D&D 5E D&D Next: How Miniatures Should Fit?

[JoeGKushner]

I was just pinging away on Twitter some things I'd like to see D&D next do with miniatures.

1. No core races that are only available as rare or very rare or not available at all without substitutions.

2. No competiting miniature game that has larger sums of cash prize money and uses roughtly the same scale.

3. Remember that some people will not buy products made in China due to human rights issues and that as oil prices continue to increase there may be opportunity to create them locally.

Opinions?

I could've added

4. Smaller companies have made bags of miniatures for zombies for years now. Get us some generic unpainted bags of baddies (generic zombies, goblins, orcs, skeletons, etc...)

 

[Sunseeker]

I would love to see each of the core races get one mini for each of the core classes. I'd love to see it fairly evenly split between M/F minis in non-traditional roles, ie: female fighters, male casters, ect...

I would LOVE bags of generic baddies, the traditional zombies, orcs, ect...but also dwarves, elves, humans, ect... Along with some generic swarms, packs, general beasts and whatnot.

Heck, even if they made a "generic multipack" with say, a wolf, a dwarf, a human, a zombie, that'd be fine too. Just something inexpensive and easy to get a lot of.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I would be quite happy if they dropped the miniatures thing and just did D&D.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The way I heard it put, your miniatures can be:

• Quality
• Inexpensive
• Non-Random

But you have to pick two.


Personally, I'm mostly interested in Quality and Non-Random. It's why I still buy metal miniatures. But I would love to buy a pack or pre-painted plastic miniatures that included every monster in the monster manual, including multiples of things like orcs, skeletons, etc. I know that would be expensive, but to me, it would be worth it. (It would also be impractical with all the various dragons and whatnot)

 

[Ranganathan]

The way I heard it put, your miniatures can be:

• Quality
• Inexpensive
• Non-Random

But you have to pick two.

Inexpensive and non-random then. There are so many other great companies doing minis that are high quality and that use better materials. Cheap, marginally well painted minis that are non-random is the best WotC could hope with any chance of actually selling them in quantities large enough to justify the effort and cost.

 

[CM]

I really would like to see a license granted to Reaper or another miniatures company to produce iconic D&D stuff in metal again. I love the plastic figures for monsters but always paint metal for players when available.

The boxed sets done by Ral Partha back in the 2e days were some amazing stuff and I miss it dearly.

 

[Sunseeker]

The way I heard it put, your miniatures can be:

• Quality
• Inexpensive
• Non-Random

But you have to pick two.


Personally, I'm mostly interested in Quality and Non-Random. It's why I still buy metal miniatures. But I would love to buy a pack or pre-painted plastic miniatures that included every monster in the monster manual, including multiples of things like orcs, skeletons, etc. I know that would be expensive, but to me, it would be worth it. (It would also be impractical with all the various dragons and whatnot)

I would certainly have to agree with quality and non-random. I want to know what I'm getting when I make a purchase, especially if it's expensive. I don't mind if say maybe there's 5 non-random with a special 6th random though, a little mystery is fun. Having them in metal would be wonderful....but putting them on-par with WH40k minis might bite into my ability to buy them until the ebay and reselling market gets saturated a few years down the road.

I would be quite happy if they dropped the miniatures thing and just did D&D.

Why? I like minis and 3rd-party minis aren't exactly a booming market, it's not like you HAVE to use them, but I certainly do enjoy popping out a Purple Wurm "mini" when the party actually fights one.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would like miniatures and battle mat to be more of an optional component of the game. Oersonally i rarely use miniatures. This was fairly easy to do with AD&D, but got progressively more dificult over the ciurse of 3E. Would ike to see combat that is less bogged down with tactical rules.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Why? I like minis and 3rd-party minis aren't exactly a booming market, it's not like you HAVE to use them, but I certainly do enjoy popping out a Purple Wurm "mini" when the party actually fights one.

I think WotC would be better served by outsourcing miniatures similar to what Paizo has done. Frankly, they need to focus whatever resources they have on the actual game.

Moreover, while some find miniatures a fun add-on, they're not inherently part of the game, and some saw the 4e explicit focus on battlegrid/miniature play as a cash grab.

I also suspect that companies that only build miniatures make good miniatures, and that all they need is the license to do WotC's monsters in order to roll.

Focus is a good thing.

 

[Dausuul]

The way I heard it put, your miniatures can be:

• Quality
• Inexpensive
• Non-Random

But you have to pick two.

IIRC, the troika was:

• Wide selection
• Reasonable prices
• Non-random

Pick two (Merric's Law of Miniatures). Out of the three, I would choose "wide selection" and "reasonable prices." The secondary market takes care of the randomness aspect. Sure, it means some of the "chase rares" get priced out of my range, but I'll accept that if it means I can get two dozen orcs for less than a buck apiece.

 

[Paraxis]

You would think that being owned by Hasbro they could just make a tub or bag of generic plastic miniatures (zombies, goblins, skeletons, orcs, ect...) pretty cheap and to scale on a 1 inch grid.

You don't even need painted, just different colors like old army men, green for goblins, green/grey for orcs, off white for skeletons, ect.....one color of plastic for each mold.

They can have the D&D logo on them and everything but trust me they could just stock them next to the army men and little plastic dinosaurs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm with Dausuul on this one. Quality and inexpensive. After all... WotC doesn't care if their miniature packs are sold directly to me, or sold to the Re-seller (who then opens the crates up and sells each of them individually). So why shouldn't I buy them from the Re-sellers and get exactly what I want in the quantities that I want? There's no reason to buy directly from WotC (or expect them to package their minis in a format that I want), because they're getting their money from the Re-seller, and the Re-seller is getting their money from me.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

I think WotC would be better served by outsourcing miniatures similar to what Paizo has done. Frankly, they need to focus whatever resources they have on the actual game.

Obviously I agree with you too much as I can't XP you

The Paizo minis are exceptional for the most part (you'll always have a model or two that you personally don't like). It felt like a core set for DnD.

I'm interested in seeing the line that WotC puts out this summer.

 

[the Jester]

The primary thing about minis in 5e should be that they are explicitly optional and the rules are written to accommodate non-mini users at least as much as mini-users.

I'd love to see more focus on the game itself and less on product marketing (e.g. dungeon tiles, UGH!).

I do love me some minis, though!

 

[steeldragons]

The primary thing about minis in 5e should be that they are explicitly optional and the rules are written to accommodate non-mini users at least as much as mini-users.

I'd love to see more focus on the game itself and less on product marketing (e.g. dungeon tiles, UGH!).

I do love me some minis, though!

Agreed...in fact, so far as to say that the rules need be written without accommodating mini's at all.

Use of mini's in your game as an optional add-on-module. Nothing more.

Playing the game ought not need the use of miniatures or "battle mats" at all.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The primary thing about minis in 5e should be that they are explicitly optional and the rules are written to accommodate non-mini users at least as much as mini-users.

I'd love to see more focus on the game itself and less on product marketing (e.g. dungeon tiles, UGH!).

I do love me some minis, though!

There are some people who have a problem wit the dungeon tiles?

I've used those for Rolemaster, GURPS, and of course D&D/Pathfinder so I'm trying to figure out why they could possbily be a 'bad' thing when we have so many map companies out there that it's called out on 'product marketing'.

 

[enigma5915]

I agree that the game should be the priority and writen for use with and without minis.

I am though a visual DM and I love the hell out of the minis. The pre-painted plastic minis are the greatest thing since the wheel...IMHO. Once this was let loose there is no going back. I’ve been collecting minis since 1979 and the idea of light, inexpensive, painted minis, that don’t scratch the paint off easily….is amazing! I can’t see going back to metals or unpainted minis. After the release of the Harbinger minis I gave away my entire collection of hand painted metals. It was sad to see them go…but in reality, carting around a ton of metals in foam cases so they wouldn’t scratch was a pain in the @55. I gave away about 1,000 minis, but I now have about 7,000 D&D pre-painted minis and I intend to keep adding to my collection as long as they maintain a consistent quality pre-paint them. As far as price.... In the 80’s it was not unheard of to spend 1-3 dollars on a man sized mini and then go home, clean it, glue it, primer it, and paint it…. C’mon! Not to mention a large dragon or giant mini, which were not that great could cost 20-100 dollars and not glue together right, even with pinning them… My vote is for pre-painted with quality being mandatory and random or cheap….I can go with either.

Besides nice looking minis make Dwarven forge dungeons look even cooler..

 

[the Jester]

There are some people who have a problem wit the dungeon tiles?

I've used those for Rolemaster, GURPS, and of course D&D/Pathfinder so I'm trying to figure out why they could possbily be a 'bad' thing when we have so many map companies out there that it's called out on 'product marketing'.

The problem with Dungeon Tiles isn't the tiles themselves, it's using them in published adventures to make crappy maps, sometimes with notes like "the big pipe is actually an altar" or "the dead bodies are actually bushes".

I mean, how many times do we need to have the same layout and the same four crystals growing from the ground? How many reflavorings do we need to do before we realize that an actual decent map in the module is far better than one pieced together to help sell the tiles?

I look at the way a good module uses maps, say Red Hand of Doom, and it's nothing like the way tile-based maps are used. Good cartography is a module is more important than good art IMHO. Not only do Dungeon Tiles fail to build a good map- they're just ugly- they are repetitive, they encourage WotC to give short shrift to maps in adventures and they utterly fail to correspond to any scene other than the one they actually depict- the one where the sewer pipe is an actual sewer pipe and the corpses are corpses. If the whole point of tiles is to enhance the game experience, it doesn't work to say, "Here's a picture of the area- except A, B and C are all different." Why use the tiles at all then?

Now, don't get me wrong; I have no problem with anyone using them as they see fit, but to me, they actively detract from immersion 9 times out of 10, they don't add much to the game (AFAIHS) and they end up with WotC deciding that tile-based maps are a great way to save money on module construction!

HINT: Black and white is a better option. Cheap but sturdy paper is a better option. One book per module, rather than the two-booklet format used in 4e's HPE series, is a better option. Crappy maps is a horrible way to save money, and tile-based maps are universally crappy IMHO- they shoehorn adventure designs into predetermined shapes with predetermined features when at their best.

All of this, again, is IMHO- but it's a pretty damn strong HO.

 

[VGmaster9]

Miniatures would be a great idea. They're always good to give visual of what's going on.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Sounds like you're talking about when WoTc was using the Dungeon tiles in actual Dungeon adventurers.

Yeah, that pretty much sucked donkey balls. Lazy and highly unusuful especially since they didn't provide full sized tiles you coudl print out but had to actually own those tiles to begin with.

But as far an an individual product of it's own? I love 'em. Highly useful for any fantasy game that you use miniatures with. The art is usually top notch on them as well.

The problem with Dungeon Tiles isn't the tiles themselves, it's using them in published adventures to make crappy maps, sometimes with notes like "the big pipe is actually an altar" or "the dead bodies are actually bushes".

I mean, how many times do we need to have the same layout and the same four crystals growing from the ground? How many reflavorings do we need to do before we realize that an actual decent map in the module is far better than one pieced together to help sell the tiles?

I look at the way a good module uses maps, say Red Hand of Doom, and it's nothing like the way tile-based maps are used. Good cartography is a module is more important than good art IMHO. Not only do Dungeon Tiles fail to build a good map- they're just ugly- they are repetitive, they encourage WotC to give short shrift to maps in adventures and they utterly fail to correspond to any scene other than the one they actually depict- the one where the sewer pipe is an actual sewer pipe and the corpses are corpses. If the whole point of tiles is to enhance the game experience, it doesn't work to say, "Here's a picture of the area- except A, B and C are all different." Why use the tiles at all then?

Now, don't get me wrong; I have no problem with anyone using them as they see fit, but to me, they actively detract from immersion 9 times out of 10, they don't add much to the game (AFAIHS) and they end up with WotC deciding that tile-based maps are a great way to save money on module construction!

HINT: Black and white is a better option. Cheap but sturdy paper is a better option. One book per module, rather than the two-booklet format used in 4e's HPE series, is a better option. Crappy maps is a horrible way to save money, and tile-based maps are universally crappy IMHO- they shoehorn adventure designs into predetermined shapes with predetermined features when at their best.

All of this, again, is IMHO- but it's a pretty damn strong HO.