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I had the opportunity to briefly see the Dragon Age RPG by Green Ronin in play today at Free RPG Day 2011 but not actually play it. I was able to pick up the FRPG Day mini-adventure and read through it and while it may be different from what I am used to (3.X, PF, and 4E) I was able to get the gist of it quite easily.

Where I was stumped was with combat. I realized that coming from a D&D heavy background that I am quite spoiled when it comes to miniatures, having just had my first narrative-only adventure ran today.

Does combat for Dragon Age make use of a game mat and miniatures? Is it all narrative-based?

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A question about the pros and cons of using mats and using only narration: Narrative Combat versus Use of Miniatures. It's worth noting that you can switch back-and-forth between mat-based and narrative-based combats, depending on the strengths you want to take advantage of for a given combat. – SevenSidedDie Jun 19 '11 at 17:23

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My group used a game mat while playing it. It seems to have quite a few mechanics that rely heavily on positioning (such as the rogue's damage boosting ability, and several stunts that depend on proximity). It would have been difficult to use those abilities in a pure narrative environment.

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It's not actually that hard; it just requires skills that aren't commonly developed by people who've played mostly mat-based combat systems. There's a good question on how to handle positioning-heavy mechanics in narrative combat in the question Without a map or miniatures, how to best determine line-of-sight, etc?. – SevenSidedDie Jun 19 '11 at 17:20

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