Battlemat or Descriptive Encounters ?

[Catodon]

Wakes screaming from flashbacks to the horrible chessboard puzzle dungeon rooms of the early 80's

[Swordpriest]

As the GM, I usually draw a map on graph paper and note everyone's position. Then I conduct the combat as a narrative. There's a map, but only I can see it. It gives things more "juice," in my opinion, to narrate -- the map just helps me keep the scene clear in my head.

It's worked so far.... 

[@stroVal]

As the GM, I usually draw a map on graph paper and note everyone's position. Then I conduct the combat as a narrative. There's a map, but only I can see it. It gives things more "juice," in my opinion, to narrate -- the map just helps me keep the scene clear in my head.

It's worked so far.... 

That sounds like a good idea.

[Catodon]

As the GM, I usually draw a map on graph paper and note everyone's position. Then I conduct the combat as a narrative. There's a map, but only I can see it. It gives things more "juice," in my opinion, to narrate -- the map just helps me keep the scene clear in my head.

It's worked so far.... 

That sounds like a good idea.

Its how I've been doing is since er.... Anyway, I've been doing it that way a long time and it works great.

[ComicJam]

I use a mixture of both, depending on the situation.

I usually have a computer going with the map on it which I reveal during exploration. When combat begins we don't go for the tactical measurement, just a rough guess as to where everyone and everything is.

Cheers!

[Typhon]

As a GM (well when I rarely DO GM) I end up with combat happy players (and happy to please) and with this game, I'd definatly plan it out (reaches, flanks, movement rates, etc..).
Although I can see doing it all verbal would be a lot easier but this way it kills a lot of the "I forgot to"s and "I didn't know that"s with the visual right in front of them.

[Goodlun]

Hey,
sorry for being the necromancer for this thread,
 but I found another approach proposal that might interest some of you: http://robertsongames.com/dnd/law-chaos-battlemats-dnd/comment-page-1/#comment-2180

This is excellent I really like the approach.

[Desertpuma]

I have yet to read through everything but so far it seems entirely solid.

[Typhon]

One other thing to take into consideration, what kind of players do you have.
Some ALWAYS need a visual/physical evidence of what's going on lol.