minis and battlemats or not?

[messy]

allo

for those who have gamed using miniatures and battlemats, do you prefer to play that way? or do you like to do it all in your head?

the reason i ask is that i'm wondering if use of minis and battlemats gets in the way of using one's imagination to picture the events in the game.

messy

 

[Eternalknight]

As a role player and a wargamer, I prefer to keep the two seperate. I use minis for my wargames but not by role playing.

 

[Hairfoot]

As a role player and a wargamer, I prefer to keep the two seperate. I use minis for my wargames but not by role playing.

And I, as a roleplayer and wargamer, like to combine them!

I really like the visual representation of characters and combat. That said, I'm not a fan of 4E at all, because it focusses wholly on the miniatures and rules at the expense of imagination.

 

[Protagonist]

No grid/minis for me.
At times it can be helpfull to put some markers on the table in order to indicate the rough positioning of combatants relative to each other, but that's about as far as I'm willing to go if I run the game / can influence the group.
It's not that playing with grids and minis would be a dealbreaker, but I really really really prefer doing without. Approximating distances and positioning should be enough for almost any system. We're even used to play 4E that way and it worked out okay, but I admit that it is easier with system such as Fallout or even Savage Worlds/Deadlands.

 

[seskis281]

For years I played D&D, then subsequently C&C, without any minis. I did use a white board and marker to draw rough floorplans, and occasionally would employ dice as very rough "position" markers for the rare need to visually represent something I was describing.

I did switch up, picked up a Chessex wet-marker mat, and began using clue pieces and colored stones for games. I find that as long as it stays minimal it's helpful.... my group sits back in the couches in my living room, in chairs and are "away" from the coffee table where it sits, so that minimizes the mini aspect. I did buy everyone a cool reaper mini to reflect their characters in our current party - not painted.

I think they can be a very useful piece of RPGs.... but like others I can say I don't like my own "D&D" role-playing experience to be overtaken by minis and table-top-combat - which isn't to say that's "wrong," just not my taste or preference.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Nearly always used minis and/or markers, for the record I am both a wargamer and an rpger and have used both for 20+ years or so. The only time I have not used minis is when we had none or were playing in a location that did not have enough tablespace to lay out a map.
Even then we slkectched in the positions in graph paper.

I think the only game where we consistently did not use minis was a Star Trek game.

 

[Shemeska]

No minis, no battlemat. It breaks the immersion and it's a distraction to the RP.

 

[Ahnehnois]

No minis, no battlemat. It breaks the immersion and it's a distraction to the RP.

I am as well of this mind. Recently I have started to use a mat and dice as markers for some of the more tactically intensive battles, but it still certainly isn't what I'd prefer.

 

[malraux]

For a game like D&D, which has a heavy tactical wargame element, I use minis and some form of a battlemat.

For a game like CoC, which can be represented entirely in one's head, I don't use anything other than rough sketches.

 

[Dyson Logos]

No grid, no minis.

Tried it, didn't make any beneficial difference for us, and we'd rather use the table space for food and books.