For the Love of Minis

[Steel_Wind]

Sorry about that, but it was deliberate, I was trying to get sense of how much folks were using them in each edition. Course, I forgot to ask which edition they started with, so results are probably skewed for those who started in later editions....

I get that. The problem is, the thrust of the question is aimed at trying to see how the change from "less minis" to "more minis" happened over the course of time. And it's a flawed perspective, with a flawed assumption, which leads to inferring a flawed conclusion.

Here's the problem: There was no RPG "industry" to speak of until 1st edition.

There is a HUGE gap of time between 1st edition and 3rd edition. A little over 20 years, in fact.

One of the main trends in hobby gaming resulted in people entering into the hobby in its heyday in the early 80s with 1st edition. And then those gamers drifted away from AD&D.

Most of those drfiters drifted away from gaming and never gamed again. A lot of them, however, drifted over to other RPG game systems entirely. Many of those players left 1st edition in the mid 80s and skipped 2nd edition in its entirety; or they ultimately switched away from 1st ed to something else when 2nd edition was released.

This period between 1st ed and 3rd ed was when the main competitors in the RPG business took hold. The 80s was when Rolemaster, GURPS and Palladium took a chunk of AD&D's market away on the FRPG side. It was these same gamers that 3rd edition targeted to bring back in to the fold of the game -- and it did so rather brilliantly, too.

The success of 3rd edition is the reason why Rolemaster, GURPS, HERO, and Palladium are essentially on life support and are now mere shadows of their former niche success each had in the 80s and 90s. Now? These games are a niche, of a niche (of a niche).

So just looking at the trends from 1st to 2nd to 3rd can lead you to conlude that what happened to explain the uptick in minis use was solely due to AoOs and the rules for mini use inherent in 3rd edition. That's a mistake to conclude that.

The Chessex Battlemat had been around a long time back to 1st ed days. We used minis all the time between 1985 and 2000 when playing Rolemaster and often when playing GURPS. Many others did as well, playing RM or other games.

Whether 3rd ed assumed the use of mins or not, we would have used them when we moved to 3rd ed as we "always had" when gaming ("always" meaning throughout our 15 years of Rolemaster). There are many others with similar experiences. The broad use of minis in this period with other games was one of the main influences on the designers of 3rd ed. That's one of the reasons they provided for their assumed use with 3rd ed.

So just including D&D options can lead you to draw false conclusions. I see this all the time from D&D only players that never left the 1st edition of the game and moved to 2nd edition over the years. They don't "get it".

The impact of these other games was HUGE on the designers of 3rd ed. Peter Adkinson, Jonathan Tweet and Monte Cook all spent a GREAT deal of time designing for and playing other -- and far more simulationist RPGs -- during the 80s and 90s. (Hence - the RM influence on the skill system in 3rd ed)

That's why 3rd ed is designed the way that it is. Those influences all greatly impacted upon the game. Including on the assumed use of minis during play.

I do agree with you that minis were commony used in 1st edition. The Ral Partha, RAFM, Grenadier/Fantasy Lords, and Citadel lines were all created for use with 1st edition. Armory Paints and PolyS Fantasy? The same. Hell, the game itself EVOLVED out of tabletop minis, not the other way around.

However, I do think it is ALSO fair to say that **most people didn't use minis to play AD&D**, and so if that was the only game they ever played, their perception that 3rd edition "miniaturized" the game seems accurate to their personal experiences. It is not a true reflection of what had always been present in the hobby though. The pages of Dragon magazine had been rife with ads for minis and paint over the decades -- long before pre-painted minis entered the scene. Hell, I seem to recall an ad for Ral Partha in The Strategic Review, for that matter.

 

[karlindel]

I think the poll would probably be more useful if it included answers for people who did not use minis and played those editions.

I started playing with D&D, and played in some campaigns with no miniatures, and many campaigns that used a battle map and miniatures to determine the layout for combat and relative locations. Only a few campaigns used miniatures with detailed movement rules. Our usual miniatures were a mix of metal minis (generally painted for PCs and the occasional major NPC or monster, unpainted for others), dice, and random tokens.

In 3e, I usually used dice for miniatures until the D&D miniatures line came out, then I started collecting them. I continued to collect them through most of 4e, althogh my purchasing went down shortly before the PHB Heroes line came out (as I had plenty of minis, making it harder to justify purchasing a lot more), although I still pick up an occasional pack.

I am always happy to use minis that I don't see very often, or pulling out just the right mini for an occasion. I picked up the Beholder's Collector Set, and it came in just in time for a multi-beholder battle in my home campaign.

 

[The Shaman]

Does LEGO count?

Doesn't anyone follow links around here?

Here're are a few of the custom minifigs I put together for our Flashing Blades game.

 

[Lanefan]

We've used minis (or "character pieces", as we call them) since early 1e days, i.e. shortly after the last ice age; and still do.

Metal pieces for party members; that's a hard and fast rule in this house. I have lots, and even with that people still buy their own sometimes. But I do use the plastic minis for opponents; they're mostly a better scale and thus more imposing, and as opponents die more often (one hopes) the plastic ones can get knocked over more often and not break or chip.

For generic opponents e.g. lots of Orcs or a swarm of rats I'll use chess pawns (I have several dozen, all numbered) or glass beads (I have a few hundred).

My only complaint with metal character pieces is the damn things keep getting bigger. 25mm scale has become 28mm scale and now 30mm scale - new Dwarves are bigger than old Humans! It's getting to the point where I'll have to draw a larger grid on the board...sigh...

Lan-"anyone know where I can find a set of those Elfquest minis from the '80's for cheap"-efan

 

[theatreorchid]

I've only played 3e, and I adore minis. In my spare time that isn't devoted to gaming, I'm a crafter- I was drawn to the idea of painting minis long before I ever picked up a d20.
I never played with them (except for one memorable occasion in my first campaign when the DM pulled out a Mt. Dew bottle and said, "This is the red dragon." and a handful of d6, "and these are all of you.") until I started DMing a few months ago, and the difference in my mind is incredible. All of a sudden, everyone knows exactly what's going on. There's no awkward pauses in combat where someone has to stop and ask something like, "wait, where was that third kobold?". Play is smoother, and the players remember to use their feats.
Besides, they just look cool sitting there on the table.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I was a miniatures gamer before OD&D ever appeared, and *ahem* any resemblance between my first Fighting Man and a Minifigs Hessian was purely coincidental.

The Auld Grump, who remembers when Minifigs was pretty much all we had....

 

[Wiseblood]

I started using them in 2e. Because my favorite and longest lasting gaming group used them. I still use them and I like them quite a lot.

I like metal. Plastic minis lack a certain gravitas.