Henry
Autoexreginated
One thing that's popped out to me in some of the edition "wars"/discussions has been the mention that 4E requires minis, with a seemingly unspoken assumption that previous versions never used them. Back when 3E was new, this would have been quite a shock to me, because the same claims were made about 3E back then; lack of the World Wide Web as a reference medium leaves me unable to tell if the same claims were made about 2E in 1989 or not - and the Dragon magazine letters of the time really didn't focus on it, because most of the negative press wasn't represented or dealt with, from what I can tell.
So, when it's mentioned that 4E requires minis, and this being mentioned as a megative point, I wonder if some people were just dumping a good quarter of the 3E combat system to avoid minis - Op attacks, spells and class abilities that affected 5-foot steps, bull rushes, armor speed reductions, Huge Monster threat ranges, etc. For that matter, even back in 1E, a large portion (or maybe even the majority, from informal polls I've seen) of AD&D gamers used minis, or some form of spatial representation in order to play.
I have to wonder - I know AD&D1 and 3E can be played without minis with plenty of trust in a DM (and even 4E could, too), but did so many people swim against the current that 3E was perceived by many as a "mini-less" game?
I know I have personally used them for the nine years I've played 3E and d20, and would only not use them in a very, very, short engagement that didn't involve much moving around, like "you're around the campfire, and a single big monster attacks. Roll init!" But in any combat with, say, 5 or 10 opponents, or in interesting terrain, I'm busting out those minis, for goodness sake, because I don't want to short change my fighters who invested in those cleave and tripping feats, and I don't want the wizard getting away with dropping fireballs with pinpoint "laser-guided bomb" accuracy and not have to worry about the party.
So, when it's mentioned that 4E requires minis, and this being mentioned as a megative point, I wonder if some people were just dumping a good quarter of the 3E combat system to avoid minis - Op attacks, spells and class abilities that affected 5-foot steps, bull rushes, armor speed reductions, Huge Monster threat ranges, etc. For that matter, even back in 1E, a large portion (or maybe even the majority, from informal polls I've seen) of AD&D gamers used minis, or some form of spatial representation in order to play.
I have to wonder - I know AD&D1 and 3E can be played without minis with plenty of trust in a DM (and even 4E could, too), but did so many people swim against the current that 3E was perceived by many as a "mini-less" game?
I know I have personally used them for the nine years I've played 3E and d20, and would only not use them in a very, very, short engagement that didn't involve much moving around, like "you're around the campfire, and a single big monster attacks. Roll init!" But in any combat with, say, 5 or 10 opponents, or in interesting terrain, I'm busting out those minis, for goodness sake, because I don't want to short change my fighters who invested in those cleave and tripping feats, and I don't want the wizard getting away with dropping fireballs with pinpoint "laser-guided bomb" accuracy and not have to worry about the party.