How would you indicate to your players that a creature is a minion?

[JacktheRabbit]

I paint them yellow, put weird glasses on them, and have them talk in a weird language that almost sounds like you can understand it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think minions basically are 4e's version of 'conservation of ninjitsu'. You have an XP budget, if there's 20 enemies, well most of them must be carrying a pretty small 'charge' of 'ninjitsu'.

Honestly, I've rarely seen anyone burn a good power on a minion. If a character were to use a big move on one, maybe it would be best to actually just swap it with some more substantial target! Again, 4e's mechanics treat things the way they are used, if it ain't being treated like a minion, then it AIN'T ONE.

 

[Zeromaru X]

In my opinion, minions exist for the heroes to feel awesome and powerful. I don't want a hero to waste a daily or encounter power on one thinking it's something else. So I usually tell them, or I describe that they're under equipped, look a little puny, etc.

I was going to say this. I do the same.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I normally announce it outright (although for some reason my go-to phrase has become "they look minion-y" which is kind of dorky).

Occasionally I will play tricks -- my players are good sports -- such as the following which I call "Schroedinger's Minions".

Put X identical minis on the board. Let's say X = 6 for simplicity.
4 of the 6 are minions. 2 are normal monsters of appropriate type. The trick is that not even the DM knows in advance which are which.

When a PC hits one of the monsters, roll a d6. On a 1-2 it's a normal monster and you subtract HP as normal. On a 3-6 it was a minion.
Keep track of the normal monsters... they stay normal. (So in subsequent rounds you won't need to roll a d6 once both normal monsters are determined.)

 

[Bootlebat]

In my opinion, minions exist for the heroes to feel awesome and powerful. I don't want a hero to waste a daily or encounter power on one thinking it's something else. So I usually tell them, or I describe that they're under equipped, look a little puny, etc.

Exactly. However I don't want to just say "these are minions" for the same reason I wouldn't want to say "this guy is level 24"

 

[Eltab]

When I DM'ed (in 5e but I still used the Minion concept), my players figured out that lots and lots of identical ANYTHINGS were Minions. Sometimes I wanted to swarm the group without using a Swarm creature. Or keep them busy over here while BBEG did something over there.

 

[Immortal Sun]

I don't.

They tend to put two and two together after killing one or two minions, but I don't offer this information; it's on them to discover this.

This.

Show, don't tell. Players tend to catch on pretty quick.

 

[tyrlaan]

In my opinion, minions exist for the heroes to feel awesome and powerful. I don't want a hero to waste a daily or encounter power on one thinking it's something else. So I usually tell them, or I describe that they're under equipped, look a little puny, etc.

I've found this to be an exceedingly rare occurrence to be honest, more frequent with encounter powers for obvious reasons. But honestly, I don't have a problem with it happening at all.

The players are incredibly capable and powerful given the tools at their disposal and I've certainly never seen a scenario where such a wasting of a daily or encounter power made the rest of the fight unbeatable or dramatically more difficult than intended. On the flip side, if your daily or encounter power is AoE or multitarget, you might very much want to use it on minions and it would be the exact opposite of a waste.

When I DM'ed (in 5e but I still used the Minion concept), my players figured out that lots and lots of identical ANYTHINGS were Minions. Sometimes I wanted to swarm the group without using a Swarm creature. Or keep them busy over here while BBEG did something over there.

Yeah exactly. Players will figure it out.

Once they've been playing for a bit they'll pick up on the patterns ("oh look there's 4 of the exact same monster swarming us, I wonder if they're minions..."). And when they're new to 4e they will be in investigation/exploration mode, which tends to mean more conservative power use until they get more comfortable with the rules.

Honestly, you're better off assuming your players are just smarter/more cunning than you think they are. I found that as the 4e game I ran progressed I would start pulling "tricks" to try to make it tougher for them to sort out which opponents were and weren't minions (not just use 4 of the same, keep minions in the back and "swarm" with a couple real brutes, etc.).

The flip side to consider in all of this is that if your players know which enemies are the minions and take them out before they do a damn thing, you are basically just spoonfeeding them some XP. Not having certainty of which opponents are minions helps them earn it a bit. I'm by no means an antagonistic DM, but I make sure I do what I can to try to challenge my players because they don't want to sit down and just steamroll everything all the time.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Even if the PCs know exactly which monsters are minions, they still have to expend actions to kill the minions... and actions are the most valuable commodity in the game.

Classes with bursts and blasts, or multitarget powers in general, can clear out a bunch of minions at once (assuming the minions are bunched up). But some classes lack those and thus need to pop minions one at a time over the course of multiple rounds.

Effectively, known minions are action denial that also might do a little damage.

 

[76512390ag12]

I adopted the 13th Age approach: all NPC meta status are visible to PCs.

But only in games which have such statuses or a meta approach.

So 4e or 13th Age only really.

In FATE revealing such aspects is an actual part of the game engine.

5e. Mmm would depend on the table style or the required 'feel' for that campaign.