Theater of the Mind vs Tactical Minis & Maps

[Senkusha]

Most of us are familiar with both of these styles of game play. Each one has it's benefits, and most of us inevitably start our role playing lives with Dungeons & Dragons, which uses a more tactical game play approach. However, as remote technologies continue to be developed and become more common place, the use of Theater of Mind is more practical.

Yes, there are Virtual Table Top software applications that allow you to showcase a map, and assign tokens for each player, but there's also other modes of game play that are less table-top like. For example, Discord and forum role play, which can take advantage of the Theater of Mind style by invoking the imagination.

Sure, the maths get skewed, numbers get messy, the combat becomes more abstract. And there are game systems that are built around using a less tactical style. Cypher System is one such system that uses Ranges and Zones that are more easily handled with Theater of the Mind. These Zones can be converted to hard numbers for a more Tactical feel if the players need or want this.

How do you enjoy playing games?

 

[Sailor Marin]

Maps and tokens like in Virtual Tabletops are great ..........if you can spend all the extra time and effort needed to make it work. D&D in particular was meant to have hard limits on movement and reward positioning and tactics. I know newer versions dumbed that down to non-existence, but ... I ain't play those for a reason y'know? It's fun.

Theatre of the Mind is great for easier games, but eliminates some of that crunchier fun.

 

[Senkusha]

Sounds like you may enjoy a game like Mekton.

 

[Sailor Marin]

Never heard of it! There's lots of games I've always wanted to try. Pathfinder 1e, Pokemon Tabletop, the Sailor Moon Tabletop, the Warcraft Tabletop...

I was very satisfied with 3.5's. It's in depth enough for interesting martial tactics and battlefield control to do some serious work, but simple enough that you can often make decisions on the fly without having to think too hard on it.

 

[Senkusha]

Are you familiar with work done by Mike Pondsmith?



And I'm interested in the Sailor Moon RPG. I know there's a variant of the TriStat system for it...

 

[Sailor Marin]

God the Sailor Moon RPG would be so fun to try ... though its so obscure. Finding people to play with would be the challenge. x3 I think I might be able to drag one friend in ... maybe.

Also, I feel like I've vaguely heard of Mike Pondsmith, but I'm admittedly a luddite who finds it hard to get into sci-fi works.

 

[Senkusha]

Tell me as much as you know about the Sailor Moon RPG, and I'll see if I can track it down. THIS is one of my many hobbies, after all, the domain of THIS site is anime rpgs .com!

 

[Sailor Marin]

Very well!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sailor_Moon_Role-Playing_Game_and_Resource_Book This is the wikipedia page for it. (A fun fact for our new RP, it was released in 1998. x3) Apparently it's a BESM product. I remember you mentioning that about anime 5e, so perhaps something about it will be familiar to you?

And ... this appears to be the book itself as a pdf! We could rehost it here to preserve it, as this is one of the only sources I could find for it left. It seems to be a reasonable quality, though given its age it should be no surprise the pictures aren't colored. https://pdfcoffee.com/qdownload/besm-sailor-moon-rpg-amp-resource-book-pdf-free.html

THAT ... is unfortunately all I know.

 

[Senkusha]

OH! You mean THIS book?
giggles
I already have it! And the Tenchi Muyo and Tenchi Universe and Slayers books




I think I own just about every BESM/TriStat product ever created....

There's also this product (which I do not yet currently own)
Soldier Lune

 

[Sailor Marin]

Yeah!! They both look fun, but of course the Sailor Moon edges out on my must try list. x3

 

[Senkusha]

Well, bonus, it appears to use rules similar to BESM 2nd Edition, and I'm already familiar with those rules, although, I'd probably go through and update the ruleset to use the RETRO rule base. We would just need to find a couple more people, and we can just base the game here.

 

[Sailor Marin]

Thoughtful nod ...I can probably poke poke Victoria. She struggles a little with mechanics and math, but she likes to have fun. I might be able to grab another. Just let me know if you want me to pull the trigger on that!

 

[Senkusha]

The really cool thing about BESM is that it's an effects based game, and most of the mechanics are contained in the Attributes chapter. Know those, and you know the game. There's not a whole lot of math in BESM either, it's just 2d6 + STAT (1 through 12) + ATTRIBUTE or SKILL (1 through 6) and in 2nd edition, it's a ROLL UNDER system, so it's designed so that you know if you succeed or fail from the roll result. The math is done at Creation.

Yeah, mechanically, it's a little bizarre working with a roll under system, but it's not a hard adjustment to make, Basically, you want to try to roll LOW. LOL.

If Victoria is indeed interested in the Sailor Moon RPG, I'll set up a board for it. It's been forever since I've looked at the book, but I do believe the main cast of characters are already built out, so it's literally plug and play. Of course, it's easy to build your own Sailor Scout too. There's a reason why the BESM system has been my go-to for like twenty years. But I've wanted to play Sailor Moon for a good decade now, just never found anybody wanting to play it in a forum environment.

 

[Sailor Marin]

Sure thing! I'll poke around and see who's interested. I do love that the guardians are premade. It's neat and there's a joy to be had in meeting your heroes. Though for Moon specifically, because of the late ramping up of powers near the end of the series, I'm unsure if we'd want to have it post-series. ....Something to think about!

 

[Senkusha]

I've created a new area for this. Shall we continue there?

 

[Sailor Marin]

Sounds good! =3

 

[Gumiho Girl]

Most of us are familiar with both of these styles of game play. Each one has it's benefits, and most of us inevitably start our role playing lives with Dungeons & Dragons, which uses a more tactical game play approach. However, as remote technologies continue to be developed and become more common place, the use of Theater of Mind is more practical.

Yes, there are Virtual Table Top software applications that allow you to showcase a map, and assign tokens for each player, but there's also other modes of game play that are less table-top like. For example, Discord and forum role play, which can take advantage of the Theater of Mind style by invoking the imagination.

Sure, the maths get skewed, numbers get messy, the combat becomes more abstract. And there are game systems that are built around using a less tactical style. Cypher System is one such system that uses Ranges and Zones that are more easily handled with Theater of the Mind. These Zones can be converted to hard numbers for a more Tactical feel if the players need or want this.

How do you enjoy playing games?

This reminds me a lot of a post on one of my friend's blogs.

At the time it generated a bit of controversy on a few platforms and forums, with people arguing about the imaginative state of TTRPGs, and he said he'd write it a bit differently now. If aphantasia means a person can't visualise something, then surely adding maps, tokens, strategic counters, and similar things would help a person access the level of play that others in the group are experiencing. It's a bit like when I'm running a game set in a specific setting, I try to get everyone to watch an episode or two of a TV show (or anime) set as closely as possible to the vibe I'm going for, or might even just set the game in the setting from a show.

..."OK, for the next few sessions we're playing a game in Chicago, each of the character's will be the daughter of one of the characters from the 90's manga and anime Gunsmith Cats. You have a bunch of traits similar to your mothers, and you each picked up a few of their traits (and their massive collection of weapons) but you're not exactly the same."

In a game like this, we have each character choose a genre of music, and a favourite band from that genre. Jenny likes "K-Pop" and chooses "Le Serrafim"... Lana likes "Hard Rock" and chooses "Halestorm". One of the key elements of Gunsmith Cats is the car chases, so a simple combat grid doesn't work too well. Instead we might have a range line, with cars moving backward and forward along it to show where they are relative to one amother (if they're close enough they can shoot at each each other or even throw things between the cars). The whole thing would play out over a half dozen rounds or so, with a soundtrack played by the band chosen by the driver of the car. Once the song is over, so is the chase. Whoever has the advatage at the end either gets away, or catches their quarry. Then a bit more storyline development occurs for a while before the next chase (or other relevant conflict scene).

I love immersing players in the setting though all sorts of multimedia experiences. Maps and visualisation aids are just one part of that.

 

[Senkusha]

That's fascinating! (And now I really need to go watch Gunsmith Cats! )
Interesting blog post too. I may have to check out other articles there as well. Thank you for sharing!

 

[Gumiho Girl]

I think I own just about every BESM/TriStat product ever created....

There's also this product (which I do not yet currently own)
Soldier Lune

Do you have the "Ghost Dog" RPG? That was a wild interpretation of the system.

 

[Senkusha]

Nope, but by tomorrow evening, I'll probably have found it!