Playing D&D In Your MIND! (Tips for Theater of the Mind)

I’ve been playing D&D since the ‘80s and over all I’d say the campaigns I’ve been in or DM’ed have been 90%-95% theater of the mind. I definitely prefer theater of the mind… though it is fun to break out the minis for the occasional dungeon crawl or epic boss fight. :)

I find it's a good idea to remind your players from time to time that a map/grid does not equal combat.

really cool to see aphantasia brought up, most of the time i see ToftM brought up it is rarely mentioned, so as a dm with it and for my players that have it, Thank you! I still like to use it but supplement it with evocative pictures instead of battle maps.

Another great video Nate. Lots of good tips for both sides of the GM screen. I love theater of the mind combat. The flexibility it allows during the game is so handy. It also allows the GM to be able to improv combats quickly. I do use battle maps and tokens for key battles, usually the ones that I know are going to happen and involve enemies with complex abilities or large numbers. In the end it just takes practice for the GM and the players to get used to this style of play. Heck, I still have a few players that default to the "how far away is the were bear?" questions from time to time.

One tip for people who suffer from not being able to imagine things as abstractly (like me!) is to volunteer to be the mapper! It really helps me picture things better if I draw them out and it can also help the team when we need a map! Even if I'm not the mapper that night I STILL draw my own map just to help me process the info better! Thanks for another great vid! 😃

Great video Nate. I particularly liked the "recap combat for the players tip" - not one I'd ever thought of, but from your example, I realise that the best DMs I've played with do that naturally!

Thanks a lot! This video was super helpful to me, as I'm now trying to create my own rulebook for a TTRPG based on how we played Dračí Doupě (Czech D&D) with my friends. ❤️ I'm also watching your videos for a very long time and I thought I'd send you a tip and a huge thanks for your awesome work. 👍

I really wonder how a 4e game would go TotM considering…. But yeah I decided to try this for a Spelljammer game I started up recently. We’ve had only a couple quick combats so far, and this is gonna be useful advice for running them in future.

I've been the sole DM of our group for years now. I've got back problems and moving minis on the table discomforts me. TotM helps with that a lot and it makes combat more streamlined imo when I don't have players busting out the Pythagorean Theorum to see if he can snipe a minion or not.

Great tips. Thanks for the “Recap” tip.

Good informative video, I agree with all points here. My groups and myself as DM, play like this for years, and these things are also really important for us.

Great tips throughout. Well done covering this topic!

thanks for posting this video... we have been livestreaming our TotM sessions with a lot of people wondering how the heck we were doing this gaming without "maps and minis". The players staying within character makes the presentation more of a radio-show for our game (for those listening) but we do posts an occasional image or interior for visual synchronicity.

Great set of tips, thanks! :)

Been playing since 2000's and never played with miniatures and maps. I didn't even know this was considered a "different" way of playing nowadays, I thought this was the standard mode.

In games that normally use battle maps for combat and tactical encounters, Theater of the Mind is still useful for quick battles with only few enemies. DMs can even skip initiative to get through it quicker, allowing players to simply chime in with their actions if order isn't too important (something the Dungeon Coach calls "popcorn initiative") or going in order of initiative modifiers. Once everyone gets comfortable with such encounters, a DM can add more of these quick combats to an adventure for added content and XP, and it may help the group transition to Theater of the Mind as a whole for their game if this is the group's goal.

We moved from D&D to Star Wars FFG and this system has more loose distances, we also moved from a VTT to basically a dice-roller and theatre of the mind. Even though I did this often in the past it really needs some time to transition to it again, so your tips really help me out there. I prefer theatre of the mind for the mind because I think it allows for more creative game-play, usually, if you have a detailed map you are often not asking questions like is there a bucket or a chair when it's not on the map, people though get much more creative to search for things, cover etc. Also figured the moment you use a battle map people turn on combat mode, stop thinking about other solutions quite often and just want to kill stuff, since I plan often encounters where combat is not the best solution it can get annoying. The last point I like about it, it speeds up combat, stuff turns less tactical, less discussion and at the end of the day, I as GM do not care if the enemy was now in 30 or 35 feet of distance, it leads often to so awkward situations sometimes. We played a D&D module before and we had quite many melee characters, the model had mostly 5 feet hallways which was so tedious to get even into combat. "GM can I squeeze around the paladin to enter the room?" That can really turn into a drag sometimes. Sure there are players and GM's that prefer the simulationist playstyle and therefore having accurate battle maps, travelling times etc is important but I prefer focusing on the narrative, the action, and the epic moments and this can be easier achieved with the theatre of the mind imo.

It's strange for me that people need advice for that. I play RPG for more than 20 years, and always we played only with character sheets and dice. Sometimes we used general maps, sometimes we fast draw encounters on paper, sometimes we used glasses and bowls to show general idea of encounter. But for me and most role players that I know it's mainly theater of the mind (didn't now the name earlier) and all miniatures encounter maps etc are just addons.

LOL Being a beginner DM playing with a group of beginning players, going with the flow works fantastically. Now if I can just get the party to stop being afraid & just do something. 🤔

Nice work on the video!