WHY!! why do they toss my miniatures around?

Hmmmm....

Seems like the best thing to do would be to only use your painted minis for NPCs and monsters. Ideally, you're the only one who should be moving them around on the table. If your players insist on moving those around, the gloss coat should take care of any minor dings and nicks.

Then tell the players that they must supply their own minis, or you'll use something like a bottle cap, stone, etc to represent them.

Or if you want to supply their miniatures for them, just don't paint them. Maybe if they see their unpainted minis facing off against well-painted NPCs and monsters, they'll decide to paint their own. And gain a little bit of respect for painted minis in the process.

That being said, I'm not a professional mini painter at all. I don't suck at it, but I'm not great, either. So I've never really minded about chips and such on my minis.

- Mark
 

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The solution is...only the DM moves the miniatures! That's right, it also prevents someone from doing chess moves, where they see what happens, then change their mind.

Player 1: "I take a five foot step to the right and cast a spell"

DM moves players miniature to the right, where he is still in a threatened zone. "Okay, the bad guy gets an opportunity attack."

Player 1: "I meant to step backward!"

DM: "Too bad. The bad guys swings and hits you for 8. Please make your concentration check now."

This makes all of them pay more attention. If a tricky move is needed, I let the player say wether they are actively avoiding threatened areas or not, and I move them. My hundreds of painted mini's, carefully varnished and painted, only suffer transportation dings. Everyone wins, my mini's are not mistreated, people can't take back moves, letting the game move forward, and I have incentive to have actual miniatures, three-D terrain, and color maps for my players. It makes everything better.

Fie on you who let lowly players touch your miniatures...
 

Sealer is great stuff, if you use it right. If you don't, it's almost worse than no sealer at all.

The main trick is to put the stuff on in thin coats. A thick layer is liable to chip and flake, and take the underlying paint with it. Let one coat dry and set thorougly before applying the next. Ideally, two or three coats should be nearly invisible except for the shine.

As has been mentioned, glossy lacquer is stronger than matte, but not as attractive. I usually brush on two layers of gloss for protection, then spray a matte coat for looks, and then finish by painting gloss onto areas that should be shiny (like weapons, armor, and eyeballs).

[Edited to correct a confusing sentence.]
 
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I don't use minatures. I just have a squared piece of paper and here I'll draw the area and the players can mark were they are. The result is that the players start to bring their own minatures or borrow from each other.

About books. I have printed out a copy of the rules that they need in a compact format. I tell them to know their own characters (Spells, skills etc.). If they don't they must wait until I'm done with the rest of the players so I can show them. The result here was that they started to bring their own books.

I don't take bullsh... from anybody who don't respect others stuff and they know this.
 

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