Quote from: BedrockBrendan;520116Interesting range of responses. I am seeing four camps so far:

1) miniatures disrupt immersion
2) miniatures assist immersion
3) miniatures don't disrupt immersion
4) miniatures dont dsrupt immersion except when combined with things like indepth tactical mechanics

Yeah it's crazy. It's almost as if immersion is highly personal and subjective and trying to use it to divide RPGs into various camps is an exercise in futility.

Quote from: jeff37923;520117I have not always liked minis and have only grown fond of them with the advent of prepainted minis, because I am a terrible painter.

Yeah. There is that too.

Pre-painted minis were just what I needed.

Candy and beer-caps is where it's at.  If your friends like those Smirnoff coolers, the different colors come in handy, too, and the bright colors are easy to distinguish when on the table.  It's easy to glue them together to make larger bases, and they hold well since they're light.

Oh, on that note, and to bring it back to the topic at hand, I find that the more detailed the visual aids, the more my mental image is messed up, because the detail in the aid may conflict with my own mental image of the imaginary stuff.  This is regardless of the type of immersion, too, so even when I'm GMing or I'm playing a more narrative oriented game, it just bugs me.  Using minis/visual stuff at all kicks me out to a different stance, but detail just messes with the imagery altogether.

Anyone ever use donut holes as monster minis and then whichever Player killed the monster gets to eat the donut hole?

(Yes. It was a fun one-shot.   )

Sound yummy!

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;520054This topic came up on the 2 GMs, One Mic news thread and starting it here so we don't derail it.

Basically I have always found miniatures disruptive to immersion. I just get hung up on those little pieces at the table and my imagination simply goes on autopilot or something. This isn't something I believe everyone has a problem with, I lots of gamers who find miniatures help them get into the game. For me they shift my mind just enough that it becomes a barrier.

Miniatures/tokens/coins/chits are the devil. They are the source of all evil.

They are not allowed at my table.

Ever.

Immersion killer. Big time.

They snuck in during the 3.0 era, under one of the DMs in my group. I started to wonder why I was hating D&D so much. Then, it came to me -- it's the grid and the coins.

Quit that group.

Never again.

The reason D&D became big was precisely that it was NOT a wargame with miniatures or another boardgame with pieces, but rather that it was a game that took place inside your imagination. (Read the cover of the original Red Box).

5e needs to reclaim this in order to have any sort of success.

The most recent Red Box was just another boardgame.

Make a new Red Box like the original Red Box -- NO BLOODY MAPS AND MINIATURES/POGS/TOKENS. NONE! CAPICHE?!

IN YOUR IMAGINATION. GET IT?

Quote from: jeff37923;520123Anyone ever use donut holes as monster minis and then whichever Player killed the monster gets to eat the donut hole?

(Yes. It was a fun one-shot.   )

One-shot...shot...ohhh.

It may be an absolutely terrible idea, but shot glasses instead of minis could be fun.  Or horrible.  This may require testing!

In answer to the subject line's question, I find miniatures and other visible representations improve immersion.  They remove a lot of ambiguities about an area's description and therefore allow easier visualization.  I always keep a couple of Gundam action figures and toy aircraft at the game table so maneuvers and relative positions can be demonstrated.  In that way, everyone is on the same page and visualizing the same scene.  I find an erasable battlemat nearly indispensible to simply draw complex rooms and spatial relations rather than struggle for an extended period of time trying to explain the setting.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;520054Basically I have always found miniatures disruptive to immersion. I just get hung up on those little pieces at the table and my imagination simply goes on autopilot or something. This isn't something I believe everyone has a problem with, I lots of gamers who find miniatures help them get into the game. For me they shift my mind just enough that it becomes a barrier.

The problem I have is with inappropriate miniatures.  I'd rather simply use counters or dice (which is what my group has generally done) than have a skeleton miniature representing an orc or a PC being represented by a miniature that looks nothing like the character.  The big problem there is the dissonance between what I'm seeing on the table and what I'm imagining.

Quote from: 1989;520127Miniatures/tokens/coins/chits are the devil. They are the source of all evil.

They are not allowed at my table.

Ever.

Immersion killer. Big time.

They snuck in during the 3.0 era, under one of the DMs in my group. I started to wonder why I was hating D&D so much. Then, it came to me -- it's the grid and the coins.

Quit that group.

Never again.

The reason D&D became big was precisely that it was NOT a wargame with miniatures or another boardgame with pieces, but rather that it was a game that took place inside your imagination. (Read the cover of the original Red Box).

5e needs to reclaim this in order to have any sort of success.

The most recent Red Box was just another boardgame.

Make a new Red Box like the original Red Box -- NO BLOODY MAPS AND MINIATURES/POGS/TOKENS. NONE! CAPICHE?!

IN YOUR IMAGINATION. GET IT?

I have lots of minis. Shit I spent a fair chunk of my student grant on them one year. But that was because were were doing a lot of battlesystems stuff.
When we use them for rping they just get left in a marching order in the middle of the table and we all forget about them.

When I run a fight my dice box has a bunch of game pieces from warrior knights (just little stand up shields with stickers on) and we use those if we need to and a bit of paper with the layout drawn on. And we only do that because I am famous for forgetting the doors

So I am agnostic. However, at cons where I always try to play in savage saturday night with the pinicle guys some of their mini set ups like the giant 4 level pyramid are awesomely cool and make me want to play their games although I find SSN is more combat and beer and not so much rping
I am thinking about offering to run a savage strontium dog game at gen con using the mod I knocked up but the faff of carrying a load of game props to the US puts me off, whereas for an amber game I can run it without even the rule books just a character sheet for each PC.

Quote from: 1989;520127Miniatures/tokens/coins/chits are the devil. They are the source of all evil.

They are not allowed at my table.

Ever.

Immersion killer. Big time.

They snuck in during the 3.0 era, under one of the DMs in my group. I started to wonder why I was hating D&D so much. Then, it came to me -- it's the grid and the coins.

Quit that group.

Never again.

The reason D&D became big was precisely that it was NOT a wargame with miniatures or another boardgame with pieces, but rather that it was a game that took place inside your imagination. (Read the cover of the original Red Box).

5e needs to reclaim this in order to have any sort of success.

The most recent Red Box was just another boardgame.

Make a new Red Box like the original Red Box -- NO BLOODY MAPS AND MINIATURES/POGS/TOKENS. NONE! CAPICHE?!

IN YOUR IMAGINATION. GET IT?

Lame...   ROFL...:rotfl:

Nah, I dig minis. Used to HATE them for YEARS...but I find that it seems to help most of the folks I play with do more than "I'm trying to hit that guy" *roll dice*...and since most of the gaming I have done lately is trying to teach my son RPGs, I find that he responds to some kind of tactile element like minis way more than he does when we play without.

Eh.  Either way.  I use'em, but mainly for marching order, or the odd combat where ranges are important.  Or not, we don't need'em if they're not there.  (I should point out that I ran 3e just fine without minis for most of the combats - if it's not a super-involved battlefield, it was never an issue.)  Most of my crew plays skirmish games like Mordheim, anyway - we don't have any problem changing gears and leaving that stuff where it belongs.

I like minis... for wargames. I do have more warmachine minis than any sane person should have.
But I dislike minis for RPGs, they are for me the worst immersion killer ever. They are even worse than most combat systems.