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The Perfect Distance – 25 Feet (or 10 Meters)

by Mike on 19 August 2024

"How close are the gnolls?"

"25 feet."

Understanding distance when running combat in the theater of the mind can be tricky if players have their heads still wired around 5-foot-per-square distances in gridded combat. It's hard to break this focus on spatial representation, so GMs often find themselves answering a lot of questions about distance.

How close or how far a creature is from a character isn't the real question they're asking.

"Can I get up the gnoll and hit it with my hammer?"

That's the question they're asking.

"Can I blast it with eldritch blast?"

Players want to know if they can do stuff. The distances don't really matter. We want the characters to do stuff. So we have an easy default answer.

25 feet.

25 feet is a perfect distance for lots of things. It's within range of just about every ranged attack. It's within the distance of any character's move.

It's also not yet in melee. So characters can move without taking opportunity attacks. 25 feet is the perfect distance to give characters options for just about anything.

Next time you're running combat in the theater of the mind and a player asks you how close or far something is. Instead, think about the real question they're asking – can they do the thing they want to do?

Yes.

How close are they?

25 feet.

For our Metric-Using Friends

If you're using the metric system for your game, treat 5 feet as 2 meters. It's close enough and as long as you're consistent across the rest of the game, the extra meter won't matter. Most characters, for example, move 12 meters in turn.

How close are the gnolls? 10 meters.

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Steer players towards the fun even if you have to just tell them where it is.
Write notes during your game. Keep track of what's important to the players.
After your game, evaluate what worked well and what could be improved.

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