How have minis impacted your game?

[shaylon]

I don't DM regularly, but I do have a large and growing collection of D&D minis, so I'll say this. It doesn't bother me that the mini doesn't always accurately represent the creature, but if I have a mini that matches it, I would definitely use it first. If I have something close to represent, I would do that as well. No sense in bringing out the Giant Treant to represent a Wereboar when I have a mini that is about the same size as the boar.

I played in a game where the DM specifically used the wrong minis to represent creatures and you could "take a sample" of their body or draw out a description if you couldn't identify it and hope that a sage back in town could shed more light. I thought that was a bit dumb.

As far as it delaying the game, I guess I don't see too much of that in my current campaign. Our DM usually sets out what he needs behind a screen, sometimes borrowing from others, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of digging in game that takes away from the action. If I was DM'ing regularly, I would follow in that mold of prepping ahead of time, and trying not to delay the game in order to show off my cool mini collection.

That being said, I am really looking forward to the day that I can pull out those 5 Fire Giants and say: "As you enter this room you find it oppresively hot. You see 5 guys with flaming beards and red-hot axes staring at you. Roll for initiative!" Or something like that.

-Shay

 

[KB9JMQ]

I own about all of the WOTC Mini's and while I like to use the right figure for combat if I don't have it that is ok.
I don't change the encounter to use the mini's I do have.
Since I have a boatload of some mini's they get used as generic reprensentations all the time.

 

[Davelozzi]

I use minis but prefer not to use a grid (though the grid comes built in if I'm using my Dwarven Forge Master Maze pieces).

Thanks to D&D minis, I now have a large enough collection to cover an extremely wide range of encounters, and I supplement the collection with metal minis to fill the gaps.

The minis I have available does affect what monsters I use to some extent. I still use what's appropriate for the adventure, but I will be more likely to work in a particular encounter if I have an especially cool mini for it. I try to buy the minis I need for the the important encounters, and use decent substitutions for what I don't. For example, most humaniods can pretty easily sub for each other, and the same is true for lots of undead. However, there is definately some monsters I am less likely to use if I don't have the minis. For example, I think Green Ronin's Book of Fiends is a wonderful book, dripping with evil malice. However, most of the creatures in it are pretty out there in appearance, and without any good way to represent them, I find myself sticking to the more estalished fiends in the WotC books.

As far as how it affects my battlegrounds, not too much. I always try to make interesting battlefields when possible, but it's not particularly the minis that dictates what's interesting. And on the other side, I try to keep my dungeons somewhat realistic for the purpose in which they were designed, so even though I have a large party (8 PCs) and things often get pretty tight during battle, I haven't started making all the rooms and hallways that much larger in response.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

At first thought they were great. Combats would become more real!
But after playing with them for a year or so, we threw them out again. Some combats lasted for 1,5 to 2 hours because everybody was thinking about ways to don't get hit by AoO's. We had many discussions on what was and what wasn't possible.
And second of all, somehow, combats become less vivid. We were staring at miniatures and we didn't really see the combat in our minds...

I instituted the 'six second rule', the players, and the DM (Me) have six seconds to move each figure, if they have not done so they stay where they are. Tactical booboos do happen, but hey, six seconds is how long your character has to think about things.

I only pull it out when things slow down, except for myself - I always follow it.

The Auld Grump

 

[Driddle]

I'm good with or without miniatures, but I'd prefer to use them with certain people who need visual cues to keep the playing field in perspective. It's frustrating to plan a particular manuever only to have the DM (for example) declare the NPC is suddenly on the other side of the cathedral ... then a moment later he's standing next to your PC picking his pocket?! Miniatures are helpful guidelines for everyone.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Do you find you're using creatures in your adventures simply because you found that figure in a booster pack? Are you reluctant to use a creature when you don't have its figure? Do you find you are designing dungeons differently, like focusing more on specific areas of encounter on a skirmish level grid? Who here allows the minis collection they keep dictate the sort of encounters their party faces?

Outside of this being parodied in say, Dork Tower, I've never run across this type of behavior.

I've used everything from dice and pennies to miniatures of said creature to miniatures of entirely different creatures to represent the monsters.

For me, with the wide variety of miniatures out now, I rarely buy the random D&D ones anymore because there are too many greats from places like Magnificent Ego, Hasselfree, Iron Winds, Reaper, Rakham and others to even worry about it. The D&D ones could be better for monsters if they went the card game route and the players were some type of masters controlling legions of monsters but until that happens.

 

[Nathal]

At first thought they were great. Combats would become more real!
But after playing with them for a year or so, we threw them out again. Some combats lasted for 1,5 to 2 hours because everybody was thinking about ways to don't get hit by AoO's. We had many discussions on what was and what wasn't possible.
And second of all, somehow, combats become less vivid. We were staring at miniatures and we didn't really see the combat in our minds...

Less vivid, yes, because it trades chaos for order. It's implied that characters are active during every round, before and after their actions, weaving, dodging, trying to find the right opening for attack. But when looking at a tactical battlemat with static figurines in frozen positions, it's tougher to imagine your character reacting to the chaos of battle in realtime. The focus of battle becomes less about vivid description of melee, but rather about tactical maneuvers from a bird's eye view.

On the other hand, for players reluctant to describe their character's defense or attacks in more "literary" ways, a shift to the tactical might spice up the game. Many, many players suck at describing or contributing to the vision of a combat, relying entirely on the GM to make every "I hit" or "I miss" vivid and exciting. Switching to a tactical focus, the default for 3.5, alleviates some of that pressure from the GM. With the number of feats available, players have enough to do just figuring out their own maneuvers in meta-gaming terms, and so combats automatically become more interesting than the binary hit-miss sessions of yore.

 

[Arnwyn]

As per Eric Noah's response: "Not at all."

We dont' really use minis for monsters (no utility whatsoever for us) and, in any case, we've been using minis/battlemats in previous editions.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

In most of our games, our group doesn't use mini's: we do occassionally bust out the white-board so we have some sense of distance and scale, though. I agree about the fundamental disconnect when mini's come out.

However, when we run "World's Largest Dungeon", the mini's and battlemats come out full force.

 

[Ysgarran]

Less money to spend on books...

Ysgarran.