Grimm: The Only Rules-Light Game I Wholeheartedly Recommend

Regular readers know that I'm a rules-dense sort of fellow when it comes to RPGs I like. I enjoy tomes worth of rules that lay out everything from the effects of cold temperatures on a traveling party, to what checks you need to make to swing down on a rope and attack a target at the end of the charge. From how your rate-of-fire on your weapon interacts with an ability to increase one's speed to superhuman levels, to tactical rules for cover and concealment, these are all things I really enjoy in a game.

And I have tried my share of rules-light games in the past. After all, a game is a game, and you should at least try something before dismissing it. And while I've had some fun with lighter games, they never really scratch my itch, or get me excited to come back to the table.

Except for one... Grimm.

I can't recommend it highly enough, if I'm honest!

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What Makes Grimm So Great?

For folks who haven't played the game before, the general pitch is that you all play children who have been sucked into the Grimmlands; an alternate dimension where Jacob and Wilhelm banished all the trolls, witches, night things, monsters, and mad kings found in their stories. Now you need to find your way out, before the terrors of this world swallow you whole... or worse, you become a permanent resident of this place!

The mechanical setup is that you all have classes that reflect the cliques of children (jock, nerd, bully, outcast, etc.), with abilities thematically appropriate to that stereotype. There's some customization available, as well as the mystical element of Imagination, which can become manifest in the Grimmlands due to their very nature, and their interaction with childlike belief.

This version of the book was also written by Robert J. Schwalb (of Shadow of The Demon Lord fame), and it was a slimmed down version of the original Grimm game which was originally released as a D20 Modern port. For those who care about gaming pedigree, and such.

Welcome to the checkerboard kingdoms, kids.

They key that unlocked this game for me, I think, is that a simplified rules system really plays into the fact that your characters are somewhere between 10 and 12 years old. They're individuals, yes, but they're still very broad, and they're figuring themselves out as they're thrown into this horrendous situation. As for resolving checks, you have a handful of skills and abilities, and they're measured by a Grade level (playing into the overarching theme). When you want to make a check, you'll roll either 1d6 or 2d6 (the latter for if you're very good at something). On a 2-5, you operate at your grade level in that ability. On a 6 it explodes, pushing you up one, and you roll again. On a 1 it goes down, and you roll again. That's it... you now know all of what you need to in order to play this game!

The fact that it is unrelentingly grim also helped. Because just like the old German fairy tales, there are terrors and horrors lurking around every corner, and your end won't be a pretty one. Just because your protagonists are kids, that doesn't mean they're safe from any of the monstrous fates awaiting them.

I was thinking about this game today because I was looking at the Shadow of The Demon Lord bundle from Azukail Games (which you should check out if you haven't), and I remembered seeing Grimm was available in PDF on Drive Thru RPG, though the hard cover book still seems to be out of print at time of writing. It has a great premise, it's easy to learn, and if you like games that don't pull punches it's one that definitely should have a place in your library.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

What is Nordic LARP (And Why It's Not For Me)?

While live action games have understandably been on hiatus for a while now thanks to the pestilence blanketing the land, as vaccinations grow more common many old games are starting back up again. Not only that, but a lot of fresh groups are sprouting, now that they've had time to plan, recruit, and gauge interest for their player base. And though I have been missing LARP something fierce, there is a growing trend that has kept me home as surely as the plague has.

Nordic LARP.

No, not THAT kind of Nordic LARP!

Before we continue, I am very aware that this is the preferred style of game for a lot of folks out there. I'm not knocking anyone who likes it, or who wants to try it. If it's the kind of thing you really enjoy, then god speed and get weird with it! And if you finish this, and you decide you'd like to see me talk about LARP some more, consider checking out my older posts 5 Tips To Get The Most Out of Your Next LARP, as well as 5 (Specific) Costuming Tips For Your Next LARP!

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First Things First, What is Nordic LARP?

While it sounds like a regional designation, Nordic LARP is actually referencing a style of play that first became really prominent in Scandinavian countries. According to LARPing.org, Nordic LARP is defined by a focus on cooperation between players to create and develop story, atmosphere, and drama. Additionally, these games tend to be extremely rules light, with only a few pages of rules at most that are specifically designed to fade into the background so as not to break immersion.

In some games this focus on the players and player experiences goes so far as to exclude outside plot almost entirely, with few or no monsters, NPCs, and other staples of the sorts of games often found in America, the UK, and other nations with active LARP scenes. Often times there's even a total lack of mechanical alteration or advancement to the player characters; no one gains experience points, goes up in level, acquires new powers or skills, etc. All character development is in a story sense, rather than in a more mechanical one.

Problem #1: I Don't Trust My Countrymen

There are probably a lot of folks who read the previous section and started getting excited. Especially the sorts of players who are more interested in the social aspects of a game, the improvised acting, and the pageantry of a LARP than they are in the crunchier game aspects of things. No disrespect intended here either, because folks who can go for half a dozen games without pulling out their character sheets, and who can remain firmly in-character without needing to even reference their skills or attributes are still valuable players who add a lot to the games they're in.

I sense a "however" coming...

However, there are two things about this setup that leave me very cold. One of them is very personal, and the other is more based on the experience I've had as an American LARPer. We'll start with the second one first.

The reason Nordic LARP received its name is that the cooperative, community-oriented nature of the countries where it first got popular means the population is already experienced with this sort of group-oriented activity. There is a genuine buy-in, and a desire to allow everyone to help move the story along. Now I don't know if it's because I've only LARPed in America (largely with other Americans), or because most of my games have been various spheres of the World of Darkness, but the idea of players setting aside their own egos, their own glory, and getting their own way to do what is right for the game at-large is enough to make me laugh until bitter tears roll down my cheeks.

Now, this doesn't apply to everyone I've LARPed with. Hell, it doesn't apply to most of them. But in every LARP I've ever attended there's always a few players who would act in bad faith. People who would always try to circumvent standards, the stated desires of other players, or even the established parameters of the game to get their way. Sometimes there were a lot more of these players than I was comfortable with. I've never attended a game where there were none of them.

Ideally you would just play games that excluded those kinds of players, or which adopted a policy that bad behavior would be punished with expulsion from the game. That sound you hear in the distance is all the other folks who've played in the same games I have, and who've experienced just how hard it is to remove broken stairs from a LARP, laughing uproariously. It's not impossible by any stretch of the imagination, but it falls into the same category of telling me that a bunch of American players are suddenly going to work cooperatively toward making the best story they can.

I don't disagree that it's possible. My experience, however, tells me that it is highly unlikely to happen without a lot of coaching, teaching, and hard work.

Problem #2: "Good Story" Isn't As Objective As Rules

This is the personal reason, huh?

Trust issues aside, I will fully admit that this sort of game is entirely possible to create and run. The fact that these games are popping up all over is proof that people who want it will work to make it happen, stumbling blocks or no. However, if we're judging where a story goes based on whose ideas are most palatable to the group, that is not a fair or unbiased metric. And I say this knowing that I have a very unfair advantage in this scenario; telling stories and crafting narratives is literally my job, and has been for going on a decade now.

Additionally, the idea that someone can essentially get their way in a game by being creative rubs me the wrong way (even if it's putting the ball squarely in my court a lot of the time). I don't want my character to succeed or fail based on how well I spun an idea, or how I suggested a plot twist. I want the result to be decided based on the numbers. If my vampire manages to dodge through a hail of gunfire completely unharmed, tear off someone's head, and then rip out an adversary's heart, I want it to be because I pulled the cards, made the chops, etc. to pull that off by the rules and numbers rather than because I convinced other folks that's how it should go down. Or if an ST, or even other players, want to see my character lose in a fight, get brought down by poison, or even just fail an arm-wrestling match, I want it to be because the mechanics of the game say that's what happened rather than because the story-writing committee agreed that's what they wanted to see.

Don't misunderstand me, I love (and demand) story from my games. I enjoy the drama, and the high stakes, and the emotional moments as much as anyone. However, I also believe that the best way to keep a game fair is with objective rules that can resolve conflict without bias, allowing the dice/cards/chops/etc. to decide how something goes when actions come into conflict with one another.

That is an extremely personal take, and I'm well aware it won't be for everyone. However, this is an issue that's kept coming across my dashboard recently, so I wanted to articulate my thoughts on it. Again, this is in no way meant to diminish other people's likes and tastes, merely to unpack some of my own thoughts in the hopes that other folks can examine my perspective when thinking about this topic.

Speaking of Storytelling... I Do Have New Books Out!

I couldn't find a way to work this into the above section without it sounding like bragging, but it's been a busy damn summer, so I wanted to remind my regular readers that in addition to fresh gaming content like Gods of Sundara and 100 (Mostly) Harmless Goblin Fruits and Oddments to Find in The Hedge, I've also had two novels drop this year!

It's back!

Old Soldiers dropped on the first of July, and this dystopian thriller follows a squad of defunct super soldiers as they try to unravel a conspiracy in the subterranean city of New Liberty... before said conspiracy puts them in the ground alongside all their other brothers and sisters who fell during the Hyperion Conflict.

Or perhaps cat noir?

My other recent release was Painted Cats, the second novel in my cat noir series. Leo has another case when an old flame of his comes around, asking him to help her nose around for a friend of hers. Mischief has gone missing, and her kitten Trouble is worried sick about his mama. Leo isn't sure what he'll find, but as usual when he puts his nose into something he finds that's when the claws have to come out.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Rules Light Games Require Trust (And a Good GM) To Work

Of all the conversations I have with people about gaming, the one that never goes anywhere is the one about how dense a game's rules system is. Because for a lot of players (and a lot of game masters, too) rules are always an impediment to their fun, their stories, or both. They see them as unnecessary boundaries that micro-manage their creativity, and even worse require them to read stacks of tomes or memorize large swaths of text to understand how their own character works.

That's a valid opinion to have. It's one I don't share, because as I mentioned in Rules Might Limit Dungeon Masters, But They Also Protect Players, roleplaying games are still games. Games, by their nature, have rules, victory conditions, and mechanics that determine who wins whenever there is a conflict. Rules are what keep things fair, and stop a session from becoming a playground game of make-believe where someone can out-creative you. Math plays no favorites, in other words.

However, there is something else I'd like to point out this week that I think often gets overlooked. It is that, simply put, games with fewer rules require you to have a greater trust in the person running the game that they will be fair. Not only that, but they require a GM who is willing to spin a lot of absolute nonsense out of thin air in order to roll with the punches, and keep the game going.

Hold on, hold on... I got this...

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Let's Talk Improvisation

No game is going to be able to cover everything players want to try. Sooner or later someone is always going to make a suggestion there are no rules for, and when that happens you either need to say, "There's no rules for that, you can't do it," or, "There's no rules for that, but let's make some!"

What the hell, let's make it happen!

What you're going to find is that the simpler a game's rules are, the more often the game master is going to have to come up with some way to allow the players to do things they didn't account for. Sometimes it's simple, like repurposing an existing type of skill check to use in a very different situation, but other times it can feel like you're building a whole new wing onto a house that you thought was done when you bought it.

And just like how someone who owns a home isn't necessarily someone who can build a home, so too there's no guarantee that someone who runs a good game can actually build a good game.

Don't get me wrong, here. There are some GMs who can whip out their toolbox and come up with smooth, well-fitting mechanics that run just like they were part of the original game. What I can tell you from experience, though, is that the number of GMs who think they can do this is very different from the number who actually can. And even if a GM is really good, an untested idea come up with on the spur is almost never going to be as good as something that was planned, workshopped, and put through playtesting before it was included in a rulebook.

And if your GM isn't actually good at this? Or worse, they purposefully skew things to put players at a disadvantage because the existing rules don't tell them they can't do that? That's going to create a bad time really fast.

As An Example

For those who want something concrete as an example, I'd suggest reading the rules for necromancy in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. While that might not be what some folks think of as a rules light game, I'd argue that it's right on the borderline since it has very rigid limits on what characters can and can't be, and you have relatively few meaningful options when it comes to customization. Especially when you compare it to more rules-dense games.

This is particularly true when it comes to what you can actually do with necromancers as a player.

Seriously, ya'll, black cloaks get hosed.

What do you think of when you think of necromancers? Typically it's someone who can raise or control large numbers of undead to do their bidding. And if you're playing a necromancer in Pathfinder, then it's like being at a buffet! If a creature has a corpse, then you can make it into a skeleton or a zombie, raising all sorts of strange and bizarre creatures to do your bidding, from skeletal orcs, to a zombie T-Rex that follows you around like a foul-smelling puppy! And as you go up in level you can create (and control) more powerful undead, applying templates to all kinds of bodies and creatures as long as their hit dice falls under your caster level, and ability to inflict your will.

In Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, necromancers can make no more than a few basic kinds of undead, even fewer forms of advanced undead, they lose control of them within a day after the casting, and they can only be made from human corpses (though one would assume any humanoid would work).

Now, I will freely admit that I don't have access to the entire trove that Wizards has put out from 5E, because unlike Pathfinder the entire archive isn't online for free where I can triple check my numbers. But this particular difference cropped up while I was working on Moüd, The City of Bones for my Sundara campaign setting. The city is run by a guild of necromancers called the Silver Wraiths, and one of the most obvious examples of their arts at work are the massive sand trains that tirelessly pull goods and people across the wasteland where their city is built. The creatures that haul these trains are skeletal mammoths, directed and controlled by a Silver Wraiths drover.

In Pathfinder, you can basically do this as a mid-level character with a few extra boosts to tweak your caster level, as long as you have access to the bones and materials to cast the spell. In DND 5E, as far as I was able to find, there's no way to do this short of GM fiat because the spells don't allow anything outside of basic undead made only from human corpses. And that's one thing that made converting the Pathfinder edition of Moüd: City of Bones to the DND 5E edition of Moüd such a pain in my behind.

And this is my job. There's no guarantee that someone who's running a game has the same skill set and experience it would take to design those kinds of options, even if they want to make them available for their players. And while there's nothing saying the GM has to do that, the simpler a game's rules are, the less support they're going to have when a player wants to step beyond the basics that's available.

Just Some Food For Thought

As I said in How The Trend in Rules Light RPGs Has Affected Me, I understand why these games are so popular. And not just popular, but thriving. These games require less investment of time and energy, they allow faster play, and less overall system mastery for someone to actually sit down and start rolling dice. And that is what a lot of players want, or need, and there's nothing wrong with that.

However, it's important to understand a rules-light game is like a knife. A good-quality knife can stand you in good stead, and it can accomplish a lot of different tasks. However, if you want one tool that can do even more tasks, even if said tool is a little fiddly, then a Swiss army knife, or a multitool is going to be the better option.

Because it's entirely possible that your GM is skilled enough to saw off a tree branch, pick their teeth, clean their nails, and open a wine bottle with a survival knife... but if that's the sort of task they're looking to do, it might be better to use a broader toolbox to avoid problems, frustrations, and accidents.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

5 Rules Light RPGs (That I'd Actually Recommend Playing)

Most regular readers know that, given the choice, I will take a rules-heavy RPG over a rules light one any day of the week. I enjoy being able to really tinker with systems, customize characters in meaningful ways, and explore a wide and varied toolkit of options. With that said, I understand there are also players out there who like a game they can pick up and play with minimal learning curve, and who don't need an extensive underlying skeleton to enjoy the game; they just want to get into the action.

If you're one of those players (or you just feel the need to put your complex planning instincts on a shelf for a little while), there's plenty of stuff out there to try. And if you haven't tried the following games, these are a few that I would actually recommend along with what I think makes them a cut above the competition.

#1: Grimm

Get your hands on it if you can.

Sadly it seems like Fantasy Flight's Grimm is out of print at time of writing, though I'd highly recommend checking back from time to time to see if a copy resurfaces... because this game is great!

Originally a complicated offshoot of the D20 Modern line, Fantasy Flight stripped Grimm down to its essentials. Players take on the role of children lost in the horrific realm of the Grimm Lands, and they have to figure out a way to survive and escape using only their wits and imagination! The game takes about 10 minutes to learn, and really takes nothing more than 2d6 to play. It's cut down, super simple, and the world it's set in is strange and bizarre enough that the archetypal nature of the classes sort of fits the theme. While the kids are still characters, they're also very clearly being pressed into broad archetypes of children, and allowed to fill traditional roles in a story.

I gave this one the top slot for a reason.

#2: Feng Shui

Hong Kong action theater, anyone?

Feng Shui was the first time I'd ever played a rules-light game, and it was an engaging experience. Billing itself as a Hong Kong action style game, it's far more concerned with the story beats, cinematic descriptions, and awesome look of a scene, rather than in overly complicated die rolls, precise distances on a map, or the exact radius of the explosion caused by the grenade you threw.

What really makes this game work is that it leans into the cinematic conceit, making it something of a ball for fans of action films who want to let loose their inner John Woo. My two cents, that's the key to enjoyment; if you lose that, "This is supposed to be a movie," feeling then the game is going to start going sour pretty soon.

#3: Savage Worlds

If you're going to get one game, get this one.

Some folks might argue that Savage Worlds doesn't belong on this list because it provides you with a huge variety of options and game genres you can play. However, a rules light game is one with relatively simple mechanics, and in my experience you can teach someone to play this game in about half an hour or so. Most questions they've got will be completely answered within the first hour of a given session, and from that point onward they're good to go.

Where Savage Worlds really excels is in the sheer variety of genres and settings it offers, all using this simple, near-universal system. Whether you want to do Weird West shenanigans in Deadlands Reloaded, or you want to stalk monsters through the London back alleys in Rippers Resurrected, there's something for every taste with this game!

#4: Pie Shop

This is one of the weird ones.

Pie Shop is one of the most bizarre RPGs I have ever played. In case the Sweeney Todd reference didn't give it away, you and all the other players are serial killers. There's no metaphysical happenings, no demons, no vampires... you're all just deeply disturbed individuals who feel a compulsive need to murder other people.

What makes Pie Shop so strange is that in order to create a workable premise for a party (since serial killers so often work alone) you almost have to put together some bizarre, fantastical setup. Whether it's a dark web gladiatorial bout, or a government experiment using murderers as disposable assassins, or some underground convention of crazed killers, it can get ridiculous.

My two cents; embrace the discomfort of the premise as it's delivered. This is a game for adults, and if you feel squirmy playing it don't worry... that just means you're not really a serial killer on the inside.

#5: Dread

Ah... we meet again.

If you haven't heard about Dread, what makes this game infamous is that it has a particularly unique mechanic. In short, it uses a Jenga tower instead of dice, cards, or something else to determine the results of your actions. Even if you're good at moving the pieces in one of these tower games, the very mechanics of Dread means that sooner or later one of your actions is going to fail. And when the tower comes down, that's lights-out for your character.

That said, if you want to give the rest of the table a chance, you can opt to knock the tower over to sacrifice yourself to save the others.

I will add a caveat to this endorsement, however. Because while Dread is a phenomenal system for running one-shot horror games where it's likely that most (if not all) of the characters are going to die horrible deaths before the night is done, the game is not really good for anything beyond that. This makes it an extremely niche activity that's really more use for seasonal one-offs or occasional light fare... you're not going to get a long-running campaign out of this unless you pull a Friday the 13th and the only recurring character is whatever monster the GM keeps killing you all with!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

When You Should (And Shouldn't) Rely on Theater of The Mind

A conversation that never seems to lose steam is the argument between representational game masters (those who use a map, minis/tokens, and either marked or 3D terrain), and those who prefer to operate purely in theater of the mind. While participants may often agree to disagree, or make some valid points during the discussion, this can sometimes generate some... less than helpful commentary. What's even worse is that often those who are arguing are actually talking past each other, rather than each discussing the same substance.

So this week I thought I'd share what insights I have on when you should rely on theater of the mind for your games... and when you definitely should not.

It will save you a LOT of frustration.

And, before we go any further, make sure you sign up for my newsletter to get weekly updates on all the fresh stuff I'm putting out!

We Already Use It For a Majority of The Game

The bulk of an RPG is conveyed using theater of the mind. No one puts out a map and makes you track your mini through the town as you talk to NPCs, buy and sell gear, etc. As a rule, game masters don't rigorously draw out portraits of everyone you pass on the street, and keep perfect representational track of everything. They talk, paint a picture of the scene, and you all pass it around narrating your characters' actions and contributions.

In short, theater of the mind works best when you can deal in generalities. If you don't need to specify that the tavern is in a 20' by 30' space, or specifically where the support columns are in the crypt your party is skulking through, then there's no reason to draw it out. As long as everyone at the table has the same, general impression and understanding of a scene, then you're good to go!

The barkeep looks annoyed. Yeah, like that.

This is the mode that we run the bulk of any RPG in, and most of the time no one even suggests that we do otherwise; it would add nothing, and cost a lot of time and energy.

The conversation always seems to shift when it comes to combat, though. Because when it's time for folks to roll initiative, and for strategy to come out, you need to ask exactly how clear the image everyone has to share needs to be in order for the game to remain fair to all persons concerned.

Specifications Exacerbate Confusion

For a perfect example of how specificity creates problems for pure theater of the mind, consider movement speed. If your character can only move 30 feet as a move action, and that movement is hampered by difficult terrain, obstacles, moving diagonally, etc., you need to know whether or not your can reach the enemy in order to attack. Saying, "The enemy rushes in from the shadowed doorway across the crypt!" does no good if in the GM's mind that doorway is 50 feet away, but in the player's mind it should be no more than half a dozen running steps.

This gets more frustrating the more complex a situation is. When players need to know whether they (or the enemy) have the benefit of cover, whether they have line of sight or line of effect, if there's anyone or anything between them and the enemy, etc. Players may even get suspicious if the GM always declares that the enemy has cover, or that they are always just outside of effective range of an ability.

Hence using a map to represent where everyone is, what obstacles are in the way, and ensuring that everyone has an objective representation that is not open to interpretation, or fudging one way or another. It puts everyone immediately on the same page, and players can do their own math regarding distance, sight lines, flanking, etc., etc.

No, Ashley, you don't have cover. What do you mean why not?

The more specific a game is when it comes to measurements and conditions, the more likely it is you will need a map in order to run combat smoothly. Everything from spells that have a specific radius or diameter, to weapons that require specific ranges, to knowing where bright light ends and shadows begin, are all signs of a game that was designed to be run representationally rather than with pure theater of the mind. Simply because communicating exacting measures and specifics can be exhausting when you're trying to make everyone imagine the exact same scenario in detail, rather than in the broad strokes.

It's sort of like keeping a chess game in your mind. Most of us can picture the board at the start, but how many moves in before we forget where the knights, bishops, and pawns have ended up entirely?

The more cinematic combat is supposed to be in your game mechanics, though, the less dependent on maps, minis, or even a basic whiteboard drawing you'll be. Games like Feng Shui 2 are a perfect example, because they're designed for fast-paced, action-movie style flow that's not concerned with ranges and explosion diameters, but more with the feel of a fight scene in general. While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it is very specifically designed not to need a map, so adding one won't actually help all that much when it comes time to throw down.

Don't Remove Load-Bearing Beams

I understand the desire lots of game masters have to simplify things, especially in complex systems where it can seem like there's just so much clutter. Not only that, but customization to create a unique experience that suits you and your table is a long tradition in the hobby.

With that said, you don't take a dump truck and try to tear it down to be a race car. There is only so much you can do to customize a game's engine, and if the engine was built for one purpose, then attempting to modify it to do something it wasn't intended for is more likely to cause frustration for you and your players instead of providing an enhanced experience.

Nowhere is this more true, in my experience, than game masters who want to lighten the load and mood of a rules-heavy game, so they do away with the map and minis to make things feel more cinematic.

Can you do it? Absolutely, it's your game, do as you please. But I'm telling you that you'd be better off playing a more rules-light game that's meant to use theater of the mind for its combat in this situation, in much the same way you'd be better off with a Ferrari than a bulldozer come race day.

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