D&D 5E Do you use miniatures during your games?

[atanakar]

When I first started playing D&D (1981) there was a very tragic character death that changed the way I DMed. Before, we used only theater of the mind and classic mapping of the dungeon. After that, I bought a box of goblins and a box of adventurers. We used them to record the positions on the table. We didn't use a play mat. Later I bought a Chessex map. It stayed that way for a long time. In the 90s I would buy new metal models and my wife would paint them. Now I use tiles from the D&D boardgames, accessories from the out of print Mage Knight Dungeons and the new line of plastic miniatures for D&D5e. When adventuring in the wilderness I use hex maps from the Battletech game.

Do you use miniatures during your games?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

At our table, we mostly use 5*5 interlocking grids which I draw on with dry erase markers to represent the scene. For the PCs, players typically have their own mini and I have a handful of generic martial and spell casting minis anyone can borrow if they don’t have their own or forget to bring theirs. For the NPCs/monsters, I’ve been using chess pieces for medium/small creatures, Skylanders for large creatures, beer cans or puzzle blocks for huge (although most recently, I used a porcelain sitting horse that my daughter had to represent a gargantuan adult blue dragon - of course, that made the players hate the dragon all the more!) To remember conditions on both PCs and NPCs, I use rainbow loom elastics. Occasionally, we just go theater of the mind - often for single opponents or otherwise simpler encounters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Your poll doesn't really have a choice that fits. We use a mixture of theatre of the mind, tokens, minis, graph paper and playmats in pretty much equal proportions.

 

[plisnithus8]

My weekly group uses miniatures and dry erase mat/board. We play at our LGS so transporting all the right pieces can get overwhelming.
Therefore y new additional monthly group is all Theatre of the Mind.

 

[Stoutstien]

all of the above. i like to use aleast a simple map for general reference but sometimes i forgo even that in favor of ToM. It keeps me in practice to make sure I am telling the the players everything they should know and not relying on them to see something on the board/mat/whatever.

 

[atanakar]

Your poll doesn't really have a choice that fits. We use a mixture of theatre of the mind, tokens, minis, graph paper and playmats in pretty much equal proportions.

You can now vote on multiple choices.

 

[aco175]

3e came out with the floor tile box sets that we have a lot of and supplement the 4e paper maps. I have always said that the King's Road is the most dangerous place in the world since a lot of encounters happen there.

 

[Stoutstien]

I would say about 80% of my mats are the felt sheets they sell at craft stores. When they're on sale they're like $0.15 $00.50 a piece. I made a rig that I can grid it in about a minute with 8 sharpies.
My eyes are the best anymore so the laminated map glare is something I like to avoid.
Does this site have a DIY for TTRPGS list somewhere?

 

[atanakar]

I would say about 80% of my mats are the felt sheets they sell at craft stores. When they're on sale they're like $0.15 $00.50 a piece. I made a rig that I can grid it in about a minute with 8 sharpies.
My eyes are the best anymore so the laminated map glare is something I like to avoid.
Does this site have a DIY for TTRPGS list somewhere?

That is clever. I have flet sheets for my wargames but never thought to draw squares on them for rpgs.

 

[schneeland]

Typically graph paper, tokens (for monsters/enemies) and minis (for player characters) for more complex combat/action scenes, and theatre of the mind for the rest. However, players can always request a rough sketch of the scene if they feel like it.