ICRPG and theatre of the mind gameplay

#1

ICRPGers, how many of you prefer theatre of the mind gameplay to grids etc? The DIY aesthetic and support for ICRPG seems to lean toward prop based gameplay but I always feel like I’m playing a boardgame. What’s your experience been like?

#2

I almost exclusively play TotM, only rarely popping up papercraft minis and terrain for special encounters. Not being bound to a physical representation of the game makes improv and immersion much easier to handle.

I must admit tho, sometimes you just can’t completely describe everything in a non-chaotic fahion, so the index cards or a battle map help.

#3

For our group, combat is always with grid and minis, never TotM and no exceptions. We can’t do non-gridded combat. It becomes a mess. Anything and everything else is TotM but sometimes we use crude hand drawn maps (silly and ugly pencil drawings) for describing the general layout of whatever we are doing.

#4

My group is 99% TOM. The remaining 1% is me drawing a quick sketch map on a whiteboard. We’ve been playing this way for many years, no matter what the system, and it works for us.

I have thought for a while that the stripped-down, no-details system of ICRPG was incongruously paired with incredibly detailed terrain modeling and miniatures. I’d guess that y’all were playing with the minis first. I am a tad envious of some of the superb work I’ve seen here, I must say. Everyone should keep playing in the way that makes them happy.

#5

For the campaign I just concluded I was heavy into art for people, minis, places, apocalyptic Drug-fueled visions, and even some loot items. This was calculated because of wanting to reuse stuff to riff and repeat thematic beats and also for memory cues given I had so many players mixed up over so many worlds.

I am going 90% TotM for the upcoming West Marches in Grey (Alfheim) we are kicking off in a couple weeks. I’ll mainly use printed art for unusual monsters or locations only. For exploration and elsewise, I have a stack of multi shaped dry erase boards and cards that I’ll be drawing what’s necessary for mapping and combat clarity on.

#6

For me towns and wilderness is theater of the mind and dungeons are entirely on grid. Even the non-combat parts. That’s because towns an wilderness is generally where a lot of the full on RP happens and dungeons is where things get more tactical, puzzle-y, adventure-y.

I agree it feels like a board game but I don’t mind that at all. I quite like board games and it scratches the same itch. I am one of the people that liked 4th edition and didn’t mind it being too “gamey.”

#7

I do a good balance of both for my games. I try to lean towards TotM for simplicity and speed’s sake. Using points of interest meshes SOOO easily with the close, near, far system.

The Log is Far from the party. The wagon is Far from the party. And the Wagon is Far from the Log. But the Dark Well is Near the Wagon and Far from the Log.

It’s really simple to run when you get used to it. I admit I do draw out doodles sometimes just to have players put their mini’s on the points of interest but don’t usually need an acutal grid.

#8

As someone who can’t afford to buy foam for crafting, I often end up drawing the encounter maps on large paper and playing that way! Still, much of my time is spent without a map (other than a regional one for travel).

It can totally be done! I recommend using a map of some sort, though, once you get into more complex encounter designs. You can do it all with paper, cutting out objects and placing them on top of your base map and having them be interactable (hiding a potion under a tree for example to signify finding it within the tangled roots).

#9

I love all of these ideas. I stopped playing D&D because of the slog of tactical combat, and I’ve played TotM for about ten years, with occasional hand-drawn maps or maps I find online. ICRPG convinced me to give tactical combat another try. I’ve only played a few sessions, and so far so good. The things that really eat time are finding just the right card or just the right figurine. This is even harder when improvising. To help with this, I keep different colored rocks and glass beads to represent most baddies, and a stack of blank index cards for quick sketches. I have a couple players who love to draw and do it quickly and well, so I often delegate drawing to them.

#10

I have been a TofTM heavy type of GM for about 35+ yrs now. I took this awesome system and busted it to pieces then put it back together again so it fit my style of gaming. This system is great but it plays like a video game. Cool but not for me. I, like those nutters over at Critical Role tend to opt for a shit ton of story and a teeny tiny bit of dice rolling. Previous to this I ran The Window since the early 2000’s when it first came out and that was my go to system until this thing popped up on my radar. I seen in this many of the things that were missing in The Window and in this somethings missing as well so… I am now a few sessions in to my hack and almost done ironing out the minutia. Almost there. Once I get it fully tweaked, I will be sure to post up for anyone to use it. I do like to use figurines but thats about it. The rest is on a big white board which I draw really rough on. No grid, not fancy stuff. Just theatre of the mind with some monsters on the table.

#11

Would love to see that when you’re done.

#12

Having started with ToTM in 1983 (when it was hard to find minis much less the dice we needed), we still play mostly ToTM. When I played D&D 3.5 and now occasionally Pathfinder with another group it’s still very tactical and grid based with minis. But with ICRPG I took most of my group back to a ToTM focus with an overview map (usually on a basic 8.5x11" paper) and the ICRPG index card sets mixed in for the “campfire” effect. We don’t use minis at all though. Just colored dice to represent which index card the player or NPC is currently engaging with or on a general location on the overview map.

I always found tactical and grid based to be limiting and very time consuming. I like it when the players or myself can imagine just about anything we want to do in those situations (within the story and logical reason). And since ICRPG doesn’t require set skills or abilities to perform certain actions, or limiting space to 1" square movement, that makes it that much easier to play it that way.

#13

Im a minis and terrain man myself but i imagine it would work just find using the tags… like far, near, SLAM!

#14

I almost exclusively run Theater of the Mind because I never really liked the maps and miniatures stuff, preferring verbal descriptions.

#15

So, it seems that at least a good few of us do run off the grid.

How many of us play TEXT BASED games? This includes standard play by post (non-synchronous), and normal sessions that just don’t use voice (synchronous).

#16

That’s black belt stuff. I’m not on that level yet.

#17

Spent a few yrs doing play by post and it was a big success. Me and the others were all “would be” writers so we loved it. If anyone here wants to dive in, let me know. Can’t hurt to go at it again. Not ICRPG related though… purely free form with just a couple rules put in that I will let you know about. Hit me up in private though. Lets not take over this thread. That’s just rude. pm
to discuss.