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.

 

[Sadras]

From the DMG, p 49 (under the heading "Forced Movement"):

It is possible to make forced marches up to twice the distance shown for daily movement rote. Such forced movement Increases the daily rate in 10% increments, from 10% to 100% at the option of the party, to a maximum of double normal movement rate; but as soon as a total of 100% of additional normal movement rate is reached, or as soon as the party determines to assume non-forced movement, whichever first occurs, a mandatory rest period must be enforced. . . .

<snip resting chart>

Failure to rest after normol movement is equal to 100% means that beasts of burden have a cumulative chance of dropping dead of 10% per 10% increment of additional movement of any sort. Other creatures lose 1 level of ability or hit die in the same manner, until 0 is reached and exhaustion kills them. Such loss of vitality, whether by beast of burden, creature, or character requires a full 8 hours of additional rest for each such 10% increment, hit die, or level of ability lost. For exomple, a 12th level fighter who moves an additional 90% of movement after exceeding normal movement by 100% must rest 72 hours, consecutively, in order to regain 12th level of ability. Prior to that period of rest, the character is effectively 3rd level!​

I will add: those rules may or may not be easily reconciled with this passage (from p 69, under the heading "Special Note Regarding Fatigue"):

No rules for exhaustion and fatigue are given here because of the tremendous number of variables, including the stamina of the characters and creatures involved. Thus, characters mounted on horses have gradually slowing movement, but this is not a factor unless pursuing creatures tire more or less rapidly than do the mounts. You must iudge these factors in a case of continuing pursuit.
Fatigue merely slows movement and reduces combat effectiveness. Exhaustion will generally require a day of complete rest to restore the exhausted creatures. Always bear in mind that humans inured to continuous running, for example, can do so for hours without noticeable fatigue . . .​

I find that an interesting way to deal with fatigue - loss in class abilities and features. It would mean the wizard would lose the ability to cast more complex spells and the fighter would lose an additional attack, they would also suffer worse saving throws, thaco etc - as they were not at the optimum level of effectiveness. Makes sense. Thanks for the find.

 

[Lanefan]

IMO 6 seconds is a bit too short but 1 minute just feels ludicrously long. In our 2E days we thought of a round as being 12 seconds. In BESM I think it's 10 seconds. That feels better to me. Ultimately it's kind of subjective.

We use 30 seconds, in part because it still divides evenly by 6 (giving 5-second segments) and is an even divisor of 60 to provide 2 rounds to the minute. The only other numbers that work this way are 12 and 6, both of which are too short for a round to be.

It works, not perfectly, but better than 1-minute rounds.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

From the DMG, p 49 (under the heading "Forced Movement"):

It is possible to make forced marches up to twice the distance shown for daily movement rote. Such forced movement Increases the daily rate in 10% increments, from 10% to 100% at the option of the party, to a maximum of double normal movement rate; but as soon as a total of 100% of additional normal movement rate is reached, or as soon as the party determines to assume non-forced movement, whichever first occurs, a mandatory rest period must be enforced. . . .

<snip resting chart>

Failure to rest after normol movement is equal to 100% means that beasts of burden have a cumulative chance of dropping dead of 10% per 10% increment of additional movement of any sort. Other creatures lose 1 level of ability or hit die in the same manner, until 0 is reached and exhaustion kills them. Such loss of vitality, whether by beast of burden, creature, or character requires a full 8 hours of additional rest for each such 10% increment, hit die, or level of ability lost. For exomple, a 12th level fighter who moves an additional 90% of movement after exceeding normal movement by 100% must rest 72 hours, consecutively, in order to regain 12th level of ability. Prior to that period of rest, the character is effectively 3rd level!​

Interesting.

Surprising there isn't some consideration given to a creature's constitution score affecting this.

Odd and probably unintended side effect is that a non-levelled commoner can go 30% extra with a 70% chance of survival, while if a 2nd-level character goes 30% extra she auto-dies on reaching 0th level. At least, that's how this reads to me.

All in all, having never seen this and thus having never used it, I feel quite safe in saying I'll not be adopting it now.

I will add: those rules may or may not be easily reconciled with this passage (from p 69, under the heading "Special Note Regarding Fatigue"):

No rules for exhaustion and fatigue are given here because of the tremendous number of variables, including the stamina of the characters and creatures involved. Thus, characters mounted on horses have gradually slowing movement, but this is not a factor unless pursuing creatures tire more or less rapidly than do the mounts. You must iudge these factors in a case of continuing pursuit.
Fatigue merely slows movement and reduces combat effectiveness. Exhaustion will generally require a day of complete rest to restore the exhausted creatures. Always bear in mind that humans inured to continuous running, for example, can do so for hours without noticeable fatigue . . .​

Taken together it sounds like he's saying it's more tiring to forced-march into a battle than it is to flee from it at top speed.

 

[pemerton]

Hit points that aren't strictly meat damage can still be understood from a character being increasingly tired out or weakened

But not so tired that you can't still move at your maximum pace, carry your maximum load, climb walls just as well as you could before entering melee, etc!

But suppose we downplay the "weakened, tired" aspect and emphasise Gygax's other elements - luck, divine favour, magical protections, etc. Even here there are multiple subsytems that don't interact - saving throws, as per the quote upthread about poison saves, are a separate subsystem for this stuff, and then magical protections and divine favour can also be the result of magic items, spells etc.

4e closes some of these gaps - there is generally no distinction, for instance, between the threats of physical harm that AD&D handled via saving throws and the threats of physical harm that AD&D handled via hit points; and as [MENTION=6873517]Jay Verkuilen[/MENTION] (I think) mentioned upthread, it uses healing surges to handle exhaustion.

But 4e opens up at least one new gap (or, perhaps, generalises it from the 3E barbarian's rage) - namely, limited use non-magical capabilities that manifest as martial encounter and daily powers, and action points.

Putting everything into a common pool can reduce the odd (non-)synergies between abstractions, but of course also reduces moving parts which itself has implications for game play.

3E is my personal least favourite for this stuff: it replaces poison saves (which, as Gygax describes in the quoted passage) were a type of luck mechanic, with Fortitude saves - but Fortitude is a mechanic largely independent of the hit point system; and poison doesn't do hp damage but stat damage. So your magical protections and luck stop you getting squashed by a hill giant's club (a mid-to-upper level PC can soak the 20 hp easily enough) but don't help agasint the STR damage (and resultant penalties to attack and damage, to maximum load, to athletics attempts, etc) from a giant spider's poison. But that poison, while it debilitates you, can't kill you - at worse it leaves you unable to move. (But until that point doesn't slow you at all.)

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

From the DMG, p 49 (under the heading "Forced Movement"):<snip>

Yeah, wow, that's nasty. I don't recall ever using those rules but they are indeed in the 1E DMG.

I will add: those rules may or may not be easily reconciled with this passage (from p 69, under the heading "Special Note Regarding Fatigue"):

Yes, this is one of the truly ridiculous aspects of 1E: It's self-contradictory. Of course, a lot of this happened because the DMG was assembled from many different sources, including prior versions, Dragon articles, modules, etc., which were written by Gygax but clearly not with an eye towards rigorous consistency. Doing that kind of checking in the days before easy access to search functions would have been fairly difficult.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I find that an interesting way to deal with fatigue - loss in class abilities and features. It would mean the wizard would lose the ability to cast more complex spells and the fighter would lose an additional attack, they would also suffer worse saving throws, thaco etc - as they were not at the optimum level of effectiveness. Makes sense. Thanks for the find.

It's darned nasty, that's for sure!

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

But not so tired that you can't still move at your maximum pace, carry your maximum load, climb walls just as well as you could before entering melee, etc!

Yeah, that's right.

4e closes some of these gaps - there is generally no distinction, for instance, between the threats of physical harm that AD&D handled via saving throws and the threats of physical harm that AD&D handled via hit points; and as [MENTION=6873517]Jay Verkuilen[/MENTION] (I think) mentioned upthread, it uses healing surges to handle exhaustion.

Yes, it does, and IMO that's a good way of handling it, though I didn't find it came up that much. It would really help in 5E to use something like that.

Putting everything into a common pool can reduce the odd (non-)synergies between abstractions, but of course also reduces moving parts which itself has implications for game play.

It also makes it quite difficult to mod.

3E is my personal least favourite for this stuff: it replaces poison saves (which, as Gygax describes in the quoted passage) were a type of luck mechanic, with Fortitude saves - but Fortitude is a mechanic largely independent of the hit point system; and poison doesn't do hp damage but stat damage. So your magical protections and luck stop you getting squashed by a hill giant's club (a mid-to-upper level PC can soak the 20 hp easily enough) but don't help agasint the STR damage (and resultant penalties to attack and damage, to maximum load, to athletics attempts, etc) from a giant spider's poison. But that poison, while it debilitates you, can't kill you - at worse it leaves you unable to move. (But until that point doesn't slow you at all.)

Don't forget about how hit points help you to fall from arbitrary heights at medium to high levels. Jumping without a parachute? Painful but possible.

It was a bit goofy with that, although stat damage was something that PCs feared, which is pretty good to reflect the suck that is poison or undead type drains. The fact that it couldn't actually kill you was dumb, though. Definitely a Murphy's Rule. Fortitude isn't totally independent insofar as it depended on Constitution, as did hit points. But still, you're right that saves are weirdly non-integrated with attacks in many editions of the game.

 

[billd91]

3E is my personal least favourite for this stuff: it replaces poison saves (which, as Gygax describes in the quoted passage) were a type of luck mechanic, with Fortitude saves - but Fortitude is a mechanic largely independent of the hit point system; and poison doesn't do hp damage but stat damage. So your magical protections and luck stop you getting squashed by a hill giant's club (a mid-to-upper level PC can soak the 20 hp easily enough) but don't help agasint the STR damage (and resultant penalties to attack and damage, to maximum load, to athletics attempts, etc) from a giant spider's poison. But that poison, while it debilitates you, can't kill you - at worse it leaves you unable to move. (But until that point doesn't slow you at all.)

It's not like 1e had significantly fewer issues with respect to this than 3e. Poisons were also outside the hit point system (usually save or die, not lose hit points). The saves were no more a luck mechanic than Fortitude saves were (is anything rolled by a die not, ultimately, a luck mechanic?), they were just more highly dependent on your class and Gygax's quirky design than your Constitution. And as far as withstanding poison damage - high level characters in 3e are more likely to have high stats - boosted by gear if not their own level-ups - so it's not like your ability to withstand it is entirely independent of your higher level.

 

[Hussar]

Let's not over-use the 4venger complaints about the identification of dissociated mechanics. The hit point arguments are far more about the degree of abstraction than whether or not the rules are disconnected from an in-character/in-setting perspective. Hit points that aren't strictly meat damage can still be understood from a character being increasingly tired out or weakened from blocking/dodging the attacks that would probably have killed less skilled/lucky/divinely-favored people.

Ahh, the old two smurfs arguing about who is more blue argument. Oh, my favorite system isn't dissociated because it's "less" abstract than your system. Snort.

 

[Hussar]

On the question of "did the Troll bite me"? Let's unpack that a little shall we? And, let's keep this a 5e example.

In 5e, a troll does 1d6+4 points of piercing damage. Now, I have an 8th level cleric in a 5e game with 50 (ish) HP. So, Mr. Troll crits my character who is unhurt beforehand, and deals maximum damage. 20 points. Now, in 5e, no damage that doesn't drop me below half shows on my character other than minor bumps and bruises and the like. Nothing you wouldn't get from a hard day of exercise. So, that troll bites me as hard as it possibly can and I show nothing more than a bruise and maybe not even that.

So, how do you narrate it? You could narrate it as scraping off my armor. Or you could narrate it as snapping closed just inches from my nose, causing my life to flash before my eyes and leaving me somewhat shaken. Both narrations are perfectly fine as far as the mechanics go.

It seems to me, that insisting that every hit MUST be some sort of physical hit is far more limiting to people's narrations. You flat out cannot narrate that attack as dealing any real impact, by the rules. So, why the insistince that every "hit" must be some sort of impact? It's not like HP actually mean anything. They mean whatever you want them to mean whenever you want them to mean that.

For really creative people, I find gamers very stuck in some serious ruts when it comes to creativity.

And, really, this goes right back to my original point about this just being edition warring in funny glasses. EVERY edition of D&D, regardless of E was the same. HP were never given any real meaning. The only difference is 4e made that up front and apparent and suddenly forced people to realize that the way they were playing wasn't actually supported by the mechanics. 5e does exactly the same thing as 4e, but, suddenly all these discussions about "disassociation" go by the wayside because people LIKE 5e. If abstractions were actually the problem, then it would be a problem in every edition, but, the arguments are entirely self serving.