Flipping the Table: Did Removing Miniatures Save D&D?

Dungeons & Dragons is doing better than ever, thanks to a wave of nostalgia-fueled shows like Stranger Things and the Old School Renaissance, the rise of actual play video streams, and a broader player base that includes women. The reasons for this vary, but one possibility is that D&D no longer requires miniatures. Did it ever?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay​

Wait, What?​

When Vivian Kane at TheMarySue interviewed lead rules designer for D&D, Jeremy Crawford, about the increased popularity of D&D, here’s what he had to say:

It’s a really simple thing, but in 5th, that decision to not require miniatures was huge. Us doing that suddenly basically unlocked everyone from the dining room table and, in many ways, made it possible for the boom in streaming that we’re seeing now.

In short, Crawford positioned miniatures as something of a barrier of entry to getting into playing D&D. But when exactly did miniatures become a requirement?

D&D Was a Miniatures Game First (or Was It?)​

Co-cocreator of D&D Gary Gygax labeled the original boxed set of Dungeons & Dragons as “Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures.” Gygax was a wargamer himself, which used miniature games to wage tabletop battles. His target audience for D&D were these wargamers, and so use of miniatures – leveraging Chainmail, a supplement he created for miniature wargaming – was assumed. Miniature wargaming was more than a little daunting for a new player to join. Jon Peterson explains in Playing at the World:

Whether fought on a sand table, a floor or a yard outdoors, miniature wargames eschewed boards and the resulting ease of quantifying movements between squares (or hexagons) in favor of irregular scale-model terrain and rulers to measure movement distance. Various sorts of toy soldiers— traditionally made of wood, lead or tin, but by the mid-twentieth century constructed from a variety of alloys and composites— peopled these diminutive landscapes, in various attitudes of assault and movement. While Avalon Hill sold everything you needed to play their board wargames in a handy box, miniature wargamers had the responsibility and the freedom to provide all of the components of a game: maps, game pieces and the system. Consider that even the most complicated boardgame is easily retrieved from a shelf or closet, its board unfolded and lain across a table top, its pieces sorted and arranged in a starting configuration, all within a span of some minutes— in a pinch the game could be stowed away in seconds. Not so for the miniature wargamer. Weeks might be spent in constructing the battleground alone, in which trees, manmade structures, gravel roads and so on are often selected for maximum verisimilitude. Researching a historical battle or period to determine the lay of the land, as well as the positions and equipment of the combatants, is a task which can exhaust any investment of time and energy. Determining how to model the effects of various weapons, or the relative movement rates of different vehicles, requires similar diligent investigations, especially to prevent an imbalanced and unfair game. Wargaming with miniatures consequently is not something undertaken lightly.

D&D offered human-scale combat, something that made the precision required for miniature wargaming much less of a barrier. Indeed, many of the monsters we know today were actually dollar store toys converted for that purpose. It’s clear that accurately representing fantasy on the battlefield was not a primary concern for Gygax. Peterson goes into further detail on that claim:

Despite the proclamation on the cover of Dungeons & Dragons that it is “playable with paper and pencil and miniature figures,” the role of miniature figures in Dungeons & Dragons is downplayed throughout the text. Even in the foreword, Gygax confesses that “in fact you will not even need miniature figures,” albeit he tacks onto this “although their occasional employment is recommended for real spectacle when battles are fought.” These spectacular battles defer entirely to the Chainmail rules, and thus there is no further mention of miniatures in any of the three books of Dungeons & Dragons other than a reiteration of the assertion that their use is not required. The presence of the term “miniature figures” on the cover of the woodgrain box is, consequently, a tad misleading.

James Maliszewski states that this trend continued through Advanced Dungeons & Dragons:

Even so, it's worth noting that, despite the game's subtitle, miniature figures are not listed under D&D's "recommended equipment," while "Imagination" and "1 Patient Referee" are! Elsewhere, it is stated that "miniature figures can be added if the players have them available and so desire, but miniatures are not required, only esthetically pleasing." The rulebook goes on to state that "varied and brightly painted miniature figures" add "eye-appeal." The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, though published five years later in 1979, evinces essentially the same attitude, saying "Miniature figures used to represent characters and monsters add color and life to the game. They also make the task of refereeing action, particularly combat, easier too!"

Gygax himself confirmed that miniatures weren’t required in a Q&A session on ENWorld:

I don't usually employ miniatures in my RPG play. We ceased that when we moved from CHAINMAIL Fantasy to D&D. I have nothing against the use of miniatures, but they are generally impractical for long and free-wheeling campaign play where the scene and opponents can vary wildly in the course of but an hour. The GW folks use them a lot, but they are fighting set-piece battles as is usual with miniatures gaming. I don't believe that fantasy miniatures are good or bad for FRPGs in general. If the GM sets up gaming sessions based on their use, the resulting play is great from my standpoint. It is mainly a matter of having the painted figures and a big tabletop to play on.

So if the game didn’t actually require miniatures and Gygax didn’t use them, where did the idea of miniatures as a requirement happen? For that, we have to look to later editions.

Pleading the Fifth​

Jennifer Grouling Cover explains the complicated relationship gamers had with miniatures &D in The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games:

The lack of a visual element may make spatial immersion more difficult to achieve in D&D than in more visually oriented games; however, this type of immersion is still important to the game. Without the visual component to TRPGs, players may have difficulty picturing the exact setting that the DM lays out. Wizards of the Coast's market survey shows that in 2000, 56 percent of gaming groups used miniatures to solve this dilemma…Because D& D combat rules often offer suggestions as to what you can or cannot do at certain distances, these battle maps help players visualize the scene and decide on their actions…Even though some gamers may get more interested in the visual representation of space by painting and designing scenery such as miniature castles, these tools exist more for showing spatial relationships than for immersing players visually.

In essence, Third Edition rules that involved distances seemed to encourage grid-based combat and miniature use. But the rise of Fourth Edition formalized grid-based combat, which in turn required some sort of miniature representation. Joshua Aslan Smith summed it up on StackRPGExchange:

The whole of 4th edition ruleset by and large is devoted to the balance and intricacies of tactical, grid-based combat. There are exceptions, such as rules for skill challenges and other Role Play aspects of the game (vs. roll play). To both maximize the benefits of 4th edition and actually run it correctly you need to run combats on a grid of 1" squares. Every single player attack and ability is based around this precept.

This meant players were looking at the table instead of each other, as per Crawford’s comment:

Part of that is possible because you can now play D&D and look at people’s faces. It’s people looking at each other, laughing together, storytelling together, and that’s really what we were striving for.

It wasn’t until Fifth Edition that “theater of the mind” play was reintroduced, where grids, miniatures, and terrain are unnecessary. This style of play never truly went away, but had the least emphasis and support in Fourth Edition.

Did the removal of miniatures as a requirement truly allow D&D to flourish online? Charlie Hall on Polygon explains that the ingredients for D&D to be fun to watch as well as to play have always been there:

Turns out, the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons was designed to be extremely light and easy to play. Several Polygon staff have spent time with the system, and in our experience it's been a breeze to teach, even to newbies. That's because D&D's 5th edition is all about giving control back to the Dungeon Master. If you want to play a game of D&D that doesn't require a map, that is all theater of the mind, you can do that with Skype. Or with Curse. Or with Google Hangout. Or with Facetime. Basically, if you can hear the voice of another human being you can play D&D. You don't even need dice. That's because Dungeons & Dragons, and other role-playing games that came after it, are all about storytelling. The rules are a fun way to arbitrate disputes, the maps and miniatures are awful pretty and the books are filled with amazing art and delicious lore. But Wizards of the Coast just wants you to play, that's why the latest version of the starter rules is available for free.

D&D’s always been about telling a good story. The difference is that now that our attention – and the camera or microphone – can be focused on each other instead of the table.

“What 5th edition has done the best,” according to game designer Kate Welch, “is that idea of it being the theatre of the mind and the imagination, and to put the emphasis on the story and the world that is being created by the players.” That’s the kind of “drama people want to see,” both in their own adventures and on their screens.

If the numbers are any indication, that makes D&D a lot more fun to watch.

 

[R_Chance]

That sounds plausible, and it saves the full plate from having to challenge the fireball to a duel.

Since you've volunteered to be my straight man: what does DW have to say about 'nearby' or 'everyone,' and how does it feel about each DM ruling being treated as an iron-clad precedent...?

I bet on the Fireball. As for the rest, as the magic 8 ball says: "uncertain".

 

[Lanefan]

My limited experience with fireballs in the past indicated they were aimed, and damaged things in their path, not "everyone nearby".

That sounds more like a fire breath, or a modern-day flame-thrower.

A fireball is more like a modern-day grenade, only without the explosion - you throw it, and wherever it lands or hits something (where you aimed it, you hope!) becomes the center of a large brief ball of fire.

 

[Manbearcat]

It also 'ignores armor,' so not only does it not explicitly affect objects, it explicitly has no effect on a specific sort of object.

As written that's a rather pathetic - or at best extremely lazy - spell description.

First off, how big is the fireball? A rather glaring omission. The only reference is "everyone nearby", but what constitutes "nearby"? And does "everyone" include living things that aren't people e.g. a passing rat or a wizard's familiar?

Second off, how long does it last? There's no duration listed, so are we to default to the D&D version that's pretty much instantaneous or does the fire hang around a while?

And third - yes, what else does it or can it affect besides creatures? Or is this the DW equivalent of a smart bomb: hurts living matter but leaves everything else intact? Does it light dry grass on fire? Trees? Does it melt gold or other soft metals?

Fourth, is the "ignores armor" clause there to indicate the fire bypasses any damage reduction due to armour worn (which makes sense) or to indicate the fire cannot damage or affect armour at all (which doesn't make sense)?

Obviously this spell write-up is going to force each DW DM to make her own series of rulings on how it works and what it does, which only means more work for her as she then has to note these rulings so it'll work the same next time. Eventually her own write-up for the spell will end up resembling what's in the 1e D&D PH in length, if not necessarily in agreement depending on how she sees it.

Lanefan

Alright, let me regrab DW's Fireball:

Fireball
Level 3 Evocation
Description

You evoke a mighty ball of flame that envelops your target and everyone nearby, inflicting 2d6 damage which ignores armor.

Near(by) is a tag - "< > can see the whites of their eyes"

Ignores Armor is a tag - "Don’t subtract armor (armor is DR) from the damage taken"

The only relevant tag that we don't have is range. DW leaves this up to the table. Pretty much all tables use Far (shouting distance) as this is the standard D&D range.

Of course its instantaneous. This is a Fireball.

That is all you need for an actual "rules-lite", "follow the fiction", "theater of the mind" game. And this is how it might play out.

GM: The dark portal can be seen even against the dead of night; flowing, shimmering, tar-like against the solemn blackness of moonlit, earthen midnight. Every other moment, you can see the "tar" give way to a vision of the Black Gates of Death beyond. Undead legions crawl through the thick, dimensional hole toward this world. Baying erupts around you as the portal's guardians encircle your group from the distant treeline. Glowing eyes reveal large canine forms. Skin and muscle are missing here and there revealing mere bones unnaturally propelling the forms which features slick fur, beared fangs, and flattened ears. The baying turns to growls as they skulk through the treeline...

Wizard: "Elf-friend, can you make out the alpha!"

Elf Fighter: I consult the spirits of my Signature Weapon (Heirloom move)! I whisper to the blade "...who leads this pack?" Gets a 7; GM will give you an impression.

GM: The sword whispers in your mind..."the master lurks nearest to its own master..."

Elf Figher: "The one nearest the portal!"

GM: Caution to the wind, two of the ghastly wolves explode from the tree-line and make a run at your group!

Wizard: "I blast the big wolf nearest the portal and all of the undead it is vomiting forth! If he can see the whites of the eyes of the creatures crawling to this world from the other side, then they get it too!"

GM: Yup. The portal is definitely "whites of their eyes territory" from your target. Cast your spell and lets see what happens. The wolves are closing, but they'll get their after your spell.

Wizard: Cast a Spell Move. Player gets a 7-9 and has to choose from:

1 - You draw unwelcome attention or put yourself in a spot. The GM will tell you how.
2 - The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast—take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells.
3 - After it is cast, the spell is forgotten. You cannot cast the spell again until you prepare spells.

Wizard player rolls their damage (7) and chooses 1 so the GM evolves the fiction and makes the following soft move:

GM: With a quickly-snuffed whimper, the explosion consumes the alpha. A charred skull, bones and mottled flesh remain behind. The chargers give momentary pause and those in the treeline whimper in unison. Take +1 ongoing to Defy Danger against the other Wight Wolves!

Simultaneously, the eeriest scream you may have ever heard is born up from the spectral creatures that crawl awkwardly toward you. Clearly affected by your mighty spell...yet still they come...

As the husk of the burning alpha collapses into the knee-high grass, tiny flickers of orange flame emerge. The glow slowly gathers, no more than that of a torchlight...but growing...

Meanwhile, back at your own position. The thigh-high grass that you used to skulk in here quickly turns from friend to foe! The blazing end of your staff has horrific recoil as you loose the mighty ball of fire! Your arm flings wildly behind you as you try to control it! Its either going into the grass at your feet and setting it on fire, or you're letting go and launching your staff somewhere off into the darkness behind you!

What's it gonna be?

---

So yeah, that is how it would go GMing DW. The knee-high grass at the portal catches alight due to the burning copse (slowly and not an immediate threat, but something that can come in play later...for good or ill). And because of the 7-9, the Wizard needs to decide between losing his staff (and whatever mechanical advantage comes with the staff...which might be a move or some kind of passive benefit or both) or creating a burning hazard at the feet of the group (therefore a Danger to be immediately Defied and something that will be persistent unless dealt with).

 

[Emerikol]

Personally, in a complex battle I prefer some sort of visual representation whether it be tokens or minis. I'm not a collector of minis though so that is the extent of my desire. I played 1e and 2e completely TOTM.

I think the game allowing for both styles is the ideal place to be. I think 4e had many issues for a large number of gamers and the miniatures requirement was the least of it.

I do think 5e, if you can get past some of the metagame elements, feels a lot like 1e/2e. It's more of a successor to 2e than either 3e or 4e. Sadly, the complexity brought in by 3e is not something I hate if it's done well. We will see if Pathfinder which seems intent on targeting that audience will achieve their objective.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

4e is different in some ways from 3E and AD&D. Each of those is different from the other also. (Eg 4e uses 3E conventions for ability scores and for defences; it's skill system is no more different from AD&D's than 3E's is, and arguably is closer to AD&D in spirt as level matters; its approach to monster design is intermediate between the two systems; but it departs from AD&D and 3E's spell charts; etc, etc.)

But that seems pretty separate from this "heavy hand of the designer" thing. 3E was designed too. So was AD&D, although much more haphazardly (each component was designed, but their interaction often was not).

Every game clearly has the "Hand of the Designer" insofar as they are designed.

What I meant by the "Heavy Hand of the Designer" is that 4E was much more intricately assembled and very relentlessly game balanced with all the interactions thought through and prescribed. It was written in a manner that did not invite the DM to do much alteration of the rules because of that. I know there were people who didn't feel that way, but I for one---and obviously not just me---really felt that alterations were essentially impossible and that my hands were tied as DM.

A number of folks here have said "I didn't feel a need to alter 4E because it was balanced" but that's not necessarily the only reason to alter a game. I often want to shift things around to realize a particular vision. This is something I've done in pretty much every version of D&D I've run except 4E. My 3.5 campaign, for instance, had a lot of Unearthed Arcana rules.

However, I felt that, because of how intensely designed 4E was, this was essentially impossible. My understanding was that this was part of the design intent: WotC felt that by having such a tight ruleset it would take that issue out of the hands of the DM. For some DMs this was very much freedom. I know at least one DM who loved the fact that he didn't have to think about any of the design space. However, I chafed at it and never enjoyed running 4E. I even felt it was hard to design monsters and magic items.

There were other reasons that I didn't like 4E on the balance, although there were many parts of it I did think were well-done.

There was a small list of 3rd level MU/Elf spells and 2nd level Cleric spells to be used for NPCs above 3rd level.

Ah, yeah, I recall that now.

 

[pemerton]

4E was much more intricately assembled and very relentlessly game balanced with all the interactions thought through and prescribed. It was written in a manner that did not invite the DM to do much alteration of the rules because of that. I know there were people who didn't feel that way, but I for one---and obviously not just me---really felt that alterations were essentially impossible and that my hands were tied as DM.

<snip>

I often want to shift things around to realize a particular vision. This is something I've done in pretty much every version of D&D I've run except 4E. My 3.5 campaign, for instance, had a lot of Unearthed Arcana rules.

However, I felt that, because of how intensely designed 4E was, this was essentially impossible.

Because I don't know what changes, or even what sorts of changes, you're talking about, I don't really know how to respond.

In my 4e game I've designed feats and themes, adapted paragon paths and epic destinies, and created or modified magic items. And when it comes to action resolution (as opposed to PC build), I've used skill challenges for a variety of different situations (social, exploratory, dispelling magical effects, etc); and have used various approaches to resting depending on the fictional situation and pacing needs.

Just as one example of an interaction that is not prescribed, but is easy to resolve using the adjudicative tools provided: can Burning Hands melt the zone of ice (difficult terrain) created by Icy Terrain? AD&D answers these questions one spell description at a time. 3E is similar, although in some cases it is mediated via keywords (eg Light vs Darkness spells). In 4e there are just keywords and page 42: each table is expected to establish its own fiction.

I even felt it was hard to design monsters and magic items.

You're the first person I've heard say that designing monstersin 4e is hard.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Because I don't know what changes, or even what sorts of changes, you're talking about, I don't really know how to respond.

In my 4e game I've designed feats and themes, adapted paragon paths and epic destinies, and created or modified magic items.

Rules to reinforce the theme I wanted. In my 3.5 game I ran from 2004-2007, I was using a lot of UA options: Wounds/Vitality, gestalt classes and Eberron style action points to strongly differentiate races, armor as DR with class-based defense, and a few other things. These were very widespread changes, though many were inspired by Star Wars D20 Revised. I felt 3.X was much more hackable in this regard and would feel fairly comfortable in 5E doing something similar. No way in 4E.

Even for adding new themes or epic destinies I felt like that was a no go. A lot of it was how dependent on the Character Builder 4E was. I felt that most of what you're describing was essentially impossible given the fact that most players I encountered essentially insisted on using the CB.

And when it comes to action resolution (as opposed to PC build), I've used skill challenges for a variety of different situations (social, exploratory, dispelling magical effects, etc); and have used various approaches to resting depending on the fictional situation and pacing needs.

I felt much more open to adjudicate Skill Challenges as I wanted. I wouldn't tell people they were in a Skill Challenge and just call for skill checks here and there, slowly accumulating successes or failures.

Just as one example of an interaction that is not prescribed, but is easy to resolve using the adjudicative tools provided: can Burning Hands melt the zone of ice (difficult terrain) created by Icy Terrain? AD&D answers these questions one spell description at a time. 3E is similar, although in some cases it is mediated via keywords (eg Light vs Darkness spells). In 4e there are just keywords and page 42: each table is expected to establish its own fiction.

Yeah, you have mentioned that sort of thing before. I'm not sure I totally agree that AD&D answers those things one thing at a time but is instead is simply inconsistent about it, which makes sense given that AD&D, especially the DMG, was heavily made up of a collection of different Dragon articles.

All I can say is you must have had a very different player base than me. My groups would have fought me on that. 4E really brought out a "RAW" fetish in some people. That was growing in 3E, of course and I don't pretend to say it wasn't around before, but it just shifted and became more common.

You're the first person I've heard say that designing monstersin 4e is hard.

I've heard it from other folks, too. I suspect for me a lot of it was just the burden of all the intricate rules. By the time I started doing that sort of thing I felt my hands were so tied I just didn't want to. I hacked a few monsters but for the most part, I just didn't ever feel invited to do anything but run things the way they were written. 4E didn't have templates (edit: I may be wrong about this, need to check), for instance, (something I really wish 5E had to a real degree).

 

[pemerton]

4E didn't have templates, for instance, that I recall (something I really wish 5E had to a real degree).

Various sorts of templates and monster themes are found in the DMG, the DMG2, the Plane Above, I think Open Grave, and I'm pretty sure other books as well that I'm not remembering at the moment.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Various sorts of templates and monster themes are found in the DMG, the DMG2, the Plane Above, I think Open Grave, and I'm pretty sure other books as well that I'm not remembering at the moment.

I'll have to check... I could very well be wrong about this point.

5E certainly lacks them (with a few exceptions), which I think is a pretty major missing piece in the system. Some changes are fairly trivial, of course, such as switching damage types or resistances around.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Because I don't know what changes, or even what sorts of changes, you're talking about, I don't really know how to respond.

I think fundamental changes, the kind you use to fix up a system or get it to evoke (force) a specific style, feel, or theme. IMHO, you can generally get what you want out of 4e that way without hacking the system, per se, just being selective about what you allow in and what you use when you design adventures.
Low-/no- magic is the example I like to use because it's so problematic in all other editions even if you do take a machete to them, but in 4e you just allow only martial classes, turn on Inherent bonuses, and off you go.


It was easy to cut things from 4e: you could ban a class or a whole source - or allow only one source - and things'd still work, because niche protection had died with the other sacred cows, for instance. It was easy to add certain things, especially monsters, but also items (or even artifacts) if they were one-off...
But there wasn't much call to tear the system down and rebuild the engine.

You're the first person I've heard say that designing monstersin 4e is hard.

Nod, monsters were pretty easy to create, and even easier to re-skin & tweak.
Magic items could be harder to design if you tried to stay inside the lines. 4e magic items were designed as relatively minor character build resources, you weren't meant to be defined by an item, they weren't meant to too significantly power you up. When they would appear key in some OP build, they'd get errata'd (until Essentials, of course). Trying to stick to that was a PitA and did not result in the most interesting items (all the good, mediocre, and marginal ideas were taken, it seemed). But, a unique item (not as complicated as an artifact, but more substantial than a regular 4e item), one the players couldn't just make/buy, that could be fun (and, with not restrictions beyond not wanting to torpedo your campaign), comparatively easy.

I'll have to check... I could very well be wrong about this point.

5E certainly lacks them (with a few exceptions), which I think is a pretty major missing piece in the system. Some changes are fairly trivial, of course, such as switching damage types or resistances around.

Templates weren't a big deal in 3.x/4e, IMHO. They're a minor convenience that create themed monsters that the players might notice (or not). With or without them you, you could always just create monsters with certain commonalities, anyway.