Hi all,

I'm interested in your thoughts on miniatures in rpgs, and possible new directions to take rpgs+miniatures in.

Some background:
I first became intersted in rpgs when I was @ 10 yrs old and saw a picture of an orc mini in a Ranger Rick or Boys' Life or something along those lines. I've always been a minis junkie, even after my taste in rpgs changed from DnD dungeon crawls to more scene based/character developing rpgs. I just shuffled my interests to more miniatures wargaming, seperate from the rpging.

A couple of weeks ago, my 8 yr old daughter was visiting, and I decided to introduce her to rpgs. We visit regularly by phone, and one of the regular activities is making up stories for each other or together. I figured rpgs were a next step.

She was having none of it, at least in terms of rules and sheets, and so on. The basic DnD boxed set I bought to use was completely uninteresting to her except for the minis and maps. I tried out Shadows, and the storytelling was okay, but no especial interest developed ( I'll chalk that up to Shadows needing at least three people to really utilize the full re-roll rules).

OTOH, I'd picked up some random fantasy and sf minis strictly because I liked them. These came out the following day, and we both had a good time playing with them, making up stories and characteristics on the fly. We also played Politics by other Means ( the Engle's miniatures rules based on his The Matrix Game), and roleplaying type play occured also.

Now, I know that one trend in rpgs has been to move away from the use of minis, especially in a miniatures wargaming sort of way. I'm wondering if anyone is thinking of going in the opposite direction, that is, really employing minis. For my daughter, it seemed as if the transition from other toys to roleplaying type stories was really enhanced by their use. I'm also trying to think of rules structure somewhat beyond traditional minis wargaming type rules ( beyond simple move/shoot/etc).

Anyone have thoughts on this, even tangential ones? I've been trying to come up with some stuff. I'm tending to think of something I can only describe as "village gaming" or "countryside gaming". I'd kind of describe it as a cross between model railroading and minis gaming and rpging.

Any other minis lovers out there with ideas?
k-bob

komradebob wrote: Anyone have thoughts on this, even tangential ones? I've been trying to come up with some stuff. I'm tending to think of something I can only describe as "village gaming" or "countryside gaming". I'd kind of describe it as a cross between model railroading and minis gaming and rpging.

John:
Thanks for the threadlinks-

A few thoughts-
Pick the mini first:
I'm not familiar with Everway. Was that the WotC game that had some sort of fantasy pics that acted as inspiration jumpoffs? I heard something about it but never saw the rules firsthand. But if I understand correctly, yes, that is sort of what I'm shooting for.

I find that starting with the minis is a vastly different sort of feel than starting with a rules system/setting, then working backwards to make the minis fit that. Several people in the threads you linked also seemed to indicate that as well. I'm trying tto figure outwhat implcations that has for design.

Cut scenes-
This is something I'd like to work in also, and is sort of where my thinking is taking a left turn from traditonal minis battlegames. I'm kind of looking for a way to get a "meanwhile, back at the ranch..." or a "Later that day..." effect.

Terrain is a character too-
Mike Holmes (IIRC) in one of the threads mentioned his son busting out some dungeon tiles as a surface to play with their minis. I've personally been looking at some of the fold up house/castle models out there ( like the Villages on the Cheep line). Those physical objects have a certain importance to the idea, too, but it is still kind of unformed. I do recognize that the choice of terrain has an effect on play, just as the choice of minis does. I mean that differently from the trad " Crenellations give a -5 to hit mod" sort of way also.

Village Gaming:
Maybe a better way of describing this would be "sets" in the movie/ tv show sense of the word. I'm not sure how model railroaders describe this effect on their tables. From what I've seen of model rr display tables, there are often a series of vignettes- say a small town, an industrial area, a bridge over a river, a tunnel, some wilderness, maybe an urban area. Thes things all exist on the model rr at once. Each vignette area is in scale and well developed, but representative of a certain aspect related to railways. The areas of each vignette are typically seperated enough to give each an identity, but don't necessarily correspond to realworld distances from one another, nor does each vignette attempt to cover all aspects of its setting.

That effect is what I'm kind of looking for for minis gaming. The "set" aspect is a bit different from model rrs though. With them, buildings tend to be complete and in proper ratio to the train. For "village gaming" the important aspect is that they are big enough for the appropriate amount of play space exist for the action that takes place there. The secondary aspect is that they bear some directional relationship to other sets. Big enough for the action means that if a bunch of wandering around the King's Great Hall, Private Chamber, and the Castle Garden are what's important, each will have room to move the figs. The rest of the castle may be unnecessary (riffing off the Goblin King idea). Directional relationship means that if the old abandoned temple where the baddies are hiding is to the north of the king's castle, it will have a model some where due "north". The size of the temple isn't based on actual dimensions, but on visual cues and the need to have figures move around on that "set". It might be vastly bigger if the temple is to be a "dungeon", or smaller, if only one main scene is to be played out there. It will exist far enough away on the game table ( or living room floor, etc) to indicate that it isn't in the same "vignette area" as the Goblin King's Castle Main Hall, but only really far away if there are other vignette areas between the two ( I mean, really, isn't a monster infested forest or river important here?).

This style of layout, however, plays hell with traditional mins wargaming rules, which are generally set up with consistent move rates/firing ranges in mind. I suppose maps could be used ( I do see a value in them,actually) but that could take away from some of the minis goodness.
Maybe some sort of board game approach? Roll how many real world minutes you spend crossing "The Woods of Doom", or draw a random encounter when crossing? Maybe moving your figures to another vignette area automatically shifts to a scene in another, unrelated. vignette area, creating the "Meanwhile, back at the ranch..." effect?

This also sort of puts me to thinking about something like Universalis with a lot of physical/minis related gimmicks added on. Anyone have experience with that?

BTW- John,
I'm curious what sorts of things you were thinking of doing with your Court of the Goblin King setup. I'd like to hear more about it, especially since it reminds me of that old movie with David Bowie in it...

Chris Weeks posted a little while back about mixing Universalis and Lego; I'm not sure how far he carried the idea past the initial thread, but it seems closely related to what you're thinking about here.

Frank Filz (and others of us who have gaming and Lego as hobbies) has talked from time to time about making a Lego RPG; that would also be similar to what you're talking about, I suspect.

Mostly just offering a couple more points of interest.

James

James:
Actually, that's fairly close, although I've never caught the Lego bug.

Out of curiosity, where do things go storywise after the stuff has been assembled? I got the impression that a lot of the rules ideas from the thread were about distributing the blocks more than the "adventure".

Bob

komradebob wrote: James:
Actually, that's fairly close, although I've never caught the Lego bug.

Out of curiosity, where do things go storywise after the stuff has been assembled? I got the impression that a lot of the rules ideas from the thread were about distributing the blocks more than the "adventure".

Hmm, very interesting topic. I like the ideas of where you're going, they would fit some of what I have thought about in terms of a LEGO based RPG (which would definitely start with "pick the mini first" or more like "build the mini first").

Model Railroading is a great thing to look at here because they do tend to focus on the essential things to set the scene, which would be important in any sort of mini based RPG. They have a term "selective compression" which is useful also, that term means that the scale of a building is reduced, instead of a 20 story building, you have a 6 story building, instead of a 1000' warehouse with 20 truck bays, you have a 200' warehouse with 4 truck bays.

Chris Weeks is trying to develop a LEGO based game that involves building so that's part of where the LEGOversalis was going.

In my youth, I did run an adventure in something aproaching the style you're suggesting. I had a bunch of friends over to my house (normally we played at MIT) so I had all my miniatures plus model railroading stuff. I took a table and covered it with scenery and monsters and then the players spent a quite enjoyable several hours clearing the place out. Based on that experience, I think you'll find that real scale isn't important. Just use the ranges and movement rates from the game as printed (most D&D dungeons and buildings are much larger than they would be in real life anyway - coridors in real castles are not even 5' wide let alone the traditional 10' of D&D).

For separation of scenes, just declare they're separate. You could impose a travel time between them (LEGOwise, Chris has suggested having multiple "oceans" for the Pirate Game and allow ships to travel between, perhaps spending a turn or something "in transit." Actually, the Pirate Game may be a good example of a miniatures based RPG in the sense you are talking about. It's certainly a good example of just letting the scale be what it is (some of the ships are larger than the islands - the one concession I make to "reality" where the ships should be smaller than the islands is that when two players are interested in shooting each other and there's an island between them, I eyeball things and if it looks like they should be blocked by the island, they are, even if technically they could trace a path from one part of their ship to one part of the other without touching the island).

Frank

One edition of The Way, the Truth, and the Dice includes rules for a miniatures role playing game using and based on Precious Moments figurines.

Not being into either miniatures or Precious Moments I paid it little mind, but it might have some ideas.

--M. J. Young

This fall when I was in France for 3 weeks, I saw a line of plastic fantasy-historical figurines for children that looked really cool. I briefly entertained the idea of buying a dozen or so of them to bring home, to use as PCs and NPCs in a historical game I was considering running. I planned to use them in John's "figurine first, then the character mode."

The cool thing about these figures is that they were 3-4 inches tall, painted well and quite handsome overall. The size would have made wargaming with them difficult, but I think that small spaces (inns, ballrooms, etc) could still be done with them. I think they'd add mostly color to the game -- but, oh, what color they would add! The figures were all over the place -- department stores, museum gift shops, even a corner store or two. They were about 4 Euros a pop, so a decent collection would be kind of spendy, but way cool. Most of the figures were historical figures -- knights in livery, men-at-arms, ladies in formal dress, etc. There were a few fantasy figures -- wizards, dragons (not to scale), etc.

I don't know if these are available in the US, or what they would cost.

Lee:
I've seen those figures. They run $4-5 for single figures and $10-14 for mounted figures. I forget the name, something starting with "sch-", Scheidel, scheidler, something like that.

If I didn't already have a bunch of 25-28mm figures, I'd definitely blow some cash on those figures. Especially the dwarf king and the skeleton warrior.

Hmm, I checked out that christian wargame. I'm not sure how you win if the other fellow's figures all go to heaven first, but perhaps it has something to do with conversion and saving souls? I did like the rating system, and the figure forward approach.

Thanks for the tip on the model railroad terminology. I always wondered what the word for that method was.

I like the "in transit" effect from the pirate game, though I do think I'm sort of stuck on an idea to cutting to another set as a rule somehow before coming back. Something I'll muddle over some more.

BTW, can anyone think of a better word than "set or "vignette" to describe the small areas where events take place?

Robert

komradebob wrote: Pick the mini first:
I'm not familiar with Everway. Was that the WotC game that had some sort of fantasy pics that acted as inspiration jumpoffs? I heard something about it but never saw the rules firsthand. But if I understand correctly, yes, that is sort of what I'm shooting for.

komradebob wrote: This style of layout, however, plays hell with traditional mins wargaming rules, which are generally set up with consistent move rates/firing ranges in mind. I suppose maps could be used ( I do see a value in them,actually) but that could take away from some of the minis goodness. Maybe some sort of board game approach? Roll how many real world minutes you spend crossing "The Woods of Doom", or draw a random encounter when crossing?

komradebob wrote: BTW- John,
I'm curious what sorts of things you were thinking of doing with your Court of the Goblin King setup. I'd like to hear more about it, especially since it reminds me of that old movie with David Bowie in it...

One thing I was considering was having a voting system for deciding on an Appearance / Style rating. i.e. The different players all vote to determine what Appearance rating it should have (which should also motivate better painting).

I think the minis would have to have a place for a given scene -- i.e. where your miniature is placed has to have meaning for the system, or there will be very little point of having the minis as far as the system is concerned. But there's lots of scene change options. One would be an ordered placing: i.e. when you change scenes, some mechanic determines the order in which players can put down their minis, which results in a new arrangement.

That would be Labyrinth

I was thinking mostly that I wanted an excuse to have a setting where a variety of creatures including cool-looking monsters could interact in a non-combat fashion. Now, there would also be fights, but it would probably be limited or ritualized in some way. There would be a backstory, but each session I was imagining would always be in the court itself. Each session would be a season apart, so the players would each get an update of information and then various people would interact at the party to find out what was going on, make deals, count coup, and so forth.

Random thought - the players are ephemeral gods of some kind, fighting over Creation itself. The only way they can actually effect things is if they take avatars (i.e. choose a mini). They can leave and exit avatars at will, and are omniscient (can see the whole "board", all the terrain and all the areas), but thats it. Their temporal power is limited by the abilities of the minis they choose as avatars, with the "character built around the figure" ethos.

I dunno if this idea appeals to you at all, but the last couple posts sparked it in my little ol' brain.

Nathan;
That's simultaneously exceedingly cool and exceedingly creepy.

It could be a cool set up for Middle Earth, though, especially for Silmarillion fans, or folks playing the dis-embodied Sauron vs. the Valar and their Istari agents.

I guess I'm creeped out because it reminds me of the whole OT thing between Moses and Pharoah. I recall a couple times in the story where Pharaoh is about to give in to Moses' request to free the Israelites, but then " God caused Pharaoh to harden his heart to Moses' pleas (paraphrase)" and more plagues and nastiness ensue. Damn, God can be mean when he(it) wants to show his(its) stuff...

I also think it's interesting because it takes into account player knowledge and allows for it. I hadn't considered that aspect, even though it is a common complaint among wargamers that encounter minis gaming. I like the suggestion because it takes the reality of the situation and runs with it, rather than cobbling together rules that attempt to restrict or deny the situation. It may be the equivalent of the ic/ooc issue but for minis. Something more to chew over...

komradebob wrote: I guess I was thinking more like the issue of having "transit boxes"- sort of holding areas for figures that were busy travelling. Since I'm thinking of a set up where there are several areas set out on a tabletop simultaneously (but which might be seperated by greater or lesser distances on a map), I was trying to figure out a way to prevent figures from arriving either too early or too late on another "set/location". Within a set/location, however, more traditional minis movement/range rules apply. Basically, I wanted to prevent firing a cannon on the "Fort Phil Kearny set" and have it be directed at the "Indian Village set" that is supposed to be many miles away across the badlands. Now the fort and the village might be physically close on the table, but distant in the imaginary space. Am I making any sense?

komradebob wrote: I also think it's interesting because it takes into account player knowledge and allows for it. I hadn't considered that aspect, even though it is a common complaint among wargamers that encounter minis gaming. I like the suggestion because it takes the reality of the situation and runs with it, rather than cobbling together rules that attempt to restrict or deny the situation. It may be the equivalent of the ic/ooc issue but for minis. Something more to chew over...

Spinning out of this, you could pretty much justify any number or kind of locations. Like, say the players are desert gods, and all your locations are deserts of various kinds, and oasis's, and trading posts. Basically, "themed" games.

This is how myself and a friend did our first roleplaying when we were 14, 20 years ago!. This was before we invested in our first 'proper' RPG, MERP. We had not ventured in to the narrative form and just set up a tbale with various areas of interest on it and devised the story from there. I had forgeotten this experience until I read these last two mails and it all came flooding back.

Good to see the wheel come full circle
JW

Marhault wrote:

komradebob wrote: I guess I was thinking more like the issue of having "transit boxes"- sort of holding areas for figures that were busy travelling. Since I'm thinking of a set up where there are several areas set out on a tabletop simultaneously (but which might be seperated by greater or lesser distances on a map), I was trying to figure out a way to prevent figures from arriving either too early or too late on another "set/location". Within a set/location, however, more traditional minis movement/range rules apply. Basically, I wanted to prevent firing a cannon on the "Fort Phil Kearny set" and have it be directed at the "Indian Village set" that is supposed to be many miles away across the badlands. Now the fort and the village might be physically close on the table, but distant in the imaginary space. Am I making any sense?

This reminds me somewhat of the way locations are handled in some CRPGs. Examples include Fallout (1 & 2), Wasteland, and the Ultima series (at least the early ones, I have no idea about the later ones).

komradebob, what about something like this:
When you define your 'sets,' set a perimeter for each one, anything between sets is boring land, of no purpose in the game save for 'travelling.' Determine the travel distance between each set (I'd probably draw a map or something to keep it straight), when characters leave a set, figure out how long they'll be in transit, set them aside and note when they will arrive at the new location. Your 'transit box' idea sounds pretty much perfect, what I would do is take a notecard, write the departure location, destination, transit time, and expected time of arrival on the card, place the card between the sets on the board and place the figures on top, and voila! If you have a chase, set up another card and place it 'behind' the first one (ie. nearer the departure location) and you've got it made.

This sounds a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics. There are points of interest on a map and there are connections between these points. Your little band travels between them and fights with monsters and such in a format really similar to a skirmish scale miniatures wargame. You guys should really check one of these two games out. There is a Playstation version and a Game Boy Advance version (different story but the same basic idea). I got the PS version some months ago new for like $20. I think seeing it will give you some ideas.

Greedo;
D'oh. I'll check in with my more computer gaming oriented buddies on this one. I tend to have one or two older pc games I like, but don't generally buy that much stuff, so the whole FF thing is completely outside of my experience.

JW:
This whole thing is sort of a circle closing for me too. Over the years I've played through several different styles of rpg, and gotten further from the old minis oriented stuff ( in rpgs that is. I have been playing tons of minis wargames during that time frame). So yeah, in a way, this is an attempt to get back to those play with fantasy toys days, but see what other directions it might take. The beauty of the philosophizing that goes on here at the Forge is that people here seem to be able to step back from mechanics at the character level, and start to think about issues of play at a interpersonal level.

Care to share any of the stuff you remember from your younger days that worked, didn't work, etc ? It sounds like exactly the sort of spark I'm looking for to help me remember my own similar experiences from a similar age ( with an eye towards developing a play method).

Robert

I think what you are working onwould resemble FF Tactics but wouldn't really be the same thing. FF Tactics really isn't much of an RPG even in the CRPG world. Its basically a tactics game with some story elements that are completely out of the players hands.

Let me try to explain it a bit more. You move your party to different locations and there are some enemies there. You have to fight them. Sometimes its just bandits or monsters (a standard D&D random encounter type thing). Sometimes, depending on the location, time, items carried, etc. its someone else. This someone else is the big bad guy or underlings or such. When you off them they give you a little more of the story. But basically there is no role playing per se.

I still think you can do some interesting stuff with this. I just suggested looking at FF Tactics for some ideas.

Yeah I too have played alot of wargaming, of all kinds and have always tried to incoprerate aspects from one to the other, RP aspects in to wargaing and gwargaming in to RPG. I have actually done a lot of games where it was basically a RPG but with figures on the table, set as a LRRP patrol in Viet Nam. There to deal with the travelling aspect, I used a kind of rolling terrain, so that as the players moved certain features moved past them on the table. This worked as they movement was over a relatively short distance and at a slow pace. The nice thing about having the figures on the table is that it gives all the players a central focus where they are looking in rather than without where it all goes on in their heads. It helps to put them under pressure and make it more immediate. I am doing something similar with Dark Age games at the moment.

Jonathan

komradebob wrote:
JW:
This whole thing is sort of a circle closing for me too. Over the years I've played through several different styles of rpg, and gotten further from the old minis oriented stuff ( in rpgs that is. I have been playing tons of minis wargames during that time frame). So yeah, in a way, this is an attempt to get back to those play with fantasy toys days, but see what other directions it might take. The beauty of the philosophizing that goes on here at the Forge is that people here seem to be able to step back from mechanics at the character level, and start to think about issues of play at a interpersonal level.

Care to share any of the stuff you remember from your younger days that worked, didn't work, etc ? It sounds like exactly the sort of spark I'm looking for to help me remember my own similar experiences from a similar age ( with an eye towards developing a play method).

Robert

I wasn't going to suggest this originally, since it seemed to be to please a young player. But we seem to be suggesting all sorts of things now, so...

Minis and relationship maps: The actual play area isn't a real space, its actually a relationship map. The actual figures could be many miles apart, but here we see how close various characters are and thus who they conflict with. For scenery you have thorny issues, which have a physical shape here and must be navigated around if you wish to get in close on some other figure.

I'll leave it there, though it could do with some more explaining. But basically its turning your relationship map into a battle mat. And yes you can move...keep your enemies close, remember!

Callan:
Go ahead and run with it. I'm kind of following your train of thought, but I'd rather you explain a little further.

Oh, and for anyone else who might have been holding back because of the playing with younger player part, please don't. I'm getting some great ideas here, and even if they don't meet the original "Dad and kid" situation from the original post I might have other uses for them.

Personal Brainstorm for the day:
What if the figures were hidden in boxes? Players choose boxes, take out the contents, then choose where to place them? Sure a chart and dice throw could do the same thing, but where's the fun in that? It could also be fun on a metagame level, if you were playing with a group of friends who were periodically painting up and providing minis. They show up at the session with the minis already boxed, so noone else knows what's inside. At some point in the session, players are allowed to open boxes from amongst a pile, and enter the new figures into the game. Presumably, some sort of backstory is created, and the figure gets some initial "attributes" when they're placed.

Just a random thought that hit me reading this thread. A reverse of the normal GM-Player relationship. Where one person plays as the adventuring party or single hero and the other players are Gods helping or hindering that players epic quest. Imagine Zeus and Hera intervening in Hercules quest either by direct or indirect means. This would work well with minituares as the gods would be placing enemies or allies in the path of the character.

I'm actually working on a scifi minis-rpg hybrid. where each player controls a small squad of soldiers. While the CO(think GM) gives the mission briefing(setting up the terrain and enemies) assigns objectives, and controls the enemies during play. The mission briefing is where most of the RP comes into play with players acting as the squad leaders. forming a battle plan and vying to be the squad who completes the objectives(Prestige is awarded for completing objectives and such. which works like build points to use for your squad). After this portion is over the game moves into more of a miniatures game but the coop nature of the game mixed with the rivalries carried over from the mission briefing I'm hoping will spur some IC chatter.

Shadetree wrote: I'm actually working on a scifi minis-rpg hybrid. where each player controls a small squad of soldiers. While the CO(think GM) gives the mission briefing(setting up the terrain and enemies) assigns objectives, and controls the enemies during play. The mission briefing is where most of the RP comes into play with players acting as the squad leaders. forming a battle plan and vying to be the squad who completes the objectives(Prestige is awarded for completing objectives and such. which works like build points to use for your squad). After this portion is over the game moves into more of a miniatures game but the coop nature of the game mixed with the rivalries carried over from the mission briefing I'm hoping will spur some IC chatter.

I'd heard of Inquisitor but thought it was more of an RPG set in the 40k universe. Just from a quick look over the core rules it seems to be geared more towards the minis aspect. Characters are basically static. and only 1-2 pages talk about running a multi session campaign and just a quick spot in an appendix about improving ones character through play. Not that any of these are specifically needed for an RPG.

I'm just not really seeing anything that makes this closer to an RPG except the addition of a moderator(GM) who sets up a scenario and the fact that the GM can have 'secrets'. The introduction talks about the main aim being to "...create characters and a story on the tabletop"(pg 10, part 1) If you take a look at the sample scenario(pg 38, part 2) the story is allready made except for the outcome of the battle and some special rules. Of course, a my quick look might not be doing it justice.

My game is suffering from this as well. It is something I am trying to correct. But I believe the OP is envisioning something different alltogether. So I'll leave off talking about it further.

The thing that popped into my head reading this is that at next year's FanimeCon I ought to run a game based on some existing anime series, and hand each character a plastic figure of their character. Even if I wind up not using a map at all it'd be really cool, and would help the players remember who's who.

komradebob wrote: Callan:
Go ahead and run with it. I'm kind of following your train of thought, but I'd rather you explain a little further.

Apologies to everyone for not getting back to you sooner.

Re: Inquisitor:
I'm a big GW Monkey, but I haven't looked over Inquisitor yet. I'd be most interested in what it might have to say about setting up connected adventures and not so much about mechanics. Was there something in particular about the way Inquisitor deals with tabletop that is radically different from other GW games that really struck you?

Callan:

The other guy is in a problematic position because of it, but tactically/gamist wise he knows he might be better off doing X, but X is distastefully depicted by the card. Does he potentially throw the game because HIS leader WOULD NOT do that? What does that say about his leader if he does, or doesn't?

And what if he doesn't do X, but then steps on up and still wins the game! Bloody hell, what a legend...strong in principle and tactics! Huzzah! (and even if he looses, he's a bit of a legend for sticking to his principles...martyrdom is kinda fun).

Yeah, it kinda of sparks something for me. I suspect it's the same sort of feel that TROS was designed around, but works for wargaming too. Buuut, just a note of caution: Some players will not just address premise...they'll just do X without batting an eyelid and if questioned, say "Well why wouldn't I do that to win?". This isn't so bad except that if they don't appreciate addressing premise, then if the other player does appreciate it and does it, this guy just wont notice it. Note this recent RPG.net thread about X-com and whether its okay to kill mind controlled aliens...the answers swerve between gamist and narrativist responces (its interesting).

TROS sort of handles it by making the address of premise make sense in terms of gamism "addressing premise gives you more dice...so address premise or your not stepping on up, chump!"

If your leaving it so particular narrativist options can be a bad idea gamism wise, I think your going to have to stress in the book how each player, even if they just want to go gamist, should appreciate this nar level and appreciate their apponents narrativist approach. One doesn't want to address premise and have the other guy just gloat how he won...one would like the other guy to enjoy the win, but also have him note how ones leader was the better man! :)

I'll have a stab at some of your questions
1. Do you mean simultanious games which effect each other? Or the same players moving between several battle set ups? Not sure what you mean, but I can think of some not rock solid but okay ways where two games can effect each other (if you up your suspension of disbelief dial a little).
2. Perhaps make it a feature rather than a disconcerting bug. I'm thinking now of how 'Orcs at the gates' has a real life two hour limmit...get 1000 points before then, or the GM wins. Likewise you can have real life time effect battle field win/loss status. Explain it that on the battlefield you never really know when you've run out of time, or some such semi plausible excuse.
3. I might pause on this, as I think it deserves a full post on its own and I'm in a rush! Perhaps tomorrow.

1. Do you mean simultanious games which effect each other? Or the same players moving between several battle set ups? Not sure what you mean, but I can think of some not rock solid but okay ways where two games can effect each other (if you up your suspension of disbelief dial a little).

2. Perhaps make it a feature rather than a disconcerting bug. I'm thinking now of how 'Orcs at the gates' has a real life two hour limmit...get 1000 points before then, or the GM wins. Likewise you can have real life time effect battle field win/loss status. Explain it that on the battlefield you never really know when you've run out of time, or some such semi plausible excuse.

komradebob wrote: Re: Inquisitor:
I'm a big GW Monkey, but I haven't looked over Inquisitor yet. I'd be most interested in what it might have to say about setting up connected adventures and not so much about mechanics. Was there something in particular about the way Inquisitor deals with tabletop that is radically different from other GW games that really struck you?

Yeah, it kinda of sparks something for me. I suspect it's the same sort of feel that TROS was designed around, but works for wargaming too. Buuut, just a note of caution: Some players will not just address premise...they'll just do X without batting an eyelid and if questioned, say "Well why wouldn't I do that to win?". This isn't so bad except that if they don't appreciate addressing premise, then if the other player does appreciate it and does it, this guy just wont notice it. Note this recent RPG.net thread about X-com and whether its okay to kill mind controlled aliens...the answers swerve between gamist and narrativist responces (its interesting).

I suggest a brain-shift away from "minis" and toward "props". Greedo you are active in the CCG concept thread twoo, minis and cards are themselves only particular types of prop, as I see it. Taking the heroclix inspiration, it's possible to comboine their functions, or to extract their functions, into other props. What is it it about mini's that inspires you for example?

contracycle wrote: I suggest a brain-shift away from "minis" and toward "props". Greedo you are active in the CCG concept thread twoo, minis and cards are themselves only particular types of prop, as I see it. Taking the heroclix inspiration, it's possible to comboine their functions, or to extract their functions, into other props. What is it it about mini's that inspires you for example?

Contracycle (originally addressed to greedo1379)

What is it it about mini's that inspires you for example?

This seems like an interesting concept to me but doesn't relate much to the original thread.

Errr... yeah. What I meant was *you* should download them and take a look. :D I downloaded them a while back but haven't been able to give them a look.

So I guess my goal would be to find a formal, technical type way to get a story to lay over a miniatures game. Or, find an RPG way to link a series of miniatures games. I don't know if that's really in The Forge's scope so let's just leave this alone.

Hope that no one feels they can't contribute for fear of going off track threadwise. This is sort of a fishing expedition for me. Everyone's posts are helping me refine ideas that were swirling around in my head, as well as suggesting entirely new directions that I might never have considered.

greedo1379 wrote:
Perhaps the problem we are running into is a chicken-egg type problem. I understand the word "prop" to mean a secondary component. The goal in an RPG is to tell a story. Resource management and spatial relationships are generally secondary concerns. However, those are the things I enjoy about miniatures and cards (I'm going to abbreviate this as M&C).

In a way, I wish I still had the vintage White Dwarfs I used to look at, cause it would help out a little here...

Part of me is really tempted to mix up the ideas from Once Upon a Time... with Mage Knight here... Turn based storytelling, with cards that help direct the action by providing ways to bring in new charecters, and to move other people's charecters, all while having a secret winning condition card that you must furfill in front of you.

Don't ask me how I would make it work, but I like the idea. Maybe I'll get to work on it. Heaven knows I have enough MageKnight stuff lying around...

Have you ever had one of those moments when you discover that someone has already gone over something, but you didn't realize it?

Here's a link to an old discussion on the Universalis forum by Tony Irwin, that might be interesting to folks checking out the current thread:


http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5698&highlight=miniatures

Here's a link to an old discussion on the Universalis forum by Tony Irwin, that might be interesting to folks checking out the current thread

Tony Irwin:

It was good - part of the fun though was improvising what we were going to do next and we picked up quite a crowd as audience (it was at a games club) who threw in lots of suggestions.

Mike Holme's post further down on that thread (where he suggests events for a battle) was brilliant and we used a print out of that as inspiration for every event.

I think fantasy suits this better as there is so much that can be unseen, magic, ghosts, etc but still present in the game. And that was the tough part - we were limited to the scenery and minis we had on the table but we wanted to bring more stuff in as dramatic events.

We did have fun - but... it was "fragile" fun. We weren't really sure what made it work or what direction to take it in, or if inviting anyone else to play could just wreck it.

Anyway, stuff that was good was having a list of battlefield events that can involve, but not neccessitate, combat

Using the fantasy genre so that we could have unseen components on the battle field - in fact that's where a lot of the story came from. And also I think, we stopped before any questions of winning or losing the battle arose - we didn't have to consider that one.

Also every scene had to be based at a scenery item on the battlefied - that worked good, it meant you kind of narrowed the lense on one area and ignored overall placements and formations and stuff.

One game I've seen recently that treads the rpg / minis line is the free game BRUTAL.

Find it at http://www.brutalrpg.com

The scenarios are a mix of role-playing and hack-n-slash and it looks like you will lose a lot of characters (like in Steve Jackson's old "Fantasy Trip")

Really enjoying the thread so far. Just to throw in my .02 - I have played minis on a big table like this several times where there was the terrain laid out and we did a mix of role-play and wargaming. One was Colonial Africa with us trying to find the source of a river, another time as LRRP in Vietnam with patrols trying to complete mission objectives. Both of these had a "GM" who controled the opposition, traps, etc. There was something very cool about looking at the table full of terrain and not knowing what was out there waiting for you...

Best,

Pete

Latigo[Pete]:

One was Colonial Africa with us trying to find the source of a river, another time as LRRP in Vietnam with patrols trying to complete mission objectives. Both of these had a "GM" who controled the opposition, traps, etc. There was something very cool about looking at the table full of terrain and not knowing what was out there waiting for you...

One game I've seen recently that treads the rpg / minis line is the free game BRUTAL.

Komrade,

I don't know if other people posted about those games to the web. My friend who ran the African one frequently does games of this sort with his club, so it's a possibility. I had never played that genre before, but the figures were soo cool it really drew me in.

As for the "thousand monkeys with computers and d6", it is pretty amazing. I must grab a free pdf of someones rules almost every week from online. This site is probably the best I've seen for folks interested in such. http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/

As far as non-combat minis, there have been so many produced and it would be cool to see them get a role in play. Wild West games often have rules for townfolk, where you have a flow chart of "if / then" usually with a random element (die or card) thrown in. This idea could be adapted to fantasy or whatever easily enough. This is I guess "reactive / random" in some sense but at least it gets them moving and interacting with the player's figures in some scripted way that could be expanded to include other more social options. In a lot of ways like the townfolk who populate computer rpg's who walk back and forth all day, and you can interact with on some level.

Best of all,

Pete

Hey Bob,

Check out Jared Sorensen's Points of Articulation, an action-figure roleplaying game.

Paul

greedo1379 wrote: Then there's ... Confrontation which is slowly moving towards a traditional RPG.

My first time playing DnD was a 3.0 sorc -- and the people I was playing with had an absolutely beautiful set of pewter minis, and a gridded chalkboard for a gameplay table. I had a lot of fun with it. Any enemies there were no minis for instead got the paper cut out treatment.

I've found miniatures can assist combat games a LOT -- sometimes it's just important to know WHAT is happening WHERE. They make ranged weapons seriously useful, and they give players instant knowledge.

We had a good GM for handling the issues of how much information could we see, and as a party we didn't ever spread out too much, so it worked rather well, even for DnD.

I think that, as a general rule, paper cut outs and chalk work just as well as well as anything else. Miniatures are nice, but in the end, at least for the gaming we were trying to do -- the tactical lines drawn in chalk and the scrape of the unpainted figures on the board was more than enough for me. Imagination turned the rest into reality.

Hi everyone,

Let's close this thread now. If folks want to discuss miniatures' role some more, please start new threads.

Best,
Ron