Miniatures – do you use them?

Almost every role-playing group has used miniatures, or minis, in one form or another. Sometimes they’re the lead figures most are familiar with, other times they’re plastic, or maybe even a piece of card stock paper with your character’s name on it, but in all cases they do the same thing – represent where you are on the battlefield.

One of the many mailing lists I belong to, GM Mastery, brought up this very topic and it struck a nerve with many.

So my question to you, does your role-playing group use minis?

In the case of my current group, in our current campaign, we are not using minis or even a battle-mat. This is a major departure for us and taking some getting use to. Without the extra visuals we are forced to pay more attention to what is going on and there is a greater reliance on the GM for battle information.

Some groups thrive on this and it definitely lends itself to a more cinematic experience. The trick is that the GM must run any encounter or combat in that manner – lots of description. It is important to keep in mind that the description provided needs to include those elements that are usually taken care of by the visuals that you no longer have – how far away are those archers? Are the players (or their opponents) in flanking positions? Who has cover?

Suddenly the GM has a lot more to keep track of and if they can keep up you’ve got yourself a great game, but if they can’t the players may feel detached from the game.

In the case of using minis you of course have two choices, with and without a battle mat and until recent change by my group we always used some type of mini and a battle mat.

The advantages of using minis is primarily that you know where everyone is. Not sure how far away someone is, you can determine it by either counting the squares on the battle mat or measuring the distance between the figures. Want to know whose going to be caught in the area of effect for a spell or that grenade explosion – easy enough, just mark or measure it out.

The drawback of minis is also on of their strengths – tactical planning and movement.

I’ve seen it in many groups where players will take more than a few minutes to determine how their character will move through a battle field so they can avoid those dreaded attacks of opportunity or set themselves up for melee bonuses. For some groups this tactical thinking is the accepted norm but for others they see it as a distraction to the game – it makes it more like a wargame than a role-playing game (of course that’s where our hobby originated but that’s another post) and can cause combats to be dragged out.

For me, the jury is still out on whether or not to use miniatures. Maybe I’m old fashion but I like having them on the table. I’m curious though as to how things progress without using them in our group and would also like to experiment with using them but with out the battle mat.

So what does your group do? Do you use miniatures or not? Do you use a battle mat?

Please take a minute or two and post your thoughts and experiences.

May your dice roll well.