Getting away from miniatures.

[Summer-Knight925]

More and more I find myself not liking the use of miniatures in gaming, I enjoy the freedom of narraration and not being shackled to what my table space can be. While I do enjoy the painting of miniatures and most miniature war games, I find that even OD&D is best played without miniatures.

The players can actually split the party (and thus hang themselves).

I feel as though they do aid with new players, so too do they make metagaming easier. For instance; we were in the area of a silence spell (3e) and my brother's rogue had perfect line of sight of a assassin while my dad, a Dwarf fighter, did not. The assassin made the roles to sneak up on him, he could legally sneak attack him, and considering he had the time to study him, kill him (if he failed his save of course) but here was the thing, he didn't want my fighter to die, so he turns to face 'another monster and sees the assassin'. This was where I, the DM, had to draw the line, since the monster he was fighting was not only still alive, but the 'big threat' on the field. It seems the miniatures really screwed the pooch in that field. And you could argue that an attentive player could listen in an hear that, right? But I would have slipped a message to my brother via legal pad and have it done with, the miniature could have been removed as well, sure, but this brings up other issues such as invisibility, fog cloud, cover, all of these can easily be taken care of simply with using no miniatures.

I find it funny that I was brought up on miniatures (3e) and now revert to no miniatures, the table is for food, rolls, papers, pencils and the random weapon someone brought. At least what I've experienced.

So this is where the 'reason I posted' comes in, what do you think are pros and cons of using miniatures?
Which do you prefer?

 

[Crothian]

We don't use minis. We have them and tact tiles but it does slow the game down a little. Plus we prefer to game away from any large table and if we used minis I would want to be a good sized table.

Ideally if I were going to go from using minis to not using them I'd be tempted to start a new campaign and then focus more on the non mini aspects of the game. Starting without minis I think would be easier for the players that like minis.

 

[Treebore]

I use miniatures, tokens, dice only because position and distance is often important enough to be reasonably precise about it, but to keep them form being the focus of the game I do not make use of them until its time for initiative.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I really never think with most things it's either one way or the other. Same thing with gaming. I use minis (Paper standees or otherwise) for combats. They are great for clarification especially on most matters spatial. There's no "youre within range of that fireball" "No, I'm not!!" "Yes you are" "NO I'M NOT". Count those squares, jack. Oops, well wont you look at that. You ARE within range of that fireball...

On the other hand I don't use it for each and every combat. Smaller combats usually dont get the minis and mat treatment. Or if I have a more cinematic combat in mind I'll run it based off of player trust and descriptions. And I've found that while setup may take a couple of minutes it's counterbalanced by the debates and discussions over ranges and AoO's and who is hidden, stealthed and where people this round as opposed where they were last round.

Also, I make paper mini standees with the images of the monsters that the PC's fight on them. After a especially hard fought battle the player who the table considers the MVP of the battle keep the paper mini of the monster. It's not a lot but it means a little something.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Nowadays we only use minis when we feel like it, because most of us have painted our own minis and it's fun. Maybe a combat a night we'll use the minis.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I feel fantasy games are ok with them, going through a dungeon is lots of fun with a miniature, but so to is the imagination.

However, anytime firearms or powerful weapons (Scifi, Super Heroes, ect. ect.) using miniatures actually becomes a burden.

During a game of rifts a building was blown up (or rather knocked down) and it took time to redraw the map from where the building was, that was when we were using miniatures. Now we aren't using them and the players blew up an entire camp of Coalition Soldiers, complete with fortifications and bunkers.
Sure, you don't have cannons in D&D, but still, seeing them take over the artillery detatchment to rain down shells onto the camp was amazingly fun, even for me who carefully planned out the entire battle if they charged the camp.

So miniatures are nice and all, but I think being forced to use them gets old.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am not a fan of minis. It's really hard to play 4e's tactical combat minigame without them, so for 4e, they get used, but I don't think they're any fun.

I kind of default to a way similar to FFZ's abstract combat: you're either "in melee" with a group or not, you can do one thing on your turn, and spells with big areas affect entire groups at once.

It's just not fun for me to push little pieces of plastic around a game board. I prefer a more cinematic, imaginative game than the detailed skirmish rules that D&D is often inclined to provide me with.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I've found that minis enhance understanding at the expense of visualization.


We played 2e and early 3e without minis. It was a ton of fun, and my imagination filled in lots of great gaps (which was excellent in the same way reading a book can be better than a movie or a horror movie is scarier if you DON'T see the monster).

We spent more time thinking about the story and even acting things out to help make things more clear.


But the problem was that so much was up to random adjudication. How many trolls can I hit with my fireball? Exactly where are they standing? Are players standing within the same area?

Sure, this could all be somewhat done off the cuff with die rolls, dm adjudication, simple "assume everyone is in the best spot" as a constant player advantage, etc. etc. But, in the end, it's nice to know what's going on, who is in what room, a glance of how many foes there are, and so on.


It's a question of what matters most, and whether the same pros and cons that applied to my group (one group) will apply to another group.


In some ways this goes to the "after the fact" description that appeals to some DMs and players. There have been threads about the meaning of hit points and healing surges. Within these looooooong threads, one point resonated with me:

Some people like their gaming fairly "concrete" in that the rules say what happens, then they narrate based upon that (I'm dropped to -1 hp, I've been stabbed in the gut). Some people like their gaming fairly "fluid" in that they like to narrate along with the rules, with the rules only shaping part of the story (I'm dropped to -1 hp--I've been stabbed in the gut....I use a healing surge--wait! It only appeared to be a stab wound, I was actually tricking the enemy.)

Without minis, I see the concrete side losing some of their fun in that the number of trolls hit by a fireball "exists" outside of narrative, but I see the fluid side gaining, in that unknown possibilities (is there a chandelier? SURE, why not!) become possible.


Pro's versus Con's and gaming style and whatnot.

 

[Aramax]

I love,love,love mini's.I often craft the mini to a role.It allows you to create a new monster or NPC from the visual.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

I picked up random minis for my PF game and we use them for combat only. We haven't had any problem with metagaming during combat. I think they help to determine range and spacing.

I managed to get the Fighter, Barbarian and Druid pretty well, but our Cleric is some kind of Death Wizard mini or something. Our Rouge looks kind of Rouge-ish and our Monk (me) is a Rogue (I think) mini who is swinging on a rope. We have since determined that's how the Monk gets extra speed: he's like Spider-Man. The rope is attached to something and his increased (and increasing) speed comes from learning to swing on the rope better.