What's wrong with Mini-Centric?

[Hussar]

Nothing is wrong providing that the game doesn't base its mechanics on it, and unfortunately 3.X does this in spades. Everything from movement to combat, to how certain feats work...etc, are all based on the idea that the group will be playing with miniatures.

While I will on occasion dig out the mini's, I prefer my D&D to be in the imagination, not being played as chess on the table.

This argument I don't understand. D&D has always based its mechanics on minis. From OD&D onward. Inches scale for a starter. Spell effects. Combat modifiers (higher ground, facing rules etc). All based on minis.

I definitely detect a whiff of geek elitism here.

 

[Switchblade]

I haven't used minis for years, they do help people envisage where they are in relation to everyone/thing else but the catch is the ease of transport and space. When going to the game I don't have enough room in my bag for all the books I'd like to use, taking a long a ton of lead, tape measure et al really is low down on my list of priorities. Plus having room to set up the encounter, too much space, too much time and to much extra baggage. Not worth the effort. Plus while they may work well in fantasy systems they aren't much cop in sci fi when the game happens in built up urban areas/arcologies where you'd need a ton of stuff to represent buildings, cover etc. Only seen it work once in Shadowrun and that was only because there is something inherently creepy about using a Smurf themed chess set to represent Ant bug spirits.

 

[Psion]

This argument I don't understand. D&D has always based its mechanics on minis. From OD&D onward. Inches scale for a starter. Spell effects. Combat modifiers (higher ground, facing rules etc). All based on minis.

I definitely detect a whiff of geek elitism here.

Simply disagreeing with or not understanding someone doesn't allow you to play the "geek elitism" card.

 

[francisca]

I can only give my personal perspective, and perhaps this can help the OP understand the dislike of mini-centric D&D.

Let me start with this: I love mini games like Chainmail, Reaper Warlord, and an assortment of hex-less measurement and hex based miniature skirmish/war games. I love D&D even more than miniature gaming.

However, I think they are different gaming experiences.

To me there is a continuum with roleplaying on one end and pure tactical minis on the other. I enjoy D&D best when mini use falls just off center on the Roleplay side, in which minis are used as a general visualization tool, and actual measurement and distance doesn't matter as much as who is being flanked, line of sight, etc... I'm quite cool with eyeballing the situation, and saying, sure, the Ogre is in fireball range, and not worrying about counting squares and love not having blast radius templates chock full of right angles. :\

3.5 falls on the other side of the middle tending toward the tactical side, and to me, there is too much counting of squares and associated maneuvering. But that's cool. At my buddy's house, we play straight up 3.5, complete with all the stuff I don't really care for. It's just what it is, and as I'm not the DM, I roll with flow.

However, there would come a point that if you keep driving D&D toward the tactical/skirmish side of things, you'll end up with a miniatures based skirmish game with some level advancement bolted on the side. At that point, it would quit being "D&D" to me. I think many others have a nebulously defined boundary along this continuum where we look at it, and think that it goes too far. The location of that boundary varies widely.

A couple of years ago, I speculated here on ENW that 4e would be that minis game with roleplaying stuck to it on the side with duct tape (I think there are some compelling business reasons for them to do so). When I read that swift actions and some of the classes from DDM were released in the Complete Whatsit series, I saw it as confirmation. Maybe I was right, maybe not, we'll just have to wait and see.

But anyway, there you go. I don't like too much much tactical mini play in D&D, but I'm quite comfortable hacking up the game to fit my table, so it's no skin off my nose if I run 3.5 or 4e in the future. Others, I guess, are either not confident enough to do so, have a bunch of "BtB! RAW!11!1" shouting players at the table, or simply are pissy because WotC isn't doing it their way, and end up with with strong negative reactions.

 

[werk]

You may not have intended it this way, but this is a potentially inflammatory comment. Some people prefer to use minis in combat; that does not make their D&D a board game. There's all kinds of role-playing that goes on outside of combat, and even some in combat.

"Mini-centric" role-playing is not the same thing as a board game. Perhaps if it were "mini-only" role-playing, you could start to make that argument.

I think you are interpreting mini-centric to mean 'using minis'.

Mini-centric to me is as I described in my post.

Using mini's is great, and greatly enhances the experience for me, but my games are far from mini-centric.

 

[Hussar]

Simply disagreeing with or not understanding someone doesn't allow you to play the "geek elitism" card.

While I will on occasion dig out the mini's, I prefer my D&D to be in the imagination, not being played as chess on the table.

Mini-centric is not roleplaying,

Using minis turns what could be a simple 10 minute combat into an an hour long game of D&D tactical chess.

I'm not saying it's pervasive. Just a whiff so far. The heavy comparison of using minis to turning D&D into chess is a bit over the top don't you think?

 

[Hussar]

Fascinating take on minis on Dragon. Shame the images don't show up

 

[Creamsteak]

My problem is that miniatures eventually slow down the game. What I mean requires some explanation.

For some encounters, using miniatures at all seems pointless (fighter vs. fighter, both level 1, both with the same weapon focus and power attack). It's a dice game, and the figures don't mean anything really.

For other encounters, using miniatures speeds things up or provides necessary clarity. This is the whole goal of using the miniatures to begin with. If I have a lot of combatants in various locations, it's just easier for everyone if we spell things out.

However, sometimes I need miniatures to represent creatures with flight speeds of 200. That creature moves all the way across my grid as a single move action. Further complicating things, it moves in 3 dimensions, and while I have methods to keep track of that, they just don't work as well as the stuff that stays on the ground does. Even if I have blocks that I can stack that are 1 inch thick each, and I give the creature it's real height from the floor, we could easily be dealing with 30 blocks or something. Yet, this creature still has reach, can still be flanked, and still has another dozen considerations for combat. And please oh please don't make me have to track turning speeds in the air. I know it's "realistic." I've been up in some pretty fast planes before and totally understand the physics of it are very complicated, but for the purpose of the game I need things I can deal with quickly.

That same encounter, with another system, just doesn't gain that extra complexity from having an airborn encounter. Even in 3.0 I felt like it was a bit easier (though still fairly complex).

I like miniatures for a certain level of complexity. Below that threshold, I find them useless (or they slow things down more than they speed things up). Above that threshold, I find them either impossible to really use, or more likely to slow things down rediculously just to maintain a certain level of precision within the system.

 

[werk]

I'm not saying it's pervasive. Just a whiff so far. The heavy comparison of using minis to turning D&D into chess is a bit over the top don't you think?

OK, maybe you should start by defining mini-centric as a starting point.

How much of the game content involves mini's? 20%? 90%
Centric to me suggests over half and more toward 75% or more.

If 75% of your game is mini combat, that is not roleplaying, that is combat. Just like if 75% of your game time is combat (without mini's) is not roleplaying. IMO YMMV and all that...it's my opinion and I'm just putting it out there.

And it's not elitism at all, I'm not saying anything is better than something else, I'm just saying lets get our terms strait so we're all on the same page here.

 

[JDJblatherings]

Ahhh, no.

At 'day 1' minis were useful for arbitrating certain situations. They were not required for play. I played D&D all through high school and the navy without ever using them at all.

the subtitle under orginal rules heading of "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" read "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures"

so yeah...miniatures were there since day 1. Sure you could get by without them but the rules were written from a miniatures use perspective . Thus the " in distances, areas and such.

there is a difference between miniatures use and mayhaps a bit too much tactical detail.