Using miniatures in RPGs (rather than wargames)

[Hobgoblin]

I wrote a blog post about using miniatures in RPGs. Though I do it a lot these days, it wasn't something we did much of when we were kids; we had miniatures by the bucket-load, but those were chiefly for Warhammer. But it's clearly a much bigger thing now, to the extent that I found most accounts of contemporary D&D surprising - "the grid" and all that.

Warhammer actually - and increasingly - militated against using miniatures in RPGs, because as the game started producing official army lists, there was less room to squeeze in your hellhound or giant lizard or bugbear. So painting time tended to be taken up with yet more orcs (or whatever one's primary Warhammer army was).

I'd be interested to know what you all think - and whether you're more or less inclined to use miniatures in RPGs than you were in the past.

[Revfan]

Interesting... curious how old you are though.... and no offense meant.

I am halfway through 50... and "back in the day" circa 79-85ish we'd use miniatures all the time with our D&D gaming.  Also pull out a plastic set of dime store cowboys and Indians for use with Boot Hill.

After a long hiatus (my 12 year old son found my trunk full of 70s/80s rpgs) I started getting back into RPGs using the many of the same miniatures I had when I was my son's age.

My painting still sucks, but here is a thread I started a while back of (re)Painting some of the old school gold box sets.
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=81989.0

**PS**
Just checked out your blog... Looks very interesting!!!! I have bookmarked it to go back and spend some more time poking around!

[Hobby Services]

I'm pretty much on the same page as Revfan here - similar age and similar widespread usage of minis in my youthful RPG days.  Hobgoblin's probably younger than we are, since playing Warhammer wasn't even an option prior to my college years.  That era was the end of the AD&D run and the start of D&D second edition, and while my minis use in that stretch was lower than most, it sure wasn't zero - and I was steadily buying figs for other games at that point, like Call of Cthulhu and V&V/Champions.

And when D&D 3.0/d20 came along, minis usage boomed.  You can trace the ripple effect of an edition that actively encouraged gridded map-and-mini use by the way minis manufacturers sprouted.  Just look at how much Reaper grew in the 2000-2005 years.  3.5, 4E and Pathfinder didn't hurt that any either. 

[Hobgoblin]

No offence taken! I'm just over half a decade behind you, so my 'first phase' was roughly 1981 to 1991. We all started quite early: Citadel miniatures, Steve Jackson microgames, Fighting Fantasy and Dungeon/Mystic Wood were big at my primary school)

I've been enjoying your thread. I had a lot of Grenadier stuff, though none of those boxed sets. I bought a lot of Fantasy Lords blisters, though.

That's interesting. I wonder if it was because we played a lot of non-D&D stuff (RuneQuest and Dragon Warriors were the big ones for me, along with a homebrewed game). Although we had a few RQ miniatures (plenty of broo!), we just didn't have the variety needed for most games. And the DW book scenarios were so specific and fast-moving that we never used miniatures for them. When we did use miniatures, it was often just marching order and the like - nothing that looked like a boardgame or wargame, even though we all did quite a bit of wargaming (largely Warhammer).

[Hobgoblin]

I'm pretty much on the same page as Revfan here - similar age and similar widespread usage of minis in my youthful RPG days.  Hobgoblin's probably younger than we are, since playing Warhammer wasn't even an option prior to my college years.

Yes - Warhammer started (in a very small way) at primary school for me.

And when D&D 3.0/d20 came along, minis usage boomed.  You can trace the ripple effect of an edition that actively encouraged gridded map-and-mini use by the way minis manufacturers sprouted.  Just look at how much Reaper grew in the 2000-2005 years.  3.5, 4E and Pathfinder didn't hurt that any either.

That's interesting - it's the bit I completely missed out on. I can recall borrowing a friend's second-edition AD&D Monster Manual (the ring-binder one), but I never played that version or any subsequent one. And yes - Reaper's rise entirely breaks the pattern I remember of miniatures companies becoming much more focused on wargames and much less on RPGs.

[Brandlin]

50 here. spent the 80's playing AD&D Rolemaster, MERP, Traveller and a huge number of other games.

We didnt use a single figure, other than i think 15mm for traveller - and that was because it seemed to make sense with the ship plans scaled up.

The problem I have with using miniatures to the extent that modern RPs do is you end up playing the game mechanics of the movement and combat systems and not actually roleplaying. And most games tend towards dungeon crawl type games.  Most of my most memorable roleplaying events have had nothing to do with dice rolls or combat and were much more compelling story telling.

[Hobgoblin]

50 here. spent the 80's playing AD&D Rolemaster, MERP, Traveller and a huge number of other games.

We didnt use a single figure, other than i think 15mm for traveller - and that was because it seemed to make sense with the ship plans scaled up.

That's close to my 80s memories: we played MERP a wee bit, but never with miniatures. (I remember little about it but seemingly endless character generation!)

The problem I have with using miniatures to the extent that modern RPs do is you end up playing the game mechanics of the movement and combat systems and not actually roleplaying. And most games tend towards dungeon crawl type games.  Most of my most memorable roleplaying events have had nothing to do with dice rolls or combat and were much more compelling story telling.

Yes, a lot of mine are like that: the huge vault in which a necromancer was constructing a skeleton army; the slowly animating carcass of a landwhale; and negotiations with the goddess of the underworld in Hell.

On the other hand, though, the miniatures-based stuff I outlined on the blog (the worm and the pudding gallery) were pretty memorable too - though they were predominantly about tactics and surprises.

[Elk101]

We quite often used figures for our Warhammer FRP games, particularly the dungeon crawls. We also had some Shadowrun figures and occasionally used them. It tended to be games where we needed to show the order of group, etc to see who got hit by the trap!

[Inkpaduta]

Tad younger, I am 60. I never got into D and D but I do remember guys playing it in college. They did not use figures.

[Hobgoblin]

I have seen it suggested - I forget where - that the whole "playable with ... miniature figurines" thing was a bit of a ruse to try to sell Chainmail on the back of D&D, and that the original Gygax and Arneson campaigns didn't involve miniatures much or at all. Against that, of course, we have the genesis of the owlbear, the rust monster and the land shark, all of which were "Chinasaur" toys.

Elk101 - that marching-order stuff is as much as I remember us doing, with a very few exceptions. I don't think we ever had any real sense of a defined tabletop environment, as you'd have for a wargame.

[Mister Frau Blucher]

I was 12 in 1978, and had been throwing little bits of plastic at my lines of Airfix figures. Then I got an issue of Wargamers' Digest, and was stunned that there were rules and extensive military organizations and even campaigns. Avalon Hill/SPI followed, and later in the year I found fantasy gaming with D&D and Metagaming's Melee/Wizard and lead figures (which I couldn't afford, but would gaze longingly at in the hobby store and the pages of WD).

For D&D, it was mostly theater of the mind, but for Melee and The Fantasy Trip, we always used miniatures - plastic Airfix Romans/Britons and then proper Heritage and Grenadier and Martian Metals, and the best - Ral Partha.

I've read on various old school forums that Gygax rarely used minis in Grayhawk, but Arneson usually did in his Blackmoor campaign. I'll try to track down some specific references. 

[lethallee61]

I'm now 57. I started playing back in 1977. None of us have ever used a single miniature in any RPG we've played.

Everything has been done with pen and paper and in our heads. That's why we loved it so much - the imagination is far greater than anything we can put on a table.

All of my miniature collections have been purely wargaming related.

[warlord frod]

I'm 66 and the early days of RP gaming (D&D White box edition) were all theater of the mind and no miniatures. today, however, our D&D group uses miniatures extensively. Of course, it is most likely the result of years of miniature collecting and having the time at our age to build the 3d dungeons. 

WIN_20170908_13_19_56_Pro_LI (2) by John Grusendorf, on Flickr

WIN_20171013_12_39_17_Pro_LI by John Grusendorf, on Flickr

[Pendrake]

I was never opposed to using figures for D&D.  Was not blessed with very many in the early days.

We sometimes resorted to Chessmen. Those plastic black pawns served as mooks of many sorts: Goblins, Kobolds, Bullywugs, Xvarts, Orcs, Bandits, Mongrels, Wargs, Wolves, Gremlins...

...everything except gnoblars really.

[Emir of Askaristan]

I'm mid 40's and starting off my gaming in 1984 when I was 11.  I bought plenty miniatures and used them initially on home drawn dungeon maps, then with Dungeon Floor Plans (and Nightmare in Blackmarsh). This was the time first edition WH was out and so the figures gradually built up into armies for that. They were mostly citadel preslotta base figures - costing about 40p-60p at the time

We didn't really bother with figs for (redbox) basic D&D, 2nd ed AD&D, GW Ed Merp or WHFRP, all of which we played a lot, even for showing marching order. My first miniatures dungeon game was Adanced Heroquest, which only got a few outings. No idea what happened to the tiles, but some figures are up in my loft! After that I got into Wargaming, which I had wanted to for a long time and the rest is history....so to speak!