Theater of the Mind in Practice

In my experience, there are two kinds of battles that are suitable for Theater of the Mind. 

(1) Fights with many combatants milling around one fixed point of reference. 

(2) Fights with one enemy combatant moving between several fixed points of reference. 

Fights with several enemy combatants moving between several fixed points of reference aren't really suitable for TotM.

If You Have One Fixed Point of Reference

If you’re running a fight around one fixed point, the main opportunity for environmental interaction obviously must come from that fixed point. A good example of this kind of fight is the DDN in-house playtest where the party and the orcs are fighting around a flamethrower contraption. From what I've seen, players find it satisfying to destroy or mangle the fixed point of reference; again, the playtest fight offers a great example of this. So it’s best to make that fixed point something that’s in effect a barrel of dynamite with multiple brightly colored fuses just waiting to be lit, or an extremely expensive and fragile vase that somebody doesn’t want to see broken.

If You Have One Enemy

If you’re running a fight with a single enemy (usually a boss type), then there are a couple different things to keep in mind. 

First, the single enemy can use terrain features like he would his minions. For example, he can use the terrain to as blockers: the archetype is probably the teleporting mage that moves from alcove to alcove in order to keep out of sword reach of the fighter. The enemy might use the terrain to heal himself somehow—I just played through kotr on my iPad, and the final battle is fresh in my mind. The enemy might use the terrain to inflict damage—I’m always reminded of the examples back in one of the 2E supplements where an enemy has about ten loaded heavy crossbows mounted in a line as the PCs charge in and he moves between them inflicting some pretty serious damage in the first couple rounds of combat. 

Second, if there is really only one enemy, it’s a safe bet that either he or the players will find themselves on the run at some point. So you will want to decide beforehand whether the fixed points of reference will aid or stymie escape, and also what avenues for escape are actually available.

The Sniper: Exploration with Combat Elements

There is another kind of TotM battle that probably has a fancy name of which I am unaware: I like to call it "exploration with combat elements". In this type of fight, there are enemies present either taking pot shots at the PCs, or threatening to. I don’t use strict timekeeping for this kind of fight; instead, I just ask everyone what they’re doing and update the NPC actions whenever it feels appropriate. 

Usually this kind of fight is actually a built-in clock against which the PCs must race while attempting to complete some other task. For example, if the players are attempting to fend off a pitchfork mob while working to free a prisoner from jail, they have to contend with the occasional stone or hunting arrow shot in their direction, but the real purpose is to remind the players that they have a finite amount of time to complete the exploration task before the mob loses its temper and decides to burn the jail down with them in it.

Final Thoughts

The last thing to keep in mind about TotM is that there’s no shame in deciding that this particular battle has gotten too complicated for TotM, and just throw together a sketch so everyone’s on the same page again. For that matter, there’s no shame in keeping a little sketch behind the screen for you keep tabs on who’s where doing what to whom, especially if there are things happening off camera that you need to keep track of.

Death by Exposure: Hypothermia

A lot of energy gets spent trying to suss out the best way to handle environmental damage in D&D. Here's my take, using hypothermia as an example. I'm kind of fond of this method: so much so that I've considered using the same process for disease and poison.

Anyway, here goes.

Rules

I track environmental damage using a made-up mechanic called "Exposure Levels". Every time your character gains an exposure level, I hand you a poker chip. When you get too many poker chips, you're dead.

Here's the key that makes this tense: you don't know how many poker chips you can take before the condition kills your character. Maybe two chips. Maybe five chips. Maybe thirteen chips. Who knows?

Before the game, I prepare a sheet like this. It tells me how many exposure levels you can take, and what kinds of bad things happen to you when I hand you a poker chip. It also tells me how these exposure levels can be removed. As you might have guessed, it's mostly just stuff copied off the internet.

Hypothermia in this example is a three-stage condition. When I give you one poker chip you're shivering and just can't get warm. When I give you a second poker chip, you're violently shivering and stumbling around like a drunkard. When I give you a third poker chip I'll probably roll to decide what other bad effects happen to you: maybe you'll feel warm and want to strip down for the beach, or maybe you'll go into a fetal position--who knows? And of course when I give you a fourth poker chip you're dead, although--fun fact!--your brain will live on a little bit longer due to decreased cellular blah blah blah.

Got it? Great! Now go out there and explore the great white north!

Who's influencing me at the moment: Wikipedia, Telecanter

Prepping for 2nd Edition-Style Play

What's influencing me right now: Hack & Slash Series on Set Design,

Courtney's blog series (linked above) is pretty excellent.  You should go read it before you read what I have to say.

Gone and read it?  Good.

A Slightly Different Playstyle

Our group plays on a virtual table top.  We use Skype voice for out-of-character talk, and we use text messaging for in-character talk.

So we're a little different than a true old school game at the DM's kitchen table. In particular, playing over text is a lot slower than playing in person.

To compensate, I key locations such that players can explore in as few steps as necessary. I'm shooting for a mid/late 2nd Edition-style game, completely in line with the example play found at the beginning of the 1995 Player's Handbook.

Microsoft OneNote

Another difference between traditional tabletop games and my own is notetaking applications.

Hopefully you're at least passingly familiar with EverNote or OneNote.  If not, then let me tell you: this shit is the bomb.  These programs keep high-word count notes ready to go at a moment's notice, available from any PC or other device connected to the internet. I can mark things up to my heart's content, then go back later and undo the markings. I can drop stuff in from the web and trust that it'll be easily available when the players go off in an unexpected direction and I've got to wing it.

Personally, I prefer OneNote over EverNote, but both applications get my hearty endorsement and recommendation.

An Example Location: Demonspore 

Awright, let's take one of Courtney's examples and see how it would look in my DM notebook.

Since brevity isn't really a virtue here, I write things clear enough that an idiot could look at my notes and know what's up. Ideally each bit of content is complete enough that I can copy & paste it while nursing a can of beer in my other paw.  I tend to use nominal phrases--ones that can easily be prepended with expressions like "you see" or "you hear".

So, after spending a few minutes on the Demonspore example from Courtney's blog, here's the fruit of my labors:

I use bold to indicate what's immediately obvious, yellow for monsters, and underlines for monster stats. Usually I include a good amount of information about how to role play the NPCs, but in this case I'm just going with what's in the module.  The arrows do double duty as break points in player exploration, and as dividers for DM-only content.

Example Play

The following example uses the same cast of characters (Helen, Roy, and Jenal) as my earlier post on initiative.

DM: You move quietly up the passageway.  Soon you see a massive portcullis of wooden beams, bolted together with iron, barring both the path and the river. The central part of the portcullis has longer bars than the rest of the gate, descending into the river itself.  Also, the air is filled with the unpleasant smell of rotten fish.

Helen: How far off is the gate?

DM: Not sure. Check the map. ... Okay, it looks like you're 60' away. It's at the edge of your infravision.

Jenal: Where's the smell coming from?

DM: Are you going to spend time looking for the source of the smell?  What's everyone else doing?

Jenal: I'm looking for the source of the smell. Quietly. Not moving any closer to the gate.

Helen: Are there any guards?

DM: You haven't spotted any.

Helen: I'm going to creep forward cautiously, looking for any kind of guards.

Jenal: There might be traps...

DM: Roy?

Roy: I'm... just watching the tunnel. Making sure nothing comes up behind us.

DM: [Rolls some dice. Jenal is pretty far away to get to see the buckets, so he gives the thief a Hear Nosie check to see if he traces it. The check fails.] Helen sees a bumpy, slouching figure just behind the gate, sitting on a stool with its back against the wall. Jenal, you can't see any obvious source of the smell from here. It seems to be coming from up the tunnel.

Jenal: You mean in the direction of the gate?

DM: Yes.

Helen: Just the one guard?

DM: It looks like there's another one behind the first.  They're about man-sized.  As you watch, a long tongue flicks out from one of their mouths, splashes into the water, and retracts with something wriggling and silver stuck to it.

Jenal: Are the guards close enough to the gate for me to stab them through it?

DM: One is, the other is not.

Jenal: Great, then I'm slowly moving up to the gate.

DM: All right. Everyone else?

Roy: I've got my bow out and I'm ready to attack as soon as Jenal does.

Helen: Same.

DM: Okay, then. [Rolls a Move Silently check for Jenal.] You creep up to the gate within 20' of the creature--it looks like a giant anthropomorphic toad, squatted back on a stool with its large eyes looking lazily at the ceiling.

Jenal: I slip my dagger into its throat, as quietly as possible.

DM: No attack roll is necessary.  Roll your damage.

Jenal: Got a 7...

DM: [Rolls to see which of the toad-men is affected.] Jenal, your dagger slips into the creature's throat membrane, and you manage to create a long running gash on its front side with your attack. The thing gargles and burbles, but isn't dead yet. The other creature behind it jumps up and grabs its spear. It is within 10 feet of the gate, just out of sword reach. [At this point the DM pauses and writes down the creatures' next actions.]

DM: Okay guys, we're going to rounds now.  Actions?

Pathfinder: I Perceive an Empty Room

Who's influencing me right now: Courtney Campbell, Skip Williams, Paizo Pathfinder

At one point in Pathfinder's Carrion Crown II: The Trial of the Beast, the module has the PCs encountering a mostly-empty castle.  Each room in this castle is lovingly detailed for the DM's benefit, even though most of the rooms are devoid of monsters, traps or tricks. In each room, the only "threat" is that players will overlook some of the treasure hidden there.

Of course, the players have no way of knowing that.  They have every reason to expect untold horrors leaping out at them from the flickering shadows.

So how do I, as the DM, choose to run this?

Option 1: Tell it to 'em straight

One choice--the choice I wish I had made--is to just tell the players.  "You encounter a mostly empty castle.  Each room is devoid of inhabitants, and judging by the piles of dust in many of the rooms they have been abandoned for some time.  On searching the castle you discover the following treasures..."

This bypasses most of the loving detail in the module, and shoots down any chance to build tension for the characters as they carefully tiptoe from room to room, cringing as they open each door in the expectation that they will get jumped by another gothic horror.

But this option does have the virtue of sidestepping Paizo's god-fucking-awful perception and detect magic rules.

Option 2: Play it as it lies

But in my infinite wisdom, I didn't decide to go with option 1. Instead, I actually let the players search the place room by room, just like if they were exploring a "live" dungeon. Our play went something like this:

Me:  You enter the room.  You see lots of smoking pipes and clay jars on shelves that line the walls.  Two leather chairs sit in the middle of the room.  The air reeks of tobacco.

Player: We search the room for traps.  We search the walls, shelves, jars, pipes, and chairs.  Do you want separate rolls for each?

Me: No.  You search the room and find no traps.

Player: We search the room for treasure.  We search the walls, shelves, jars, pipes, and chairs.  Do you want separate rolls for each?

Me:  No. But I need an appraise check.  [Players make the check.]  You find some tobacco and some pipes that look pretty valuable.

Player:  We search the room for secret doors.  We search the walls, shelves-

Me: Okay, shut up already, I get it.  Just roll the damn dice.

Player: Ok.  I also detect magic.

Me: Of course you do.  You find no magic and no secret doors.

Player: Right, then. Next room.

Me: Sigh. Yippie...

Courtney's blog (linked above) does a pretty good job of hammering down what's wrong with this style of play.

Lastly and most damming, the process of 'we search the x', 'roll search', 'you don't find anything' is one of the most mind-numbingly boring things one can attempt to do with friends!

Well said, Courtney.

Final Thought: The Death of the Empty Room

The above scenario wouldn't be so problematic if the exploration had been broken up by combat. It's the series empty of rooms that are the Pathfinder-breaker.

And that's too bad. Interacting with the environment used to be interesting. Whether or not the end result was an increase in character power, empty rooms used to be fun.  If you took Gygax's random dungeon generation chart to heart, then 60% of your rooms would be empty, and another 5% would contain only treasure.

But them days are over.  Perception(Wis), Search(Int), and Spot(Wis) shot that playstyle all to hell.

UPDATE: An example of how the tobacco room discussed above should be run in my opinion can be found here.