My DM doesn't want to use miniatures...

[Melkor]

Much as I agree you don't need miniatures, I really don't agree with that opinion (not to pick 9on you for saying it Wombat, yours was just the post I noticed with it first).

Honestly, if your players lose their ability to role-play when miniatures come out, I think it's the fault of the players (if, indeed, it is even considered a fault), not the miniatures themselves. Adding more visual aids should only help players... not bind them to a straightjacket.

I tend to see at as more of a shift of focus than a lack of skill by the players. Once the miniatures come out, the focus becomes how to squeeze every tactical advantage out
of your position and character as opposed to focusing on bantering with the villian and
the noxious green vapour eminating from open maw....

I say that based on 18 years of experience playing D&D without miniatures in Basic, 1E, and 2E, with them in 3E, and without them again in C&C - and playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles for years as well. For MY gaming group, things seem to change when the miniatures become the focus in the game.

 

[Melkor]

Get rid of attacks of opportunity. Just check them wholesale out the window. Give monsters a special feature where they can attack anyone who comes wtihin their reach if it's past 5' and the same to weapons that have reach past 5'.

And then be prepared to have some type of issue when you're hit by spells. Have something on hand to minimize the arguements either in the form of the map of where you're at for crucial combats or suffer under the vagueness. (Problem I suffered in 1st and 2nd ed which lead to miniature use in the first place.)

Would you think that this would have an effect on the power of spellcasters being able to cast spells without fear of drawing an instant attack of opportunity from nearby foes ?

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I use minis if for no other reason than that I have exactly one subset of the Craft (visual art) skill: miniatures painting - but I've got lots of ranks in that one.

I can't draw a straight line, much less an NPC portrait, I don't care for the look of photoshopped actor and model pics, and most of my players would recognize game or anime concept art. But a miniature, that I can do. It gives the NPCs their own distinctive looks, and the particularly dangerous ones cause some serious fear when they're taken from the minis box.

I don't have a decent battlemat, though, so I mostly handle combat Warhammer-style, with inches rather than squares.

 

[Melkor]

I dislike mapless combat because it's less forgiving of attention lapses. If a player goes to answer the phone or pay the pizza guy or even take a bathroom break, he becomes disconnected from the narrative. By the time he gets back characters will have moved, spells may have gone off, and the battlefield no longer matches his mental picture. Then he's liable to take useless or even counterproductive actions because he doesn't know the situation.

LOL - I agree with the "disconnected" part regarding the Pizza & Bathroom breaks (it's much easier to come back from something like that and take a quick glance at the battlemap to see where things stand than it is to ask for a recap of the narrative).

That said, I think the DM has a little bit MORE control over a the flow of the game when minis are not used.....He can "fudge" a bit more for the purposes of dramatic storytelling than he can when everyone knows precisely where everything is at every moment using a tactical representation. In other words, he might be able to slightly alter a detail so that a combat doesn't result in a total party kill without revealing that detail to the players (a detail which they might have already known had they all had access to a precise physical representation of the combat).

 

[Jdvn1]

Perhaps "trust" was the wrong word to use.....Trusting his ability to keep up with all of the minutia appropriate to the tactical side of D&D combats with multiple oponents clarifies what I meant a bit better. Reach weapons, AoOs, Spell effects, 5' steps, creature attacks (tail slap), etc., etc., etc.......(because I don't even trust MY OWN ability to keep up with everything involved in using a "mental map" and no physical representation to keep track of large combats). That's a hell of a lot for one person to keep track of without letting small things slip through the cracks that might really have an overall impact on the outcome of a combat.

... Even with a map and mini's, my GM sometimes forgets that stuff. Sometimes we catch it, sometimes we don't. In a mini-less game, you also have to blindly trust the GM isn't screwing you over. If you can see the map, you can see how everything's coming into play.

 

[mearls]

I always thought that the "miniatures take away from the roleplaying" argument was a bit of a cop out. I've never noticed any link between having figures on the table and people's willingness to roleplay.

As far as an issue of trust, it's more an issue of power. Trust is only a byproduct of an inequity of power. If someone doesn't have power over you, you don't have to worry about trusting them. There isn't anything they can do to you, so why worry about them?

So, what does this have to do with D&D? A lot.

In D&D, the DM has more power over the flow and implementation of play than the players. However, the players have the rules to keep the DM in line. So, if the DM throws Tiamat at a 1st level party, the players can call out the DM for throwing a CR 20+ monster at them. After all, the rules explicitly say that's wrong.

More importantly, the players can use the rules to stake control over different aspects of the game. One of the aspects of D&D that makes it so interesting is finding advantages and combinations that are more powerful than the sum of their parts. When a player puts together a character, he's constructing a spread of talents that he hopes proves fun to play.

We can define fun in a lot of ways, but I think for most D&D players fun is "having a positive, noticeable impact on the flow of play." This usually means a PC who kicks a lot of butt in whatever area he chooses to focus on, be it roleplay or combat.

Without miniatures, you short circuit a lot of the possibilities for combat-focused mastery for a player. You turn a lot of abilities and spells into "mother may I"* abilities - the DM decides when a player can use the feat, not the rules. That's a subtle but important difference. The player's feats only come into play if the DM wants them to. The player's choices are less important, because the DM can now arbitrarily put them into play or yank them out. That's the basis of the power divide between players and DMs, right there.

So why is there a natural tendency to link miniatures with games that feature no roleplaying? I think there's two factors at work. For players, combat is one part of the game. If you aren't very good at tactics, pushing those miniatures around a grid takes away from the parts of the game that you do like. I think that it's human nature to prefer to say "Miniatures take away from roleplaying, let's not use them" rather than "I'm not good at tactical combat, let's not use minis."

For DMs, things are a bit different. IME, there's a natural tendency for DMs to houserule the game to weaken the game's leveling effect WRT DM and player power. That's a post for a completely different thread, but it's one of those things that you really have to watch out for as a designer. I think this tendency is an artifact of 1st and 2nd edition, and I'm very curious to see what the culture of the game is like in 10 years.

So, in the end the question isn't "Do you trust the DM?" The question is, "Why doesn't the the DM trust the players?" If we're taking power away from the players and giving it to the DM, why are we doing this? What purpose does it serve?

Now, the two cases I outlined above don't apply to everyone, but they are the most common ones IME. In any case, I hope it provides some theoretical framework for why miniatures are a part of D&D. I think that D&D 3e is so popular precisely because it is the one commercial game that seeks to bridge the power gap between the DM and the players.**

*A "mother may I" ability in D&D is a PC talent that works only if the DM allows it to. The ranger's favored enemy is the best example - the ranger can only use it if the DM puts monsters into the adventure that qualify as the ranger's favored enemy. IMNSHO, mother may I abilities are bad for the game. Turning undead is an exception, since you can take feats to do different stuff with it. Generally, these abilities are bad because they exacerbate the power divide between players and DMs.

**Oddly enough, a lot of indie RPGs' defining trait is their move to level the power difference between players and DMs. In many ways, indie games have more in common with D&D than any other game on the market. Just don't tell that to the people writing indie games... =)

 

[DaveMage]

Great thoughts, Mike... I hadn't considered the whole DM vs. Player "control" before. Fascinating read!

I'd love to hear about the impact on the game should one play *with* miniatures and only take out AOOs. I wonder what that would do to the speed of combat.

 

[Melkor]

Mike,

Good post, and I agree with a lot of what you said.

So why is there a natural tendency to link miniatures with games that feature no roleplaying? I think there's two factors at work. For players, combat is one part of the game. If you aren't very good at tactics, pushing those miniatures around a grid takes away from the parts of the game that you do like. I think that it's human nature to prefer to say "Miniatures take away from roleplaying, let's not use them" rather than "I'm not good at tactical combat, let's not use minis."

I wouldn't say that it's a factor that has anything to do with our skill level with tactical combat as players. One of the other long-time gamers that has played in our original
group for going on 15 years is a genious when it comes to playing D&D with a map grid.
I consider myself pretty good when it comes to playing 3E with minis, but he does things
I never even think of.

I just can't link player skill with tactical combat to the desire not to use miniatures....Now
DM skill might play a factor, but even then, I think we have a fairly remarkable DM. I say
it might play a factor because a DM that was not good with descriptive flavor might not want miniatures adding what he perceived as a "distraction" to his already weak ability to
narrate the game.

There are a lot of people out there who just see the mapboard and minis as a distraction
to storytelling (just as there are probably MORE that think it is an aid to the same).

For DMs, things are a bit different. IME, there's a natural tendency for DMs to houserule the game to weaken the game's leveling effect WRT DM and player power. That's a post for a completely different thread, but it's one of those things that you really have to watch out for as a designer. I think this tendency is an artifact of 1st and 2nd edition, and I'm very curious to see what the culture of the game is like in 10 years.

Again, our DM loves to see what kind of clever ideas we can come up with, and how we can build powerful characters with clever feat combinations. It's not about power level, or trying to house rule that into something weaker, so at least as far as our gaming group is concerned, that's not a factor.

Now DM "control" may be one. Our DM might really like to keep things a bit "obscure" so as to change things for dramatic purpose during the combat through narration without hardline positions and the full view of the players obviously contradicting his ability to "flow" the story the way he would like.

Fun stuff to ponder.

 

[Virel]

Used mini's on occassion with OAD&D, 2nd & when playing 3e.

As DM I like them for showing party order etc as much as for combat etc. There usage depends on anythings etc.

However, if the lights are out and magical darkness occurs, I always like for the minis to disappear as DM. The players should have a uneasy feeling about where stuff is they can't see...

 

[Umbran]

ISo why is there a natural tendency to link miniatures with games that feature no roleplaying? I think there's two factors at work. For players, combat is one part of the game. If you aren't very good at tactics, pushing those miniatures around a grid takes away from the parts of the game that you do like. I think that it's human nature to prefer to say "Miniatures take away from roleplaying, let's not use them" rather than "I'm not good at tactical combat, let's not use minis."

I think there may be a third factor at work - flawed perception of what the minis are for.

Players who are not good at tactical combat would prefer to avoid it, true. What some don't realize is that the minis can be a tool that helps them overcome their weakness. The minis to them are a symbol of tactical combat, and they avoid the symbol rather than use the tool.

The fix, I've found, is to start using the minis in low-level combats, with many critters. The tactical choices are simple, because the characters don't have many choices yet. There may be an occasional flanking, or AoO, but the minis are basically there as a visual aid. Rather than describe in verbal detail and have to repeat himself, the DM has a battlemat.

Most non-tactial players will see how this reduces confusion in imagining the scene. the reduction in confusion gets the combat over more quickly, and gets them back to the parts they do like.

Even better, I've been told that this more clear description of the scene helps the role-players role-play the combat! Part of why some of them disliked tactical combat is because they found it difficult to make decisions as their character, because verbal descriptions didn't really fill out the scene, and they didn't know the situation. With the battlemat, they can see what's up, and react in character.

Your players' mileage may vary, of course.