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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9595342" data-attributes="member: 7026594">When I first started playing in the 80s we had a few minis, but mostly stumbled along TotM.When I got into a dedicated AD&D group in the 90s they used a hex grid and minis, because they found that it saved a lot of time and arguments.  They had a story about a past DM who had repeatedly had orcs run through their formation to smash the wizard on the head when he was casting a spell, and how they started using a battlemat and minis because that stuff had nearly come to fistfights when they were teenagers.I have used miniatures a LOT, and one of my longest-running groups is guys I met wargaming.When that group started playing 3rd ed together grid based and tactical combat made perfect sense to us all, and naturally we rolled right into 4E with nary a bump.  Nowadays we play 5E24 online but it's still with a grid and tokens.That being said, I have some issues with miniatures and physical props shrinking the imaginative space.  And sometimes I really would like combat to flow more freely, and not feel locked into a grid and counting squares.I played a bunch of Theater of the Mind games of old school editions online during the height of the pandemic, and ran some myself, and while they could flow quite well, they gave me vivid reminders of how easy it is to lose track of combatants, and for turns to be skipped for some participants with a large group on either or both sides.A picture really is worth a thousand words, and having miniatures to give everyone a clear visual saves a SHEDload of confusion and time spent on redundant descriptions.Lately in the games I run I'm experimenting with using minis or other positional markers to keep track of relative positions and who's facing whom, but without grids and counting squares for combat.  To try to hybridize the approaches and get the best of both worlds.</blockquote>

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