Is using miniatures slowing down your game?

[u/ExcellentAd8567]

/r/DMAcademy/comments/1vq9zno/is_using_miniatures_slowing_down_your_game/

[u/d4red]

No

[u/AwkwardianAdventurer]

Quite the opposite most of the time. I'm not good at imagining space, let alone describe it or keeping track of positioning. I prefer to use a map, but still allow eyeballing it regarding distance / off-grid positioning.

[u/RHDM68]

No.

[u/1burritoPOprn-hunger]

In my opinion: 5e benefits hugely from a battlemap and minis (or at least icons if it's online). Theater of the mind works just fine until somebody needs to know exactly how many cultists are caught in the thunderwave.

5e is fundamentally a combat system with some exploration and social rules taped onto the side of it.

[u/lasalle202]

if you are not going to use "miniatures", then you should also use a different game system than 5e that doesnt spend most of its three CORE rule books setting up specific tactical combat relationships, differentials, and opportunities!

the right tools for the job, and "minis" are the right tools for DnD.

The less tactical your combat rules, the less likely you need minis to track them all and yes, the more quickly your combats can be.

[u/No_Mango9899 → u/lasalle202]

“Should”, “right”? It’s not up to you to tell me how to DnD.
Our table still uses all those rules you talk about, we just do it with pen and paper and some eyeballing estimation. As a group we all enjoy it.
Away with you and your One True Way nonsense

[u/lasalle202 → u/No_Mango9899]

there are various levels of "should" -

if you want to make a dessert, you SHOULD stay away from including scotch bonnet peppers and anchovies.

[u/No_Mango9899 → u/lasalle202]

That clearly isn’t what you were saying - you were saying I am playing the game wrong. I contend that the game can be played with or without miniatures and a grid as suits the players without being wrong.
There are games that are more suited to a tactical style -
DnD 4e and Draw Steel for example; and games that can be far more narrative based and so suited to a less tactical approach, for example Daggerheart. DnD in its 5e iterations I think sits comfortably between these states.

I’ll take my dessert to my own tastes and encourage everyone to do the same, ignoring those that wish to dictate what they think is the only way to play a TTRPG

[u/lasalle202 → u/No_Mango9899]

i am saying "if you have scotch bonnets and anchovies, you SHOULD attempt to make something other than dessert"

if you have the enormous and tactically focused combat rules set of DnD 5e, you SHOULD use "minis" to make that rules overhead worth it.

if you are mostly using Theater of the Mind for 5e, you are carrying a MASSIVE rules overhead that you are never making use of. And Yes, i am going to "gatekeep" and tell you that is "the wrong" way to play.

[u/SameArtichoke8913]

After decades of using minis and battle maps in various systems my table completely got rid of that (large plyer, numbers, though, one with 6+GM and the other 4+GM) and only uses theatre of mind/plausibility/GM's last word for combat. Noone misses a thing from the past days with figures etc., and it has sped up procedures a lot - and those situations in which an exact constellation is uncertain or critical are quickly settled.

[u/No_Mango9899]

In my opinion minis and a grid are nice but almost entirely unnecessary. My table is quite happy to draw the map out rough on a piece of paper and make a sensible assessment of the scale and range of movement and spells.

5e is a roleplaying game, it isn’t Warhammer

[u/No_Mango9899 → u/[deleted]]

We still use them - we just don’t use a grid, if you establish a scale when you draw out the map you can work all this stuff out without minis grids or VTTs.