Well, do you? In my own group, we don't use such things as we consider them pointless. In the worst case, if things get complicated during a battle, the DM will make a drawing of the battle scene with every character's initial position and movements. Besides, we don't want to give more money to those BaStards from WotC...

If you use miniatures, its easy to fall into a boardgame way of thinking and killing the RPG feeling.

 

 

But sometimes you feel like it would be a great idea in soke situations:

 

Player:

 

-I try to sneak closer.

 

GM:

 

-He turns around and stabs you in the face.

 

Player:

 

-WTF?! I was 25 meters away and around the corner!!

 

GM:

 

-I never heard you saying anything about that.

 

Player:

 

-Well, maybe if you pulled your head out of your arse and listened for once in a while!!

 

 

..and so forth and so on.

Well, yes and no...

 

We used to use them a lot more than a decade ago, both to represent combat and to help as a visual aid for our imaginations for our characters.

 

However, for the last several years, we've only used them occassionally, and then only because we have them.

 

In most gaming session we never use them. After all, we might as well since we have them, but we scarcely have a need for it. As GM I frequently find it too time-consuming in an already lengthy combat situation to also have to move little figures around, especially if there is a large number of enemies, who will swarm the PCs in any event...

Yes. I normally don't use store-bought miniatures, though. I print out little cards that I fold and stand up or I use small colored markers.

Two words: Lego Minifigures.

No we almost never used miniatures (haven't managed to get a PnP session together in around 4 years), if the players have a hard time picturing the outline of an area we just draw it on a peice of paper and mark of where everyone is standing atm.

Everything else is simply imagine and wing it... usualy works well enough and is alot faster then moving small lumps of lead around ;-)

I only use them in battles where the creatures the party faces has area-effect abilites. For instance, I'd use them in a battle with a medusa to determine who is in the line of sight.

 

We use proper miniatures, because I inherited my Dad's old gaming stuff which had a bunch of metal miniatures and floor plans, and because several of my players used to be big warhammer fans.

Never had any miniature models .. only in those old RPG board games .. used to play HeroQuest when I was younger! :D

Ya HeroQuest, when I was younger............

Two words:  Lego Minifigures.

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I like the sound of that. Miniatures always lacked something to my mind ... but Lego! What a great idea -- I never had problems envisioning lego to do anything.

Due to the lack of (sane) roleplayers in my area, I play almost exclusively online games. As such, I have become accustomed to using programs when maps or avatars are necessary.

I use miniatures for the party and NPCs. I use dice for the baddies in battle. That makes it a lot easier as I just use the number on the die to correspond to the number on the badguy. It really only gets to be a problem if there are more than twelve foes.

I use miniatures for the party and NPCs.  I use dice for the baddies in battle.  That makes it a lot easier as I just use the number on the die to correspond to the number on the badguy.  It really only gets to be a problem if there are more than twelve foes.

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Don't you have a twenty-sided die?

I do, but I don't want to invest in enough 20 sided die for both using as markers and rolling. However, I probably should, since they're so cheap. The party rarely faces over twelve of anything, though.

What kind of party is that, The Accountants Expeditionary Force ?

 

What happened to the good old days when heroes faced endless hordes of enemies and still prevailed

 

I don't really play P&P, only tabletop wargames (Warhammer). Now thats something where you use lots of miniatures (sometimes 100+) :wub:"

Well, it's true that you use more miniatures when you play a miniatures game! :Eldar'sshakinghisheadwithawrysmileicon:

 

I've always wanted to play a game of warhammer, but I haven't had the chance. I have played Mordheim, which was fun. It's hard enough getting DnD games going, though, without trying to branch into miniatures.

I've only used minis with D&D. The game is so specific on ranges, line of site, etc. that it makes game far simpler to arbitrate.

 

For any other game, players seem content to allow me to say you can or can not do something.

The first PnP game that I played just used a basic map drawn on graph paper and it was easy enough to picture where each of us was on the map. The second game I played used a bunch of random minatures for the PCs and tokens for the monsters, although the main enemies were the other PC's. Gotta love Paranoia. "

 

Other than that most games I've played online have used a map that was updated turn by turn, depending on the size of the encounter. I'm currently in a game that doesn't use a map of any sort except for the one the DM has in front of his computer and it's a little difficult to understand who is where. Especially when there are 28 gnolls closing in on us.

I bought packs of monster tokens. There are little cutouts with pictures for the monsters. I have about 20 or so figs for players, and that's about it.

I don't know if anyone remembers that old Milton Bradley boargame "Heroquest".. But we would use those as miniatures.. Works really well too and much cheaper than the metallic ones.

I dug HeroQuest, but Talisman was so much better.

 

Now an old battered copy of Talisman goes for $100 on EBay. Bastards.