"RPG with figures?" Topic

I don't play RPG's but I have always wondered if people play D&D etc with figures much? Is it the norm or an exception?

We always use figures in our various RPGs. It makes things much easier to visualize in my oponion.

Yup. We've used figures for a long time. Like Martin said, it makes it much easier to visualize what is happening.
Also, the new D&D 4th Edition rules really seems to push the use of miniatures.

We normally have figures out to represent our characters, but tend to use them only for the combat sequences.

Us too. No matter the game, using miniatures to track tactical combat is always an advantage.

Damon.

Ever since third edition D&D which had really descript and specific use of miniatures for roleplaying I've used them and not went back. Running a HARP game using them now. Using miniatures enhances an rpg for both the players and GM by providing clarity in the position of all participants in an encounter and a level of strategy that is hard to achieve using just abstract description. The only downside for me is the compulsion to obtain sufficient models to represent encounters. One day the cabinet of miniatures above my desk will fall and kill me.

you mean there are games that don't require 'figures/miniatures/counters' of some kind? (besides the computer stuff?)

I NEVER got the memo!

Besides…how many times has anyone picked up a 'game system/boxed game'…JUST for the miniatures…c'mon, you KNOW you've done it!!! 8-0

D&D has been a miniatures game since its inception; it was derived from the tabletop miniatures game Chainmail and the inspiration was that some of the figures available were heroic-enough looking to warrant a game focused around them. For example, ranges and movement rates were given in "inches" to be used for tabletop play.

So yes, I've always played D&D properly, with miniatures. That's every version starting with white box D&D up through the current 4th edition.

I've gamed with groups that don't use miniatures for different RPGs (including some versions of D&D). Invariable some or all of these things happens:
– Somebody says "miniatures make it too tactical, as if it was a wargame; we're focused on roleplaying".
– At critical points in the game like combats, players argue with other players or with the GM about where each other's characters are in relation to monsters. This chews up game time and sometimes generates bad feeling.
– Players use substitutes for miniatures: line map drawings with Xs and Os and arrows as if they were writing football plays; dice "you're the D4, I'm the D8, and the giant spiders are the D12 and D20, see how they can web you and not me?"; cardboard counters slid around on a grid = poor man's miniatures.
– Years later the same players finally game with real miniatures and admit some variant of "I have no idea what we thought we were doing without miniatures before".

I used to play D&D with a mixture of figures and counters on a grid to regulate combat.

Never used figures for Tunnels & Trolls, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu or Traveller, although we did play a big Striker game using counters once.

Depends what sort of games you are playing really, and figures are just more stuff to carry around.

Always..

Always … starting with the white boxed set.

We never played D&D with miniatures after the advent of AD&D, I quit playing 20 years ago and haven't looked back or played with miniatures unless it was a TTG where you needed miniatures. The new D&D looks like it might be fun, but I've yet to see anyone I game with invest in it and ask me to play.

Yep, we started with the fake woodgrain box, back in
'74, and used Airfix (Robin Hood) until we could come up
with some 'real' fantasy figures…

One day the cabinet of miniatures above my desk will fall and kill me.

Um, not to be morbid or anything, but when that day comes, what's your plan for those minis. I might know someone who could give them a good home. I mean, since you won't be needing them any more…

I'd say our group uses minis for about 90% of our games – and 100% of the time when we played D&D 3e (note the the past tense usage). But they only come out when absolutely necessary to show positions in complex combats. And we hardly ever use them for horror RPG's.

My friends and I are of the same mindset, which is that using minis in an RPG is a total mood killer. (Not a big deal in most fantasy or sci-fi games, but we find that it really detracts from the atmosphere of a good horror game.)

YMMV

Zen

We've used minis since the old white box DnD. The only games that we haven't always used minis for is Call of Cthulhu & Pendragon. Mainly the minis are used for party order, etc

Always.

Of course, since you've asked the question on the Miniatures page, the responses you are hearing are probably not statistically reliable for RPGers as a whole…

As a referee/dungeon master/warlord/game master/et al for many years I use miniatures for the characters if not the monsters too. The real use of them are to provide visual placement for combat, ambush, traps, ect. Plus, I just enjoy painting the things. Without them the game can devolve into an arguement over who was where, when what happened. If the preceeding sentence doesn't make any sense to you…you have yet to see how many things can set off an arguement during combat in an rpg.

M-

For games I am running it depends on the venue, and the time/day it is being run.

Soooo… the games that take place at Viv's house, where her toddler will grab and attempt to eat any small, brightly coloured things like miniatures – no way am I taking any of my figures there. Dice and character sheets have to be regularly prised out of the kid's mouth. Some plastic counters that I don't mind being chewed are used instead of miniatures. (Still a choking hazard, but at least not one I've spent hours painting).

The pub game immediately after work… it is too much hassle to carry minis in to work, given that I'm already lugging all the other gaming stuff and everything I need for work that day.

At the Sunday gaming club – yes. It has large tables suitable for battlemats and minis, and I can get 90% of the way there by bus, so it doesn't matter how much stuff I have to carry.

Occasionally.

Their usage is kept to a minimum, usually just for combat, and even then just to get a visual representation of position.

Rulers, measuring tapes, gridded squares etc are banned for in order to avoid turning it into a skirmish wargame.

Zardoz

Just to add further… From my experience at independent RPG conventions in the UK, and our club, the majority of RPG'ers DON'T use miniatures. The exception is the D&D crowd where the majority DO use miniatures. (But then we get into the argy about whether D&D is a skirmish wargame or an RPG)

Zardoz.

I can't even create an RPG character unless I have a cool miniature first!!

My group always uses minis for combat, but doesn't necessarily use them for a heavy-RP night. We play D&D and some Alternity if we're in the mood for scifi.

My old Exalted group didn't use minis, even though we were all mini-gamers, though.

4e D&D is a small-scale skirmish system with roleplaying elements added, I don't care what you say otherwise. Alternity can be used for a space-combat game. Exalted is a roleplaying system first, and the combat is too fast-paced and fast-moving for minis.

We use miniatures for D&D, mostly for a lot of the reasons listed above. We game with a lot of distractions (kids, etc.) so being able to lose track and then come back easily was a big plus.

"4e D&D is a small-scale skirmish system with roleplaying elements added, I don't care what you say otherwise."

Yeah, I keep trying to roleplay when I play D&D, but the books administer electric shocks if anyone attempts it. If you try too hard, ninjas appear and steal your D&D books, telling you to "go LARP somewhere else, dweeb," and then disappear.

"Exalted is a roleplaying system first, and the combat is too fast-paced and fast-moving for minis."

I guess Reaper's licensed Exalted minis were a figment of my imagination then.

Like it or lump it, some tabletop RP systems are geared towards the 'figures and skirmish wargame' end of the RPG hobby, others are more rules 'lite' and lean towards the 'role play / LARP' side of RPG'ing. D&D is firmly in the former.

Obviously it's the GM who makes or breaks a game, but systems do intrude and affect play. When I'm RP'ing an encounter the last thing I want to hear is a GM say "Make a skill check" or "you can only move your figure 4 squares in a round" !! I would rather the result be judged on reasonable reactions rather than a dice roll or how far a fgure moves.

From my experience D&D GM's rely more heavily on dice roll results and figure placement, than say a Call of Cthulhu GM. Hence I tend to avoid D&D and figure heavy games.

Zardoz.

Zardoz

I'm actually more of a RPG mini-painter than a wargaming mini-painter. I'ved recently surprised the players of our Gamma World campaign with individualized minis, lovingly converted, or even sculpted whole-cloth to suit the particular mutations and equipment.

I point out that GURPS also has miniature placement rules, for those inclined to use them. The combat mechanism has varying levels of granularity, which makes that section of the rules look hideously over-complicated until one realizes you can just say "Ok, the orc is twenty feet away from you." "I whack him with my longsword."

Also by Steve Jackson Games (I'm starting to sound like a shill, now..) is the lovely Cardboard Heroes line. Encompassing Modern superheros or Fantasy PCs and creatures, they are a *cheap* way of having *LOTS* of high-quality miniatures on the table. Simply cut out your figures, using the built-in standee system, and have at. One fellow in our gaming club has a couple mid-sized fishing lure boxes with the characters cut out already, though he uses the little red plastic 'feet' common in board game figures. For those not inclined to cut up the books, or wanting say, fifty skeletons with spears, you can always photocopy them onto cardstock and play that way.

Hexxenhammer, why do you think the figures didn't sell? They look cool (I've got a few), but there wasn't a need for them in the game (Uh, I jump HOW far? 20 yards? Vertically? SWEET!).

Ive been down this avenue of discussion before, but here goes.

If you like tabletop miniatures gaming, sure – use miniatures in your RPG, because you instantly morph your roleplaying experience into a table top tactical wargame.

Now if your into roleplaying, leave the damned miniatures out of it and enjoy the emersion.

Im not saying the two dont mix, they do for lots of people but I am saying the mixture has a profound effect on the nature of what you are playing. Be prepared for the shift.

Minis are needed to avoid arguing in combat positioning and other action scenes. When I played GURPS in my younger years we used hand-made paper miniatures because cheap fantasy plastics weren't available. After D&D mniniatures came out, I bought hundreds of commons on the secondary market and we happily use that on improvised/paper terrain /battlemaps.

My players were initially miniature-resistant (some of them never played my skirmish system) but now I see a shift in their gaming habits. I am playing now the RPG version of my Skirmish system Song of Blades and Heroes and they are happy using measuring sticks on the tabletop for distances, it makes the GM's job so much easier.

We do have a "kid grabbing up stuff" problem too but that can be solved with paper minis, cheap plastic minis or giving the kid something else to play with, like a toy dragon. ut there's no way we can go back to not using minis in action scenes, it's a headache otherwise.

ganeshagames.blogspot.com

Most of the time we don't use them. However. they do come in handy in those stlcky situations! While I enjoy painting hlstorical minis, the D&D minis are pretty good. They will be even more useful with the new semi-collectible marketing scheme.

Ganesha – I disagree that they are needed to "avoid arguing about combat positioning". In most of the RPG games I've played, combat positioning (beyond the "I'm behind him / 500m away from him") is largely irrlelevent. We tend to use a descriptive / cinematic style of combat resolution and use the descriptions to determine any dice roll mods.

Having said that, some of the GM's in our group do occasionally use figs in combat encounters, but we have a golden rule… NO measuring at all and NO counting of squares / hexes or trying to the the RULES to get the best shot / hit. However, using the layout of figs / cinematic description to get the best shot / hit is permitted.

Zardoz.

I disagree that they are needed to "avoid arguing about combat positioning". In most of the RPG games I've played, combat positioning (beyond the "I'm behind him / 500m away from him") is largely irrlelevent. We tend to use a descriptive / cinematic style of combat resolution and use the descriptions to determine any dice roll mods.

The Powers of Description possessed by the DM are all important. I've listened to a couple sessions in which no map or miniatures were used and the DM was unable to convey the scene properly.

Every turn by a player involved more corrections by the DM, and to an outsider it was obvious he'd wanted the fights to go a particular way and was being "cheated" of it by the incrdible mobility of several PCs. So he kept "correcting" and adjusting. The game didn't last long…

We sometimes put a few mini's on a sketched out map to make it easier to figure out whats going on in a big firefight.

Never do anything like measuring inches or squares on a grid though

We always use em' as well as game markers also.