Quote from: Razor 007;1071120If you use Miniatures, how significant of a financial commitment have you made to Miniatures, Terrain, etc.?

Over my entire life, I bet I have bought $1000 of miniature monsters and adventurers because I think they're super cool, but have found that I rarely if ever use them. Someday, I keep telling myself. Someday.

I use TotM, but often players really, really want a battlemat and minis, which is fine as long as they supply them and draw out everything on the battlemat from my paper maps.

Now if I had players that insisted that I supply any of the physical supplies necessary to accommodate minis play, well they can go find a new DM. I'm sorry but the DM spending minutes/hours with wet erase markers, dungeon tiles, dwarven forge, whatever is usually just a giant waste of time that could be used actually playing the game.

My biggest issue is that, when the minis come out, I play like a mini wargamer. This is particularly problematic if I'm DMing, as I tend to be a pretty cutthroat wargamer.

You can use Miniatures without a Grid or Map.  I like to use them to illustrate positioning, and distance in general.

2 Wolves are attacking Billy.  A Dire Wolf is circling Bob, and is in between Billy and Bob at the moment, etc.

Quote from: Chainsaw;1071163Over my entire life, I bet I have bought $1000 of miniature monsters and adventurers because I think they're super cool, but have found that I rarely if ever use them. Someday, I keep telling myself. Someday.

Same.  I love using them, but don't have time to paint them, or desire to haul them around to games.

I will say that minis and teaching kids how to play go really well together.  The visual aspect helps them put it all together.

Quote from: Razor 007;1071120Do you use Miniatures, or do you use TotM?

No minis. Never.

I ran D&D 4th mostly as TotM, which should tell you which way I tend to favor.

I've generally terrible with any kind of tiny crafting (e.g. painting miniatures).  I've also run a lot of games without a convenient table.  So I tend to run any game such that miniatures are not necessary--even if I need to change the rules some to make that work.

That said, I'll use Lego miniatures, cardboard minis, tokens, etc. from time to time, when it helps with understanding.  I don't always use them according to the rules of the game.  I might simply have the players use them to show rough, relative positioning.  For example, in our 3E days, we were generally sticklers for people being consistent about what was in their hands when the trouble landed.  So whatever your Lego figure had in its hands, was what the character had.  I've also handled that exact same requirement (in a heavily house-ruled, mostly Hero System game) where an item was on an index card, and were put on a particular place on the character sheet.  We didn't exactly care about positioning, but we did care about people swapping equipment all the time.  Now that doesn't bother us.  So we tend to leave the Lego figures in the box.  

More often, but still rare, the battle is just complex enough to need that rough understanding, but not necessary to play out according to the strict rules for movement.  Plop the miniatures down on the table to show generally how things stand.  If the player "runs over there", move the mini.  Otherwise, leave them in place.  That kind of thing.

Very rarely do I make something specific JUST for an RPG - I'll make shit for other miniatures games, and if it's appropriate for other usage then it gets drafted.  If it's not appropriate, it'll probably get drafted anyway.  Many a cleric has been represented by a space marine.

I'm a big fan of a gridded vinyl play mat so I can draw out the battlefield and write profanities and then wipe it off when we're done.

For Dnd 5e, minis, well, when there's a combat anyway.

For everything else, less so.

I almost always use miniatures and hand drawn terrain.
I don't even know what TotM means?

Quote from: DocJones;1071240I almost always use miniatures and hand drawn terrain.
I don't even know what TotM means?

Theater of the Mind.

Quote from: Razor 007;1071241Theater of the Mind.

Interesting.  I've been playing with miniatures since the 1960's, if you count the plastic army guy sets, cowboy and indian sets, knights, and dinosaurs I had.
But at that age 5 or 6, the rules of play (if any) were the theater of the mind.  ;-)

I really don't want to know how much I've spent on minis over the years, I have bought hundreds, probably in the low thousands of minis.


I like using minis, and even if not using them for tactical combat they are still useful for showing party order, or who is close together when searching an area etc.

I also enjoy painting them so an extra side hobby.

Not a fan of minis, though I appreciate the artistry that goes into them.

Quote from: Thornhammer;1071195I'm a big fan of a gridded vinyl play mat so I can draw out the battlefield and write profanities and then wipe it off when we're done.

Same here. The profanity element is extremely important for our games.:-)