This article contains my default rules for running tabletop role-playing game combats without a combat map. This should work in all TTRPG systems with only a few minor adaptations.
(For a full discussion of alternatives, see Gridless Movement.)
Time
In the following discussion, a combat scene is divided into rounds during which all characters involved in combat take one or more actions. Characters customarily take all their actions on their turn. Depending on the system they may also take a reaction during someone else’s turn; this may or may not count againt the character’s total actions per turn.
In the world of the game, each round is usually about 5 or 6 seconds, with 10 or 12 rounds per minute. (Other systems, e.g. GURPS, uses one second rounds.) During those few seconds characters presumably move a few steps to dodge an attack or make attacks of their own. Attack (and defense) dice rolls therefore do not reflect every action in five seconds, merely the net effect of the character’s actions.
Distance
Instead of tracking distances using feet, yards, or meters, this “gridless” system categorizes distances between two beings or objects as follows:
- Close: within’s arm’s reach, maybe after a step.
- Near: within the distance a character can move with a single Move action.
- Far: at a distance requiring multiple Move actions.
- Very Far: at a distance requiring a dozen or more Move actions.
- Away completely out of sight, either due to distance or intervening obstacles like walls, trees, and buildings.
All weapon ranges use the same distance categories:
| Range | Examples |
|---|---|
| Close | bare hands, all “hand-to-hand” or “melee” weapons e.g. swords. |
| Near | thrown weapons and objects, point blank for missile weapons |
| Far | optimum range for bows, crossbows, and firearms; extreme range for thrown objects. |
| Very Far | extreme range for bows, crowsbows, and firearms. |
At “extreme” range all ranged weapons incur some sort of penalty, determined by the Game Master.
Movement
Most characters can move Near once per Move action per Turn. How many Move actions a character can take in a Turn depends on the rule system. (Assume characters can move no more than 15-18 meters, 16-20 yards, or 50-60 feet in a combat Round if they use all their actions in a Turn to move.)
If one or more characters chase one or more other characters, use skill or attribute contests each turn to determine whether the pursuers or the pursued are gaining. After three net sucesses, one team will win: the pursuers will catch up, or the pursued will get away.
Fast creatures, either four legged or flying, move some multiple of Near once per Move action per Turn, usually ×2. A Fast creature in pursuit of a slow creature will catch up after at most one success.
Disengage Action
When two hostile characters are within Close range of each other, they are Engaged in combat. To break out of combat safely, one character may choose the Disengage action: they back away into unoccupied or friendly space, and remain alert for their enemy (or enemies) to pursue. If they are not re-Engaged by an enemy moving up Close, they may take any actions they wish on following turns. If they are re-Engaged, they may make Attack actions or defensive reactions as normal.
If a character does not follow this procedure, all attackers in their former position may use one of their Attack actions to attack the character before they move away, if an attacker can expend those Actions on their turns. (This replaces the awkward “Attack of Opportunigy” rule in certain RPGs.) The moving character is considered to have turned tail and run.
Position
In most cases the Referee and players must track the positions of all characters relative to other characters, objects, and terrain features. In the Gridless system, the three primary ways of doing so are Circles, Landmarks, and Zones.
Circles
In many combats relative positions are straightforward: all the player characters start Close to each other. Place the player characters in the center of the table, map, or virtual plane, and place enemies and objects around them in concentric zones representing Near, Far, Very Far (if applicable) and Away (off the circles).
This is sometimes called Ultimate Dungeon Terrain. See this YouTube video for more information and explanation.
Landmarks
If player characters are more spread out, the Referee will need to define stationary Landmarks: a doorway, a corner of a room, a specific pillar or statue, etc. Characters move Close or Near one these landmarks when they change position.
If at a table, the Referee can lay down cards with words or pictures representing each landmark, with enaough space betwen them to represnt spaces Far from any landmarks. The border of the card represnts Near; the center of the card represents Close.
Index Card RPG pioneered the use of cards to stand in for objects and terrain, and offers a pair of “Essentials Decks” for terrain and monsters. The following video provides a demo of the cards (and ICRPG).
On a digital tabletop this technique may be harder, depending on the support for inanimate objects.
Zones
A third technique usues something like a traditional battle map, but instead of divinding the map into squares the Referee divides it into zones. For example, on a small ship the foredeck may be one zone, the area between the foredeck, the areas fore, aft, port and starboard of the cargo hatch four more zones, the hatch itself a zone that leads to a sudden drop, and so on. Barriers in an area form natural bounderies for a zone.
Note that such maps need not be to scale, or even strictly proportional. As long as it represent all visible obstacles and objects in the areq, a quick sketch on scratch paper, with tokens representing characters, is good enough.
Players may move to an adjacent Zone with a single Move action as long as they have no barrier between them. Otherwise, they must use and additonal Action to surmout the barrier, assuming that’s possible. Doing so may also leave them open to attack, depending on the nature of the barrier. Ranged weapons may strike one, two, or more Zones away, depending on intervening barriers or obstacles.
For more about this form of Zone movement, see Fate Core and the Fate System Toolkit
Ludography
These games inspired the “gridless” system above.
Cypher System Rulebook, Revised Edition, Monte Cook et al., Monte Cook Games, 2019
Fate Core, Leonard Balsera et al., Evil Hat Games, 2013
Index Card RPG Master Edition, Brandish Gilhelm, Runehammer, 2021
Shadowdark, Kelsey Dionne, Arcane Library, 2023