Physical Battlemap

The physical battlemap or battlemat is a common way to play tabletop roleplaying games in person around a table. While levels of sophistication vary, this playstyle involves using physical representations of locations and the characters present there. These representations may be as simple as coins on a sheet of 1-inch square graph paper or as complex as fully painted miniatures on 3-dimensional constructed terrain. The map may include a grid of squares or hexagons for abstract movement, or be to scale and use measurement to track position. While the physical battlemap is most appropriate for in-person games, it can and is also used for remote play; in this version, one player takes responsibility for the map and presents it to the others, usually using a top-down camera view. Whenever a character moves, that player moves their token or miniature to indicate their new position. Physical battlemaps are popular for the tactile nature of play, easing the burden of visualizing the location or situation, and the incorporation of (let's be honest) toys and customizable miniatures and terrain into RPG play. They're so popular that creating, collecting, and painting miniatures, including buildings and modular "dungeon tiles," is a full-fledged sub-hobby of tabletop roleplaying games. Though some tables may simply prefer a laminated mat with erasable markers, to draw, erase, and otherwise alter the territory as the characters manipulate it. Ultimately, physical maps represent a broad and diverse set of ways to play that prioritize the characters physical relationship to the space they occupy to help players visualize situations and play RPGs. They're best suited to games that focus on tactical combat and exploration, where positioning and relative distance matter most, and while they can be helpful abstractions in more story-oriented games, many such eschew them in favor of "theater of the mind" play to avoid getting bogged down in the physical details.