Theatre of the Mind combat and FG

[gmfox19]

I want to complete the Adventures League DM quest "Off the Grid",which requires you to run a session in "Theatre of the Mind" i.e.,no grid or tokens if that is how you normally play. Given how the map and combat tracker at integral to how D&D is played using FG, I am hesitant to try this approach to combat. Have any of tried to do your combats in TotM? Is there anyone out there who uses it regularly? How do you integrate that style into FG? What kind of pitfalls are there to doing so?

I have my suspicions,namely just getting confused and lost in the swirl of combat. I think this is a particular problem since I run voice only games and I am concerned without the visual guidance and feedback the grid provides, it could leave the session in disarray. Any suggestions or thought? Thanks for your ideas in advanced!

[Mask_of_winter]

You can do the targeting on the combat tracker and you can still share images, just not combat maps and tokens. You can also utilize the drawing tool on the images.

[gmfox19]

Thanks for the quick reply, Mask! I was thinking about that. Just have the player tell me who they are targeting and convey to them thier relative position to thier opponents so they can make tactical decisions as the battle plays out. Just to clarify, can players drag the targeting tool to their targets on the CT themselves?

[damned]

Yes they can target using the CT and they can just drag and drop the attacks and dmg rolls on to the target in the CT instead.

[LordEntrails]

I've done this once or twice in FG. It's not hard, just that you and the players have to drag attacks etc to the CT instead of the maps.

[gmfox19]

Thanks for all of the suggestions! I really appreciate them!

[Valarian]

Combat for The One Ring is abstract and run without a map. I still use the combat tracker though. The players describe their actions and attack, and targets are selected on the combat tracker. They then roll the attack and narrate the result.

[darrenan]

Another option, if your players are really conditioned to using tokens on a map instead of the CT, is to create a new empty image and just drop all the tokens on it (from the CT of course). They won't be moving their tokens around or any of the tactical stuff, but the tokens can still be used for targeting and such. But, as all the posters above say, it isn't really necessary.

[gmfox19]

I feel a lot more confident to try, given the other posters advice and apparent success with doing combat this way. Thanks!

[Trenloe]

Give it a test run first. Launch another instance of FG on the same computer as the GM and join game with a host address of localhost This will allow you to experience what the players see and you can test out how they would target, which will help you describe the process to them when you game.

[Hurske]

Yeah, as long as you have the combat tracker up, you can drag and drop onto the entries listed there. I make a lot of my maps, but every now and then I'll do a strait ToTM to my players and let them use their imagination to tell me how their own scenery is around them.

[gmfox19]

Give it a test run first. Launch another instance of FG on the same computer as the GM and join game with a host address of localhost This will allow you to experience what the players see and you can test out how they would target, which will help you describe the process to them when you game.

That is a great idea! I hadn't considered that at all! Thanks!

[Trenloe]

That is a great idea! I hadn't considered that at all! Thanks!
Yeah, it's a great piece of functionality. When I was learning FG I used it a lot - I even had it running during games so I could check exactly what the players see.

[leozelig]

I believe you can also hold Ctrl and click the CT entry to toggle targeting.

I prefer theatre of the mind myself. Things play out in your imagination without fussing too much over details. The players have to be willing to go along with a little ambiguity though. Not everyone is down with that.

[thedougalbug]

I second Leozelig on his post above this, ctrl clicking on an enemy will target them and the rest of the dice rolls/attacks/damage will all do the usual automation.

The only thing that I feel any "theatre of the mind" game adds to you as the DM is you need to have a clear vision on what your battlefields look like so you can work out viewing angles, difficult terrain, distances etc.

Best of luck though dude, I'd be interested to play a session or two like this!