Your WotC spending: More on Minis or Books?

[Brother Shatterstone]

I haven't bought a single mini, and I don't really intend to, either.

Yup that’s me too except that you can say I will never by something that cheaply made and ugly too.

 

[Wombat]

I haven't bought a single mini, and I don't really intend to, either.

Have to agree here. So far I have found the minis pretty much hopeless, due to the random mix if nothing else.

Then again, I haven't bought too many WotC books recently, either. Malhavoc, Atlas, Green Ronin, yes; WotC, no.

Then again, I haven't made the leap to 3.5 and probably won't.

 

[Dimwhit]

Well, I bought one pack of the first group of minis. Then I thought, "Why am I doing this? I'm not a DM, I can choose which minis I get...kind of a waste of money." So unless they change their packaging, I'm likely done purchasing minis.

Of course, in the last six months, I've purchased a grand total of 1 book. The Complete Warrior. The class books are the only ones I really buy. Haven't even purchased the 3.5 Players, and I probably won't (certainly not with the Sovelior/Sage SRD).

So that makes about $20 spend on a WotC book in the last 6 months, and $10 on minis.

That's the beauty of D&D. You can spend a ton of money on it, or nothing, and still have fun.

 

[MerricB]

That's the beauty of D&D. You can spend a ton of money on it, or nothing, and still have fun.

Absolutely. (I've used my 600 D&D Miniatures exactly once in the past six months for a RPG session. I've played a few more skirmishes with them, though. I'm traditionally a no-miniature DM )

Spend time and money buying metal miniatures and painting them? I've got far better things to do than that!

Cheers!

 

[vox]

I have only bought one pack of WotC minis, and they were terrible (paint jobs, detail, poses). I don't like the random aspect, and the fun part of minis (painting them) is already done, so whats the point? So I'd have to say, I spend more on WotC books than their minis.QUOTE]

I spend more on books but for different reasons. My game group uses minis but we aren't real mini afficianados; we have a box of minis, some quite old from when various group members played 1 or 2e back in high school etc, a sort of community pot. Most of the minis are unpainted and no one seems interested in painting them. I bought a box of chain mail minis which, for some reason, I thought were already painted, etc. Since they weren't we still use them but they remain unpainted without limbs etc. Sometimes we use pennies.

When I heard that WOTC was finally coming out with put-together, painted minis I thought, "finally here are some minis I might actually buy"; but the fact that they are random makes them completely unattractive to me. I'm not remotely interested in starting a collection--I just want to be able to go out and buy the BBEG and plop him down so everyone will know they are really in for something since there is a new mini .

I know the random thing is a hugely succesful marketing device for CCGs but I would think that there are a lot of other people like me out there. People who'd use a mini if it we could just go in and buy one ready to go but who aren't looking to develop a whole new skill-set and hobby and don't want enough minis to make the random thing even worth considering.

 

[MerricB]

I know the random thing is a hugely succesful marketing device for CCGs but I would think that there are a lot of other people like me out there. People who'd use a mini if it we could just go in and buy one ready to go but who aren't looking to develop a whole new skill-set and hobby and don't want enough minis to make the random thing even worth considering.

There are other people like you.

However, there are also people (like me) that appreciate how the random element keeps the price down, and who didn't have such a product to buy. So, Wizards serves one group of people with the mini line - just not everyone.

I do believe there are prepainted miniatures sold non-randomly, but they're not that cheap.

Cheers!

 

[NiTessine]

Books. For one thing, our FLGS doesn't stock WotC miniatures, and in the one booster I bought in Sweden, the paint jobs sucked, the weapons were bent out of shape, and my rare was a bleepin' ochre jelly. I'll stick to Games Workshop and Reaper, thanks. At least I can paint within the lines, myself.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I haven't bought a single mini, and I don't really intend to, either.

Ditto. And I already feel D&D3 is too heavily geared towards minis. I pray that's not a tread that we'll see carrying over to other RPGs, or to (the hopefully still quite distant) 4th edition.

 

[mearls]

I spend a lot more on the miniatures. I buy a case for each set, then fill in the figures I'm missing with trades. I like the random element because I already have a large enough collection of Reaper and Ral Partha figures that I can cover most PCs, but I never bought many monsters. I love being able to design a dungeon or adventure and have minis for every NPC and creature.

I think I might be within 2 or 3 miniatures of having 1 figure for every monster in Keep on the Borderlands. I might have to run that soon...

As a designer, I think the emphasis on miniatures opens a tremendous amount of design space. Breaking things down into abstract units makes it easier to explain things, plus it makes it much more practical to create a whole range of abilities.

 

[dargoth3]

Minis by a mile the magin between the 2 has been greatly effect by alot of uninspiring WOTC products this year

Ill only be buying 4 maybe 5 WOTCs books this year

For sure

Players guide to Faerun
Serpent Kingdoms
Shining South
Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead


Maybe

Monster Manual 3

Compared to 2003 where I bought 13 WOTC books

Arms & Equipment guide
Book of Exalted Deeds
Complete Warrior
Draconomicon
Fiend Folio
Minis Handbook
Races of Faerun
Savage Species
Unapproachable east
Underdark
3.5 Players Handbook
3.5 Monster Manual
3.5 DMs Guide