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.
I really enjoy this idea. I'm just starting to DM a little bit, and the idea of having to buy a bunch of miniatures sounds daunting. I know it's talked about in the article as not being as important, but is there any useful tips to remember everyone's positions in terms of walking speed and other similar factors?
Our group used to run exclusively theater of the mind combats until about 5 years ago when we started playing Pathfinder and went to the grid. Now I'm getting into 5e and want to go back to theater of the mind, but I find my players stuck in the grid mentality. I think they like the tactical aspect of it whereas I've never been as much into tactics. Very interesting article!
Good article!
OxLewisxo: M. Shea might have suggestions in the upcoming articles, but a typical way to go about it is the use of zones (which can be represented by index cards or other framing devices-- we use empty picture frames-- and tokens of some kind for creatures' relative positions). A typical speed of 25 ft.-40 ft. lets you cross 1 zone. If a creature is 2 zones away from you, you can Dash to cover 2 zones and enter melee combat.
As DM, I use these measures:
3 moves --> 1 zone
Player characters with fast movement as their normal speed (45 ft. or faster) get a +1 AC bonus for each 5 ft. of extra speed above 40 ft. against ranged attacks when they move from one zone to another one on their turn. This bonus lasts until the start of their next turn.
These are all house rules, nothing official. :P
4e bring my intro to D&D, I've enjoyed my share of gridded combat. With 5e, I've grown fond of option 3: keeping everyone on the same page, without spending time counting squares.
Having introduced a number of me players to 5e, I noticed that people who start with grids, get into the tactical mindset, and have a harder time when the grid is not used. These days I try to stay away from the grid at first.
One con that is not brought up is that people with aphantasia like myself literally cannot visualize a scene a DM is setting up. For combat I have very little idea where things are in relation to others without some kind of visual representation. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a quickly sketchef diagram is a huge help. Something to keep in mind when considering if you will be operating solely without any kind of prop.
Grid-based is super fun!
But I have a job and obligations. I'm tired. I would rather play it old school, with theater-of-the-mind. Honestly, I've had more fun with theater-of-the-mind than I've had with grids.
I introduce most of my closest friends to theater-of-the-mind. I get really self-conscious with friends and I go for something different because I'm worried I'm not adjudicating the rules or describing environments well enough.
ALSO, MIKE! I BOUGHT
ALLA LOT OF YOUR BOOKS! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU PRODUCE WITH THE GUYS AT CURSE!Miniatures, maps and grids are basic D&D. I have no idea what is going on without these. Last week, I was playing with a DM that wanted to used "theater of the mind." My wizard cast "web" and it only hit two targets. I thought it was going to hit all four targets because he said they were in a circle. The spell is a 10X10 cube. We were not on the same page because we did not have a grid or miniatures. I am not against "theater of the mind" in some cases, but I don't think it always is best for game play.
You mentioned that buying miniature, set up and cleaning up were a concern. I think that is part of the game. D&D started by combining miniature gaming and role playing games. I hope we do not lose that tradition.
My players are also really into the grid. They love battlefield control spells and tactical micromanaging, and they want to see some visual representation of all that. Keeping track of enduring area-of-effects (e.g. from spells like grease, darkness, or wall of fire) can be a real nuisance otherwise.
If cost is a barrier, think about Buttons. 1", 2" and 3" buttons will cover 99% of encounters. If you like, you can print basic images and fix them to the buttons. Here's twenty orcs and it cost me a buck. :)
These are my favorite types of articles! Glad more is to come :)
Me and the groups I've played with the last few years have almost always used TotM, with some grid based combat.
After getting my own place to run games on, I've been able to utilize the amount of wargames terrain I own to bring the board more to life with setpieces and a very liberal idea to movement. Often ditching the whole gridbased combat completely and rather settling for a 5' = 1" on the gameboard. The latest iteration of this is a magnetic whiteboard with dungeon tiles that I can quickly set up and use to represent areas for my players.
For some players this has helped immensely in visualizing the world and what is going on at the moment.
Communication is key here. Most DMs will respond fairly to a question like: can I hit all of them with this spell, or is the target under partial cover? If they are intentionally misleading you about these things, it's not going to be a fun experience.
The only thing this lacks is a division between advanced and normal formats.... I made a suggestion for an effective way to upgrade our range plus sight options, which would, in turn, support much bigger values.
Why won't they separate casual from advanced?!
So little wisdom nowadays...
Another thing to keep in mind is that some people retain information better visually (via diagrams, images, or text) than they do aurally, via spoken word. I know I'm one of those, very strongly visual-oriented, which means I have to work my butt off to build up the scenes my DM is narrating to me over spoken word and any sort of Theater of the Mind combat is a slog.
THAT SAID...as Mike pointed out, what this should be is a tool in the toolbox, not a hard-and-fast decision of The One Right Way to Fight. For quick skirmishes involving only one or two enemies or sudden flare-ups in a bar or such, theater of the mind is a perfectly natural way to handle it. Narrate the scene, keep relative distances in mind, and go. TotM is a perfectly valid tool for handling quick, often unexpected fights like that, or for dealing with minor combat setpieces like a sudden tavern brawl.
When you're talking as many enemy combatants as there is party members, in complex cover-strewn locales with tons of stuff to keep track of, though? There's always a way to get at least some sort of map sorted out. My group plays online because we live scattered across the country, and virtual tabletops are cool. As is just a basic Google Drawing in our campaign's Drive document. keep pop caps with names on them - Pepsi for the Blue team, Coke for the red - and buy some basic drafting graph paper you can lay cut-up construction paper on to represent terrain and such. Even without hand-painted miniatures or DwarvenForge sets, your Big Important Fights deserve the extra clarity some kind of tactical map offers.
Heh, and besides. Some players really like the tactical game as well as the RP story game. Theater of the Mind is great for keeping the pace up with minor scuffles, but DMs who hate dealing with the tactical elements are really selling their game and themselves short. Beating the crap out of your players is fun, and the harder you beat the more awesome it is when they finally emerge triumphant.
This was such a great read. I've never GM'd before but I always assumed that I would be using tactical style grid combat instead of theater of the mind. I like the precision and clarity of the grid - you know where everything is in relation to your character and there's no ambiguity. My twin brother, who GMs for our group is obsessed with theater of the mind and I always thought it was just because he was a huge nerd who thinks using descriptive words is more artistic than drawing on our dry erase grid. Please ignore the irony of a D&D player who is into tactical combat calling anybody else a huge nerd. Now I'm beginning to really see some trade-offs that have convinced me that theater of the mind is valuable.
Also I will note that I just had a discussion with my girlfriend (who streams various RPGs on twitch, but also participates in several recorded podcasts) in which we examined how the tactical grid makes D&D less suitable for an audio-only podcast, and that podcasts ought to use theater of the mind to abstract that away and keep the narrative verbal instead of visual.
It's important to note that theater of the mind done poorly is worthless. If your GM is the sort who likes to say "The guy by the thingy does some stuff" then they're far better served with a grid. If they're the type to describe in delightfully macabre detail the sound that you hear in the back of the meat freezer as you push your way deeper and deeper, and who can keep a lot of detail in their heads during a session, theater of the mind is amazing. My brother is both of these depending on how much sleep he's had. We had to cancel Theater of the Mind and move to a grid once because everyone lost track of spatial relationships so that's where the first example comes from.
Likewise, using a grid can really interrupt the flow or it can be pretty seamless. The Monday game I just left (because the campaign wrapped) had a GM who improved almost everything. Most encounters were hastily drawn on the dry erase grid, with enemies represented by whatever tokens or minis were immediately to hand. My Thursday GM (the twin) does something similar, though he often orders minis for the environment the party is in ahead of time and prepares them on a shelf behind his desk, rather than use colored or numbered tokens (though we do that too!). There's things you can do to speed that setup process along like having the player's minis out in front of them or already placed on the edge of the board, or using a dry erase grid and keeping it simple and sloppy. You can also START by setting up the scene in narrative of the mind, and allow the players to RP in the scene while you draw it out on the grid. Then, by the time the fight starts the grid is already ready to go and you just have to place minis.
I think there's space for a hybridized approach at your table, and I'm very interested in that. If I were to GM a game, I think the first thing I'd do in the encounter flow chart after the initial concept is formed is ask "OK. So should this be theater of the mind or grid combat?" and go from there on a case by case basis. But especially as we get older and have less time to spend in a given session, the idea that theater of the mind might save time is particularly appealing.
Luckily I have a decent job that allowed me to purchase a few 3D printers. I've always been a tactile person so the battle maps are just as much for myself as my players, but it feels pretty good to put a 3D printed map down and watch my players' faces.
I mix it up; I use both tactical, (Dwarven Forge of course, only the best for the best) and TotM, (particularly for flashback scenes). Its really about carefully curating an experience that players will remember.
Cannot stand Theater of the Mind combat. Too often do I find it being used to the advantage of the DM to just attack whoever they want regardless of where they are. As a DM I dont even want to use it I have enough to keep track of I don't want to be the final arbiter of where every person is. I am also baffled anyone thinks ToM is faster. Literally, every turn starts with the same set of questions. It is so tedious.
That's a really good point. It's only faster if you and your players happen to be paying very good attention and making a spatial map of the scene as you go so you don't have to start with:
"Wait. So... where am I? Who is nearby me? Can I see X? How far away is Y? What do you mean 'behind cover'"
I'm slowly sliding back toward the "Tactical combat should be played out as tactical combat on a grid" camp.
We get into the nitty gritty in future articles. Keep an eye out!