Inspired by an article by Vanir on critical-hits.com
I hear a sound when my players see a battlemat, the sound of disgust.
I kid you not a quote from a week ago: “Do we really have to use a battlemat?” I currently run a Dragon Age game (which is a great system and if you haven’t tried it out, you should) but I have ran 4e and Star Wars Saga without a battlemat. It is fairly easy to do. Instead of looking down at a bunch of squares and plastic representations that pale in comparison to your imagination the player looks up at the GM the person, who is your guide to the world you are playing in, and ask can my fireball hit all 5 squares. Part of it is person preference but I have noticed ever single time the battlemat comes out, it becomes a game of tatics. When the battlemat is put away it becomes a game of roleplay a game of players being imaginative. Battlemats take out the roleplay and the imagination of the game. If I wanted to spend two hours bent over a table making tactical decisions on what my character does I would of played D & D minis. Try it out for yourself. Just run one combat as you normally do. Then try one combat without the battlemat. Yes the GM will have to work a little harder, but you will find the GM has more control over the game and the players will have more fun with it.
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