There are many ways to run combat in Dungeons & Dragons. Some dungeon masters use erasable poster maps and miniatures. Some use pre-printed poster maps. Some use beautiful 3D terrain. Some use projectors or flat screen TVs placed on a table. Some run their games entirely online using a digital tabletop.
Many use nothing at all.
We can group these various ways to run combat into three large buckets. These buckets aren't perfect representations of the myriad of ways to run combat in D&D, but they'll suit the subject of this article.
The Three General Types of D&D Combat
The first of these buckets is gridded combat in which characters and monsters are represented by tokens or miniatures on a five-foot-per-square grid of some sort. This grid could be physical, like a poster map, or virtual like on an online tabletop. The Dungeon Master's Guide includes rules for running gridded combat using a few different optional rules.
The second bucket is theater of the mind in which DMs describe the situation, players describe their intent, and the DMs adjudicate the results. In this style, combat happens completely in the narrative. We just talk. We don't represent our characters with miniatures and we don't use any sort of visual representation.
The third bucket is the abstract map. In this style DMs use some sort of visual representation to show the rough approximation of an area and the relative distance of characters and monsters. This could all be done like a football play sketch on a piece of paper or it might be with miniatures. It might even be done on a beautiful color map or tabletop terrain. Distances in this style are relative, not strictly fitting a five-foot-per-square grid.
In a series of articles here on D&D Beyond, I'll be discussing the second and third of these buckets. The Dungeon Master's Guide and Xanathar's Guide to Everything already offers optional rules for running combat using a five-foot-per-square grid so we'll leave that style to them.
Instead, I’ll write about how we can run combat without any sort of visual representation or by using rough diagrams and character representations to show relative distance.
In this first article, I’ll cover the high level basics of running theater of the mind combat and talk about why you would want to run this way at all.
A battle map from the 4th Edition adventure Keep on the Shadowfell (2009) illustrated by Jason Engle. Note the grid and the treelines which follow the squares, 5-foot increments, even markers where the enemies for this pre-defined encounter should be at the beginning of the combat.
A Tool in the Toolbox
How we run combat tends to be one of those topics in D&D on which many have strong opinions. If you have them, consider putting those feelings on hold and recognizing that there are many different ways to play this game that work for many different people. There is no right or wrong style. The only wrong way, in my opinion, is to assume there is only one right way. Running on a grid works fine for many groups. So does running in the theater of the mind or by using an abstract map.
Keeping all three styles in our DM toolboxes gives us the widest range of options and the greatest flexibility to choose the style that best supports the game. Keep your eyes open and consider alternatives to your own favorite approach.
Why Run in the Theater of the Mind?
We return to the topic at hand–running combat in the theater of the mind. Why is this a viable style? What advantages does it have? Here's a quick summary of the advantages of theater of the mind and we'll soon dig into the details.
- Cost. It's free.
- Speed. It takes no time to set up or tear down.
- Flexibility. We can describe anything we can imagine.
- Maintaining Narrative Flow. We don't have to break between scenes to go from exploration to roleplaying to combat and back again.
That said, running combat in the theater of the mind has its drawbacks. These include:
- Obscurement. We don't share a clear and common view of the environment and situation.
- Overly Simple. It doesn't scale well with complexity in a combat encounter and it shaves off a lot of tactical nuances.
- Sensory Deprivation. It takes away the fun of seeing miniatures and battle spaces.
- Subjective. Not seeing a combat arena means we have to rely on the DM to adjudicate fairly based on an environment and situation we might not fully understand.
Much of what we'll talk about in future articles attempts to mitigate these drawbacks. For now, we'll talk more about the advantages.
One major benefit of using a grid is everyone has a unified understanding of where creatures and objects are in space.
Cost
One of the wonderful things about D&D is how little we have to spend for the hours of entertainment we can have. The core rules of the game are available for free and much of what we need to play we can get on a few sheets of paper. The D&D Starter Set, at about $20, has enough material to play the game for more than a dozen hours, and longer if one is willing to build adventures from the material within it.
Things get expensive, however, when we start to consider maps, terrain, and miniatures. I’ve talked about this cost, and its options, in a previous article here on D&D Beyond, so we won't repeat it here. While inexpensive tokens and hand-drawn maps work just fine, painted miniatures and detailed terrain can dramatically increase the price of this hobby.
That cost isn't a problem when running combat in the theater of the mind. Running combat in this style doesn't have to cost anything at all. A sheet of paper and a pencil can help outline what is going on and; while miniatures still help to show potential positioning, traveling order, or who is on which watch during a rest, they aren't required.
Keeping the theater of the mind style of combat in our toolbox means we don't have to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to buy all the right miniatures for the adventure we want to run.
Speed
Embracing theater of the mind for even just one combat scene in a session can save a lot of time. We don't need to prepare as much for our game if we're willing to describe or loosely diagram some, most, or even all of the fights we're going to run. It also speeds up gameplay when we don't have to set up a map, move miniatures around, argue about corner cases, and tear the whole thing down when we're done.
Flexibility
Being able to run combat using just our words and maybe a loose diagram gives our game a nearly infinite flexibility. Not being fixed to a five-foot-grid means we can build environments beyond what we can draw out on a flat map. It means we can have battles on the sides of cliffs or while leaping from earthmote to earthmote. We can have a fight while soaring on two intertwined astral skiffs or while falling down the sulfurous clouds of hell.
The flexibility of theater of the mind combat means we have no physical limits on where the story of the game goes.
This flexibility also expands out to the game we run. If we're prepared to run combat in the theater of the mind, it means we don't have to spend time preparing every possible battle area ahead of time. We don't have to worry about finding just the right miniature or drawing out just the right map. It means we can let the players make big decisions about where they're going to go and let it go that way without worry that we don't have those potential combat areas prepared or that the ones we did prepare are now going to waste.
This flexibility gives a whole new freedom to the story and direction that our game takes at the table.
Maintaining Narrative Flow
When we're playing D&D, the flow of the game is very important. Scenes move through all of the pillars of play, from NPC interaction to exploration, without having to break out the scene types. That tends not to be the case with combat where suddenly we're shouting, "Roll for initiative!" changing the whole theme of the game.
When we keep the option of running combat using the theater of the mind in our toolbox, it means we can switch from any of the scene types; roleplaying, exploration, and combat; without any break in the flow of the story or narrative. We don't have to reach for the miniatures. We don't have to stop the whole game to put down or draw out a map. We can let the actions chosen by the characters lead from scene to scene all within the context of the story.
The simple removal of switching from narrative play for exploration and roleplay to the tactical play of combat gives our whole game a greater focus on the unfolding story at our table.
Jerry Holkins, Patrick Rothfuss, Chris Perkins, Mike Krahulik, and Holly Conrad play D&D with a gorgeous house terrain piece by "Czar of Happiness" during the Acquisitions Inc. Live Show at PAX West 2018.
Examples of Theater of the Mind Play
Understanding what running theater of the mind combat looks like can be difficult, particularly for players and DMs used to running exclusively on a grid. It is easiest to think of it just like the other two pillars of D&D. The DM describes the situation, the players describe what they want to do, and the DM adjudicates the results. It can be as true for combat as it is for exploration and roleplaying.
Even still, it's one thing to describe running theater of the mind and something else to experience it. Luckily, the internet comes to our aid.
I offer two examples of games that make heavy use of theater of the mind combat. The first is a game by Mike Mearls for the Founders and Legends game in which he runs a three-hour game for six level 18 characters. This, as you can imagine, is no small feat. Challenging level 18 characters is incredibly hard and doing so in three hours is a Herculean effort. Mike runs an enormous battle arena in the latter part of this game in which cyclopean tentacles and a dark priest of a forgotten god assail the heroes of the adventure.
The second game is a recent game of Acquisitions Incorporated at PAX West in September 2018. In it, Chris Perkins uses a beautiful model house for the adventure but uses no miniatures within it and no distances are discussed during combat. While they do have this model in front of them, it's purpose is purely to draw the players into the world. "I want to live there," says Holly Conrad when she looks down into it.
Both of these games show how the story can shift through scene types as things move on. In the middle of a battle, Omin Dran is banished to hell where he begins a negotiation with a pit fiend, breaking from combat to interaction without any physical shift at the table.
If you want to watch two masterful DMs running combat in the theater of the mind, these two examples hopefully help, and they are not the only ones. Many streaming shows and podcasts forgo gridded combat in favor of the narrative use of theater of the mind. All of them show how we can shave off some of the tactical details of combat for the greater energy of the larger story in our game.
A Tool to Help You Focus on the Story
This is just a short introduction to theater of the mind combat. In future articles I’ll get into the details of how we run it. I’ll start with the basics, talk about how to discuss it with your players, describe the use of an abstract map to aid in visualizing combat, and talk about the edge cases where things can get complicated when running theater of the mind.
Keeping theater of the mind combat as an option helps us keep a laser focus on letting the story of our game unfold as we play. We don't have to prepare particular combat encounters ahead of time. We don't have to invest heavily in miniatures, maps, and terrain. We can let the story unfold in whatever direction it goes. Theater of the mind gives us more room to share the story because we have more time to do so during the game.
Keep this style of play in your toolbox to keep your game fast, flexible, focused, and fun.
Mike Shea is a writer, Dungeon Master, and author for the website Sly Flourish. Mike has freelanced for Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, Pelgrane Press, and Sasquach Games and is the author of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Locations, and Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Adventures. Mike lives in Northern Virginia with his wife Michelle.
A very good point. I have a whole article coming up about abstract maps which can help with things like this without having to worry about the nitty gritty of a five foot square. Keep an eye out!
As you can see from other comments, many others don't agree that the grid and miniatures are core to D&D. That said, what works for you and your group is just fine. Most people play with a grid and miniatures from surveys I've run. Being on the same page with your DM is critical as well. Ideally you guys can work out how many creatures can get caught in a web before you cast the web. Generally, though, since it's only 10 feet on a side, thats probably going to only hit two unless they're in a big clump.
To each their own, of course, but because you like maps and minis doesn't mean its the only true way of D&D. This is a nice flexible game.
I love Theater of the Mind but I too love my Dwarven Forge! I have oodles of it.
One thing I discovered is that I love using it for exploration and role-play scenes too, not just combat. I've run a lot of puzzle rooms in Tomb of Annihilation with a nice Dwarven Forge room and no combat. It's great fun.
Very good article.
Practical advice on a subject that will probably come up (at some point) in any table, even if they usually run with a tactical grid.
The comments have made some very good points made in favor grid-maps, and I certainly find that drawing up Dungeon levels is fun, however there are many situations where you simply won't have a map prepared, or have to sketch something on the fly.
i would recommend just getting pathfinder beginner box which includes map and a lot of pawns that you can use in d&d too ;) it's cheap
I've personally never had a problem with pure mental combat. My main GM is a good friend of mine and he does a good job at describing the area without having too many obscure details. So long as the players and GM are willing to talk back and forth about the terrain (ask questions, "Are there any trees near me?" or "How far away is [player]?") then theater of the mind combat can offer more options (in my opinion) than grip maps and other visuals.
While we're on the subject, does Wizards have anything like the flat (cheap) tokens? I've never thought to check before, by I'm going to now.
I'm actually quite pleased with how many free maps D&D puts out, between Dragons Magazine and various articles on their website (if you're willing to pick through them).
I've gone 99.9% digital with my most recent campaign. ( I still use a pencil and scrap paper to keep track of hit points during encounters.) I'm using D&D beyond for character tracking and rule book searches. I use OneNote for my campaign notes, and I use Maptool from Rptools.net as a visual aid for running encounters. Maptool is free and open source, and it works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
If you're interested in checking out a virtual tabletop, I definitely recommend Maptool. You can use it with or without grids. You can use it as a simple dry erase board, or you can take advantage of its more advanced features like fog of war, field of vision and dynamic lighting. You can even import the maps from D&D Beyond into map tool. It was designed for play online, so it has a built-in dice roller and initiative tracker as well as chat functionality. We play in person at my home. I'm able to project the encounter map onto the television in my living room while the players relax on comfy couches instead of hard dining table chairs.
About half of my players were introduced to D&D thanks to Critical Role. For them, visual representations of combat encounters are a necessity. ( I've seen Matt use theater of the mind to resolve small-scale conflicts on a number of occasions.) A well-drawn map on a big screen TV may not be as cool as Dwarven Forge on the table, but my players are enjoying it. In the end, that's really all that matters.
That's mainly because when run properly ToTM is significantly faster, but it needs to be done correctly, on both the player and the DM end.
IT was only mid life that minis and miniatures gained prevalence in DnD, and only in 4e that they basically became required. All in all, DnD has been around longer as a game where ToTM was the default than it hasn't
That is one of the stumbling blocks for those that have trouble visualizing or otherwise aren't used to ToTM. As opposed to grid combat, where you are measuring specific distance, radii, et al, in ToTM it is more important to describe what the character is trying to accomplish
"Trying to accomplish" Good point, but it does not invalidate the previous points. For example, The scene: we are at the mouth of a cave, our Druid and War Cleric are *at* the mouth of the cave and the Barbarian is above the cave mouth to jump down on the Hobgoblins inside as they come out to meet us. The *stated intent* (trying to accomplish) was to form a line that baddies couldn't get past, at a choke point). When the fight started the DM arbitrarily had the Hobgoblins attack everyone, two hobbies per character, including the two casters in our backfield. So, TotM completely failed here. We were trying to accomplish a defensive formation where our melee characters could hold a line and let our shooting characters wreak havoc while unmolested.
The DM was generally good, and always fun, but TotM *prevented* us from doing what we were trying to accomplish (on multiple occasions - holding doorways to channelize the enemy never happened, either).
:D
Dungeons & Dragons originally required Gary Gygax's medieval miniature wargame Chainmail. Gygax released Chainmail in 1971. He released Dungeons & Dragons in 1974.
Gygax intended for people to use miniatures to play Dungeons & Dragons, but he also expected players to adjust the game to suit their needs.
Just because miniature combat was the foundation of D&D doesn't mean that you have to use miniatures to play D&D. If you enjoy Theater of the Mind, then play Theater of the Mind.
Edit.
This was originally intended as a reply to the following comment:
"IT was only mid life that minis and miniatures gained prevalence in DnD, and only in 4e that they basically became required. All in all, DnD has been around longer as a game where ToTM was the default than it hasn't"
I have the Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers game, it works really well for combat, and even has some miniatures!
ToTM didn't prevent that, the DM disregarding your intent did.
That's correct, but DnD disconnected from chainmail very quickly, and throughout 1e and 2e miniatures were often eschewed completely.
There were official Miniatures available for first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The hobby store were I bought my first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Rule books sold miniatures, and the people I played with used miniatures.
I realize that there were people who did not use miniatures, but there have been plenty of people using Miniatures to play Dungeons & Dragons since the game's beginning. I'm not sure where you get the impression that the majority of players didn't use miniatures until 4th edition, but that isn't my experience.
You are exactly right. And that is the weakness of TotM :)
If the game had been on the grid, communicating intent would have been action driven rather than subjective verbal communication. Unless the DM
cheatedexpanded the rules ("all of my hobgoblins have Misty Step").That is not a system weakness, that is a DM weakness.
I use bottle-caps for monsters, they're free and fit most grids. Each soda or beer brand is a monster I can easily identify on my initiative list for damage and turns. E.g. no sugar coke is Goblin 1, fanta is goblin 2, etc.