Theater of the Mind vs Battlemaps. Cyberpunk Red GM Advice
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
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Timestamps:
00:00 INTRO
02:22 TotM vs BM
03:29 What Is Theater Of The Mind? (TotM)
04:39 Description (TotM)
05:39 Combat (TotM)
06:13 Cinematic Experience (TotM)
07:53 Open To Interpretation (TotM)
10:10 Change Things On The Fly (TotM)
11:16 Battlemaps (BM)
11:18 Less Description (BM)
12:33 Focus On Senses (BM)
13:44 Virtual Tabletops (BM)
13:31 Combat (BM)
15:11 Less Interpretation (BM)
17:08 Conclusion
#CyberpunkRed #GMadvice #TTRPG - เกม
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whenever I'm discussing and describing things to my players I'll use theater of the mind but when we get into combat that's when I pull out the battle maps
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When running TotM, "Checkov's Gun" is really important to remember. If you describe something the reader/player will assume it's important & the more you describe it the more important they will think it is. Be careful not to describe things that will distract the players, unless you want to distract them, and make sure you emphasize the things you want them to think are important.
I have used battle maps in the past, but I grew up playing and running Theater of the Mind and really I have always preferred it that way. It also depends on your players and if they can play well with either than you can make that choice of how you like to run. My players though a lot of them prefer battle maps they are comfortable with me running Theater of the Mind, so they run their own games with battle maps and play in my Theater of the Mind game.
I have a grid i pull out and have little figurines just so they can get a feel for the distance. The rest is theatre of the mind, and ill use a wet erase marker to put down points of cover for them to be aware of.
For my players, I took a map and told a story with it.
We use theater to enhance the map and give them the ability to decide their fate.
Best of both worlds.
The thing about this topic is that neither is "better" but instead two aspects of different ways people have more Fun doing. Research The 8 Kinds of Fun.
If every person could figure out how they really understand their own fun then this divide over this topic wouldn't be so divided.
I personally can do Theater of the Mind IF the GM uses succinct description mixed with camera angles but I'll usually forget the fine details if description gets too much. But it's also dependent on how well the GM can Communicate.
I don't care if you use TotM or not, just make it theatrical and abso-bloody-lutely mental
Next time we hang out, I’m gonna run a combat situation with you as the player using only our brains and I’m gonna show you how it’s just as tactical as using a map thing
I'm looking forward to it 👍
I'm looking for suggestions about how to play Cyberpunk RED combat through ToM (specially about the rules around MOVE (stat) and Cover.
Thanks man, this video really helps. As do your others. I just got into this game and really am loving how deep it is, and I'm new to TTRPG'S.
Something funky is that we play in the 2070s almost exclusively with theater of the mind, so we can just tell each other which in game locations we'd be at and that gives a pretty good image
Joined your Patreon!!
Glad to be able to do even a small part to keep the dream alive!
Thank you so much buddy 🙏
I'm getting ready to play 5 minutes with my son. But really im trying to work on making better stories while having fun with my kid.
That's awesome dude! I can't wait till my son is old enough
As I was watching the idea for a hybrid of totm and bm came to mind. The gm tip vids I see are all about flexibility with a focus on fun. Then you went and explained the hybrid idea at the end of your vid. Now, I feel confident that I'm understanding what it means to be a gm.
Use every tool at your disposal! Happy gaming 🙏
I like running tabletop Sim, or using a grid whiteboard... everything is theater of the mind until initiative rolls , so the scene we all created is quickly drawn up... some pre determined encounters have properly made maps, but those rarely happen... the "white board" map Is my favorite cause the whole tables imagination makes the map now
I'd keep battle maps on hand for actual combat and for when the players need to search a room or solve a puzzle personally
Good video. It's a tough balancing act for me. I would say that for TotM, you need to have SOME visual aid to just show approximate locations. Especially playing remotely.
The other thing about not using battlemaps: In some RPG systems, character skills and feats really come into play when you are using precise movement/ tactical combats. So I have found that not using a grid for combat sometimes negates some feature or skill a player invested in during character creation.
I prefer to use maps most of the time when I can. Me and my players are visual learners (Artists most of them) so understanding spacial relationships makes interactions easier.
thing about me, I don't have any mental images, so battlemaps are crucial for me or otherwise Ill be completely lost, but just wanted to say thanks for presenting both sides!
I find battlemaps sometimes even mesmerize me as the gm, and I prefer to run at least a few scenes per "mission" as theater of the mind so I can get descriptive
This happens to me as well. I am immediately less descriptive with a battlemap I feel.
Theatre of the Mind works well if you keep descriptions somewhat vague and interpretive. For example:
"You enter a club. There is a small room that serves as a security checkpoint, with the main room just beyond. A circular bar is in the center with seating all around. Passed the bar, in the back of the room, is a dancefloor and a stage. There is no band playing and it appears to be a slow night." That's all you really need. You don't need to describe the colors or the types of people there unless that is important. The players will fill in those blanks in their heads.
Which leads to my second suggestion: allowing for shared narrative. Because the GM kept things blank, the players will often ask for details. The catch is, they will usually only ask about details that are important to them. If the detail turns out to not be important to story, the GM can (and should) allow the player to describe it. By contributing to the narrative, the player then becomes more invested in the scene.
A good and informative video. I find that the rules have the biggest impact on whether or not I want to use a battle map. If I play DnD when I need to take into account Speed values and AoE effects (some of which may be lasting), a battle map is almost mandatory. If the game doesn't have stuff like that, then I prefer theater of the mind. I like how the Storypath and Storytelling systems use abstract ranges instead of exact ranges (like DnD) because it's not really narratively important if the bad guy is 10 meters away or 15 meters away for you to have an interesting and engaging action scene.
10000% agree.
Well said buddy. We don't need exact measurements to tell a story
I do the mind stuff but this is just mostly because I have trouble with starting with the maps. My sessions are mostly improvised and many locations would be "crafted" on the run. I'm sure it can be done and I'm excited to try it. I somehow held myself back on this front for far too long.
Club is called the Sino-American Exchance, logo is a stylized chinese red panda having a cocktail.
Huge Bouncer : "Hold it, what's the password?"
Players : *makes a wild guess gives the wrong password*
Huge Bouncer : "No, dipshit, it's 'Red Panda', now get in there and be sure to tip Minnie well, 'kay?"
Players : "Okay, uhg... thanks?" *enters*
Huge Bouncer : "Can't wait for this fucking shift to be over. I need a drink."
12:34 this reminds me of Marshall Mcluhan's "hot and cold media". Reading about Cthulu vs seeing a painting of Cthulu vs watching a video of Cthulu vs playing a Cthulu video game (or VR) vs realizing the island your boat is docked at is actually not an island and the waves are getting bigger pretty fast. 🤣 Different senses and reflexes are in use playing 2077, sneaking through a lair of some gonks and trying to get stealth takedowns vs doing that in ToM. Each has its own pros and cons and it's best when players know what level of imagination or simulation they'll be dealing with.
As a horror ttrpg podcaster the approach of vague description for listeners and players is something I have to remember since I'm new to cyberpunk. First session, cover and to hit ranges with ToM was one of the most frustrating things. Gonna approach it with a more relaxed frame of mind like I do with D&D, thanks for this video. Picking up a new system I guess I was trying to do it more by the book, but I don't do that with D&D so needed this to knock some sense into me lol.
Glad to be of help! I love horror ttrpgs too. I tried implementing cover in my TotM gameplay and it was a colossal mess. When I opted for more cinematic combat, everything was more exciting and smooth. Maybe I'm doing it wrong 😂
@@JonJonTheWise exactly, I'm able to do it well with Mics and Monsters. Idk why I had this mental block picking up Red. Ran the ideas that this video sparked by my players and they are so on board.
@@bopbarker1834 that's great to hear! I'm going to listen in.
Even as a hardcore theater of the mind fan, I must concede that virtual battlemaps have one advantage: the players don't necessarily share inormation when I set up line of sights.
This plays into my understanding of how combat should be: it should be chaotic, confusing and you shouldn't be able to plan accurately.
This brings me to the problem I have with battlemaps. What if the netrunner hacked a crane in the warehouse and controls a moving cover for the group?
What if a player decides to get around a surpressing fire situation in a living complex by kicking the cheap wall in?
A beautiful map can look like the real thing, but as soon as you interact with it, this illusion disappears.
The next thing is about descriptions. When I give in a warehouse, I don't really notice how many ceiling windows it has or where the cameras are. I notice that it's a huge, brightly lit warehouse with a library-like shelf system, worked by some classical forklifts and some robots working on tandem. I don't notice how many people work there or how many forklifts there are. These information come up when I look for them. This also is how I describe locations: you get the details if you ask.
The trick there is: even if I had not considered that some goods may be standing around, waiting to be shelfed, if a player asks, it now can be there and if a player uses it for cover, the goods can be bottles of synthetic vodka which now leak to the ground, waiting to be ignited. Nobody put the asset there, but based on how I described the room, it would make sense that such a thing would be there.
I guess the question totm vs. battlemaps dies depend on how you look at the world and thus on how you describe it.
If player agency/creativity changes the battlefield then I bust out my marker, other dice, or drawing tools on a VTT to reflect the changes. It's not perfect but I can still allow my players to do whatever they want without limiting them to "what you see is what you get"
For me if your player wanted an gameplay with details. They like to fight to according to the book , use Battle map. But for me i asked my player if they wanted to use battle map or not. my players love my explanation, love my words , love how i make it look like action movie 🍿🎥 make it look Cinematic they feel cool when they play with theatre of the mind So just go with it. Remember GMs use the right way for your players it just that
My gripe with battlemaps is the sheer amount of effort and prep time it can take, especially with virtual tabletops. I'd rather draw some sketches on a whiteboard type thing and let my players go through as I ad lib everything.
Good stuff. But I do have a question. Are we distinguishing Battle maps from visual aids? the example of the club with the bouncer with the Cyberarm. having a picture of the interior of the club and or the bouncer unrelated to combat or what I was simply called a visual aid. when initiative is rolled and Lead is being thrown on a grid map That's what I consider to be battle map. What do you think?
I am totally keeping those two ideas seperate. When I do theater of the mind I always have a visual aid . One static image to help set the tone
Question, how do you handle scale with physical battle maps? My struggle with battle maps is that very few actually are large enough to accommodate the ranges that your players can run or shoot. I have a large grid I use with 1 inch squares, and a pistol has a range barely less that the size of the map. Never mind the range of rifles.
that's very true for cp2020 but cyberpunk Red fixes that range difficulty. I would say homebrew it to make more sense according to the battlemap. I know that's a terrible answer, but there's not much else you can do.
@@JonJonTheWise thank you for responding. That's more or less what I've been doing and it does add a bit of extra crunch. Glad Red smoothes it out a bit.
Really enjoying your content and I look forward to seeing more of what you make!
Thank you!🙏
I lean more toward TOM largely because I find it impossible to have a battlemap ready for every situation in which I may need one. What if the PCs get into a fight somewhere unexpected, or avoid a combat somewhere where I expected there to be one? Would there be a risk that a GM would be inclined to force a combat to occur in the scene that they have a detailed battlemap for rather than waste the prep work, even if the PCs take an entirely different approach that in the game might not have led to an escalation? Conversely the PCs I run Cyberpunk games for tend to surprise me by occasionally getting into unforeseen trouble somewhere that I would suddenly have to map on the fly.
Aa I've said in the video, if an unexpected combat occurs during TotM then I go with the flow and do combat in TotM. Otherwise I have a map prepared
So, what about running hacking, I find it hard to do it TotM only and am trying to find a way to visualize the matrix so that it is easier to grasp for people who are not from IT jobs.
Me and my group always played ToM, but we are up to start a Cyberpunk RED campaign.
I just realized there is some mechanics like MOVE (Stat) and Cover that would be really difficult to replace in ToM.
Any suggestions?
When it comes to cover and Move: I use cinematic styles. I don't try to crunch numbers too hard. I hand waive a lot of the movement and cover. Listen to your players' intentions. For example: I might say "what's your move?" And decide that it's enough/not enough to reach the enemy. And if the players say, " I take cover behind a table", I consider them in cover.
It's all about intention and moving things along
@@JonJonTheWise I thought the same about cover, good to know it works.
But I also think about deleting the MOVE Stat - or changing some DEX Skills to MOVE instead - cause in ToM is kinda a dead Stat if you're not counting tiles to move around. I'm sure no one will spend points on it since there's no use at all without battlegrids. That DV table will also need to be simplified for ToM XD
I find there's some stuff in Cyberpunk RED that's very difficult to implement without battle maps, but I've definitely seen it done with ToM successfully - maybe personally I just find it tough. Cover is a big one, since it plays such an important role in the combat: if the players want to flank and just also 'be in cover', it feels like too often the possibility of doing that is 'GM discretion' or something. Most Cyberpunk RED combat I've seen seems to favour a bit of mobility, and it gets a little weird to approve/deny players/NPCs the right to move into cover AND still have line of sight just based on... well, I don't even know, arbitrary difficulty creation, or even just conflicting imaginations.
Well said. I usually put the cover system on the back burner if I'm using theater of the mind. Which is a shame because it's an awesome system
I'm more of a ToM but I wanna learn how to use battle maps
God? Is that you?
@@calynmjordan yes it is me
I just can't be asked to do the work to make battlemaps tbh. Even for such a technical game as Red (which I'm currently running). I also know my players do not want to be bogged down in crunch. I think I'll put in the work to make a map for very specific combat instances in the story, but outside of that I'm not gonna bother.
how does the move stat translate into theater of the mind?
Every 1 point of move = 2 meters of movement. So you just have to imagine how many meters it will take to make certain moves.
I purchased $124 worth of STLs last night, I use battle maps because I must justify this.
Nothing wrong with that choom. I am getting into 3d printing and map making as well.
@@JonJonTheWise Once I start running a cyberpunk game, my plan is to run the game as theater of the mind until the players obtain a blueprint of the area theyre in either through hacking a node in the building or by getting the info from their fixer. Unless they are in the streets, for that Ill have some universal maps drawn up for them on large 1 inch grid graph paper.
I never liked battlemaps,. The moment I see the figures on the map, my head stops imaginig the situation. I just see a tactic game. I like tactic games for what they are and can be, but I dont need a tactic game modul in my RPGs. More than that: I always hated all the shards (ingame! outgame I love them) and the simulation heavy RPG systems. So from my point of view TTRPGs changing over the decades took the right direction, focussing on story and interaction. For exampel I like the Apocalypse Engine. For all other needs there are medium doing better jobs
Quite often for me maps always enhance my mental imagination where words always fail. If it's only ToTM I'll usually have to ask 3 or 4 times for word descriptions before my brain can See it and even then I have a hard time maintaining remembrance of it all. Having an Action scene does help though.
But why is the trash can red? ;)
And a whole new adventure starts from an improv moment.
@@patrickkanouse because we're in the matrix maaaan
Blessed be the players who have a theater of the mind GM who doesn’t describe anything.