fed up with mini randomness...back to counters? (teeny-tiny rant)

[scholz]

Miniatures in general can be problematic:
ex.
PC: I am going to move forward, will the low wall give me cover from the orc's arrows?
DM: What arrows? I said the orcs were armed with scimitars.
PC: Oh yeah, but the figure has a bow, so I figured....

Here is a trick I learned from a old DM of mine. Use chess pieces.
Chess has a pretty good hierarchy of power. Pawns, Knights, Bishops, Rooks, Queen, King (or King, Queen in raw terms of power). A typical plastic set of 36 costs around $5. You can get light weight plastic pieces that work great for one inch maps (pawns fit nicely in a square, other peices might fit but also can put on the virtices to represent larger opponents).
Players fighting a bunch of pawns (mooks) will show some fear when a Bishop or Rook shows up. And the Queen, fergetaboutit.

They will have to pay attention to know who is who, but with black and white, and the different shapes they should be able to distinguish who is who. (at least as well as with minis).

Cheap.
Easy to identify.
Lightweight.
Scalable.

A pretty good solution for most adventures. Especially those with a BBEG and lots of mooks.

 

[smetzger]

In general, a rare figure will cost more to acquire than it would in metal.

That has not been my experience. Every single Rare that I have acquired has cost me less than $7 with S&H, including my 2 Displacer Beasts, Ogre, King Snurre and Large Red Dragon.

That being said the Commons and Uncommons are a much cheaper. If you are of limited budget I would highly recommend just buying individual Commons and Uncommons online and make believe the Rares just don't exist. You will get decent pre-painted minis at a good price. If you buy a booster or two chances are you will be disapointed due to the random distribution.

It would be interesting to run the math and see when its more beneficial to buy boosters over singles. Most likely its more beneficial to buy boosters when you want a decent number of Uncommons and Commons and you want at least 8 of the Rares in the set and you have the money for the boosters.

*:> Scott

 

[D+1]

The point is that for ROLEPLAYING purposes rarity is irrelevant. AVAILABILITY is what is relevant.

If you need a Chuul for you game - you NEED a Chuul and making it "rare" is - for your purposes - a complete disservice. If you need Orcs, Skeletons, and wolves by the dozen but have absolutely no desire or use for a Grick then - again, for your roleplaying purposes - it is a complete disservice to force you to aquire Gricks and other unneeded, unwanted figures in order to get what you DO need and want.

WotC, however, produces and packages their miniatures for a collectable miniatures wargame, NOT for roleplaying purposes - except as a serendipitous byproduct. The two use the same source material for those miniatures and thus are useable by both - but really for different end purposes. If you were to drop all considerations for the collectible miniatures wargame limitations to the product line then you would undoubtedly HAVE change your packaging, distribution, and pricing to suit. Large minis that would be more expensive to make, while also being used seldom and only singly, would be priced higher to compensate. Smaller minis that are constantly used in bulk would be priced much lower due to economies of scale in being able to manufacture and sell them and would likely be packaged in bulk as well. In short it would look much like the metal miniatures market does now (which is little different from the way it's always been).

The question then still remains - because there IS a market among ROLEPLAYERS for plastic miniatures that do not suffer the annoying baggage of collectible miniatures wargames, why is WotC not the company seeking to sell more directly to that market, and/or why is there no "competitor" seeking to do so?

 

[DaveStebbins]

If you are of limited budget I would highly recommend just buying individual Commons and Uncommons online and make believe the Rares just don't exist. You will get decent pre-painted minis at a good price.

This is the advice I would give as well. I have purchased dozens of commons and uncommons for between 35 cents and a dollar each. It gives me a very nice selection of painted minis to use when I need them.

 

[MerricB]

The point is that for ROLEPLAYING purposes rarity is irrelevant. AVAILABILITY is what is relevant.

The question then still remains - because there IS a market among ROLEPLAYERS for plastic miniatures that do not suffer the annoying baggage of collectible miniatures wargames, why is WotC not the company seeking to sell more directly to that market, and/or why is there no "competitor" seeking to do so?

Merric's Law of Miniatures.

To do exotic creatures (and I assure you, the Chuul is exotic), either the prices have to be raised so much that the line becomes comparable with metals, or they don't create a Chuul at all.

I spend a lot of time listening to skirmish players, and they're very much under the impression that a lot of figures in the D&D Miniatures line are aimed at RPG players.

The random factor of the miniatures, actually, can be ignored. There are many stores that sell singles, so that all figures produced are always available, if not always cheaply.

Cheers!

 

[Testament]

The random factor of the miniatures, actually, can be ignored. There are many stores that sell singles, so that all figures produced are always available, if not always cheaply.

Heck yes! My LGS had a Displacer Beast (THE biggest, most sought after rare, next to the Fire Giant) for AU$10. Mine.

Most chumps go for AU$0.50 a piece, sometimes less. Uncos average AU$1.00

I buy mine by the case, and the perfect distribution scheme they've introduced means that I pulled 3 of every common, and at least one of every unco. Then I traded for the rest. And most of the standard adventurer fare is in the co and unco bracket. The introduction of the Uncommon Large is a godsend. Bring on Deathknell!

 

[Orius]

How many of those miniatures shouldn't be rare? Honestly, how often does the average D&D game use those monsters?

Hmm, out of that list, the only ones I can think of that I'd probably use in a game would be the the wyvern, the green dragon, the flesh golem, the mind flayer, and the yuan-ti. Those are like stock monsters in D&D. The other stuff is mostly either campaign specific, or I guess represents PrCs, basically stuff that I either don't need a specific mini for.

I can understand that the wyvern and dragon are rare, though because they are larger than normal. If I really needed a mini for those monsters, and didn't have a D&D mini, dragon and wyvern metal minis are common enough for me to be able to sub (I don't care if the mini matches the MM pic). The same thing goes for giants. Or the ice troll for that matter.

The main use I would have for the mini line is for what you term exotics. And I think you make some good points. The example used in this thread is the chuul, a wierd 3e monster that some people like but other people hate. A traditional metal mini might not work like you said because there might very well be a large enough subset of mini using DMs who think the chuul is stupid, and would never buy the individual mini. Over the long run, WotC would make less unique monsters that some people don't like, and it would suck for the mini-using DMs who might not use the monster because they don't have a mini.
Randomized means it gets sold. That's a plus from the corporate side, because it's more economic. From the player side it can suck, because if you don't use chuuls and you're looking for a green dragon, well you don't get the mini you want.
It's probably better for players who can easily and conveniently trade minis, so the player who got a chuul he doesn't want can trade with a guy with 6 dragons who wants the chuul (I mean how many games are the PCs going to go up against 6 dragons at once?), so they both win. It sucks if you don't have that and your source for rares ends up being eBay (especially in the case of minis that demand a high price) or a local FLGS that has a case of the Mox syndrome and overprices a plastic mini far more than it's worth.

Over the long run, I think the worst rares are probably rares of traditional D&D monsters that really don't have Reaper et. al. equivalents, such as the afore mentioned displacer beast.

 

[D+1]

To do exotic creatures (and I assure you, the Chuul is exotic), either the prices have to be raised so much that the line becomes comparable with metals, or they don't create a Chuul at all.

Okay, I'll bite. Why is that so?

I spend a lot of time listening to skirmish players, and they're very much under the impression that a lot of figures in the D&D Miniatures line are aimed at RPG players.

Yeah but some people will whine simply because they have nothing better to do. In particular if you're "listening" to online "conversation" you're listening to a segment of the skirmish-playing-population that is already distorted. That is to say, noboby is going to go online and post at length about how they have NO problem with any given aspect of a game. Online opinion will never be an accurate poll sampling.

The random factor of the miniatures, actually, can be ignored. There are many stores that sell singles, so that all figures produced are always available, if not always cheaply.

There are no brick&mortar, FLGS's within at least 30 miles of me that I am aware of that sell singles. It's NOT the same as buying singles on line. In order to acquire the rares that I want/need without buying suffocating tonnages of boosters at SHATTERING expense I have to buy singles online. That alone carries with it additional costs in money for shipping and exasperation. I put up with it because it STILL means I get a lot of quality miniatures that require no ADDITIONAL prep (painting) to use at the gaming table at what are reasonable prices. However, until now that all hinged on the fact that I was willing to buy in bulk and then fill in the blanks, while accepting miniatures that I otherwise would NOT have purchased as a "cost of doing business". I no longer need the bulk. I HAVE the bulk. I got it by acquiring the previous sets. I don't need more orcs, skeletons, or crouching elf bowmen. I need "rare" and uncommon individual monsters. I would buy MORE of those figures but either they have not been produced or their prices are artificially heightened because their rarity is artificially enforced.

I am unconvinced that miniatures cannot be sold in any way other than what we currently see. Just because nobody has done it before doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done. If a SECONDARY market for individual figures - such as currently exists - can survive and thrive I fail to see how a manufacturer/distributor cannot make it happen in the first place at LOWER expense to the consumer without unduly affecting the producers bottom line.

The high prices we as RPG'ers are currently paying for individual "rares" is primarily due SOLELY to an artificially enforced rarity. We pay higher prices because fewer of the figures we want even EXIST. The demand EXCEEDS the supply because the supply is intentionally limited to MAINTAIN rarity for collecitibility/game purposes!

Metal miniatures have, however, existed for years for the RPG community without any such heavily, intentionally imposed limitations. There is no reason I can see that plastic, prepainted miniatures cannot be sold to the RPG consumer at lower prices by simply doing away with artificially self-imposed restriction of the supply.

For a skirmish game you don't particularly want everyone to come to the table with the same "rare" miniatures. RPG's have a different paradigm. "Rarity" is determined by those who PLAY the game, not those who produce it. A monster miniature is no different to an RPG player than dice - you sell them as many of the type of miniatures they need just as you sell them as many of the dice as they need. If it means you charge a little more for the ones they will well and truly buy FEWER of then so be it - but that is an ENTIRELY different method of doing business than ENSURING that they buy less of a given miniature because you don't WANT to make more of that miniature available.

 

[DaveStebbins]

Metal miniatures have, however, existed for years for the RPG community without any such heavily, intentionally imposed limitations. There is no reason I can see that plastic, prepainted miniatures cannot be sold to the RPG consumer at lower prices by simply doing away with artificially self-imposed restriction of the supply.

One difference is that molds for plastic are much more expensive than tools/molds for metal. Molding pressures are much higher and most molten plastics can squirt through smaller openings than most molten metals. All this leads to an upfront, non-recurring mold cost which is (my guess) between two and five times the cost of tooling up a metal mini. I'm sure this contributes to a desire to see a minimum distribution level (and thus a certain minimum manufacturing run) of each plastic mini.

Credibility disclosure: while I have no experience in the miniatures industry, I have worked for more than a dozen years doing cost estimating for new products at the company where I work. These new products often included molded plastic and molded metal items, and often included quoting plastic and metal versions of the same part to determine where the break-even point was. While I'm sure this doesn't translate directly to miniatures, I don't think I'm that far off either.

-Dave

 

[MerricB]

Okay, I'll bite. Why is that so?

A non-random miniatures company makes 10,000 copies of a "Flumph" miniature (generic exotic creature), which costs them $2000 in design and production.

The marketplace thinks the "Flumph" is stupid, except for 5 people who like it. They get back $10 on their investment of $2000. So, that's a loss of $1990 on the production of the "Flumph".

Two options:
* They make back the money by raising the cost of their other miniatures to cover the losses of the "Flumph"-like minis
* They produce no more "flumphs", and go back to only orcs and goblins.

Cheers!