(2e) how are miniatures used?

[Ozreth]

So I've been looking into AD&D2 and have decided I am going to give it a whirl. As much as I like using miniatures in my 3.5 games, I was a bit excited at the idea of a miniatures free game in 2e. After doing some research I have found that a lot of 2e players collect and use miniatures, although I have no idea how or why?

Maybe it is because I am not familiar enough with the system yet but how/why/and when would you want to use miniatures in a pre 3e game?

Thanks!

[Susano-wo]

basically the same reasons in a 3rd+ game, its just that there's a lot less time and space devoted to battle mapping on the rules. So you rule on X sized hexes/squares, etc, or just use a sort of Xmm = X feet rule

[Ozreth]

basically the same reasons in a 3rd+ game, its just that there's a lot less time and space devoted to battle mapping on the rules. So you rule on X sized hexes/squares, etc, or just use a sort of Xmm = X feet rule

Hm I see. So if I am looking for a miniatures free d&d game should I not be looking at AD&D2? Did people only start using minis in their 2e games after they became popular in 3rd or is it something that has always happened?

[Susano-wo]

huh? no if you are looking for miniatures *free* tn 2nd is much easier to do than 3rd or 4th, which rely on the grid structure. Its much easier to have vague tactical combat in 2nd

...sorry, I totally misread your initial question

[Ozreth]

huh? no if you are looking for miniatures *free* tn 2nd is much easier to do than 3rd or 4th, which rely on the grid structure. Its much easier to have vague tactical combat in 2nd

...sorry, I totally misread your initial question

Nah I think you were on the right track. I know 2e would be much better than 3rd or 4th for minis free gaming, but perhaps 1e would be better? Or are 1e and 2e about the same when it comes to this?

Thanks for the responses : )

[dsmiles]

1e had different rules for minis. Everything's movement rate was in inches, to simplify it, since it was originally based on miniatures wargaming. No grid required, but a 1 inch hex grid is pretty standard for 1e/2e if you use minis.
Now, what 1 inch ='s depends on the scale of the minis. 25mm or 28mm are ok for 1 inch = 5 feet. Warmachine minis (30mm) are going to be a little different, as will the (very) old-style 20mm minis.

[KillianHawkeye]

D&D was originally based on wargaming, so having miniatures is pretty much par for the course. Obviously, you don't NEED minis in ANY edition of D&D, however the later editions seem to have placed more emphasis on using them.

[hamlet]

First: Mini's are not required for AD&D. And by "not required" I actually mean you don't need them unlike 3.0 and up where technically they werent' required, but just go ahead and try not using them.

Second: You can use mini's in both 1e and 2e, though the rules are modestly different. And you would use them for, essentially, exactly the same reasons and in the same ways that you would use them in 3.x.

In First Edition, distances were measured in inches. What an inch equated to depended on if you were outside or inside. Inside the dungeon, an inch was equal to 10 feet. Outside, it was, I think, 10 yards. Yeah, that meant your fire ball was bigger outside than in. You don't really need a gridded off battle mat in this way, but it kind of helps, especially if you use the hex side rather than the square side.

In 2nd Edition, there were no hard and fast rules involved. Distances were measured in feet/yards/miles rather than inches and no assumption was made on whether or not you used mini's. Best practice, if you choose to use them, is to pull out yer average battle mat and then note the scale (I find 1 square per 5 feet works best most days) and then proceed. Just remember how far a 2nd edition character can move per round is significantly greater than a 3rd edition character.

For the most part, it is best, I find, to dispense with mini's all together in AD&D (and BECMI for that matter) unless you're involved in a very complicated battle, in which case they can be a help. For the most part, description is best. Been playing in a long running campaign for about 7 years now and we've used mini's once in all that time, and only then for a very complicated battle (multiple side corridors and doors, and lots and lots of bad guys).

Combat without mini's tends to run quicker, even if you get a bit of the "fog of war" effect where not everybody is going to have the same picture in their head at the same moment. That actually, in my view, adds a bit to the feel of the game rather than relying on a general's eye view.

[Premier]

In my own experience, most pre-3E groups either just don't use miniatures at all, or use them as a very abstract representation ("These guys are in the middle, those are the right flank, that's the left flank, but a bit farther back, the wizard is roughly here. No, it's not really to scale.") without worrying about movement rates and exact positioning. It's certainly very easy to use any old-school edition without miniatures. I suggest you don't worry too much about it - just mention that you're looking for a mini-less game when seeking groups, shouldn't cause too much of a problem.

[Aotrs Commander]

Maybe it is because I am not familiar enough with the system yet but how/why/and when would you want to use miniatures in a pre 3e game?

My groups have never not used minatures in our games, before 3.0 or since, be it AD&D, Rolemaster or anything else, going back twenty years now.

You use them for the same reason you do in 3.x and later. Keeping track of where everyone is. (You can do it in other ways, but we've always done it that way.)

One one beef I had with 3.x and 4E both was the totally unecessary use of "squares" as a measure of movement - in-game measurements have always been a much better way of dealing with it. The artifical constraints seemed superflous. (It's something of a bad sign with wargames as well as RPG if the rules talk about moving in inches instead of having a board. Or worse, games that are on a grid, not a tabletop; something that seems to be far more common with American wargames and much rarer in UK rules. I have no idea why.) Even with 3.x, I take pains to state that the grid is just that, a measureing grid, not an absolute (I don't worry so much about diagonals and such generally); if there's a conflict, the game's "real world" wins out over the rules abstraction.

[Fhaolan]

D&D in all of it's editions has allowed the use of miniatures. D&D grew from a skirmish-type suppliment for a wargame (Chainmail), so minatures were always there. In some cases the rules for their use were highly optional, or only came into play in specific circumstances. For example, in 2e if you pull out the 'Player's Option: Combat & Tactics' book, you'll recognize a lot of stuff that became core to 3e. For that optional ruleset miniatures are pretty much required.

It really depends a lot on how much your playing group focuses on the details of combat. Are you willing to just make stuff up, or do you really care about how far a person can travel in a combat round? Is facing important to you?

You can skip miniature use in any edition of D&D, providing you are willing to gloss over or ignore parts of the ruleset. In some editions, like 4th, it means tossing a large chunk of the ruleset out. In 2e core, it's not quite as drastic, but if you're used to using miniatures you will likely still notice some rules that would be a lot easier to adjucate if you were still using them. For example, aerial combat deals a lot with turn speeds and the like.

[Gravitron5000]

Paperweights. It's pretty frustrating when your character sheet blows away when you play outside.

[Cyrion]

I got into using miniatures playing AD&D because they saved a lot on pencil erasers. Prior to that we did it all on graph paper with a pencil, which works just fine.

The visual appeal of the miniatures is also worth a lot.

[Ozreth]

Great responses guys! So from what I've gathered I will not use minis but will have a few handy in case needed.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I see two different DMG's for 2e. One is "The Dungeon Master's Guide" printed in 89, the second is the "Dungeon Master Guide" printed in 93. From what I can tell they are both the same thing, but I don't know much. Was the second one just a reprint or does it have some updates as well?

Thanks : )

[LibraryOgre]

Missed this my first time through.

I generally do not use minis for most combats, UNLESS they are very constricted and important. A minor fight in tight quarters? I don't have a problem with the group wailing on a poor wererat in tight quarters... but they're going to be mapping the fight against the vampire. Precise facing and spacing are far less necessary, and you can simply tell someone "Yeah, you can do that, but they get an attack of opportunity"

[CalamaroJoe]

Hm I see. So if I am looking for a miniatures free d&d game should I not be looking at AD&D2? Did people only start using minis in their 2e games after they became popular in 3rd or is it something that has always happened?

First: Mini's are not required for AD&D. And by "not required" I actually mean you don't need them unlike 3.0 and up where technically they werent' required, but just go ahead and try not using them.

I played and mastered a lot with basic D&D, AD&D 1st edition, then with a 1.5 edition (with some rules from 2nd ed. "housed in").
From a certain moment we started naturally to use miniatures (well, at first they were just plastic toy soldiers...) to help everybody understand how the fight was going on and to simplify decisions related to distance, areas of effects and line-of-sight.

Now we are playing 3.5 (since 15-20 sessions, I'm DMing) and using miniatures.
But I do not use the grid, since I prefer judge things "by thumb". Do you think we are missing something?

BTW, the "fog of war" idea is really enthralling. Maybe we should try to be less meticulous...

[Matthew]

D&D in all of it's editions has allowed the use of miniatures. D&D grew from a skirmish-type supplement for a wargame (Chainmail), so miniatures were always there. In some cases the rules for their use were highly optional, or only came into play in specific circumstances. For example, in 2e if you pull out the 'Player's Option: Combat & Tactics' book, you'll recognize a lot of stuff that became core to 3e. For that optional ruleset miniatures are pretty much required.

Exactly so. First edition AD&D has pretty much the same rules as second edition, but enthuses more about the use of miniatures, providing some very brief guidelines for their incorporation (advocating a scale of 1" = 3⅓, even though all the game rules use 1" = 10' or even 1" = 30' outdoors). In the event, second edition massively played down the use of miniatures and opted for even vaguer movement and combat rules, but then in the mid nineties completely changed tact with the C&T optional combat rule system, which is 90%+ identical to what eventually appeared in D20/3e and almost certainly requires miniatures.

As far as it goes, it seems lots of people use miniatures, and lost of people do not. My group was pretty much always in the latter camp, but I have occasionally used dungeon tiles and miniatures to change things up, as with this:



Fun, but the scale was 1" = 10'.

[Ozreth]

Ok so my 3.5 conditioned brain begs the question...how the heck am I supposed to keep track of everything going on? If I've got 4 players fighting two goblins and 3 orcs am I as well as the rest of the players expected to know just where every enemy/player is standing at the beginning of each round? I know it is an easy task in theory, but turns can take some time, people get off track etc and this could snowball quickly.

The only explanation that I can imagine is that possibly 2e battles arent as time consuming or complicated as 3e+?

Still though...

[Moofaa]

Ok so my 3.5 conditioned brain begs the question...how the heck am I supposed to keep track of everything going on? If I've got 4 players fighting two goblins and 3 orcs am I as well as the rest of the players expected to know just where every enemy/player is standing at the beginning of each round? I know it is an easy task in theory, but turns can take some time, people get off track etc and this could snowball quickly.

The only explanation that I can imagine is that possibly 2e battles arent as time consuming or complicated as 3e+?

Still though...

I've never used mini's, ever, and I played through second and third editions of D&D. With the people I play with things like facing, movement rates, etc etc just bog the game down. Seriously if we wanted a tactical game we would just play Risk or Axis & Allies. This is why I don't like the changes in 4th edition because the character abiltiies are even more tied to restrictive rules and requires more work than 3.5 did to avoid using mini's. Note that I am not wanting to turn this into a 4e bash fest- It has some good things in it as well, its just not my preferred style.

All that said, I find its not hard to keep track of things. If your doing a good job of providing descriptions of the combat area and the action going on, both you and your players should have no problem keeping track of things. I think the playstyle is more fun and keeps the game as more of a role-playing game rather than a board game.

[Lapak]

Ok so my 3.5 conditioned brain begs the question...how the heck am I supposed to keep track of everything going on? If I've got 4 players fighting two goblins and 3 orcs am I as well as the rest of the players expected to know just where every enemy/player is standing at the beginning of each round? I know it is an easy task in theory, but turns can take some time, people get off track etc and this could snowball quickly.

The only explanation that I can imagine is that possibly 2e battles arent as time consuming or complicated as 3e+?

Still though...

In a lot of ways, vague combat descriptions seem more 'correct' to me, simulating the ebb and flow of combat more faithfully than battle-grid movement tracking. The 2e PHB has an example of combat involving three trolls, three PCs, and a bunch of orcs that never mentions exact locations but is at no point unclear about where people are, and when we're playing without a battle mat I try to emulate that.

Where are people in combat? They're not at square E6; they're 50 feet down the hall from you. Where are the orcs? They're mobbed around Joe the Barbarian, who got initiative and charged them.

As a side effect, tracking combat in a less grainy way makes melee-types far more effective at blocking. If Joe is 'holding his ground and blocking the passage 20 feet ahead of Arthur the wizard' rather than on a particular square, an orc who happens to have enough movement can't just cut 5' over and go around him AOO-free. By the same token, of course, the vagueness of positioning makes it much less easy to drop a Stinking Cloud perfectly to catch all your enemies but none of your allies in melee with them.

In short: combat may be just as complicated, it isn't necessarily less accurate, and it can work just fine. It doesn't work well with 3e mechanics, because those are built to assume precise position tracking. D&D did come from a wargame, and all editions do provide enough precision to make grid or hex positioning worthwhile. It's always been kind of an assumed default. But it's not flat-out necessary.

[Ozreth]

snip.

Great summary, thanks a million : )

Are there any good lvl 1 starter modules you guys would recommend? Short and sweet. I've got the Forgotten Realms and Menzoberranzan box sets, but Im guessing those aren't good starting points. I picked them up just because they were cheap as heck at my local used book store and I love the realms.

[Starbuck_II]

Thoughout 2E when I played back in high school, minis were used.

It makes less disagreements in movements/attacks.

"Why can't I move by him to attack at Z?"
"Didn't you saw you were X"
"No, I said I was Y"

If using Minis it makes it easier to see why you can/cannot move to Z. DMs had to be extra specific in descriptions back than as well.

[Lapak]

Great summary, thanks a million : )

Are there any good lvl 1 starter modules you guys would recommend? Short and sweet. I've got the Forgotten Realms and Menzoberranzan box sets, but Im guessing those aren't good starting points. I picked them up just because they were cheap as heck at my local used book store and I love the realms.

If you are using Forgotten Realms in 2nd edition, I'd say use Under Illefarn if you can get your hands on it. I've used it in the past with success and enjoyed it. It's a 1e module, but I like it and it would need minimal adjustment to use with 2e.

It's set in a small town at the very edge of Waterdeep's sphere of influence. It's good for new players in particular, as the module starts out by giving them a very clear role (town militia) and the pre-dungeon encounters give them a grab-bag of potential encounters and situations - some straight-up combat, some potential for diplomacy, NPC interactions, and so on. Once they're ready to go Under Illefarn, the training wheels come off.

EDIT: In response to Starbuck, NOT using miniatures does require that both players and DM make good-faith efforts not to try to screw each other over by being TOO vague about what's going on, and be in general agreement about how much leeway each side gets. That is important!

[dsmiles]

Does anyone remember the name of that 0-level adventure that was published for AD&D? That would be a good tutorial.

EDIT: GOT IT! The module is (N4) "Treasure Hunt" and it's a FR adventure, too!

[Matthew]

If you are using Forgotten Realms in 2nd edition, I'd say use Under Illefarn if you can get your hands on it. I've used it in the past with success and enjoyed it. It's a 1e module, but I like it and it would need minimal adjustment to use with 2e.

Ha! You are the second person to recommend this module to Ozreth; Gambit42 did a few days ago at Dragonsfoot. As I mentioned to him, I read the module quite recently and did not think it was very good. Out of interest, what do you like about it?

[arrowhen]

Ok so my 3.5 conditioned brain begs the question...how the heck am I supposed to keep track of everything going on? If I've got 4 players fighting two goblins and 3 orcs am I as well as the rest of the players expected to know just where every enemy/player is standing at the beginning of each round? I know it is an easy task in theory, but turns can take some time, people get off track etc and this could snowball quickly.

AD&D doesn't have Attacks of Opportunity or flanking, which makes knowing exactly where everyone is standing much less important.

[Lapak]

Ha! You are the second person to recommend this module to Ozreth; Gambit42 did a few days ago at Dragonsfoot. As I mentioned to him, I read the module quite recently and did not think it was very good. Out of interest, what do you like about it?

It's not the first time I've recommended it on this board. So I'll just quote myself!

It occurs to me that rather than just saying 'Under Illefarn,' I should explain why. The module is structured somewhat unusually for an introductory module, in a way that gives new players a lot more structure.

The PCs are all assumed to be part of the town militia, which gives them a reason to be working together, a reason to perform the missions offered while still having some freelancing freedom, and a defined relationship to the power players of the home-base town.

It's broken down into three ramping-up missions before you hit the big dungeon-crawl portion. The three ramp-ups give them a chance to engage in some negotiation, some combat, some wilderness, deal with some buildings, and some random encounters; once they've had some experience they're ready to do some dungeoneering.

The module also does a good job of setting out the relationships within the town, both major and minor - on the one hand, how the three competing blacksmiths interact; on the other, how the local nobility came to power and what the court is like. It also adds some nice touches like making sure that the spell books of various casters contain only spells from their respective mentors' spell books. All of this makes the town a fleshed-out jumping off point for continuing adventures.

And I should re-emphasize that I think it's particularly good for new players, as opposed to just new characters. That said, the best part of it for a DM starting a campaign in the Realms is that the town is fleshed out thoroughly enough to be immediately usable and loosely enough that a DM can play with it quite a bit - that gives someone trying to get a campaign rolling a real kick-start to give them time to develop whatever else they want to do.

[Matthew]

It's not the first time I've recommended it on this board. So I'll just quote myself!

Ahah! Now that you mention it, I think it might have been your recommendation that prompted me to read it.

And I should re-emphasize that I think it's particularly good for new players, as opposed to just new characters. That said, the best part of it for a DM starting a campaign in the Realms is that the town is fleshed out thoroughly enough to be immediately usable and loosely enough that a DM can play with it quite a bit - that gives someone trying to get a campaign rolling a real kick-start to give them time to develop whatever else they want to do.

I do agree that the settlement is quite well designed, but I thought the player character involvement in the militia was too contrived. The actual adventure(s) were rather uninspiring, particularly the introductory excursions, though I suppose the actual dungeon was not too bad. There is a ridiculous amount of treasure to be had, though, I remember thinking, and some advice to the prospective game master that I would consider poor. On the other hand, that is not too dissimilar from my own introduction to adventure gaming via the Hero Quest board game, so as an introduction to the hobby I can see the value of this module, but it is not really an example of the best that can be offered, I think.

[Thurbane]

So I've been looking into AD&D2 and have decided I am going to give it a whirl. As much as I like using miniatures in my 3.5 games, I was a bit excited at the idea of a miniatures free game in 2e. After doing some research I have found that a lot of 2e players collect and use miniatures, although I have no idea how or why?

Maybe it is because I am not familiar enough with the system yet but how/why/and when would you want to use miniatures in a pre 3e game?

Thanks!

Already been covered by the replies above, but I'll say it again anyway: miniatures are totally optional in 2E (and 1E)...but they can come in quite handy for the players and DM to get an idea of where the party and opponents are in relation to each other.

The most detailed rules for using minis in 2E are to be found in Players Option: Combat & Tactics (definitely a precursor for many of the rules in 3E).

On a somewhat unrelated note, I see two different DMG's for 2e. One is "The Dungeon Master's Guide" printed in 89, the second is the "Dungeon Master Guide" printed in 93. From what I can tell they are both the same thing, but I don't know much. Was the second one just a reprint or does it have some updates as well?

Been a few years since I cracked any of my 2E books open, but from memory, both version of the 2E DMG are identical, except for a few layout changes...someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.

[Lapak]

Ahah! Now that you mention it, I think it might have been your recommendation that prompted me to read it.


I do agree that the settlement is quite well designed, but I thought the player character involvement in the militia was too contrived. The actual adventure(s) were rather uninspiring, particularly the introductory excursions, though I suppose the actual dungeon was not too bad. There is a ridiculous amount of treasure to be had, though, I remember thinking, and some advice to the prospective game master that I would consider poor. On the other hand, that is not too dissimilar from my own introduction to adventure gaming via the Hero Quest board game, so as an introduction to the hobby I can see the value of this module, but it is not really an example of the best that can be offered, I think.

Mmm. I can certainly see where you're coming from. The initial excursions, as you say, I didn't value so much on their strength as adventures as I did in the way they hit all the major notes of what a D&D adventure might be - coming at it from a 'is this a good adventure in its own right,' I wouldn't disagree with you. The very fact that (to take an example) one bounces from 'rescue' to 'negotiation' to 'enemy of my enemy / semi-honorable foe?' makes them kind of disjointed. It's been a while since I've run a party through it - I don't remember a surfeit of treasure, but I'll have to dig it out and look through it again.

If you read through it on my recommendation and didn't like it, I hope at least that I didn't cost you too much money in the process.

Oh, and to the person who asked in the first place: you might want to check out the whole thread I quoted myself from.