Using miniatures in RPGs (rather than wargames)

[Nordic1980s]

I'd be interested to know what you all think

The gold standard for roleplaying aesthetics is shown in the classic 1982 film Mazes and Monsters. That's how it's done and I have spent many days perusing the eBay, looking in vain for that exact gaming board seen in the film. More about the props can be seen here, here, here and here.

Indoors we like to have real swords hanging from the walls, replica skulls and genuine occult books on the bookshelf, complete with mild incense and appropriate epiphany of candles to set the scene. In summertimes or when visiting a summerhouse, the game can be played in warm daylight, in beautiful nature's immediate vicinity. Miniature figurines are there to follow the flow of the game, but are not centerpieces of the attention anymore than let's say chessmen as such are to a game of chess. As long as the models depict more or less the role characters they ought to represent, it matters less what exact size and type the models are.

(Some weeks ago I met a young woman who showed around her collection of BJD dolls.  What caught my attention was when she mentioned having modelled her fantasy alter egos from roleplaying games as such dolls. It was not a cheap endeavour, but I must say it was a fresh or even cute take on the issue.)

Few times the referee wanted to be artistic and had prepared beforehand a whole table for miniature action. This kind of games have been aesthetically very pleasing and also offer more wargame like experience. Which we felt was a nice variation. Examples of such make-belief adventures included thwarting a pirate raid complete with modelled sand beaches, glimmering water, barbarian raiders and model ships (like this, but less ambitiously done). Another case was a night-time journey, with darkened room and a long table to allow for rolling movement amongst the flickering lights coming from windows of the model houses. In the latter the game referee placed the model scenery and antagonists only upon the characters arriving into their vicinity. This offered a genuine fog of war experience to players, where stopping the walk to listen could make a difference. For example, the miniature scale characters could stumble on an old graveyard, something that could happen also in reality when walking outside in pitch black darkness.

Instead of contemplating to model the scenery or the vast amounts of passerby characters in miniature scale, a referee would be wise to make beautiful maps, draw character sketches or even model descriptive items and character busts out of such easy and quick modelling materials as modelling clay. Such large scale things set the scene wonderfully better than tiny toy soldiers. If the day's adventure is to be had in some specific set scene, let's say a small pirate island or an underground tomb, in that case I can see how every scenery piece and character could be modelled without spending tens of hours and hundreds of dollars in the crafting process. (There should be a healthy ratio between preparation and gameplay, more about it here and here.)

As for miniature games, I personally got acquainted with them via the magnificent Heroquest in 1990, acquiring the first metal Citadel miniature models for use in that game. When I later found out about 40K et al in the later half of 1990s, the scene was rather tournament oriented and gameplay more akin to game of chess with little emphasis on evocative scene for each game. Which was totally unlike Heroquest where the missions had very specific feel and theme to them, despite the same gaming board used as basis of each game. When a friend loaned the then out of print Realm of Chaos books it kind of blew my mind, showing a radically different and more freewheeling way of doing things than what was the official model back then. I feel this djinn of freedom could not be anymore forced back into a bottle. As in Cyberpunk, attitude would come first and constraints of the rules, army lists and such would take a definite backseat. Like, who cares about some rulebooks when you have faith of Emperor in your heart and renegades in your bolter sights?

[Daeothar]

Nordic; when you refer to handouts, do you mean something like this?

RPG campaign with loads of handouts

And campaign specific terrain:

Road pieces for the same RPG campaign

Both mine, but as long as we're showcasing here...