DDM & 4ed

[Herschel]

[No message]

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Y'all, I agree that there were hordes of issues with DDM, in both the 3.X and 4Ed forms. I was primarily interested in it for my RPG campaigns and occasionally in the game itself. I much preferred the business model of DDM's predecessor, Chainmail, which would let me buy lots of what I needed and skip what I didn't (beyond the bare minimum I wanted for the minis game, that is).

However, it just seemed to me as if DDM 4Ed did a lousy job of supporting the 4ED PHBs. I routinely run into players who won't play (or resist playing) PCs without "the right" mini, and "close" isn't usually good enough. So the dearth of Dragonborn minis would dissuade them from playing Dragonborn a bit...as would the lack of Warforged or Devas, etc. Ditto Elf or Dwarf minis with "non-traditional" weapons.

I know I'm unusual- I've been collecting minis since 1977, so if I want to play a Human, Dwarf or Elf, I may have 20+ minis for each race and in each class...and that's before I reach for the plastic. I generally don't need more Humans, Dwarves or Elves. I have maybe 10 Warforged, one of whom is a caster. All of my Dragonborn are warriors of some kind...as are most of my reptilian minis. For Shardminds, I'd have to dig in my sci-fi minis boxes. I have nothing that really resembles the Wildren except a WizKidz Heroclix of The Floronic Man.

Personally, I'd have bought more of the races that are simply underrepresented in DDM or approximated in other makers' mini lines. Lots more.

 

[Herschel]

Yeah, about the best Shardmind is the Ice Archon mini and he has a big hammer. The Heroscape "resculkpts" of the "Ghostly" Ragnara, Dark Tarveler and Paladin would work two, but all are more 'warrior' types.

I'm definitely in the market for more 4E PHBs race figures. Heck, I have five of the Fire Genasi Dervish and three of the Air Genasi Swashbuckler and those were pre-4E. My least favorite is actually the new Genasi Paladin, but it's a genasi and I still have one.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Like I said, I find my Shardminds in sci-fi games. If you can, check out some of the older (read, using metal minis) sci-fi skirmish/wargames and you'll find sculpts of creatures that are "rocky" in texture, because a "silicon-based" creature is a more common find in sci-fi than fantasy.

 

[Uder]

I was completely unaware of any market analysis of players (regardless of edition) and what race they tended to play. I'd be interested in reading it, even if it's just an article or interview about the study without the actual numbers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The closest I've seen was some data from Dragon that showed that covers featuring Elves or Dragons tended to be stronger sellers than any other class of cover art.

In a related note, it would be interesting to hear from companies like Reaper if their sales follow a similar pattern. I suspect they do: a conversation with a store owner hinted as much.

 

[Kafen]

The closest I've seen was some data from Dragon that showed that covers featuring Elves or Dragons tended to be stronger sellers than any other class of cover art.

In a related note, it would be interesting to hear from companies like Reaper if their sales follow a similar pattern. I suspect they do: a conversation with a store owner hinted as much.

I know the local gaming shop tracks his line of figures from passing chats. The shop owner freely talks with the clients. It might be worth staging interviews to see what methods people are using.

 

[doctorhook]

Y'all, I agree that there were hordes of issues with DDM, in both the 3.X and 4Ed forms. I was primarily interested in it for my RPG campaigns and occasionally in the game itself. I much preferred the business model of DDM's predecessor, Chainmail, which would let me buy lots of what I needed and skip what I didn't (beyond the bare minimum I wanted for the minis game, that is).

However, it just seemed to me as if DDM 4Ed did a lousy job of supporting the 4ED PHBs. I routinely run into players who won't play (or resist playing) PCs without "the right" mini, and "close" isn't usually good enough. So the dearth of Dragonborn minis would dissuade them from playing Dragonborn a bit...as would the lack of Warforged or Devas, etc. Ditto Elf or Dwarf minis with "non-traditional" weapons.

I definitely agree that there were dismally few minis of certain races, and if I were still collecting, I likely would have bought some of them. That said, I'm not collecting anymore, for reasons discussed above, and more Shardmind or Minotaur or Dragonborn minis isn't enough to encourage me to start collecting again.

Volcanic Dragon minis, OTOH... [/plasticrack withdrawal symptoms]

 

[karlindel]

I use the D&D Miniatures purely for RPG play, and I bought a lot of them so that I had plenty of options for monsters and for PCs (both my own and players in my games).

I would have picked up more D&D Minis if there had been a wider variety of PC races represented (particularly dragonborn and tiefling), as I would have wanted to pick up those minis. I would also have picked up minis for alternate races, as even if I do not have a PC that uses them, they are useful for NPCs of races that resemble the mini. I also would have liked to see more variety in the minis, as I have an overabundance of elven archers and dwarven axe/hammer wielders.

Of course, there are many other things that could have been done to improve the line. The PHB Heroes series had a lot of poor sculpts and support for niche rather than iconic characters (the dragonborn rogue being particularly useless in my mind).

 

[Oryan77]

Was the distribution of atypical (i.e. non-Dwarf, Elf, Human, etc.) "PC race" minis in DDM OK, or would you rather the sets included more Dragonborn, Tieflings, Shardminds, Wildren, Goliaths, Changelings, Devas, Shifters and Warforged?

This really does depend on what version of D&D you run and what kind of campaign you run.

I collect minis and love using them. But I run a 3.5 game. Luckily I can use most any mini since I run a Planescape game, but I still don't use some of them (Warforged, Shardminds, Wildren). A lot of 3.5 games will be even more limited on what minis they can use.

From a customer standpoint, I don't think they needed more of those minis since not everyone would use them. I think WotC had a good focus on the quantity off odd races they released, but like others said, more monsters & more variety of the same monsters would have been better instead of giving us another drow, another orc, another human, etc etc.

My only complaint about the odd races are with Tieflings. But that is only because I prefer the original Planescape Tiefling that is more than just a dude with horns & a tail (Why bother using a Tiefling for 4e if yer just going to gut their fluff/crunch for some strange reason?) I really don't want a Tiefling mini if it is going to look just like another Tiefling mini in a different pose. But that's just my preference due to the game I run. If I played a 4e game, then I'd say the amount of Tiefling minis they made was fine.