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.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

But if the table in question doesn't care about "balance", then what's the problem?

There are degrees of caring about something like game balance. I care about it, but not to a dramatic degree that someone who plays a lot of organized play would.

IMO the action economy does a much better job of balancing than many people give credit for. The main things that need lots of care are things that break the action economy.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

It certainly must've been hard for Heinsoo & company to design good solo monsters, since it took them until MM3 to get it right. But, now that it's been done, and we see what's needed, it's pretty easy.

I don't know about 4E---by the late game they were a good bit better, though early on they were often punching bags---but I think 5E solo monsters could use some work. For instance, one thing WotC tends to like is to jack save DCs up through the roof. This isn't actually a good way to make a combat work.

You wouldn't have to worry about PCs buying or cheaply making a bunch of low-level items that would otherwise have been limited by attunement, but you might have issues with one character retaining too many items, or with the PCs retaining items that were intended to be 'replaced' or the like. It'd just be the DM throwing a tool away, really.

One substantial *cost* of attunement as it is currently written is that it frequently means that an item handed out gets a reaction of "meh" because nobody can use it without giving up something else.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't know about 4E but I think 5E solo monsters could use some work. For instance, one thing WotC tends to like is to jack save DCs up through the roof. This isn't actually a good way to make a combat work.

Legendary monsters have some pretty cool stuff, really, that learned from the difficulties 4e had with solos - legendary actions, most obviously.

I agree that Legendary resistance may not always cut it, though.

One substantial *cost* of attunement as it is currently written is that it frequently means that an item handed out gets a reaction of "meh" because nobody can use it without giving up something else.

That shouldn't be a 'meh' - 4e got 'meh' for items all the time, because they just didn't do much, 5e items are back in a big way in that sense, they can be as character-re-defining and game-'breaking' as ever they were back in the day - not unless the party already has 3 XOMG AWESOME items attuned, /each/.


I'd never give away that many items in 5e, myself. Players should be happy to get one cool attuned item. OK, maybe one each. (Yeah, that means the attunement limitation is nearly meaningless when I'm running - so are a lot of other 'problems,' like GWM/SS or Sorlocks...)

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Legendary monsters have some pretty cool stuff, really, that learned from the difficulties 4e had with solos - legendary actions, most obviously.

I agree that Legendary resistance may not always cut it, though.

I think the idea is OK but there are details that aren't so great. It doesn't scale well. IMO one way would be for there to be a Legendary action after each PC's turn with many of them being things like "make a saving throw roll now" or "recover X hit points" where X is a non-trivial amount. That would mean that a smaller party wouldn't get totally hammered by many Legendary actions and a larger party would be able to skate by and simply overwhelm the creature by exhausting Legendary resistance.

That shouldn't be a 'meh' - 4e got 'meh' for items all the time, because they just didn't do much, 5e items are back in a big way in that sense, they can be as character-re-defining and game-'breaking' as ever they were back in the day - not unless the party already has 3 XOMG AWESOME items attuned, /each/.

Not all items that require attunement are that awesome. WotC tends to slap attunement on things that they decide are powerful for the level at which you are expected to acquire them, but such items often don't remain amazing at higher levels. But they're just useful enough you often have to go through a tradeoff calculation as to whether they're still worth keeping.

I've seen it happen pretty often that the DM hands out some item nobody can use or wants to. In one game, the DM handed out a Moonblade which we recovered after killing a pretty nasty black dragon and literally nobody in the party could make effective use it. Yes, that was bad planning, but it's also emblematic of how too many balancing restrictions get in the way. (What he should have done was alter the item to be something we could actually benefit from because it was something plot-important.)

I'd never give away that many items in 5e, myself. Players should be happy to get one cool attuned item. OK, maybe one each. (Yeah, that means the attunement limitation is nearly meaningless when I'm running - so are a lot of other 'problems,' like GWM/SS or Sorlocks...)

I don't hand out tons, but magic geegaws were always part of the game and part of the fun. I'd like people to be able to make use of what they get without going through a bunch of attunement math, short resting to attune and then reattune, and not just go "meh."

IMO there are ways to make items cool by having them grow, for instance, or do something without attunement and do more with it, which makes it more tempting. Or have items have some variable cost for attunement rather than just being an all or nothing thing. Like a lot of things, WotC opted for simplistic and missed out on a lot of possibilities.

For example, here's an item of my own design which illustrates the general idea of "attunement to get something extra":

Ysviden's Rifle (Very Rare, Attunement: Special)

The gith pirates making up the Brotherhood of the Leviathan founded by the legendary Admiral Timerish slowly mine the star leviathan corpse they use as an anchorage for the components needed to make smoke powder. As such, they have developed firearms and explosives to a high art. Weapons such as Ysviden's Rifle exhibit the pinnacle of their manufacture using a combination of magic and clockwork. This rifle is an example of the highest reaches of their gunsmithing art. It was made for the githyanki assassin Ysviden, the lover of Captain Sitirthra, who later became a vampire. She slew many using this weapon. It is a masterfully crafted double-barreled rifle with a complex clockwork sight. As a weapon it must be loaded with smoke powder and bullets as usual for smokepowder weapons, and has a range of 90/300. It hits with such force and precision as to inflict D12 force damage. Its full potential is realized only in the hands of a wielder who has the Sharpshooter feat and attunes to the weapon. As an action, the wielder can aim at a target using the clockwork sight, gaining advantage and a doubled critical range on the first shot taken against the target.

And another example of avoiding attunement by requiring a cost.

Figurine of Wondrous Power: Sly the Xorn (Very Rare)

This small figurine of a three legged, three armed barrel-shaped creature made of gold with three small ruby eyes and a gaping maw where a head would be. Unlike most Figurines, it can be summoned once per long rest. Summoning it requires an action, during which point 50 gold worth of precious metals or gems must be sacrificed, and remains for an hour. It can be dismissed as an action. It, will, however, make apparent that it can be bribed with additional precious metals or gems to act in its summoner's favor. While it only speaks Terran, it is intelligent enough to understand a bribe in any language or even no language at all. When it is activated, its summoner should make a Persuasion check (DC 20), with success meaning that it will engage in tasks that are favorable to the summoner. It is typically neutral towards its summoner unless the summoner has a clear affinity towards Elemental Air, in which case it will be hostile (+5 DC on Persuasion), or Elemental Earth, in which case it will be positively disposed (-5 DC). A bribe worth at least 250 gold of precious metals or gems grants the summoner advantage on this roll. Failure by more than 5 indicates that it will attempt to steal precious metals and flee or otherwise cause problems for its summoner. It does not mind fighting for the summoner and will also scout through stone, excavate, etc. However, if it is slain it cannot be summoned again for a week. It is destroyed if it is slain by lightning or thunder damage or an air elemental.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not all items that require attunement are that awesome.

Just give them out in ascending order of awesome?

I've seen it happen pretty often that the DM hands out some item nobody can use or wants to. In one game, the DM handed out a Moonblade which we recovered after killing a pretty nasty black dragon and literally nobody in the party could make effective use it. Yes, that was bad planning

Yeah it kinda is, if the point of the item is to be cool/useful to the party, and there are easy ways to avoid it (as well as controversial ones like wish lists). OTOH, finding an item no one in the party can use is also an indicator that the world does not revolve around them, for campaigns where that's party of the desired theme.

IMO there are ways to make items cool by having them grow, for instance, or do something without attunement and do more with it, which makes it more tempting. Or have items have some variable cost for attunement rather than just being an all or nothing thing. Like a lot of things, WotC opted for simplistic and missed out on a lot of possibilities.

I've used the idea of items getting better as the wielder levels going way back. I never liked the volume of found items typical in D&D, or the way you get hand-me-down effects as better items are acquired. 5e's attitude can be a big improvement, that way (though I could've use inherent bonuses to keep things tuned properly in 3e or 4e, the /expectation/ set by the game is also important).

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Just give them out in ascending order of awesome?

I guess it depends on the order. I've often found that unless one really chokes back on items it always seems that the three item cap is there, waiting. Of course in a home game we could simply ignore it, but I do think it serves a useful purpose and the table politics of our game is rather anti-house rule. I wish WotC had come up with a better cost function.

Yeah it kinda is, if the point of the item is to be cool/useful to the party, and there are easy ways to avoid it (as well as controversial ones like wish lists).

Ugh... wish lists. Talk about an idea that, in a small way, isn't bad but when taken to the extreme it was in 4E was crass gamist crap, IMO.

OTOH, finding an item no one in the party can use is also an indicator that the world does not revolve around them, for campaigns where that's party of the desired theme.

Well sure, but it really wasn't the theme and I'd not want that to be something nearly so legendary as a Moonblade.

I've used the idea of items getting better as the wielder levels going way back. I never liked the volume of found items typical in D&D, or the way you get hand-me-down effects as better items are acquired. 5e's attitude can be a big improvement, that way (though I could've use inherent bonuses to keep things tuned properly in 3e or 4e, the /expectation/ set by the game is also important).

Expectations are indeed important, which is one reason I found 3.X and 4E quite frustrating on the item front, albeit for different ways. In both cases they got factored into the math.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I guess it depends on the order. I've often found that unless one really chokes back on items it always seems that the three item cap is there, waiting. Of course in a home game we could simply ignore it, but I do think it serves a useful purpose and the table politics of our game is rather anti-house rule.

Ouch. Anti-house-rule might as well be anti-5e. You're really not getting the most out of it if you're trying to stick to some kind of half-imagined 'RAW.' Players need to trust the DM to make good rulings for 5e to work, it's 1e's true heir, in that sense.

Ugh... wish lists. Talk about an idea that, in a small way, isn't bad but when taken to the extreme it was in 4E was crass gamist crap, IMO.

Calling a game "gamist" shouldn't be an insult - it's a sign of how toxic the edition war was to our community that it's become so.

But, wish lists were not taken to an extreme, at all, in 4e, actually. They were a suggested mechanism the DM could use, or not, as he saw fit. And though 4e had make/buy, you sold at 20%, so if the DM didn't give you the item you wanted, you'd have quite the job saving up enough for it...

But, as with 3.x, wealth/level was a pretty serious thing, so you would, eventually, be able to get it with pocket change.

I do like 5e's take: not assuming items in the baseline, at all. No wealth/level. No make/buy. Players should have not only no wish list but no expectation of any items, at all - so you're free to give out only so many items as keep the campaign interesting.

Arguably you don't "need" attunment if you're never going to give out a third magic item, ever, but, IDK, it's a nice idea, conceptually, as well as acting to limit anyone one character using too many items.

Expectations are indeed important, which is one reason I found 3.X and 4E quite frustrating on the item front, albeit for different ways. In both cases they got factored into the math.

Nod. Wealth/level & make/buy seemed like good ideas, but they turned items into game-wrecking CharOp resources. 4e 'fixed' that by balancing items and making them subordinate to other build resources (Class, Paths, Destinies, etc), about on par with feats, really - all of which can be summed up as "Oh, a magic item? meh."

If you're going to have magic items that feel 'really magical' like back in the day, then the no-item expectation and attunement limitations of 5e are not a bad idea, at all.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Ouch. Anti-house-rule might as well be anti-5e. You're really not getting the most out of it if you're trying to stick to some kind of half-imagined 'RAW.' Players need to trust the DM to make good rulings for 5e to work, it's 1e's true heir, in that sense.

We have a few house rules (e.g., Counterspell and Dispel Magic are the same spell, crits do max damage plus dice) but for the most part we don't have them. It's more than I'd do myself---as you know I'm quite the tinkerer---but some of the folks I play with are wary of house rules. That doesn't mean DMs don't make rulings, but we tend to stick fairly closely to the way things are written in the book. Every group has its norms to keep peace at the table.

Calling a game "gamist" shouldn't be an insult - it's a sign of how toxic the edition war was to our community that it's become so.

IMO crassly gamist is something where the game mechanic is out front and center. It's a mechanic that may well work but it's only a mechanic and doesn't have any kind of integration with the fiction. IMO a clever but unintegrated mechanic shouldn't be how the game runs all the time, though of course all games will have some rules like this, e.g., spell slots and the action economy being two examples. I clearly I have a lower tolerance for this than you do so for me, insofar as it is possible, things that are crassly gamist should be used sparingly.

But, wish lists were not taken to an extreme, at all, in 4e, actually. They were a suggested mechanism the DM could use, or not, as he saw fit. And though 4e had make/buy, you sold at 20%, so if the DM didn't give you the item you wanted, you'd have quite the job saving up enough for it...

I guess I never really encountered them put so boldly and baldly before 4E, so that's why I felt they were taken to an extreme. Of course you could run without them, but like much of 4E I felt they were an example of really putting the rules front and center. Given the sheer number of items in 4E, having the DM fish through the lists for something interesting to a player was a lot of work. So I understand the wish list, but feel that it's an example of the deleterious effect of too many fairly humdrum options.

I do like 5e's take: not assuming items in the baseline, at all. No wealth/level. No make/buy. Players should have not only no wish list but no expectation of any items, at all - so you're free to give out only so many items as keep the campaign interesting.

This is an area where I like some baseline, but not a ton. 3.X and 4E being an example of a ton.

Arguably you don't "need" attunment if you're never going to give out a third magic item, ever, but, IDK, it's a nice idea, conceptually, as well as acting to limit anyone one character using too many items.

I don't mind it conceptually. I just feel that it's an example of a seriously missed opportunity where something that could have been flavorful and interesting was instead left crassly gamist (as I defined it above).

Nod. Wealth/level & make/buy seemed like good ideas, but they turned items into game-wrecking CharOp resources.

They certainly can, though I do actually like a certain amount of make/buy. For instance, questing for magical ingredients can be a good source of side adventures so having some suggested systems helps the DM design such adventures. These are nice because they provide sources of adventures that aren't just "save the world" or pure form murder hoboing. They can be useful side treks, for instance.

4e 'fixed' that by balancing items and making them subordinate to other build resources (Class, Paths, Destinies, etc), about on par with feats, really - all of which can be summed up as "Oh, a magic item? meh."

Yeah, 4E definitely made magic items feel pretty humdrum. They walked that back a bit with some of the later ones being cooler, but for the most part I found them to be fairly boring.

If you're going to have magic items that feel 'really magical' like back in the day, then the no-item expectation and attunement limitations of 5e are not a bad idea, at all.

As inconsistent as it was, 1E assumed some item accumulation. For instance, monsters that required silver and eventually increasingly magical weapons to hit appeared as one leveled. But as I said, I don't think attunement itself is a bad idea. It's a decent idea that's poorly executed. Ditto concentration.

 

[Sadras]

We have a few house rules (e.g., Counterspell and Dispel Magic are the same spell, crits do max damage plus dice) but for the most part we don't have them.

So clerics at your table may Counterspell?

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

So clerics at your table may Counterspell?

I guess so! It hasn't been some massive boost, mind you, and enemy casters get it too.