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Anime What are some good "Theatre of the Mind" RPGs?

Night Goat

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One of the biggest barriers I've found to running games online is the need to create maps and find art beforehand. It greatly increases prep time and stress - another deadline when I've already got plenty from work - and there very often isn't any art that fits what I want. It also means that the game is much more limited, as it can only go to places that have been created beforehand instead of letting the story evolve more organically. So, I'm looking for "theatre of the mind" - god, I hate that insufferably pretentious term though - RPGs. Ones that aren't diminished by not keeping precise track of where everything is during combat. Have any you like?
 

Andhaira

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D&D5e, FFG's Star Wars, FFG's Genesys, WOIN, WFRP 1, 2 (and probably 4 too), Pathfinder (yes it can work without maps easily), Fantasy AGE, Dragon AGE, The Dark Eye 5e, any OSR game, Star Wars SAGA (yes can work fine without minis), 13th Age, any Call of Cthulhu, Zweihander, Forbidden Lands, Symbaroum and plenty moar.
 

HeroMarine

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I see where you're coming from and I'm inclined to agree about the toil it takes to generate graphical assets, but drawing maps and editing/photoshoping characters, enemies and objects is part of the fun to me. Of course, it needs to be enhanced by the narrative of the DM and players should give it some leeway.
 

nikolokolus

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I used to get sucked into the "map trap" where I felt like I had to create these really elaborate battlemats and maps with high production values and over time I realized that 90% of my prep time was going into creating graphics and visual aids that added almost nothing of actual value to the game for most of the people running through the game, and it has the side effect of making people feel like they are on rails; that when they deviate from the carefully prepped scenario they're now in terra incognita or somehow transgressing. My advice is to use something like Roll20's mapping functionality, but instead of preloading maps, just turn on the grid and then use the drawing tools to quickly sketch out some rough features if people really need to know the tactical layout of a place, sort of like a virtual whiteboard. This has the advantage of being quick, still letting you maintain a tactical grid, and your players can still form an image in their mind's eye of a what a setting looks like without you overriding their own imagination.

Also if you really want to use visuals to help describe the look and feel of a place, create some folders on your computer and start saving images sorted by category and throw them on the virtual whiteboard or share them as needed via Discord or through something like Dropbox; I like to do that for exterior shots of buildings or otherworldly landscapes that are difficult to convey mood with just verbal descriptions.

As for systems that support gridless play? Basically anything that doesn't have super elaborate rules for facing, engagement, and combat movement, etc. should be fine: Old-school TSR D&D (and any of the one billion clones thereof), BRP, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Stars Without Number, Dungeon World, Savage Worlds, Call of Cthulhu, DCC RPG, etc. The more abstract, the better. Systems I'd avoid: D&D 3.x, Pathfinder, D&D 4. (I don't know anything about D&D 5th, but I've heard it can be played gridless, YMMV).
 

HeroMarine

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My advice is to use something like Roll20's mapping functionality, but instead of preloading maps, just turn on the grid and then use the drawing tools to quickly sketch out some rough features if people really need to know the tactical layout of a place, sort of like a virtual whiteboard. This has the advantage of being quick, still letting you maintain a tactical grid, and your players can still form an image in their mind's eye of a what a setting looks like without you overriding their own imagination.

Also if you really want to use visuals to help describe the look and feel of a place, create some folders on your computer and start saving images sorted by category and throw them on the virtual whiteboard or share them as needed via Discord or through something like Dropbox; I like to do that for exterior shots of buildings or otherworldly landscapes that are difficult to convey mood with just verbal descriptions.

Yes, these are good tips and something I like to use in my next campagin. Discord + Roll20 works great for this, using the first for the narrative / description and the second for the actions like a board game.
 

Melan

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For abstract positioning, one of the old-school D&D variants should do:
1) organise the party in a marching order with 2 or 3 characters per rank (3 for wider corridors, 2 for morre narrow ones)
2) front rank can melee, second rank can use reach weapons (spears and halberds), the back ranks can shoot missiles (with some risk of friendly fire) or cast spells, the rear guard can protect against encounters from the back.
3) in particularly large spaces, anyone can melee anyone unless specifically defended by a nearby combatant

For purely abstract stuff, something like WEG's D6 system or one of its offshoots (D6 Adventure, Mini-Six) can work - the system is well suited to just describing things and running things in a cinematic fashion.

Generally, what you want are not systems which have detailed rules for positioning, but hand-wavy and abstract ones governed by fiat.
 

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