I should also add that, as often as not, my players literally forget the minis are there.  I guess they're somewhat immersed.  

Switching to minis has improved my ability to add character mobility and spatial variety into battle a lot.

Finally ditching them after six years of playing that way has allowed me to be even more fluid and add a 3d component to what's going on - nowadays, I sketch out the battle location, and let players and NPCs run away with the possibilities (our last session featured a very 3d battle in a crumbling pleasure-palace; with its parapets, rooftops, galleries and ground level wings, all played fairly abstractly).

So, in my case, it has been an important transitory step. But I have given away most of my miniatures now, and am also happy I don't have to lug a boxful of them around anymore.

***

BTW, delver, please remove that table-breaking image.

I find minis do tend to disrupt immersion, though I use them.

Quote from: two_fishes;520063When it comes to miniatures on the table, there are degrees. In the 4e game I'm in now, we use a slide projector and the character and monster tokens are pretty abstract--they're just a coloured circle with the initials of the character or monster on them. I actually find this less disruptive to imagining the events than more detailed figures.

I was playing 4e D&D last night with the circular 2D 'pogs', and I too found that this abstract representatin was more immersive than when using lovingly detailed 3D minis.

On Sunday I'll be GMing Pathfinder Beginner Box with 2D cardboard stand-ups, I'll see if that has the same effect.

Miniatures prevent what I call the collapse of the spatial wave function. As Melan says, true freedom 3D is better achieved with sketches in conjunction with descriptions.
But using grids and tokens guarantee the affair stays at least two dimensional. Whereas descriptions alone very easily collapse into the one-dimensionality and linearity of language.

Thus is the nature of the discretization of space.

Yes, that's what I meant to convey. Thanks.

Miniatures (or dice, erasers, bottle caps, etc.) placed on the table to represent marching order, or the general disposition of combatants in a particularly complex situation, do not disrupt my immersion.

Miniatures deployed on a grid to satsify complex tactical rules totally break immersion for me. If a battle takes longer than real time, and features frequent breaks to discuss tactics, analyze a grid, and read rules, I'm no longer making a movie in my head, but playing a tactical wargame. And I have shelves full of tactical wargames for when I want to game that way.

Which is one of the reasons I like Warhammer Fantasy 3E; it supports abstract combat, without the need for miniatures and grids.

Not at all.  When I started gaming in 82, I gamed with the kid whose father was the high school art teacher(different school system).  He was very into historicals, trains, and RPGs, so we had a huge collection to choose from.  We were probably one of the very few who had correctly sculpted creatures.   He even had mix tapes of sound effects that we would use.   It wasn't until after high school and into college that I learned otherwise.

From what I have experienced, the DMs who are adamant about shitting on miniatures have sucked at DMing.  Anything to get your players involved into the game should be used.

Quote from: Benoist;520066No, they do not disturb my immersion. I can imagine what my character sees from his standpoint, and "be him" as he is represented on the diorama, IF the rules themselves allow for that space to exist in my mind.

What disturbs my immersion is gaming the system extensively or having tactical rules that actually do not represent the game world in meaningful ways, including effects and decision-making that only makes sense from the rules' standpoint. i.e. I want to think tactically about the game world, not the rules.

Pretty much this.

The minis themselves are not a distraction, the tactical board focus of some rulesets ARE.

I enjoy using minis for B/X games. The grid is a reference for range and such but not too terribly important. Minis can be standing across a couple of squares or plunked right down on the intersection of four, who cares?

Its just fun to play with toys and have a nice looking reference to where everything is in relation to other things.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;520249Pretty much this.

The minis themselves are not a distraction, the tactical board focus of some rulesets ARE.

I enjoy using minis for B/X games. The grid is a reference for range and such but not too terribly important. Minis can be standing across a couple of squares or plunked right down on the intersection of four, who cares?

Its just fun to play with toys and have a nice looking reference to where everything is in relation to other things.

Yes, I completely agree with all this. Minis might also be a great way to introduce the game to some non-gamers. I can't tell you how many times discussions about RPGs started when I showed the minis I painted to people I invited over for reason X or Y. Particularly women, actually, for some reason (maybe just a fluke, I have no idea, but the women I introduced to RPGs seemed to be generally interested, or puzzled at least, in the craft/doll aspect of the miniatures and quite a few gave the game a try from there. A bit like it makes them think of a "game" more than some weird "theater thing where they'd have to unveil themselves to complete strangers" kind of thing, so they feel better about the idea to try the game from the get-go, see what I mean? Interesting, in any case).

Quote from: Melan;520183Switching to minis has improved my ability to add character mobility and spatial variety into battle a lot.

Finally ditching them after six years of playing that way has allowed me to be even more fluid and add a 3d component to what's going on - nowadays, I sketch out the battle location, and let players and NPCs run away with the possibilities (our last session featured a very 3d battle in a crumbling pleasure-palace; with its parapets, rooftops, galleries and ground level wings, all played fairly abstractly).

So, in my case, it has been an important transitory step. But I have given away most of my miniatures now, and am also happy I don't have to lug a boxful of them around anymore.

I'm actually very interested in introducing more sketching / illustration into my game.  I'm finishing up an "Intro to Drawing" class right now that's gotten me back on the art horse, it'd be pretty cool to have a sketch pad and art pencils on hand in-game to bang out some quick architectural sketches while we play.

A whiteboard is one of the most amazing RPG aides I have ever used and I would take one over miniatures any day.

I found it really engendered folks, both artistic and non artistic, producing awesome illos.

Ditto. A white board is an excellent thing, whether you use miniatures or not.

I'm with Brendan and Clash. Miniatures are killing my immersion big time, good miniatures and bad ones all alike. I'm fine with a white board/draft paper to display how buildings and people are approximatively placed in the imaginary world, because it's something I can glance at and not obsess with.  

I wonder if this issue is related to the kind of fiction/movie people like the most? Do miniature enthusiast prefer movies/books that deal with detailed tactical stuff? Do miniature haters enjoy fictions that are vague about tactical position and stuff? My intuition is that they're not correlated, but who knows?

PS: Fuck large pictures that make threads difficult to read. Delver please remove it.

Quote from: Peregrin;520130One-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!

For some reason, that scene when the guy draws the beer out in that French take on The Gamers came to my mind.

"What are you doing. It's a serious game."

Quote from: boulet;520277I'm with Brendan and Clash. Miniatures are killing my immersion big time, good miniatures and bad ones all alike. I'm fine with a white board/draft paper to display how buildings and people are approximatively placed in the imaginary world, because it's something I can glance at and not obsess with.

This post makes me suspect that a lot of people in this thread are seeing "miniatures" and reading "battlemat" - which, even in and of itself, doesn't have to be used as a "snap-to" playspace.  I use the grid (or, actually, the hex side) for a scale reference, there's no requirement to have figures occupy one space or another.