Forked Thread: Miniatures - planning encounters

[Ktulu]

Forked from: The Player's Handbook Miniatures

. I think, despite the large number of minis I have, I've used the same six orcs to represent the last five encounters. None of them had orcs....

This is a question I had on minis use; do you design more encounters based on what minis you have, or move the minis around what encounter you want?


I tend to lean towards an amalgam of the two, in which I don't often pick monsters for minis I don't have, but I'll tweak the monster to match a mini (a deathknight might be dwarven, because the mini has the weapon I'm looking for, or the mount the badguy rides is a rage drake because I have one available and it works...)

I rarely just put an encounter together and then hunt for some matching minis.


So, what do you guys do?

 

[Zaukrie]

Even when using pre-printed material I'll change the encounter to match a mini I want to use. Of course, I own thousands.....so there are lots of options.

As a matter of fact, I'm creating new monsters to match some of my Heroscape minis and star wars minis and dreamblade minis.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I own over 1000 DDM's now so I've gotten to the stage where most encounters I can match the monsters needed exactly or get pretty close. In situations where I don't have the right mini or something close to it I will either just use another mini and tell the players what it is meant to be or use my Fiery Dragon Counter Collection to print out a paper counter of the mini I need.

Olaf the Stout

 

[MerricB]

Some encounters I design around the miniatures I have. "Ooh, I like that Otyugh! Let's put in an encounter with some rats!"

Most encounters I proxy in miniatures I don't have. "That orc is actually a dragon!" (Well, not that bad...)

With about 2,000 D&D Miniatures, I'm fine with most of the common creatures.

Cheers!

 

[EricNoah]

I have six numbered poker chips that see an amazing amout of use - far and away the most used counters in my game. I do have some Fiery Dragon tokens and of these just grab whatever is handy at the moment. I somehow wound up with maybe 10 plastic minis (couple of dog-shaped and the rest humanoid) and I save these for the major bad guys. Even if I had 1000 minis I wouldn't be with-it enough at the game table to use the "right ones."

 

[Beckett]

I find it very satisfying to be able to set something on the table and say, "That's what you see." So, yeah, I do design encounters in part around what I have. It's not a total limiter, but it is something I keep in mind.

I've also been running the WotC modules. Before sessions, I look over what's coming up, see what I can match as best I can. Sometimes things fit, sometimes my hook horrors stand in for vrocks.

 

[Mark]

Zombies!!! Board Games - IconUSA.com

Good stuff for cheap.

 

[fanboy2000]

If I can swing it, (i.e. I own the mini and can find it easily) I like using a mini that matches the encounter. A couple of weeks ago, I used a dragon mini to represent a dragon. Of course, the encounter was with a green dragon and the mini was of a silver dragon. For a while I wasn't carting around my minis and I used a huge Bulette for all my huge monster needs. One day, I use the Bulette mini as a Bulette and I may have caused a kernel panic in a couple of my players.

If I was more organized, this wouldn't be a problem.

 

[Mark]

I try to bring figures that more or less fit whatever I want to run, and then also pack a bag of misc figs, too. Sometimes I crate something that utilizes figures I have but mostly I run what I want and make do with the stuff I have.

 

[malraux]

Zombies!!! Board Games - IconUSA.com

Good stuff for cheap.

Yes, in my games, all minions are Zombies!!!!. Assuming you want players to know minions, really cheap minis are a plus.