Do you use miniatures

[nopantsyet]

I've been asking my players for a while to provide minis and using the clear gaming stones for opponents, mixing colors to represent mixed groups. I finally picked up a few sets of the WotC minis. They're not bad for the money, and they're much cooler than colored glass.

 

[the Jester]

We use a mix, including counters (sometimes).

I just got a new table and have all my minis set up on it- when the players come over today they should be impressed. Now we will actually be able to find things- I have 'em divided up by theme.

Looking at it... we've got a fair number of the new dnd minis, a ton of old pewter dnd and Warhammer 40k/Warhammer fantasy stuff, a bunch of plastic WH things, plastic dinosaurs and animals, a handful of trees that some of the players made a while back, some plastic army men and cowboys and indians, a couple of small statues that make good medium, large and huge monsters, and a giant copper Hello Kitty that makes a good Gargantuan/Colossal monster.

 

[d4]

we used to use dice and the occasional unpainted metal mini.

nowadays, about 95% of the figs we use are WOTC plastics, with the occasional unpainted metal mini.

 

[tburdett]

Almost all of the miniatures that I use are Reaper. I have a few really old, but in great condition, Ral Partha miniatures as well. No miniatures from Wizards at all.

 

[DGFan]

Reaper minis rule. And in the past I have sometimes made a character or NPC based on simply wanting to use a cool miniature.

 

[nameless]

I'm surprised that so many people use actual minis. For years, we've just used dice, coins, pretty much whatever we had on hand that was smaller than a grid square and doesn't blow away from flapping books.

Isn't anyone else cheap and poor like us?

 

[Wehtam]

My group uses metal minis

The group I used to play in (I have not played with them in months because one of the players was an arrigant rick with a "p" and was not working in the parties best intrests. Plus he was 4th level while most of us are 9th or higher) used Metal Mini's to show where we were in combat, and that is all.

Most of the Role-Playing aspects were done without minis because it was generally done between party members or between us and the DM representing the shopkeeper or inkeeper.

 

[DragonLancer]

I voted for the WotC option, and I have bought a fair few, but we haven't used them for several weeks now as it slowed combat down a bit too much.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

I'm something of a Lego freak, so I have lots of little Lego people lying around. I mixed and matched to make custom Lego minis for all the PCs in our group -- they're the perfect size!

We now have plenty of WotC minis in our group, but the comic value of little Lego figures is too good to pass up

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

The last time I used minis was back in high school, and that was just because two of the guys I played with back then really enjoyed painting 'em and had huge collections.

These days, no one I game with owns any. We don't even use a gaming mat or use graph paper divided into 5' squares...it's all done by description, with occasional "cheesy GM maps" scrawled on notebook paper or a whiteboard to clarify where everyone's character is or what a room's layout looks like.

Probably I wouldn't hate playing with minis, but I think the moving and square-counting parts would put me more in a boardgame mindset than a roleplaying game mindset. It's easier for me to picture a fight as a big, organic whole when we leave out the squares and the counters and just play, I think. I imagine that it could still be fun in its own way to push little figures around on a map instead; just different from what we've been doing, that's all.

But using minis would require us to have an actual gaming table, and sit around it, which would suck. With our current system, we get to sprawl around the living room, sitting on couches or on pillows, getting up and moving around when we feel like it; sitting in a chair at a table like a normal person would drive me completely nuts.

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i think i've sat in enough chairs at enough desks and tables already
ryan