Theater of the Mind

Why Run Combat in the

Theater of the Mind?

There are many ways to run combat in Dungeons & Dragons. Some dungeon masters use erasable poster maps and miniatures. Some use pre-printed poster maps. Some use beautiful 3D terrain. Some use projectors or flat screen TVs placed on a table. Some run their games entirely online using a digital tabletop.

Many use nothing at all.

We can group these various ways to run combat into three large buckets. These buckets aren't perfect representations of the myriad of ways to run combat in D&D, but they'll suit the subject of this article.

Why Run Combat in the Theater of-the Mind