using minis in Shadowrun, do you? Options

[GlassJaw]

I'm just wondering who uses minis in their games. Having played 3ed D&D for the past 4 years, minis are a necessity for the system. How does using them translate to Shadowrun?

My guess is there isn't as much mechanical emphasis placed on them as D&D does but can they still be used effectively? I tend to like to use minis and battlemats in my games.

[Ecclesiastes]

Back when I played with my last GM (you rock Brian), he had TONS of Shadowrun minis and we made good use of them. I don't personally own any though, so I just do my best to describe a scene so the players know whats up.

[Runner Smurf]

I tend to use minis all the time when I GM. I don't care how well you describe things - someone will get confused, and often time's its the GM.

I use Lego people for my minis - the little minifigs are customizable, posable, and approximately at the standard scale. Silly, I will freely admit, but it works.

Besides, it's an excuse to by more Legos.

- Runner Smurf

[GenoSicK]

In my groups, we tend to use Veleda panel when available.
That, the appropriate marker and some dice, and your ready to roll !

Besides, you can erase when you need to, so that make it quite useful.

[bitrunner]

i use a combination of the Clix series...i can get on ebay and buy a cubic buttload of SHIELD agents that magically become Lone Star SWAT team members. they cost anywhere from 25 to 35 cents a piece and they're "common" so no one wants them - do the same for ninjas, thugs, gangers, etc. I use some of the MK figures for elementals, and the orcs actually make great trolls...best of all, they're already painted!!! and, they're light enough that i can through them in a case for conventions.

Now, if only they'd make an actual SR clix game, we'd be golden! just put 10 clicks on it for the physical wounds, ignore stun wounds, make a few other minor adjustments, and you'd have the new "DMZ" game...

[Method]

[nezumi]

Generally when the party needed a small vehicle, they'd use a bike or a drone. No reason for minis.

Oh, you meant the figurines. I've never had to use them for a game I ran. Granted, 90% of my games are online, but in general, most of my games are roleplaying, puzzle solving and descriptions. Combat is rare, and when it does happen, I try to keep the number of combatants down to a minimum, since it quickly becomes unmanagable. So it's never been too much of a problem with me : ) Plus, since I too am restricted to the like of lego men, I feel by pulling stuff like that out it makes the game feel less grim and dangerous. I mean come on, the guys are always smiling! How are we supposed to be full of angst if we can't wipe those silly grins off our faces.

[GrinderTheTroll]

Wow, we ues them all the time. I can't see how you could effectively set-up combat or other situations w/o using miniatures or something to represent relative positions...I take that back, I can see it, it's just alot to keep track of in my head.

I've never played SR w/o using them, with the exception being Astral Quests, Decking runs, and Vehicle Combat.

[lokugh]

The best GM tool I ever found is Broderbund's 3D Home Architect. Let's me make floorplans (including furniture) and even, with a little work, landscapes. And since it lets me change what is visible, I can easily make two maps of each area (one for me with everything and one for the players with just what they can see). Also helps with decking for floorplans and the like. (I think Encore makes a similarly named product, which might also work).

Cover that with a piece of transparency and give each person a different color transparency marker. Works great and is a lot less expensive and less cumbersome than miniatures.

[Ecclesiastes]

Anyone know of any good FREE home designer tools?

[Cray74]

[GlassJaw]

[Cray74]

[Bigity]

So, you guys that use SR minis (which I have quite a few), do you use them and a map to use to scale, or just position them around sketches to give the general layout and not worry about scale and distance?

[Snow_Fox]

I pay attention to clothes worn but in most casesc i prefer jeans to skirts for a run.

[RedmondLarry]

Our team uses minis all the time. With 1" square = 2 meters the scale of the miniatures and the floor match.

Without miniatures, I can't imagine figuring out who is in an area-affect spell, who gets hit by a shotgun blast, who gets hit by a grenade, who has cover from whom, where someone goes when Gel Rounds cause a knock-back, or even how many initiative passes of movement does it take to get to the bleeding character.

I was surprised at Gencon to see almost none of the Shadowrun GMs using playing mats and miniatures. I bought six more Chessex mats at Gencon, so now every member of our team has one, which is great because most are now GMing for other people.

[GlassJaw]

[RedmondLarry]

No, we haven't yet used them all at once. Five of us now GM -- some at game stores, some at conventions, some at 18-person "game days".

Since the ones I bought were little 20" by 20" mats, I could use them all at once by pre-drawing different parts of the adventure on each mat and just pulling out the scene I needed when the time came.

[Johnson]

Well I use the DMZ box set which is the offical SR2 Board Game. It helps a lot but maps are limited. I would like to get my hands on some SR mini's as about 400 warhammer 40 K and fantasy minis. I use some of these and they help like you cannot believe. some times I use my gaming tables, where 1 Inch is 1 meter.

Boy does combat goes well.

[Thistledown]

Two of our players are hugely into heroclicks and mageknight as well, so they bring their mini's and I I pick out what I need as GM, and assign special ones to each player.

As for the boards, I picked up some 11"x17" dry-erase boards at the book store. Their flat, with no border, and designed to be fed through a laser printer. Then just draw whatever room I need on them.

Unforunetly, I don't have a laser printer that size, but the same company makes 8.5x11 sheets as well. The laser print stays on when you wipe off the marker.

I've tried using Roborally boards for factories and stuff, but the minis are just a little too big to fit in the squares.

[bitrunner]

oooh, RoboRally - i'll have to remember that one!!! so what if the minis are a little big - you just go by the center of the fig...

good idea, thanks!

[lokugh]

[GrinderTheTroll]

[spotlite]

We don't use mini's in either our DnD or shadowrun games. I never have, bar the fight at the end of queen euphoria when it was just getting silly. We used different sized dice as we didn't have minis (and were able to use the 1 to represent light wound, 2 for mod, four for serious and 6 for down and out, which worked surprisingly well!).

That was five years ago. And you know what? I WANNA PLAY WITH MINIS!!!

Unfortunately, we don't have the room, and I don't have time to do the maps, though improvising's not that hard if you use 40K or necromunda figures (and necromunda board pieces work brilliantly for industrial and toxis areas) and go with 1 inch per M. I don't like using inches, I prefer metric, but its the distance the minis are designed for, at least in England.

I've brought it up a few times, but the players keep voting it down. The consensus seems to be that it would use more time fiddling about with sets and things than it does to grind through repeated combat descriptions and so on (which i'm not terribly great at anyway). I think it would help hugely - if we had the room, the mini's and the time. We play two ongoing weekly campaigns and i gm both of them a lot of the time. Both games are great and also have slightly different players, so we can't cancel one. BUT I WANNA PLAY WITH MINIS!!!

snif. choke.

Edit: oh, and we don't play 3rd ed ad&d, we play monty haul skillz and powerz and we're not ashamed!!! WE'RE NOT ASHAAAAMED!!!

And now I know 3rd ed practically requires miniatures I'm even less keen to play it and put money in the pockets of those shameless money making marketeering corp types. Hasbro, I ask you. Bah!

[SIZE=1]NB the author is not in any way wishing to deter others from purchasing the fine quality products made by Hasbro or any other faceless individuality suppressing corporation and indeed would actively encourage the purchase of any shadowrun product from any said places should that in fact be what they are. He is merely pointing out his own objection to their practices and his views are not condoned by the owners of this board. No animals were harmed during the making of this post, nor were any humans anally probed by grey aliens who only steal hick farmers in the dead of night on a slow news day. This post did not cause the world to end. I'm very. Very. Tired. Amen.

[GrinderTheTroll]