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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dykstrav" data-source="post: 4862529" data-attributes="member: 40522">I started using minis and battle mats in the mid-2E days. Most of my players loved the idea, but in the days of pewter, only about four or five players actually bought and painted minis.A 1E DM that I played under in the same time frame hated minis and mats. He claimed it interfered with immersion, but after trying it twice, the players all pretty much realized that it took away his ability to fudge positioning when he wanted. We respected his decision to abstract positioning and left the mats and minis for my 2E game.In 2002, I tried going back to 2E and had a blast with everything except combat. The DM was good at the storytelling and narrative angle but felt restricted by the rules, and the combat rules were heavily house-ruled (i.e., he often ignored the rules as written in favor of what he wanted to happen, sometimes in our favor and sometimes in the monster's favor). This guy was heavily abstract, he even told us that he kept hit points secret because he felt like player's tracking hit points was metagaming (which, I fould out later, he fudged as he liked as well).In the early 3E days, many of the DMs I saw didn't like mats and miniatures because they didn't like attacks of opportunity or the way flanking and the rogue's sneak attack worked. They decided to play without mats and minis as a method to maintain more control over combat. Typically, this had the net effect of reducing sneak attacks and attacks of opportunity to either encounter powers or relegating them to DM fiat.Personally, I prefer miniatures and some sort of battle mat. Currently, I'm using maps from the fantastic locations products and dungeon tiles, but I've spent many a year on the vinyl. I feel that it makes the game more into a board game, but you also gain the benefit of consistently applied rules. Players aren't asking about positioning every turn when their iniative comes up, so it speeds up play. The world (and when characters can use their cool powers, like sneak attack) doesn't feel so random when everyone can clearly see where their character is on a board.</blockquote>

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