Why I Don't Like Minis & Battlemats

I just reconnected with Andy from Breakfast in the Ruins and gave a re-listen to the podcast episode he kindly invited me to guest on a few years back.

Listening to us bang on about Moorcockean roleplaying I had to laugh at our conversation about minis.

I do not like them, Sam I am.

DISCLAIMER

If you like minis and battlemats, more power to you. They just are not my bag.

My friend KinpatsuSamurai paints amazing mini diaoramas. I love seeing them.

My friend Dave is a master of online grid combat with digital minis. I enjoyed gaming with him.

My friend Chris has cabinets of minis in his basement and knows what every one means. They are awesome to look at.

I just don't want to do any of that in my games. I am a pure Theater of the Mind guy.

So, what do I think is wrong with minis (for me)?

Grab a chair...

1 Not a Roleplaying Game

As Andy puts it, using minis and battle mats doesn't feel like playing a roleplaying game, instead it turns the game into string of combat encounters a la the old Heroquest boardgame. As a GM, some of my proudest moments are when players roleplay in a way that totally avoids a combat slugfest. In my Laughing Tower playtest of a few years back, a Melnibonean high priest bluffed his way past guardsmen, the party hopped on his mystical yacht, and they sailed away from a city on high alert. This just after battling with powerful demons. Having the option to roleplay out of some combats means that the combats you do engage in are meatier and more memorable.

The few times I played 4E, I found combat very video gamey. We had status markers going everywhere, it really was more gamey than immersive, and the game petered out quickly after a few fights.

2 Problems With Scale

Besides distracting from roleplaying, the Dollhouse Scale of most battlmats and minis means that the immense scale of fantasy environments is wasted. Tolkeen's Moria is huge, an endless dungeon, but with minis it is reduced to an endless array of battlemats (ho hum). Go look at the final chase scene in Moria from Peter Jackson's films, the party are ants running along endless corridors that team with innumerable hostiles.

Back when I played AD&D, we had massive maps to explore, and combat was abstracted. We knew our position . Modern gaming has shifted focus from the PARTY on a single 10x10 wide BLOCK to the MINI on a 1x1 or 2x2 TILE. This is a huge step down in scale, and game worlds feel all the more constrained and small for it.

3 Lack of Imagination, Group Cohesion, & Listening Skills

With Theater of the Mind, you have to listen intently to scene descriptions for any tactical advantage. With minis, you peek at the grid, then go get a drink from the fridge until it is your time to roll dice. You are disengaged and disinterested in what is going on until it is your turn.

I saw the difference big time when I ran The Laughing Tower and had old Stormbringer stalwarts (hullo Alan!) and younger games who had been raised on mini combat. The characters had entered a ruined town where the tower had materialized, and were walking towards the rainbow-hued tower. I explained that there was a door at its base and a window straight above it near the top.

The party got half way across the square the tower had appeared in when a disgusting fly headed archer began shooting arrows at them from the window. The vanguard was made up of older players, who all decided to book it for the door, reasoning the sniper could only loose so many arrows before they got to safety. However, a younger player and Moorcock newbie decided to stand his ground and return fire. When he was knocked, an older player asked "Can I just drag him a few steps to the side and be out of the field of vision?"

"Of course!" I replied.

The older player had an image of the scene and the tactical considerations in his head, the younger one had been condition to stand his ground and fire back by reliance on minis and battlemaps. Just as we should be wary of kids nowadays letting AI do their thinking for them, we should also consider the effect of outsourcing our descriptions of combat to mats and minis.

4 Prevention of Narrative Abilities & Overreliance on Rules

Although I am a grognard and love older games, I do believe that adding some narrative rules judiciously can improve the experience of Moorcockean games, considering their narrative origins. Case in point, some of the rules I am working on have narrative effects that reflect Moorcockean themes, such as the ability to sacrifice NPCs or allies if in danger.

If you are using a battlemat and rules made for it, such an ability would have a range of effect and also be limited by the physical positioning of the minis. The player of a Melnibonean PC could offer to sacrifice an ally, but others could point out that their spaces aren't adjacent, or invoke some BS 5 meter casting range. The battlemat and minis thus becomes a physical constraint on rulings and creativity.

This isn't very Moorcockean.

5 Literary Roots

Last but not least, having a static dollhouse view of the battlefield takes away all the thrill of combat as it appears in the work of literature the game is based on. Go read the scene where Count Brass duels Baron Meliadus, or when Elric fights Yrkoon. These are page turners, tightly worded and pulse pounding descriptions of combat that are exactly why we love Moorcock's books and play games based on them. To read the book then abandon all descriptive efforts in favor of pushing little men around squares seems the antithesis of what I for one am trying to do.

Conclusions

I know I sound elitist or snobby for my dim views on minis, but I have to be true to how I feel. I am not here to yuck anyone else's yum, just articulate my feelings.

Now with the 5E glut pumping out products like pocket dungeons and battle maps, the scale of combat will only get smaller.

This make me sad.

To combat this trend, I have started working on a Guide to Theater of the Mind. Look for it sometime next year.