D&D (2024) My preferred way of playing D&D 2024 is... miniatures or not?

[Mannahnin]

When I first started playing in the 80s we had a few minis, but mostly stumbled along TotM.

When I got into a dedicated AD&D group in the 90s they used a hex grid and minis, because they found that it saved a lot of time and arguments. They had a story about a past DM who had repeatedly had orcs run through their formation to smash the wizard on the head when he was casting a spell, and how they started using a battlemat and minis because that stuff had nearly come to fistfights when they were teenagers.

I have used miniatures a LOT, and one of my longest-running groups is guys I met wargaming.

When that group started playing 3rd ed together grid based and tactical combat made perfect sense to us all, and naturally we rolled right into 4E with nary a bump. Nowadays we play 5E24 online but it's still with a grid and tokens.

That being said, I have some issues with miniatures and physical props shrinking the imaginative space. And sometimes I really would like combat to flow more freely, and not feel locked into a grid and counting squares.

I played a bunch of Theater of the Mind games of old school editions online during the height of the pandemic, and ran some myself, and while they could flow quite well, they gave me vivid reminders of how easy it is to lose track of combatants, and for turns to be skipped for some participants with a large group on either or both sides.

A picture really is worth a thousand words, and having miniatures to give everyone a clear visual saves a SHEDload of confusion and time spent on redundant descriptions.

Lately in the games I run I'm experimenting with using minis or other positional markers to keep track of relative positions and who's facing whom, but without grids and counting squares for combat. To try to hybridize the approaches and get the best of both worlds.

 

[Nebulous]

100% miniatures, but since I switched to VTT, I would say 100% tokens. They're infinitely cheaper, especially for the monsters that die in 2 rounds and you never use that $20 mini again. Or the $20 of ten mooks you never use again.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Maps and minis and tokens all the way! I even have little pieces of cardboard and removable adhesive for elevation changes.

 

[Lanefan]

As I said no minis were sold at the stores the books were sold at, no battle mats, no mention of minis or grids in the old book that I remember.

Minis are mentioned (and promoted) in the 1e DMG. Can't remember if they're also noted in the 1e PH as well.

I'm sure some people used them we did not initially. I'm also dredging up memories from nearly half a century ago. When we started we used theater of the mind exclusively and then started using miscellaneous tokens from different board games or pieces of paper to indicate positioning and distances. I'm sure other people handled things differently.

We used minis for PCs from day 1, and used anything we could find for monsters and opponents: game pawns, chessmen, bits of wood (these also served as "trees" if the fight was outdoors), kids' toy animals, and so forth; all on a 2-inch-gridded chalkboard where 1 square (usually) represents 10 feet and the grid is mostly there for scale purposes. The later rise of plastic minis gave much greater access to more representative monster pieces; but the general rule is still that PCs use metal minis.

@dave2008 - just because the books gave distances in "inches" doesn't mean anything regarding expectation of a grid; often that symbol was just shorthand for "10 feet indoors, 30 feet outdoors". Where it did mean actual distance on a table it assumed straight-line measurement regardless of angle, which still doesn't need a grid.

 

[AlViking]

Minis are mentioned (and promoted) in the 1e DMG. Can't remember if they're also noted in the 1e PH as well.

We used minis for PCs from day 1, and used anything we could find for monsters and opponents: game pawns, chessmen, bits of wood (these also served as "trees" if the fight was outdoors), kids' toy animals, and so forth; all on a 2-inch-gridded chalkboard where 1 square (usually) represents 10 feet and the grid is mostly there for scale purposes. The later rise of plastic minis gave much greater access to more representative monster pieces; but the general rule is still that PCs use metal minis.

@dave2008 - just because the books gave distances in "inches" doesn't mean anything regarding expectation of a grid; often that symbol was just shorthand for "10 feet indoors, 30 feet outdoors". Where it did mean actual distance on a table it assumed straight-line measurement regardless of angle, which still doesn't need a grid.

I know they mentioned minis and grids in 1e but I started playing before that with the brown box set. So I'm talkin OD&D not AD&D. They may have mentioned miniatures at some point but it wasn't ever spelled out as far as I remember. I'm sure other people have always played the game differently than what we did, it's D&D after all.

 

[dave2008]

Minis are mentioned (and promoted) in the 1e DMG. Can't remember if they're also noted in the 1e PH as well.

The PHB definitely had references, I posted one earlier.

@dave2008 - just because the books gave distances in "inches" doesn't mean anything regarding expectation of a grid; ...

I know that and specifically mentioned it wasn't about the grid. This whole discussion was never about a grid or battlemaps. Neither the OP, nor the initial post I responded to mentioned grids or battlemaps. The discussion has always been about miniatures.

Here was my initial post to this thread. I only mention grids and maps to say we didn't use them:

What do you mean by this statement? The game originated from war games that relied on miniatures. Minis have always been a thing in D&D. We used them when I started playing in the mid '80s and have never stopped. Have we always used detail battle maps or terrain? No, but we always used minis.

 

[Clint_L]

As I said no minis were sold at the stores the books were sold at, no battle mats, no mention of minis or grids in the old book that I remember. I'm sure some people used them we did not initially. I'm also dredging up memories from nearly half a century ago. When we started we used theater of the mind exclusively and then started using miscellaneous tokens from different board games or pieces of paper to indicate positioning and distances. I'm sure other people handled things differently.

We used miniatures. There wasn't anything like the quality or selection available today, but our local hobby stores always had some Ral Parthas, Grenadiers, and Citadels that you could pick up. As soon as I got a part-time job, that's where most of my money went. Talking 1980ish. Miniatures and a Chessex.

 

[AlViking]

We used miniatures. There wasn't anything like the quality or selection available today, but our local hobby stores always had some Ral Parthas, Grenadiers, and Citadels that you could pick up. As soon as I got a part-time job, that's where most of my money went. Talking 1980ish. Miniatures and a Chessex.

I'm talking late 70s and I lived in the middle of farm country so I was lucky to get to a book store to find books. If there were hobby shops within a 50 mile radius I didn't know about them.

 

[MerricB]

I know they mentioned minis and grids in 1e but I started playing before that with the brown box set. So I'm talkin OD&D not AD&D. They may have mentioned miniatures at some point but it wasn't ever spelled out as far as I remember. I'm sure other people have always played the game differently than what we did, it's D&D after all.

Well, have a look at the cover of Original D&D.

"Rules for fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures".

Looks like Minatures are pretty prominently mentioned there, right?

There's not all that much mentioned in the rules for OD&D, but then - there were a lot of references to the Chainmail rules (explicitly for miniature wargames), and they had a habit of assuming you already knew the early works.

But even given that, early D&D moved quite a bit away from its miniature wargaming roots. In the Foreword you've got this lovely passage by Gygax: "In fact you will not even need miniature figures, although their occasional employment is recommended for real spectacle when battles are fought."

And in the "scope" of the game: "The use of paper, pencil and map boards are standard. Miniature figures can be added if the players have them available and so desire, but miniatures are not required, only esthetically pleasing; similarly, unit counters can be employed — with or without figures — although by themselves the bits of cardboard lack the eye-appeal of the varied and brightly painted miniature figures."

Early D&D - both OD&D, Basic and AD&D - tended not to have detailed rules for miniatures, if they even considered their use. But, of course, it wasn't like they were really considering how to run "Theatre of the Mind" play either. There were the rules of the game, sometimes badly written (AD&D initiative!), and you needed to work out to adapt them for your group. I think the first set of D&D rules that really helped you run games on a grid rather than just a tabletop was the Player's Option: Combat & Tactics book in 1995.

And people discovered the joys (or annoyances) of flanking.

In a lot of ways, 5E is the least miniature-dependent version of D&D since then... though a lot of it ends up being left up to groups to adjudicate. (2024 feels a little more miniature heavy than 2014, just because of fighter manuevers, but that's minor compared to how much you wanted precise positioning in 3E or 4E).

Knowing where the monsters and characters were in relation to each other has always been part of the game to resolve spells like fireball and lightning bolt. The techniques for this have varied - and often resided in the judgment of the DM, not the rulebook.

 

[AlViking]

Well, have a look at the cover of Original D&D.

"Rules for fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures".

Looks like Minatures are pretty prominently mentioned there, right?

There's not all that much mentioned in the rules for OD&D, but then - there were a lot of references to the Chainmail rules (explicitly for miniature wargames), and they had a habit of assuming you already knew the early works.

But even given that, early D&D moved quite a bit away from its miniature wargaming roots. In the Foreword you've got this lovely passage by Gygax: "In fact you will not even need miniature figures, although their occasional employment is recommended for real spectacle when battles are fought."

And in the "scope" of the game: "The use of paper, pencil and map boards are standard. Miniature figures can be added if the players have them available and so desire, but miniatures are not required, only esthetically pleasing; similarly, unit counters can be employed — with or without figures — although by themselves the bits of cardboard lack the eye-appeal of the varied and brightly painted miniature figures."

Early D&D - both OD&D, Basic and AD&D - tended not to have detailed rules for miniatures, if they even considered their use. But, of course, it wasn't like they were really considering how to run "Theatre of the Mind" play either. There were the rules of the game, sometimes badly written (AD&D initiative!), and you needed to work out to adapt them for your group. I think the first set of D&D rules that really helped you run games on a grid rather than just a tabletop was the Player's Option: Combat & Tactics book in 1995.

And people discovered the joys (or annoyances) of flanking.

In a lot of ways, 5E is the least miniature-dependent version of D&D since then... though a lot of it ends up being left up to groups to adjudicate. (2024 feels a little more miniature heavy than 2014, just because of fighter manuevers, but that's minor compared to how much you wanted precise positioning in 3E or 4E).

Knowing where the monsters and characters were in relation to each other has always been part of the game to resolve spells like fireball and lightning bolt. The techniques for this have varied - and often resided in the judgment of the DM, not the rulebook.

You know, this is why people give up on posting here and why I hadn't. I was just relaying that for me and the people I played with we did not use minis, minis were not available for purchase in our area, if there was a mention of minis we either missed it or I forgot about it because it's been close to 50 freakin' years.

Give it a break people, please.