Deckplans - are they worth it ?

[Dave Chase]

EDG, Good question

When I run in the past at the college town, most players liked having a miniature of their figure (or card board hero type figure).

We would place them on the ship to show where they were in relation to characters even if there was no combat. It helped keep track of who could talk or hear who.

Most times I average 10+ players a game and we played for 4+ hours a sitting. So miniatures and locations was helpful.

Dave Chase

 

[EDG]

I guess I find it strange that people need that sort of accuracy for non-combat situations. I'm not particularly "narrativist" with this sort of thing, I (and the groups I usually play with) just can't be bothered with that sort of detail in that sort of situation - we just wing it.

It's just funny because I hear of gamers (usually from the CT/old D&D generation) railing about how everyone's using miniatures as a crutch and how in the old days they didn't need that sort of thing, and yet people seem quite happy to move minis around a map when they're not actually doing anything that really requires such tracking?

 

[captainjack23]

I guess I find it strange that people need that sort of accuracy for non-combat situations. I'm not particularly "narrativist" with this sort of thing, I (and the groups I usually play with) just can't be bothered with that sort of detail in that sort of situation - we just wing it.

It's just funny because I hear of gamers (usually from the CT/old D&D generation) railing about how everyone's using miniatures as a crutch and how in the old days they didn't need that sort of thing, and yet people seem quite happy to move minis around a map when they're not actually doing anything that really requires such tracking?

:shock: :shock:??????????????????????????????????:shock: :shock:

You must be being misled sir. Anyone who tells you that minis are a crutch and unneeded in the old days is woefully ignorant of the history of RPG gaming. D&D was a miniatures game, and while traveller wasn't just an extension to a minigame, it was built around miniatures. I mean, and I'm not joking, we used rocks and bottlecaps, when we couldn't get real minis -which were quite hard to find in the old days... Who on earth other than a complete pratt would claim something like that ?

Must be some of those latecomers to D&D (like 1st or second edition) or Indie-Burning-wheel-WOD zelots, posing as elder gamers. Or, they were yanking your chain. So you just tell them that they're full of hot air and refer them to me. Unless, you're just yanking my chain....hmmmm.

As to the detail, well, I've been in groups where lack of maps and minis worked fine until they didn't -usually one or two players who developed an "I'm at the treasure" or "I'm over there, if its trapped " style. Cuts way down on the arguing and allows much better roleplay, actually. I'm surprised that any use of miniatures seems to be seen by newer gamers (no, not aimed at anyone i this discussion) as anal retentive detail mavening. I mean, mostly they're an aid to memory and organization, and just get placed when it matters. Like, the mutant crawdad jumps out of the laundry hamper.

 

[Dave Chase]

I guess I find it strange that people need that sort of accuracy for non-combat situations. I'm not particularly "narrativist" with this sort of thing, I (and the groups I usually play with) just can't be bothered with that sort of detail in that sort of situation - we just wing it.

It's just funny because I hear of gamers (usually from the CT/old D&D generation) railing about how everyone's using miniatures as a crutch and how in the old days they didn't need that sort of thing, and yet people seem quite happy to move minis around a map when they're not actually doing anything that really requires such tracking?

Nay, most of the individuals needed it for
1) mainly to help visualization of area and they were not miniature players
2) with so many individuals as players and having several NPC around on a ship it was very helpful.
3) it allow for us to track who decided to 'play out of character' when they claimed that they knew something that they didn't
4) not all the players were 'mature' college kids and it was large groups, so for me it made it a bit easier when the rule was if you are going to talk to some one your miniature needed to be in the same room/location as the other or you had to use a commo.

Some smaller games, with friends that we gamed all the time (in many different games) we hardly ever used miniatures except for miniature type games.

Some of our deck plans did not have the hexes/squares, just the blueprint version. It was not a 'exact' location bit for most games, just location.

Dave Chase

 

[Jeff Hopper]

I guess I find it strange that people need that sort of accuracy for non-combat situations. I'm not particularly "narrativist" with this sort of thing, I (and the groups I usually play with) just can't be bothered with that sort of detail in that sort of situation - we just wing it.

It's just funny because I hear of gamers (usually from the CT/old D&D generation) railing about how everyone's using miniatures as a crutch and how in the old days they didn't need that sort of thing, and yet people seem quite happy to move minis around a map when they're not actually doing anything that really requires such tracking?

OK, maybe I was wrong about you being arguementative. The above just looks like you have been mislead.

Here's the deal from my own experiences. When players are in a structure (starship, building, whatever), they like to know where their charcter is in relation to the structure. Pointing to a square on a deckplan is the easiest, most effective way to do that. There doesn't have to be a combat going on or anything. Just a direct method of saying "You Are Here".

 

[GamerDude]

I like deck plans for me to know the layout of the ships currently involved in the game... and then having them on the table when we need the tactical representation

I'm quite capable of remembering distances and such without a grid, but 99% of the peope I've played with can't do that. Hence the gridmap.

 

[Emperor Herdan]

...

D&D was a miniatures game, and while traveller wasn't just an extension to a minigame, it was built around miniatures. I mean, and I'm not joking, we used rocks and bottlecaps, when we couldn't get real minis -which were quite hard to find in the old days... Who on earth other than a complete pratt would claim something like that ?

Must be some of those latecomers to D&D (like 1st or second edition) or Indie-Burning-wheel-WOD zelots, posing as elder gamers. Or, they were yanking your chain. So you just tell them that they're full of hot air and refer them to me. Unless, you're just yanking my chain....hmmmm...

Hmmm pity you didn't say "yanking my Chainmail fantasy rules" (Brought to you by The Strategic Review no less)
(Still have the small booklet somewhere aboot the place...)

God I'm old ... lol

Take care

E. Herdan

 

[EDG]

Hell, I know we (being the groups I was in at school and university and at the gaming clubs) didn't really use miniatures at all for combat before D&D 3e came out, and that's over 20-odd years of gaming - it was all done descriptively.

Nowadays, I think they're a mixed bag myself - on the one hand they do help for visualisation, but on the other if it goes too far then it takes us too much out of the roleplaying game mindset and too far into playing what is essentially a tactical board game. And playing without them just seems faster anyway.

But I have definitely heard the "pah, in the old days we used our imaginations and it was much better" routine from various sources. I don't particularly agree with that - there's advantages and disadvantages to both approaches I think.

Either way though, I think the use of deckplans (and by association, miniatures) really depends on whether or not one is using them to directly represent what is going on in a situation on the ship. As such I'd see more justification in using them for smaller ships, but not really for bigger ones.

 

[Vile]

It's not really a question that fits easily into such a poll as this. I use deckplans when players enter ships, and that's about it. However, they might enter all kinds of ships, from 100 ton scouts to 50,000 ton superliners (only jedi board 500,000 dreadnoughts in small groups). I don't use deckplans for actually placing miniatures on, although I do use miniatures - usually on a separate grid sheet, though, not on blown-up deckplans. I treat deckplans the same as I treat building floorplans - useful if your players are going to go in there, fluff otherwise.

I think big ship deckplans are useful, but only if they are imaginatively done - I don't really have any use for scout-couriers scaled up a thousand-fold, with rectangular boxes on the inside and all the odd bits being fuel tanks. I can knock those up myself in half an hour. I would like to see much more variety in deckplans - every one should show something different, something that I hadn't thought of before. There are so many possibilities, especially with artificial gravity, that it's a shame to see the same kind of thing repeated endlessly.

 

[captainjack23]

Hell, I know we (being the groups I was in at school and university and at the gaming clubs) didn't really use miniatures at all for combat before D&D 3e came out, and that's over 20-odd years of gaming - it was all done descriptively.

1989 ish ? 2ADD, Huh. Allow me to preform the codger dance....

Yeah, 2e did lend itself to sit in a chair and narrate style play, less than 1ADD, but still abstract enough to play it either way. -3e really brought back (and made mandatory), the minis & mat.
Unfortunately, I've always felt that it was a bad set of rules from a miniatures perspective -my GOD could it drag -"how do you avoid an AOP ? What are the limitations on charging ? Wait, if I have....."

And, it was, unfortunately the most widely played set of skirmish miniatures rules, probably bar none, which is sad as it really was about ten years behind the times. There were LOTS of good and fast flavorful minis rules that would serve the same purpose....but, D&D was EVERYWHERE, like an attack of opportunity with tumbling and extra feats.....

Which has left a pretty wretched taste in most RPG gamers mouths who started about then -and had only played the abstract system from earlier editions. Probably why tac mats and hex grids cause hives among RPGers these days. And who could blame 'em.

Sigh.

Okay. Carry on. Old codger done here for now.

 

[GypsyComet]

And, it was, unfortunately the most widely played set of skirmish miniatures rules, probably bar none, which is sad as it really was about ten years behind the times. There were LOTS of good and fast flavorful minis rules that would serve the same purpose....but, D&D was EVERYWHERE, like an attack of opportunity with tumbling and extra feats.....

Ten years? Try twenty. While WotC will never admit it, D&D3's tactical engine is a clear descendent of TFT through RQ, Hero, and GURPS, and that roller coaster got started in 1977...

 

[EDG]

Hell, I know we (being the groups I was in at school and university and at the gaming clubs) didn't really use miniatures at all for combat before D&D 3e came out, and that's over 20-odd years of gaming - it was all done descriptively.

1989 ish ? 2ADD, Huh. Allow me to preform the codger dance....

Crap. I keep forgetting we're in 2009 now, so that's more than 20 years - I started gaming in 1983 , didn't pick up Traveller at all until around 1988.

What's this "2ADD" stuff? Pah, we played the good old Basic(/Expert/Companion/Masters/Immortal) set! I've never played Advanced D&D in my life!

 

[C. Chapman]

I think an awful lot of us started around '83 with red box D&D. I know that's when I started rpging. Gamers of a Certain Age. :lol:

Colin

 

[EDG]

I think an awful lot of us started around '83 with red box D&D. I know that's when I started rpging. Gamers of a Certain Age. :lol:

Colin

It's OT, but I wonder if AD&D was more popular in the US while Basic D&D was more popular in the UK?

 

[GamerDude]

It's OT, but I wonder if AD&D was more popular in the US while Basic D&D was more popular in the UK?

all I know is 100% of the people I played with from 1981 till 2nd ed were solidly in the ADD camp. (Including a year in South Korea).

Ok, my ex-wife and her two friends were basic D&D, but that's all they knew because of the person who showed them how to play and when I ran for them I converted them to ADD.

 

[Dave Chase]

D&D, AD&D, sheesh

Chainmail, is were it started
Or at least where I started.

Dave Chase

 

[GamerDude]

D&D, AD&D, sheesh

Chainmail, is were it started
Or at least where I started.

Dave Chase

yep, Chainmail was built off of a pure miniatures game, then became the D&D pamphlets (I have the Dieties&Demigods for that version) then AD&D in parallel with the basic box set.

 

[GypsyComet]

D&D, AD&D, sheesh

Chainmail, is were it started
Or at least where I started.

Dave Chase

yep, Chainmail was built off of a pure miniatures game, then became the D&D pamphlets (I have the Dieties&Demigods for that version) then AD&D in parallel with the basic box set.

The original "big red dragon" Basic box set predates playable AD&D by a bit, as the AD&D hardcovers were on a one-per-YEAR schedule and they started with the Monster Manual. The DMG, with all the combat tables, was the THIRD book published...

I'll admit to being somewhat distracted by another digest-sized box of rules in 1977, though. A nice distinctive black box with a red stripe across it...

 

[Gee4orce]

Maybe I should have been more specific with the poll, so here's a sub-question for you:

"Have you actually USED the deckplans in High Guard, and if so, what for ?"

 

[rust]

"Have you actually USED the deckplans in High Guard, and if so, what for ?"

Yes, as a base and an inspiration for the design of the ships for my own
setting.