D&D in 2011: From Books to Digital

[Dice4Hire]

A lot of people seem to be missing that this is not the end of D&D miniatures at all. The stand-alone miniature releases are done. But WotC plans to continue to produce miniatures in board games (and possibly other, similar products) and to release "special edition" sets like the Beholder set we got recently. A huge change, to be sure, but not the deathknell of officially produced D&D miniatures by WotC.

Bolded for emphasis.

Monopoly has been doing this for years. They are called tokens. I don't really thing those are true miniature as people use the word.

 

[Aegeri]

This is a misrepresentation. They were taking some of the PHB stuff and essentializing it. It was NOT a PHB reprint.

That is true, but essentially (haha, this will never get old) they were doing just that. Taking PHB material with errata and republishing the stuff again. It doesn't really matter if you're changing the format, because we were ending up with the exact same classes.

It's one of the reasons I am not at all upset about that book being canned. If they release the new material in DDI especially.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That is true, but essentially (haha, this will never get old) they were doing just that. Taking PHB material with errata and republishing the stuff again. It doesn't really matter if you're changing the format, because we were ending up with the exact same classes.

It's one of the reasons I am not at all upset about that book being canned. If they release the new material in DDI especially.

Yeah, I have to say, that book always occupied a rather tenuous position. People also seem to have imagined it as many things that it was really never claimed to be. All I ever really saw coming out of it was an almost word-for-word reprint of a bunch of PHB1 classes, a few feats to fix multi-classing, and really that was about it. Maybe a reprint of the Ritual rules from PHB1, but apparently according to Klaus those were due for a whole upgrade in the other canceled book anyway, so probably not even that. No doubt there would have been more in there, but honestly I could never exactly figure out what it was that people wanted to 'bridge' between Essentials and PHB1 classes. I'm not sure WotC really knew either. I'm not sure they were sure it was a good idea to make PHB1 unsellable either.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Player's Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier was supposed to have Rituals. It isn't canceled. Hero Builder's Guidebook was something else.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I think the item that I was most looking forward to from the cancelled Sword & Spell book was not the multiclass feats, but the rules concerning power/feature swaps between builds of a given class. THAT got me excited. I mean, I can make some guesses, but I want something official, dammit! Hopefully in Dragon. :/

 

[Keefe the Thief]

*Breathes deeply*

Aaah, the fragrant spices of optimism! Quick, i need to sample them before the millstone of doom and negativity draws me into the black depths again.

 

[Dire Bare]

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Monopoly has been doing this for years. They are called tokens. I don't really thing those are true miniature as people use the word.

Um, check out the currently released Castle Ravenloft boardgame. Filled with miniatures, not tokens. They are all "reused" sculpts (with, I believe, one exception) from earlier D&D minis sets. The only difference between them and the D&D minis line is that they are not prepainted.

It would've been cooler if they had all been new sculpts and had been prepainted . . . but they're still fantasy roleplaying 28mm miniatures. Unless we're changing definitions or playing semantic games.

Future releases will likely keep the same pattern. That's the implication of WotC's own news releases on the subject, and there's little reason to see why they'd do otherwise, as they have a huge number of sculpts to use from the 7 years of the D&D minis line.

We're unlikely to get new sculpts in the boardgames, but hopefully we'll get new sculpts with the limited releases.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Um, check out the currently released Castle Ravenloft boardgame. Filled with miniatures, not tokens. They are all "reused" sculpts (with, I believe, one exception) from earlier D&D minis sets. The only difference between them and the D&D minis line is that they are not prepainted.

It would've been cooler if they had all been new sculpts and had been prepainted . . . but they're still fantasy roleplaying 28mm miniatures. Unless we're changing definitions or playing semantic games.

Will people use them outside the board game? If yes, then I am wrong and they can be considered miniatures. If they will not be then I would call them tokens, or at least not miniatures, in the way miniatures have been used in D&D.

I just do not see calling the board game figures (how about that word?) a replacement or continuation of the miniatures line, which was suggested upthread.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Will people use them outside the board game? If yes, then I am wrong and they can be considered miniatures. If they will not be then I would call them tokens, or at least not miniatures, in the way miniatures have been used in D&D.

I, for one, have used the CR Gargoyle minis together with a DDM Gargoyle mini in a 4E encounter (representing 2 Ironstones and 1 Hornstone). For someone like me who started collecting minis rather late (in 2009) they're perfect - I don't mind them being unpainted.

 

[Phaezen]

Will people use them outside the board game? If yes, then I am wrong and they can be considered miniatures. If they will not be then I would call them tokens, or at least not miniatures, in the way miniatures have been used in D&D.

I just do not see calling the board game figures (how about that word?) a replacement or continuation of the miniatures line, which was suggested upthread.

Same scale as the DDM minis and nice sculpts, so I have no problem using them in my tabletop game. Also they are used more as minis than tokens in the boardgame.