The necessity of figurative figurines

Before 3E our group had never dabbled with minis or battlemaps - nobody had the time or the inclination to buy and paint the little buggers.

With the advent of 3E it became clear that if anybody was ever to get an AoO battlemaps and minis were needed. So we improvised and just drew out the rooms on plain paper and used markers from different games as ehm markers.

Though we expected to hate it, everybody loved it!

Now we're playing out all melees with minis on the battlemat, but nobody has actually bought any proper minis. Nor do we have anything more advanced than a large-grid paper. Instead, we've bought more ordinary game markers and chips (jetons?).

Even though it began as lazines (and stinginess), we actually prefer it that way, because the more abstract it is, the easier it seems for us to imagine the chips are our cleric charging in on his black warhorse or our rogue tumbling past the goblin adepts. The fewer decorations on the "battlemap", the easier it is to imagine we're in the mirrored ball room of the strange duke.

Anybody had the same experience with minis?

Anyhow, I do not fear the revised rules' apparent focus on using minis - 'cos I won't have to buy a single pack - I already have every class and every type of monster in my collection of colored, plain markers.

Very occassionally, we'll use a Mageknight figure or something like that, but we usually use Firey Dragon's counters (Thanks, Pozas!). Much cheaper, no painting, they're already in the correct size and facing, etc. They store easier, as well. I've also had good luck with the DragonScale counters as well.

Thanks for the input!

Glad to hear that someone has heard of us. Hope you liked the counters you got from us. Have you looked into the Dragon Mats we have??

I have legions of minis, but I only ever use one--the mini that represents my character. For monsters, we use different-colored dice. d6s are for fodder, d8s are for casters or important NPCs.

Why? Because it's practically impossible for a DM to keep track of bad guys unless the physical representation of the bad guy has a big fat number on it.

You make a good point about minis, too. It's like the heisenberg uncertainty principle. Hmm...

The Left-handed Hummingbird Uncertainty Principle of Miniatures:

The more definite your physical representation on the game board, the less accurate it will be.


Example of the LhHUPoM in action:

I have a painted miniature of a wood elf in a green cloak, carrying a shield and rapier, in a dramatic "Charge!" pose. It is a very definite physical representation of my wood elf ranger. But 90% of the time, it's inaccurate. 90% of the time, my character is using a bow, or a longspear, or grappling, or sneaking, or talking, or riding a horse, or anything but wielding rapier and shield during a charge.

If I used a simple green plastic pawn (an indefinite playing piece), I could take that "pawn" shape to represent any action at all. Since it is so indefinite, it is always accurate (or more precisely, never inaccurate).

Neat.

-z, who wants a custom-made pack of prepainted plastic miniatures in different poses, armed with different weapons, but always the same character.

DSC-Niffer said:

Thanks for the input!

Glad to hear that someone has heard of us. Hope you liked the counters you got from us. Have you looked into the Dragon Mats we have??

Click to expand...

You know what? You could produce something like I described above, but with counters.

Example
A counter pack of "Elf Ranger", each counter depicting:
* Fighting with various weapons (Bow, Sword, Sword and Shield, Sword and dagger, longspear, sword and torch, etc.)
* Talking
* Prone (useful when sleeping, ko'd, or crawling)
* Hiding
* Riding (can be placed atop a larger Mount counter)

I'd buy something like that. Especially if they were uncolored, so I could customize it with colored markers.

-z, really, really, REALLY hoping you do this.

Zaruthustran said:

You make a good point about minis, too. It's like the heisenberg uncertainty principle. Hmm...

The Left-handed Hummingbird Uncertainty Principle of Miniatures:

The more definite your physical representation on the game board, the less accurate it will be.

Click to expand...

I like that. I like that a lot! :swelling ego:

Seriously, your example is dead on: "The problem of the charging wood elf" is the perfect illustration of the Left-handed Hummingbird Uncertainty Principle of Miniatures (it'll take a while before I tire of saying that ).

I can't believe we didn't think of using d6es, but otherwise we've done pretty much the same thing - numbering the markers to clarify what is what. It works like a charm.

Our group has had some joy using Character Artist, a plug-in for Campaign Cartographer... or more specifically, I've learnt how to make characters pretty quickly and the rest of the group have enjoyed the benefits

Having got over the basic learning curve, I can churn out a character based on a basic description in less than a few minutes. A colour printer and some light cardboard can turn these into usable minis pretty quick. I've even started creating a few 'generic' characters to use as NPCs. For example, if I know the next few weeks of a campaign will feature kobolds, I can generate a page of little kobold figures in about half-an-hour (its almost become a relaxation thing for me... I kinda enjoy it).

Tyberious Funk said:

Our group has had some joy using Character Artist, a plug-in for Campaign Cartographer... or more specifically, I've learnt how to make characters pretty quickly and the rest of the group have enjoyed the benefits

Having got over the basic learning curve, I can churn out a character based on a basic description in less than a few minutes. A colour printer and some light cardboard can turn these into usable minis pretty quick. I've even started creating a few 'generic' characters to use as NPCs. For example, if I know the next few weeks of a campaign will feature kobolds, I can generate a page of little kobold figures in about half-an-hour (its almost become a relaxation thing for me... I kinda enjoy it).

Click to expand...

You mean like this!?!!?!?!?!? Assault on the Kobold Queen and her Giant Spider!

My counters are 0.5 inch scale. A bit hard to move around if you have clumsy fingers, but I find half-inch a convenient size. Big enough to tell whos-who and what your fighting, but small and abstract enough to not care that the bowmen aren't holding bows.

Edit:shrank picture a bit

Say it isn't so . . .

I have hundreds of minis, some painted some not.mine come from many sources and for some I even use stratigo pieces, but nothing and I mean NOTHING gives a big bad villian the proper respect like a well painted figure. I have minis that could be some townie dressed up but none of my players would ever chalange them to find out! Companies like Reaper will always have me as a patron because I just love my mini's

I have figurines, but since some years ago, I prefer counters (Claudio Pozas' ones are my favorites), becaus ethey are cheaper, easier to transport (a full army in a small box) and look great too.