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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 2907311" data-attributes="member: 3586">Guessing badly, I'd say.Here's a DDM rare:<img src="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/dk_gallery/x32.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Here's a DDM common:<img src="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/dk_gallery/x27.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The beholder (the rare) is a multi-part miniature (at least three parts) that need to be glued together. It also has many, many paint steps, plus requires a lot of plastic. Certainly compared to the common, one-piece timber wolf mini.Remember, we're not talking about much money here to play with. An individual mini costs about $1.63 from the pack. Of that, Wizards probably only gets $0.40. A very small increase in the price of a mini has a significant impact at the end - perhaps four to eight times the actual size of the increase in cost to make.IIRC, one of ENworld's members recently investigated making plastic minis themselves as a business venture. The startup cost is horrific. It's only feasible if you make the minis in bulk. Another aspect to consider is from the retailer's end. Retailers detest lots of little individual minis. They take up a lot of space, and what do you do with the ones that don't sell? A single SKU is much easier from their point of view. Big FLGS may be able to carry the entire range of non-random minis, but I know that my own FLGS doesn't even bother with those mini lines - only with random minis. I can. So, you only want orc miniatures, then? And no-one in the world wants giant frogs or myconids?One of the glorious things about DDM is that the random system allows them to make these strange figures. (Giant Frogs are part of D&D history, anyway. See T1: The Village of Hommlet). There are hundreds of monsters for D&D. Do you only want the safe options? Orcs, goblins and giants?Not for me, thanks. I'm very happy to have Chraals and Zombie Dragons to threaten my PCs with. (And, yes, I've used both in the RPG).There are only 12 commons because very few figures work as commons.I tend to buy about 2 cases worth (or a little more) of each set, and then get the rest by trading. This gives me about 8-9 of each common, which is generally a very good number for the RPG.Those people wouldn't be able to buy non-random figures either, because no-one nearby would be selling them. Cheers!</blockquote>

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