly (or very) different version of what is happening and where everybody is in relation to each other.

In either context, I generally lean towards immersion and atmosphere. In TotM, lighting and sound help a lot. I always wanted to add minis to our games in high school, but no one else would commit with me. Nowadays as an adult with a budget, I'm currently hoping to get a game of Starfinder going and I intend to knock some socks off with the table setup. But I say this as someone who also loves wargames, so the crafting element of the hobby is something I really enjoy too. As such, assembling and painting minis and terrain is all part of the fun for me. If anyone is looking to add some easy terrain to your table, I would suggest Battle Systems (either their sci-fi or fantasy lines) high density card terrain. Really durable, ez to use clip build system, ez to store, awesome prints (exteriors and interiors) and with a lot of interactivity built in (cargo boxes, chests, scatter terrain, doors, removable roofs and levels), really makes an immersive table in short order. Not a shill, the product is just fantastic for its purpose. Love the content and channel! Thank you for all the insights therein!

@danwells9305

3 жыл бұрын

Oh, Battle Systems is great stuff. I haven't yet invested in any, but I drool over it often.

I tried using minis in 3.5 with a dry-erase grid map. I didn't like the way the focus shifted to the minis, players would "game" exact distances, and transitioning took up time. Since then I've always used TotM. I spend lots of time painting minis and terrain to play WH40k, but I don't break them out for TTRPGs. Just my preference.

The other big consideration that I don't really see discussed that often in the TotM v BM conversation is the mood you are going for. In a game like Call of Cthulhu, a battlemap can really kill the sense of horror you are probably trying to go for. For me, whether I use a battlemap depends a lot on the game system I'm running and the mood I want to create. For D&D I tend to use them (especially since I'm running almost exclusively on roll20 these days and it's easy for me to have a bunch of maps set up that I can throw my players on whenever I need to. Plus I generally run pretty big combat encounters with a lot of enemies and stuff going on in them). On the other hand, tonight I'm running a Mutants and Masterminds game, and for that system a battle map is usually a waste of time since I will often dealing with heroes that can fly really fast or are otherwise highly mobile and capable of traversing huge amounts of space over the course of a fight.

I’ve been 100% TotM for decades but lately we’re leaning towards using BM for clarity. TotM can actually slow the game down and drain mental energy, but it is more fluid. Much of my draw towards TotM is how much improv I do as GM, so having planned, mapped encounters is anathema. A nice middle ground for me is a quickly drawn map for clarity while not losing the imaginative, fluidity of TotM.

When we record we always use theater of the mind because that's what people listening are going to have to do as well. But in our regular games with friends I prefer battle maps, even if they are hand drawn on laminated grids. It keeps people engaged more easily, especially in larger groups, and it helps people think about what they are going to do next, speeding up the rounds.

I have slowly grown to dislike any visual aids at all besides maybe some flavoursome images, its always been a game about creativity and imagination to me, cinematic combat over tactical combat any day. I find it way more smooth and fast

One thing to consider is that TotM can ask a lot from some neurodivergent players without giving them anything in return.

@danwells9305

2 жыл бұрын

That's a really good point.