Why the D&D Miniature Line Failed...

Without going into the lack of commons for actual player character races...

Without going into the lack of realistic scaling for members of the same race (dwarves, I'm looking at you...)

Without going into the lack of useful miniatures for the actual game adventures published by your own company (and thank god for Firey Dragon here...)

Without going into the poses that are just utterly ridiculous like the owlbear looking for the hug of the many creatures on bended knee looking like they're going to the john...

Without going into the quality of the figures that bounced harder than a yo-ball hitting the floor at high velocity...

Without going into the lack of containers to carry the things around...

Without going into the lack of terrain to build 3-D battles...

Without going into the... oddness of using alignments as factions in the first place...






Once you start throwing pig farmers and prisoners into the mix as common figures... well, it pretty much says it's over. Don't cover all the monsters out of the monster manual. Don't make these part of some scenario pack where they actual have a use and are limited. Don't do something creative with these concepts which have a place in many a gamer's table.

I could've went with some others like the drunker brawler, etc... but seriously, when I look back at some of the decesions made here, you have to wonder, was there no... "editorial" control?

"Gee X, the fans really want more giants and dragons."

"No friend, see we need common pig farmers. Look at the Reaper boards. People are begging for more normal miniatures!"

"But I thought that we sold these mostly to D&D Miniature Gamers?"

"Don't question me! Just do it! And make them look as crappy as possible because people want to repaint and customize them!"

I've actually used those pig farmers more than a lot of other minis I have. For village setups you need stuff like that.

I'm also happy to see objects like the coffin and the animated steel jaw traps in the latest set.

I know your post is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but I'm pretty sure unless you yourself have tried to set up a business building, painting, packaging, shipping, and selling miniatures - you probably have no idea why they succeeded or failed. We can all sit around on our couches and pontificate, but this is a big international business we're talking about with books closed to us. So we can only guess why (or believe them when they tell us).

Frankly, I never did play much Miniatures except as a hold-over when our D&D games didn't work out. I'm looking forward to the new sets. I'm just glad they're still making minis.

""But I thought that we sold these mostly to D&D Miniature Gamers?""

I also think that was untrue. If we believe what Wizards said (and I have no reason not to), they said that they sold the majority of miniatures to roleplayers and the majority of roleplayers didn't buy miniatures at all. That makes the D&D miniature skirmish gamers a slice of a slice. I'm glad they will continue to get support but I can also see Wizards coming up with new ways to sell miniatures to the roleplayers who didn't buy them before.

I don't particularly like the release strategy they had for DDM's either. But I can't deny their usefulness in our games. We just pick and choose what minis we want thanks to singles dealers. I'd have no idea what to do with some of the common minis, and would get frustarted trying to get some of the rare ones, if I was purchasing boosters.

I've never bought these miniatures, but I do have a fishing tackle box full of commons people have given me to GM with. When I want a figure, I don't want a random collectible set; I want a Tiefling warlock that looks something like what I'm playing, or a big hairy spider because there is one in tomorrow's encounter. I like the look of a lot of these figures, and if I could choose the ones I want I would buy those.

Well, the big reason is you only need so many common figures, and they are a lot more expensive and hard to pack than oodles of Magic common cards (Which I used to throw away when I was in that hobby)

To me the real problem is that they are random. Yes, that helps WOTC's bottom line and they know random packaging from decades ago, but there are a lot o players out there, who play other games than miniature battle who want certain figures. I want figures I play, and the rest can be totally random. In my group we have about 150 figures or so (I bought them all) which were about 8 boosters, plus about 45-50 figures bought as singles. All the singles are character-like figures, and we jstu use the random ones as whatever monsters. The green ones are leaders, the silver, black, brown etc are various kinds of monsters.

150 does us just fine. But 150 is not much for WOTC to sell to three gamers, two of which spend a lot of money on this hobby.

also just a small fact left out.

The D&D Miniatures line did not fail hence why it still exists. The competitive game is what failed and the packaging and how the mini's were presented to make a competitive game was hurting the RPG side which was 90% of the business. So you take a step back and realize what horse is really driving the cart and focus on that. They did and I think it will be better for it in the end.

mshea said:

but I can also see Wizards coming up with new ways to sell miniatures to the roleplayers who didn't buy them before.

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Well they went out of their way to further emphasize miniature use as a central part of the game with the ruleset for 4e.

JoeGKushner said:

Without going into......Once you start throwing pig farmers and prisoners into the mix as common figures... well, it pretty much says it's over.

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You know, I pretty much agree. The only minis I have are from some of the 'black dragon' 3.x basic sets that I picked up cheap at hastings, and like three or four boosters.
I like the minis in the basic sets that I bought because they were 'common' bad guys, there were quite a few [when you buy multiple basic sets], and I knew what I was getting.

Scaling, poses, quality, and containers weren't things I was too upset about, though. Well, quality could have been better, like 'descent: journeys in the dark boardgame' good.

Now, terrain, YES! I don't need dwarven forge or anything, but wotc should have come out with...well...'playsets'. BIG playsets, like at least twenty five minis each:
'small tavern' - cardboard dungeon tiles for the floor, cardboard bar and tables, some mini patrons, serving staff, and of course the hooded old stranger guy
'king's court' - cardboard throne and steps, cardboard pillars, mini guards, king's advisor's, visiting dignitaries
'druid grove' - forested dungeon tiles, cardboard trees, some cardboard stonehenge stuff, mini druids, rangers, and woodland creatures
'dark dock' - cardboard barrels, chests, and crates, mini sailors, dock workers, and some thieves
'wizard's tower' - cardboard trap tiles, tables, alchemical equipment, torture rack, bookcases, mini wizard and apprentices, and some aberrations
'restless dead' - cardboard cemetery dungeon tiles, cardboard graves and mausoleums, ruined church, mini zombies, skeletons, and ghosts

Marketing it as a playset would've gotten them into places other than book stores as toys, probably on the shelf right next to heroscape. Include some sample adventures [or 'quests', or 'missions']...say ten, some pre-gen characters, stats for the minis, the same rules that were in the 4E starter set and keep on the shadowfell, and you've got a whole game 'for only 29.99!!!'.

Sales of the core books would have gone up, young gamers and old gamers would have gamed together more often, the hobby would have grown, 'non gamer' families would play D&D together [because it was an imaginative board game, you see], cats and dogs would frolick together, an extra friday would be added to each week, and eventually, world peace.

I never liked the pig farmer.

Dice4Hire said:

To me the real problem is that they are random.

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Yep, that's the reason--and pretty much the only reason--I didn't buy more of them, and why 90% of the ones I did buy were commons and uncommons from singles dealers rather than randomized boxes.

Pig farmers, prisoners, and drunken brawlers are useful enough to me in my games that I would (and did) buy a few. But no beholder was worth $40.00 or having to buy a dozen boxes of god-knows-what.

I think the random distribution is what hurt the most. It wasn't a bad idea for a battle game but, apparently, as the years wore on, more and more people buying D&D minis had little interest in the battle game and were only trying to scrape together figures for use in their D&D games — which could be very costly (and more than a little difficult) given the random distribution.

Watching the number of die hard D&D minis collectors on this forum drop like flies over the last year or two gave me a pretty good feel for how many people were willing to invest hundreds of dollars into random boosters to pick up enough plastic orcs to form an army (not many). Currently, I can count those people on one hand.

Most people I know locally quit buying D&D minis a year or two ago and, instead, started using their existing collections of GW minis or cardstock counters to fill in the gaps.