How do you feel about miniatures?

[Mercurius]

I've heard that 4E is more of a miniatures game than 3E, which was more than 2E, which was probably less than 1E. But it got me thinking: Isn't ANY edition a miniatures game to the degree that we want it to be? I mean, no one needs to use minis, and I don't think any edition has rules that require minis.

That said, I remember a disagreement about minis in a group I was in about five years ago. It came about because we found ourselves using them more and more, to the point that the then-DM would map out a dungeon as we went, and we'd move our minis like chess pieces. The main dissenter, who I was largely in agreement with, felt that the excessive use of minis was taking the place of imagination for him, that by focusing on the little figures on the table, it was hard to imagine what was going (this, on a more extreme scale, is why I dislike computer rpgs, but I digress).

So what do you think? Do you like miniatures? To what degree? Do you feel that they prohibit the use of imagination--specifically, mental imagery--and thus atmosphere? And if so, do you care?

I'll throw in a poll to make things fun.

 

[pawsplay]

I love them. I consider them an aid to imagination. Without them, people may not agree on where everyone is positioned, resulting in unnecessary arguments about whether so-and-so can reach him on one hand, and really vague descriptions on the other which I feel tends to encourage, "It's my turn, I make an attack," since all locations on the battlefield are equally good.

There is always a map. You have the choice between a physical representation of a stable and coherent map and an imaginary, incoherent, possibly contradictory map in everyone's heads. There are times to toss the map aside; really, really mobile combats spring to mind. But for close in, you can't beat it.

I've always found miniatures and art to be really good for sparking my visual imagination.

 

[Mercurius]

Whoops--last poll option should say "DESPISE" not "despite."

 

[delericho]

I mean, no one needs to use minis, and I don't think any edition has rules that require minis.

In 2nd Edition, I never used minis. I liked this state of affairs.

In 3.0e, I rarely used minis. I found that using them helped combat flow a little better. This was fine.

In 3.5e, I used minis almost all the time. Combat didn't seem to work quite right without, but it could be managed. This was okay, although as time went on I found myself hoping that the trend towards greater reliance on the battlemat would reverse.

In 4e, I wouldn't even consider running combat without minis. There is just too much emphasis on exact positioning and forced movement not to do so. This is also okay, although I would have preferred them to go another way.

 

[JeffB]

Hate the damn things.

Counters too- but less so.

Or rather, I hate the idea of needing to use the things in an RPG

Even worse? Hate the WOTC strategy (randomization crap).

The only minis I've ever owned came in the 3.5 basic set (oh and a few starships in the old Starfire(?) space combat game from Task Force)

I'm gonna run KOTS in the coming weeks for my son- we'll see how counters do. I'm going to *try* to be as mini/counter-less as possible.

 

[Knightfall]

Minis are cool but they shouldn't come to dominate play.

 

[el-remmen]

Whoops--last poll option should say "DESPISE" not "despite."

Whatever do you mean? I see "despise."

 

[el-remmen]

I started using minis pretty prevalently in the mid-90s influenced by my buddy Sean who was really into them, and we were living in the same place at the time (college days). We also were friends with the owner of the local comics/gaming store and he cut us mad discounts on all our orders.

Before that we used minis just to indicate marching order and mostly used scrap paper to make some basic diagrams to work with, but otherwise everything was "in the mind". But with the influx of minis-we started using them in combat with rules not all that different from what would be 3E

So, when 3E came along it was just an extension of all the mini-stuff we had already been using.

However, recently a few of these same players have expressed growing disillusionment with minis - and feel they might be overused. I never thought so, but I can't get that out of my mind now, because I would hate for the "in my head" part of the game to be diminished for them because of the overuse of minis.

So I am considering using them less.

 

[MortalPlague]

Our group played 2nd Edition for a long time without using miniatures. We switched to 3.0, and we still didn't pick up miniatures, preferring to use imagination over a battle mat. For especially complicated battles, we tended to use maps, drawing where people were and where people moved to. But never would we use minis, we said. Minis would destroy the imagination in our game!

I don't remember the exact circumstances, but we tried miniatures sometime in 3rd Edition. We set up a rough battlemat and tried them out. And it seemed to go pretty well. And then D&D Gameday two years back landed me with a whole host of miniatures and dungeon tiles, and it was a natural move to using miniatures for almost all battles. And contrary to our fears, it has not spoiled the imagination; instead it's made things more clear. It's done away with questions like "can I hit the ogre where I'm standing?" and "how many of them can I get in the fireball?".

The only problem we have with miniatures is the setup time required. It seems like we roll for initiative, then have to draw up the battlemat. I'm looking at ways to counter this, however; having preset battlemats, or using giant sheets of graph paper on a battlemat scale would perhaps work. We'll see.

 

[Dragon Snack]

We started using minis a few years after 3.0 came out, after a rather bad misunderstanding of the phrase "I move back to the side of the ship" caused quite an annoying "discussion" in game.

Never looked back.

I love them as not just pieces to represent your character (or the bad guy), but as works of 'art' in themselves. Of course, I also paint my own so it also gives me another aspect of the hobby (and I wish I had more time to paint).