How do you feel about miniatures?

[mach1.9pants]

Never ever used them....yet. I have spent heaps of money and now have a couple of thousand for our first official 4E game this arvo. So looking forward to it and we are all excited

Have always used grid paper but minis (in my 2 people testing) have been great. Easier and they look the business

 

[jdrakeh]

In D&D? I never really used them until D&D 3x made them an integral part of resolving combat. Today I use them occasionally but, typically, only for large-ish encounters. I also still play several skirmish level minis games, however, and I love minis for that (obviously).

 

[rgard]

i spent 36 years loving minis.

but i'm not a fan of the cheap plastic ones. although, they work in a pinch.

I am not worthy.

Not counting the HO scale Airfix minis when I was a kid just playing toy soldiers, I have only 33 years with D&D and minis.

We used them in 1E. We used a 1" hex field to keep track of where the pcs were with respect to the dungeon or town and the monsters we were fighting. We found that it cut down on arguments that sometimes involved, "How can the dragon be right behind my magic-user?"

We enjoyed painting them too.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Clavis]

As a DM I dislike miniatures beacuse I feel they draw the player's attention away from the faces of the DM and their fellow players, thereby decreasing interpersonal interaction and roleplaying.

I dislike miniature-centric rules because they reduce the dynamic chaos of combat into an orderly tactical exercise that resembles no real fight I've ever seen or been in. (Stop, you can't attack me until i get my 5' step, and if me and a friend get on either side of you have to stand still so we get a flanking attack...) In a real fight, you don't have a clear, top-down view of things, so you make mistakes (like hitting your friends accidentally). Miniatures encourage a kind of thinking that you just don't get the luxury of doing in real life and death situations. In that way, they reduce the excitement of combat, turning it into a merely intellectual exercise.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I have way too much fun painting'em to let them rot on my shelves.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Simm]

i am a wargamer.
i entered D&D from the miniatures side of things.

Got to back up Diaglo here. My Warhammer Quest box was one of the best purchases I ever made. Goblins, Orcs, Minotaurs, bats, rats and spiders. I've seen my plastic children drive my players to dispare.

 

[el-remmen]

Seriously though, is there any way to edit polls after posting them? I've had that problem before, and I noticed someone had to do the same poll three times before he got it right.

Only mods have the ability, but my advice is to type up all the choices for a poll ahead of time in notepad or whatever and then paste them in. That is how I handle it when I post a poll as to not take too long between when the post goes up and the poll opens and to give me a chance to proofread my text.

 

[Holy Bovine]

If it wasn't for miniatures I never would have discovered D&D. I loved the lead(!) Ral Partha and Grenedair minis my local bookshop carried and bought bunches of them. Then I noticed a book with some of those same weird creatures on the cover.....

 

[RSKennan]

I hated minis with a passion that cooled somewhat when I couldn't get anyone to play without them during 3e. Then I just found them boring and distracting. I felt like they pulled me up above the action when I wanted to be looking through my character or NPC's eyes. On top of that, as a player, I found that GMs would use them as a shorthand to avoid describing the area that combat happened in. I even fell into that trap, and I hated myself for it.

On top of that, movement in 3e was mostly dull- you move up to a foe or into a position to get everyone with your spell, then mostly stayed still until grim reality made you move again to do it all over. It felt like a really lame board game to me. It's a major reason I stopped writing for and running 3.x.

The situation in 4e feels different. There's a lot more going on on the mat, and with things like stunts (I could never get players to let me include them in 3.x) zones, etc, it's easier for me to go back and forth between being above it all and down in the thick of it. It all feels more dynamic now, and that's what I needed. I'm cool with minis now.

 

[MerricB]

The heaviest role-player in my group prefers it when we use miniatures, because it helps him see the action better. I've always used them or not depending on how I felt. I think I'll use them more in 4e because combats are more interesting with them.

Cheers!