Miniatures, yay or nay?

[Pentius]

That would seem to depend on how much importance positioning and movement have. A game where these aren't important can manage perfectly well without. Something where, say, combat is almost entirely individual duels such as a wrestling game probably wouldn't need minis to keep track of positions in the way that a game of swashbuckling heroics a la d'Artagnan would probably want to keep track of where people are in large fights involving multiple combatants. And if you're happy not keeping track of individual movement and position, you can run almost any RPG without.

I can see how you might not need them for one-on-one duels, but ime those are rare, and when they do happen it's usually a single 'episode' in a larger campaign. I've tried every game(D&D editions and otherwise) I've ever played without minis, and even in ones that, say, didn't use facing or hardly any positioning(Adjacent and Not-Adjacent), one where I honestly couldn't even tell you what a character's average move speed might be, I always seem to be able to find the situation where it matters, and get it wrong.

Not using minis is great for people that can do it, but I really can't, not without becoming that ditz that asks every round if I can do what I want to do. I much prefer being able to glance at the map, and sum up what is and is not a feasible course without having to stop the flow to double-check where or not there happen to be a half dozen pirates in a place I thought contained no pirates(cough-actually-happened-cough).

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Generally, I like minis since they help me keep track of where the PCs are in relation to everything. When my memory was better they were not needed as much but the past few years I have really needed them for fantasy, D&D and so on.

Now, in games like Call of Cthulhu, well, its kind of silly since there should not be a lot of fighting and the moment you introduce minis to a horror game, it just slows it down and takes out what few horror elements are actually present.

 

[Bluenose]

Not unless they can guarantee availability of a suitable range of minis. For fantasy that's probably a non-issue, but what about Ancient Rome, or Space Opera (non-Star Wars of course!), or Modern Day?

Historical minis companies produce figures for ancient Rome (yes, that includes civilians), modern day, and almost anything else you can imagine as well as things you probably wouldn't have - unicycle lancers, for example. Usually at lower prices than companies producing fantasy minis sell for.

 

[Gilladian]

I've played Dnd since first edition days, and we've almost always used minis, mini substitutes, and battlemats. To me they're a major part of the game, and I wouldn't like to go without them. I painted hundreds of minis back in the 80's and I still use them all the time. I enjoy making terrain features that are re-usable (tree platform for archers, anyone?) and other props, as needed. We still are able to use our imaginations, just fine.

 

[ExploderWizard]

For a roleplaying game, the use of miniatures should always be optional since the main focus of an rpg is in an imagined gamespace.

I love collecting and painting the things and tend to use them whenever possible because I am a kid and love playing with my toys.

 

[DragonLancer]

Personally I don't like the use of miniatures. It slows the game down and with recent editions of D&D (3.x & 4E) it makes combat a game of chess, which isn't how it should play. But it works for some groups and not others.

 

[I'm A Banana]

When you use minis, you're tacitly agreeing to certain prominent aspects of your game.

• Visualization is important. You're going to want to know where you are in relation to other creatures. This makes "realism" trump "cinematics": it's important to be accurate about what is simulated, and small differences in interpretation matter, and need to be clarified. This makes combat important, because combat is mostly when you need to know this. Combat is "strategic," that is, simulationist, rather than "cinematic" for this reason.
• Your combat, in using minis, is limited to things you can represent in gridspace. You have required accessories (battlemats, minis, grid templates), mostly for combat. This increases the investment and importance of combat in your games, too.
• Your combat, due to having rather extensive set-up, should be very important to your games. In fact, it should probably be the defining characteristic of your games. Otherwise, it's not worth the investment and set-up for each player.
• Because it's such a defining characteristic, other things naturally diminish in importance. Interaction can't be important, it doesn't let us break out the minis! Exploration can be fun, but it needs to lead to big combats, since otherwise it doesn't matter where on the grid we are!
• You are committing to producing a line of minis, so character customization diminishes. It's great if you can use the fighter mini also as the priest mini and also as the thief mini, so pallette swaps become key. The more customization your characters have, and the more unique kinds of races, classes, etc., that you have, the more difficult it is for you to keep them supplied with accurate minis. Related, monster customization should be light, for the same reasons. You can easily reduce this with tokens or chits, though.

These things can be more or less true for different games -- certainly people used minis for combat even when they weren't necessary or well-utilized, and a lover of minis is going to probably get and paint a mini to represent their character even if its superfluous. I'm sure plenty of people have played intrigue-heavy games with their minis sitting around miniature tables just because it's fun for them. That's great, though I'm not sure it uses minis to the full extent that they could be used.

My personal opinion is that minis are quite a bit more hassle than they are worth for my own games. I would much prefer a cinematic battle system that doesn't require me to know the exact distances between things or accurate battlefield and character representation. I want to fight airship pirates on the falling body of a dying dragon, spiraling out of control, through wind and hail and lightning. I want the party to consist of an elf, a dwarf, a sentient mop riddled with termites, and a magical sword who is currently possessing a giant spider. I want the monsters to be unique chimeras of lungfish and billy goat. There's no way I'm going to try to accurately represent that combat on a grid with figures. It's too much for minis to handle. It's too dynamic, fluid, unusual, and changing.

I grok that not everyone has quite the...cinematic flair...that I tend to have, vastly preferring the strategy of grids and ranges, which is cool. But after trying to fit my complicated peg into 4e's square hole, I gotta say, I want something else.

I've gotten close in 4e. Fortunately, my players do enjoy the cinematic style. But it's pretty in adequate, and can only be used once in a while.

 

[Jhaelen]

What are your thoughts on miniatures and role-playing games?

Should a new game use miniatures or not?

Unless the game doesn't have combat rules (or extremely simple/abstract ones), it should use miniatures - or some kind of props.

We've been using minis in our roleplaying games for a very very long time, regardless of the system or whether it actually has rules for minis or not. We realized very soon that it was the only way to avoid endless discussions about who was where.

 

[Mark CMG]

What are your thoughts on miniatures and role-playing games?

I do both, depending on the system. I ran a game of Griffins & Grottos last night without minis, though it supports both types of play. My summer campaign of Prince Valiant didn't use minis and really doesn't support their use. I've run or played in D&D games since 1974 and until the 3.X era managed easily with or without minis, but 3.X onward primarily requires minis unless you want to leave chunks of the system out. In the last couple of years, I've run Harnmaster without, PF with, and played with some other systems but mostly with minis.

Should a new game use miniatures or not?

If a game system can do both, that's ideal. A roleplaying game system shouldn't *need* minis but can be fun if it also supports the use of minis.

Please try to stay away from the history lessons of "D&D came from chainmail which was a miniature game" because frankly that's not my question, it's what YOU think of miniatures and role-playing games

Most people must be aware by now that the (O)D&D box cover read, "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures." I'm not sure, though, if roleplaying really hit its stride until AD&D and Basic D&D were released, so tossing out Chainmail (which I played prior to D&D even being released) as a yardstick is a bit of a red herring. I agree that the comparisons to it are nigh irrelevant to discussions of where roleplaying games should be going (beyond their use as inspiration for flavor in some new RPGs).

 

[Dark Mistress]

I think miniatures should be optional, the game should be able to play just fine without them. Adding some optional rules for a more tactical combat with mini's wouldn't be a bad thing though, as long as the rules that strongly encouraged the use of mini's was optional.