In Place of Chainmail?

[Mark]

That's not quite accurate. There was a design team for Chainmail. Jonathan was designated as lead designer, but Skaff Elias, Andrew Finch, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Robert Gutschera, and myself were on the team that developed the rules. Andrew and Robert later dropped out, and were replaced by Rob Heinsoo and Skip Williams. There was also later a development team with folks like Mike Donais, David Eckelberry, Bruce Cordell, and Charles Ryan, all of whom made valuable contributions to the rules development as well.

I know Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinsoo are involved in the new game. I'm sure other R&D folks are involved as well, but I don't know who.

Thanks for the extra info. If you hear anything more, please jump right in and share.

btw, I have nothing against the game of Chainmail that you helped produce, in and of itself, but finding it wasn't more readily usable as a large scale battle solution for d20 fantasy games was a disappointment to me. I'm hopeful this version will be but not so hopeful as to be holding my breth...

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Ugh!

I really liked having miniatures that matched the DnD races and monsters so well....To me WoTC is really missing a unique opportunity to get Role Players and War Gamers buying the same miniatures line.

That strikes me as the strength a D&D mini game needs to leverage.

 

[Regdar]

Regdar agrees that to make it successful they really have to use the most commonly used monsters, as well as some very specific to D&D miniatures. Don't make more that don't corrispond, there are plenty of character, race and creatures out there without making more just for the set.. unless like chainmail they give stats.

 

[Voneth]

From the recent announcement:
Dungeons & Dragons Miniature Game launches this fall. Each figure will come with D&D and miniature game stats on their card. The rulebook will have both Skirmish level and large scale battle rules and will ship about a week or so after the first boosters. This game will be randomly packed pre-painted plastic miniatures.

I just realized this. The news bit says random. It doesn't say anything about collectable.

To me that could be a big difference. And what could that difference mean?

We are all aware that in a collectable game, certain pieces are rare on purpose to increase their value to the collector and as a game balance issue since these rare figs are more powerful.

If we are talking about just random figs, that's a whole different thing. What that means is that instead of a employee spending twice as much time on the clock making sure each box has 3 figs of Bob in pose 1 and Sam in pose 2, the employee's job is just to make sure that there are 3 Bobs and 2 Sams in every box. The poses are irrelevent and the employee spends more time stuffing more boxes than Q.A. on the figs themselves.

Now due to what work was done on a certain day and where those particular boxes went from the werehouse, you will get some regional distribution that will make certain poses harder to find, but in the nation overall, the total number of each fig will be the same compared to others.

Hmmm. If the randomness is more a time mangement issue compared to making the game collectable on purpose, then we might have something here.

 

[mmadsen]

These are assumptions, aren't they? Have they given details of how these rules will be different from their first attempt at Chainmail?

When I said, "Skirmish-Level Rules: Good. Large-Scale Rules: Really Good." I didn't mean to imply that the skirmish-level rules and large-scale rules were good and really good respectively; I was commenting on the inclusion of such rules. People want to play out skirmishes, and they really want to play out large battles. My fear is that the rules won't elegantly mesh with existing RPG PCs, etc.

 

[ced1106]

My Chainmail rantlist:

* I already have mini's. I don't want to buy more. Especially ones that have to be painted and require assembly.

* Where'd these Chainmail factions come from?

* Why weren't there specific rules to convert D&D characters and monsters to Chainmail in the basic set?

I think a D&D skirmish supplement is a great idea. Just get out the cut-out terrain (which Chainmail did a good job on), some green felt, and the measuring tape. Wilderness adventures work fine for skirmish games and mass-combat is an area of D&D that hasn't been explored yet.

I'm also waiting for D&D stats for the MK figs, but that's another thread.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[ced1106]

While, yes, for a LOT of people who play D&D, pre-painted would be a god send, it leaves the other end of the crowd out in the cold. I can't fathom why the hobbyists would be treated like a scourge because they like both metal, and to paint things the way they see fit.

OTOH, The unpainted miniatures market has been around longer than D&D, and WotC learned its lesson from Chainmail. Likewise, companies like Reaver produce excellent unpainted miniatures. Gamers who don't have time or skills to paint have MageKnight, which at least requires filing off the miniatures from their bases.

No point competing in a niche market.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[Henrix]

That's not quite accurate..

I stand corrected, and I beg your pardon.


On another note, Tweet has sort of confirmed the rumours about random prepainted minis:

posted January 16, 2003 11:36 AM
in this thread on the Wizards boards

It's too early to defend or to criticize the new miniatures effort from Wizards. The proof is in how the game and the miniatures are received.

If we're right, the new line will
bring new people into the leagues and tournaments,
reach lots of D&D players who aren't modelers,
support a secondary market that allows players to sell off the miniatures they don't want and hand-pick the ones they do,
and revitalize D&D skirmish gaming (and more).

But the proof is in the results, and we're not going to see those results for a while yet.

--------------------
-Jonathan Tweet
Senior designer, R&D
Wizards of the Coast

(Emphasis mine.)

 

[ced1106]

Didn't Wizards at one time have an add for a Return to Temple of E Evil mini set.

Now, there's an idea! Alongside WotC modules, sell miniatures sets that can be used with the modules, which include a few (insert WotC Miniatures Game Name Here) combats. The combats are optional, of course.

I **liked** the old Grenadier miniatures boxed sets. I don't know what monsters I'll be using in my next adventure, so it was easier just to buy what someone "told you to buy". Likewise, my players would have an assortment of characters to pick through. I think, per miniature, the cost was pretty decent and the scale was large enough that you could pick them up in the larger retail stores (yay, Gemco!).


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[Pramas]

Didn't Wizards at one time have an add for a Return to Temple of E Evil mini set.

Yes. The figures were sculpted and some castings done. It was ultimately cancelled because the business guys didn't think it'd sell enough. Many of the minis ended up going in Chainmail. The Human Shadow Priest mini for Ahmut looks suspiciously like one of the major villains from RTtToEE, for instance (though a new shield was sculpted for him when he became a Chainmail mini, the symbol on his old shield being inappropriate). The kuo-toan minis and the troglodyte champion (which ended up in Kilsek, the drow faction) were also minis from that set, as was the Salamander (though I don't remember if that ever got released). IIRC correctly, only two models from the set didn't make it into Chainmail. One was a grell figure, which is quite large and rather nice. The other was a cultist fig.

I have casts of all the original RTtToEE minis and I have thought about auctioning some sets on Ebay, but I never seem to have the time.