I never realized how many players suffer from aphantasia and insist on using miniatures. Are you one of them, or do you embrace the unmatchable graphics of theater of the mind?
>>97831518>He hates tiny menI bet you think wearing clothing is purposeless too, you abstracter of gaiety.
>>97831518I don’t mind cards with good art on them as a substitute at least.
>>97831518Silence ruffian, the gentlemen are playing
>>97831518Kill yourself tranny.
>>97831582I wish I saw this picture before I started wargaming, would have made me realize that no matter what, playing with toys is for kids.
>>97831557>>97831582>>97831599Holy shit, this board is actually plagued with people who cannot imagine an apple.
Only if the game is designed to function even without any visual aids. Descriptive battles work if I only have to care about how many are close/far or if combat isn't even the main focus of the game i.e WoD or CoC. Miss me with that shit if abilities require explicit measurements though, I find that mechanically complex combat systems become diluted as fuck if you're not at least representing them on a dry erase board with rough markers. It all devolves into some form of "yeah uhh I guess x,y, and z are inside a 30ft radius". Then maybe we shouldn't play a game that has these systems if we're just gonna handwave it anyway?
>>97831518I don't mind minis but can GM or play without them.
>>97831518For simple combat encounters theatre of mind is perfectly sufficientFor more complex situation though, it's good to illustrate where everything is in relation to each other and it allows for more tactical depth. It doesn't have to be with minis (though minis are cool), any sort of token or drawing is fine
>>97831617All /tg/ and vidya is for kids. Real adult men are either lifting weights, shooting guns, playing sports, watching ESPN, bbqing, hunting and maybe doing shop crafts like woodwork and leather working. All other hobbies are for kids.
>>97831518Do you play chess in your head too? Measurements and tactical play can become difficult if you're not sufficiently practiced. Do you memorize the book too? It would a terrible shame to do away with the simple to retain the complicated and be horrendously reliant on book.>>97831617>>97831651Pictured, Famous Novelist and writer HG Wells; also pictured are statesman Charles Mastermann, credited as having worked with Churchill on the beginnings of modern state welfare, and Jerome K. Jerome, a fellow famous writer and publisher.But of course, boys and their toys. Hobbies are for children aren't they? I suppose your hobby is coming into places you don't belong and pretending you know what you're talking about.
>>97831648I like this idea, bust out some visual aids for a boss battle only.
>>97831671The only reason I come here is to talk about how woke and gay /tg/ is. I don't play this garbage at all.
>>97831671There's other RPGs than 4e, be a man and use your imagination.
>>97831671Anon, correct as you may be, you've fallen for two different baits in one post
>>97831630Found the ruffian
>>97831681>be a man and use your imaginationSure, then let's play a game where TotM won't slow down the pace of combat. Otherwise if a GM says "let's play this complex tactical combat game" then at the bare minimum I expect this nigga to at least have some bottlecaps and a flat surface.
>>97831707D&D 5e, it operates on theater of the mind.
>>97831682Don't let them know I'm on to something here, if I can get these hooks tangled they'll be shitposting in here for HOURS and staying out of the nicer threads.
>>97831648>Real adult men are either lifting weights, shooting guns, playing sports, watching ESPN, bbqing, hunting and maybe doing shop crafts like woodwork and leather working.Of which you, anon, do none. I bet you dont own anything more dangerous than a cheap stainless steel wallhanger that isnt even semisharp, and the only tool you own is an onahole. I bet you dont even leave your house more than a couple of times a week.Meanwhile, I hike, woodwork, lift, and paint small minis. Cry more faggot.
>>97831518It's not about anphantsia and being able to picture the things.It's about rules and scale.Do you know what I've noticed about every single theater of the mind player who refuses to use a grid? They do not have object permanence. Character exist in featureless rooms until features are important for what the player wants to do. Things phase out of existence the moment they stopped being used in an action. Distances do not meaningfully exist. There is no such thing as terrain, cover or obstruction until a player wants to get a bonus to their defenses.This is what upsets the theater of the mind player when you use a grid. Reality stops existing at their whim and instead becomes a reality they must deal with. 30ft is no longer a vague sense of distance, but instead an objective length of 6 squares. Features of the terrain are persistent. That stump you jumped behind for cover still exists after you stop hiding behind it. Enemies can make tactical decisions that were not allowed to them before - the goblins can crouch behind a stone and fire off crossbow bolts.Theater of the mind players do not have fully formed brains.
>>97831671>Do you play chess in your head too?I'll point out that this is absolutely a thing you can do. However, it's admittedly not an easy skill. something that is far beyond your average TTRPG player.
>>97831800>Faggot behavior>insecure faggot behavior>faggot behavior>goyslop consumption>goyslop consumption>insecure faggot behavior (see guns)>faggot behavior (performative masculinity)God I didn't realize how much of being a real man involved being a massive fucking goyim faggot anon.
>>97831807It's definitely the inability to use imagination. There's nothing wrong with being told dimensions and positioning and just keeping it in mind for combat.
>>97831518RPGs grew out of wargaming, no matter how you try to deny it.How does that make you feel?
>>97831518It was really weird to me when one of my player, six year into a campaign, told me he couldn't visualise the description I was doing. Usually I had a small illustration to show on a screen but for a few weeks we had to play without it.It felt so fucking weird. Like I've been with this person for years and realize he wasn't fully human.
>>97831833>>97831800 was meant for >>97831651
>>97831518I may not insist upon outright miniatures, but as all systems I have an interest in rely on hard positioning in their rules and I cannot maintain relative positions well I insist on SOME unambiguous visual representation of relevant objects' locations.>>97832006There's a bit of a gap between ability to visualize at all and ability to assemble textual descriptions into a coherent scene, as well as a bunch of potential scaling constraints on each.In my own case I get a sense of colors being attributed to yet separate from the shapes, with only a few in-some-way-connected parts focused on at a time in this off-the-linear-scale visualization while the larger structure is in a much vaguer mental modeling state. Consequently, I can't "work with" precise patterns of colors or detailed compositions all at once, though on the few occasions I've worked up the nerve to draw I did seem to be able to work through this to get larger ideas pinned down piece-by-piece.
>>97831518I hate when my gms pull the (it's just 1ft away you can't reach) or the you're always flanked but somehow you never flank shit. So we use maps and lo and behold that never happened again, so weird right?
>>97831900And there's no reason to go back to it now.
>>97832006It makes me wonder if it's a failing of the school systems.
>>97831865Except none of you do that. No a single fucking one of you. You know how I know? Because I started taking notes of shit. And realized that time and time again, there were things popping in and out of existence based on player convience.So it left me with two possible conclusions, and I gave you the one that gave you the benefit of the doubt.Because option 1 is you all do not have fully formed brains. You lack object permanence and only remember things exist when you want them.And option 2 is that every single theater of the mind player is a cheater.So which is it. Are you retarded or are you cheating? It's one of the two, and you can clear this up for me.
>>97832241Aphantasia is a neurological thing, not an education thing. For various reasons, people's brains get wired differently.Hell, based on my experiences, most people can't actually imagine sensations of weight or texture as if the object was actually in their hands. But that's not really a flaw. It's just how they're wired.
If it's something simple like "I hit the guard" or "we pile on the orc" who cares, but for encounters where you have a complex environment with furniture that blocks the way, five players and six enemies all of which have weapon ranges and abilities that rely on strict measuring? We roll out the grid and tokens.
I get the feeling OP is just coping because they are too broke for cool shit.Playing with minis and terrain is more fun when you get the chance to do so. It's not about lack of imagination, its about the joy of playing with toys with your friends.
>>97831820It's not about whether it's possible or not or even whether it's simple or hard. Sure you can do that, but if you have access to a chessboard just using it instead would be a much simpler, smoother and more enjoyable experience. Humans invented graphs, maps and all other sorts of visual aids for a reason, to better convey and relay information. There is no point in not using those tools other than stroking your ego. Unless the situation is just so simple with so little variables to take into consideration that any aids wouldn't help in making it clearer at all
>>97832260>You know how I know? Because I started taking notes of shit. And realized that time and time again, there were things popping in and out of existence based on player convience.You had a vague suspicion things weren't adding up, then a general idea, then hard-copied the details to check, and only once you had the hard-copied details to cross-reference KNEW the theater-of-the-mind players were failing to keep all the relevant details straight. Which means that you weren't actually managing the cognitive task you ask. I'll additionally point out that the relevant faculties are more advanced and multi-variable spatial awareness and reasoning rather than mere object permanence.
>>97832371Lot of assuming about motives.I was taking notes because I wanted to create a replay of the campaign later. I wanted to be able to jot down the general flow of combat.But your visceral reaction to the idea that someone would actually keep track of what you're doing shows me what I need to know. That I was giving you all entirely too much credit. You are, in fact, knowingly cheating and are upset that you've been caught by someone incidentally keeping track of things.
>>97831518>minifigures prevent theathre of the mindFound the aphantasia case.
>>97832260>No a single fucking one of you.It's how my table works>You know how I know?Know I don't>Because I started taking notes of shit.That's what you do as a DM yeah>And realized that time and time again, there were things popping in and out of existencePoor note taking skills on your part>option 1 is you all do not have fully formed brainsWe can rule that out, because you need to be skillful in note taking and using imagination>option 2 is that every single theater of the mind player is a cheaterCheating and railroading have become synonomous to me lately, you find the same behavior of fudging dice rolls, limiting player choices, and storyshitting all over the place from these cheats>Are you retarded or are you cheating?I guess I'm just a big retard, or rather you are and I'm forced along for the ride due to your aphantasia
>>97832300Their wiring is retarded at least
>>97832317Brokimane is at it again, if you imagine the fantasy tabletop game, it's because you're broke fellas
>>97831518Oh, I’m perfectly capable of forming mental images. But I also appreciate the value of visual aids for the table, as it ensures that everyone’s mental images largely match-up. You must have no idea how many arguments can crop up just as a result of two players (or players and GM) having two wildly different ideas of how the imagined space is laid out, and where everything is relative to everything else.
>>97831820NTA but I've known exactly one guy who could play chess from his head. He was levelling up to be a professional player while working a grill counter. He'd play four or five games simultaneously with different customers, just calling out moves. Beat my ass every time.>t. filthy casual
>>97832459>playing with minis somehow excludes imaginationIs this really the cope you are going with?Do you not think it would be fun to play with these little dudes? I don't believe you if you say you wouldn't rather play using minis if given the opportunity. Like if they were handed to you for free, would you really reject them and say you rather play without them?
>>97832454Not really. I'm kind of average-to-above-average intelligence but based on talking to other people my internal sensations are far more vivid and detailed than most people.If we're basing the idea that someone's mentally better than others based on what kind of sensations someone can experience in their brains than I regret to inform you that most of you aren't actually human.But thankfully, that's kind of nonsense. Internal sensation is kind of a grab back based on a bunch of inscrutable factors.
>>97832445Problem with your theory, dumbass. I don't have aphantasia. I can picture everything fine. The problem is that when you boil it down, all of you are playing in featureless rooms with furniture and corners that you spawn and despawn at will.Either I missed the meeting where we all agreed that tabletop games are the world's shittest mental gmod server of you're all cheating.
>>97832397>Lot of assuming about motives.What did you expect from bringing it up explicitly as part of a highly emotionally charged railing against theater-of-the-mind with no alternative purpose offered? That the response would be accurate mind-reading of it being in a previously entirely unmentioned context?>But your visceral reaction to the idea that someone would actually keep track of what you're doing shows me what I need to know.No, my first post in this thread was >>97832187 in which I specifically mention the inability to maintain relative positions. The underlying point still stands, because you cited it as how you know. That statement entails that you didn't know before to full confidence, and by extension that you did not have enough confidence in your own mental model of the game-state for their divergence from it alone to result in calling out the inaccuracy.>>97832454How many tasks depend strongly on the ability to internally synthesize novel visual states? Even in outright artwork there's successful people with aphantasia, so I've some doubts about this qualifying for "retardation".
>>97832572>with no alternative purpose offered?I mean, the alternative is implicit but because you're a cheater who's upset at getting caught out, you're acting in bad faith.That or you're a moron.So in either case, I'll spell it out for you. The answer is a representational diagram. If you're playing Dungeons and Dragons specifically, this really should be a grid of 1 inch squares, since that's what the rules are based around. For other tabletop games where movement isn't as rigid and things are a bit more vague, I simple diagram consisting of a few stand in objects works, so long as everyone agrees what each object is representative of.A couple of dice that aren't being rolled and a sheet of paper for terrain makes for a quick and easy way to make sure everyone is on the same page regarding things like relative position and what the area looks like.But please, keep crashing out about it. You're really helping the argument that you're all seriously interested in the theater of the mind and aren't just cheating.
>>97832601>I mean, the alternative is implicit but because you're a cheater who's upset at getting caught out, you're acting in bad faith....The alternative PURPOSE of WHY YOU WERE TAKING NOTES, not alternative to theater of the mind. If your reading comprehension is this bad, I can only assume you to be massively inflating your own spatial reasoning competence out of a horrendous case of the Dunning-Kreuger Effect.
