As is implied by the description, I would like to know how GMs visualize game play via mini/figures/etc. More Specifically though I want to know how you handle movement, distance, scaling. In the hand book it never really gives you a scale for movement, It simply says meters, but never refers to scale of any kind for game play. Same thing for map scaling (just says meters and that's it). Games like D&D use square or hexagon grid maps which makes everything a lot easier to do. I have looked around in various forums and such and haven't heard much about it. I am very much a visual person and would appreciate any incite on the matter.

Actually, most RPGs do not use miniatures. My GM sometimes uses a white board when things get complicated. If you want to use miniatures, just pick an hexagonal map and treat each hexagon as 1 meter. That should work.

I use mini's in my game.

It took some tweaking, but so far it has worked pretty well.

I'm pondering what to do myself; I'm starting a new campaign (my first time GMing SR). Usually our group isn't so into detail as to require precise maps. However, SR might need it; particularly to use spell ranges and security architecture fairly.

I like the idea of whiteboards; I'd like it to look very "corporate". However, I don't have a whiteboard, and we probably don't have the room.

What I'll probably use is an erasable map; they sell them at my local hobby store. It has squares printed on onse side and hexes on the other side. You can draw on it with markers and afterwards erase it with a wet rag. Should be useful for sketching out corporate buildings and such.

AR networks and such allow characters to share a lot of info real quick; so you don't have top worry as much about "Joe can see it, but Sue can't because she's in the other room". And when people see a map, they get ideas they otherwise might overlook. So I think it might be very worthwhile to have maps to play on. But I'll just use pawns or something to indicate people; I don't like spending on lots of miniatures. (And it gives that nice "you're expendable" vibe )

In my experience that is wrong. As I've said in another thread, RPG's actually evolved from mini wargames...

Every group I have ever played in from 1st Ed D&D/AD&D on till present has used miniatures (though not always a battle map)

There is a vast difference between individual groups deciding to use minis and having them supported by the system, which is what the OP was asking for. The D&D4 trend back to minis might be the future, but this has little to do with gaming: contrary to books, you can't get free minis with BitTorrent, and that's what WotC likes.

On the contrary, i have yet to be in a game where minis where used.

usually we solve the visualisation part with drawn maps and pointing. as to scaling, it is decided by the GM how far a distance is. But getting a proper scale is not a bad idea at all, I might do that for the runs I'm writing atm.

Do some drawing, scan some pictures/photos, search net for them.
Play a bit with Photoshop, and adjust them to the scale.
Print and cut them out. Don't forget about bases.
Voila! You made your own miniatures!

two of the more interesting things i have seen have been:
mounting a wall projector on the ceiling pointing down then programming the maps you will need to project on a pregridded table ( jeez)
and what i do- I use a table that I have painted with dry erase paint- costs about 20.00 to cover a standard dinner table

If you don't want to mount the projector on the ceiling, you can use a vertical metallic surface to project on and mount your minis on magnets. It also makes your minis much easier to move without scratching the paint: just fit them all in a metal cookie box, they won't move thanks to the magnets.

pretty much just the d20 line from TSR/wizards and assoc. has used miniatures, and in the case of AD&D not even every edition included support for mini's in the 'core 3' books.

while it is true that within that (dominant) market share minis are almost ubiquitous, it is not the case that the majority of RPGs use them.

outside of TSR/Wizards/Pathfinder, most companies specifically don't use them because they're trying to avoid having large start up costs and barriers to entry and/or are looking for a less gamist/tactical take on roleplaying.

You are probably by in large correct. Then again it is not exactly hard to make your own minis with some paper and coins. As a matter of fact I saw a free print out instruction sheet for BattleTech mech game that had paper cut outs that were intended to be used as minis.
Never the less, it is a useful method of playing and running a game. I dont know about you, but I would find doing combat without some sort of visualization method virtually impossible considering the amount you would have to keep track of.
Hence my initial posting asking for advice, which I maintain in light of such information.

BTW, I am not entirely sure what you mean by gamist take on roleplaying. Do you mean to great an imposement of rules to the degree that it hampers/slows the flow of the experience?

by gamist I mean simply that the focus is on gaming rather than cooperative storytelling. - in a game of D&D 3.5 for instance, the prototypical player (and the ruleset as a whole, as well as published adventures) is more concerned ultimately with seeing you roll some dice and do some damage and kill some stat blocks.

contrast with, say, Vampire: the Masquerade, which while also fairly crunchy (incredibly so for everything but uh, combat) the focus of the product line was much more on weaving some sort of cooperative storyline and a little less on getting to put your stat block into play a regular number of times per session.

note that I don't mean strictly how many rules there are (hence why I picked V:tM and not say, risus) but in the attitudes and expectations of the community and assumptions made by the editors and product lines.

a gamist RPG like D&D would sacrifice narration for stringent enforcement of the tactical situation (if you're one square too far away you're one square too far away and the narrative has to adapt to that - in a narrative RPG frequently the exact tactical situation will adapt to the narration. (Spycraft RPG referred to this as the 'rule of cool' for instance.)

both paradigms are equally valid in my view, it's just that only gamist titles really need the tactical battlemap to work; narrativist titles tend to work just fine with general consensus on position.

Well for many years we were using 28mm mini's and our battle map is drawn on a white board.
While this works well, we have since changed and now using 6mm mini's. While yes they are small, it is much easier to do larger scale maps.

With moving distance and such, its not too hard with 6mm as we work it that 1mm = 1 meter.
Since we play SR3 we have it so we all know our characters maximum running speed.

Not to get too involved in the whole debate regarding the differing styles of gaming, I will point out that there have been Shadowrun miniatures since first edition, and cyberpunk minis continue to be made. My point being, ANY game can be enhanced by putting a drawing down on a battle mat to represent positioning, cover, range, etc., and there's obviously a market for them.

To the OP's question, we'll use a scale of 1 meter per square if we're depicting a smaller area (for example, inside a local dive bar), or 2 meters (or even 5) per square if we're depicting something a little bigger. This scale has been working for us for years.

Robert (aka Spanner)

Those minis were not designed primarily for Shadowrun but for Downtown Militarized Zone, a skirmish game based on Shadowrun.

I've been playing Shadowrun for over 10 years and I think I can count on one hand the number of times we've used mini's. I have found that Shadowrun combats are over so fast it's really not worth the setup effort.

The last time I used minis involved a combat between 6 PC's and about a dozen members of the Red Hot Nukes gang. The only reason I decided to go with mini's in this case was because the Nukes were all using grenade-based weapons and I knew it was going to be crucially important to the game to determine exactly where everyone was in relation to blast radii etc. In that scenario I used my vinyl, wet-erase, map board which has a grid of squares. We pinched some Warhammer mini's (40k and fantasy) to use, and went with 5m/square (since the battle was happening in a fairly large area).

I will often use maps in my SR games: create them (or more often, pinch them from the internet), print them, and hand them out to players, so they have an idea of how things look. But I rarely resort to putting figures on the map and going all grid by grid. I run my games much more focused on the story than the tactical elements of combat. When we want to run a tactical game we play Warhammer 40k or Battletech.

As a GM, I've used minitures quite a bit in SR. I have a decent collection of the Ral Partha Minitures lines. I also have speawl maps and such that I have used for generic locations.

As to scale-typically I go for 1"=2 meters (pulled that from 40K Rogue trader-the minis being 25mm). Though one hex or dot =1 meter works as well.

Movement:Well by raw a persons movement is divided by the number of IPs they have. So a human with three IP's could move 3 meters (1.5") per IP walking, or 8 meters (4") running.
This does lead to the 1 IP people moving quicker which can be a bit odd at time. But it generally works.

Maps:My advice is to use powerpoint or other graphics heavy program. There are some pregenned maps, but they are getting harder to find. The vynal battle maps are a good choice as well, as they have either squares or hexes on them (helps with measuring),

Advantages-you learn how confined fighting in buildings is, and you also give PC's and yourself better situational awareness. It also helps with the tactics used.

Disadvantages-takes time to set up (interrupting the flow of game). It also takes slightly more prep work.


OT: Many RPGs don't dedicate themselves to combat or the use of maps. Others (like the game that causes cancer), are now so miniutres oriented, it is hard to play without them. Group playstyles vary though. so a big YMMV regarding this.

I didn't really elaborate much before, but this post kind of inspired me. I am also a big fan for RP and minimizing combat... mostly because combat in shadowrun can be so deadly so quickly. However, when combat does happen... and sooner or later it always will... I think tactical map based combat can save more players than it kills.

Like the poster above said, sometimes it is very important to know where people are standing... be it a RPG or a Force 9 Manaball coming in. (We recently had 3 PC's die to 1 force 9 manaball (DV 17) in the game I play in... but that is more for the other active thread about overpowered mana/stun spells )

Like anything else, this mechanic obviously won't be for everyone... each group will have their own people, house rules, and play styles.

What I would find amusing is Amber (diceless roleplaying) but using miniatures... lol

And we totally used minis and a map for thet. Why were you guys standing in a huddle at that time i don't know.
But other than that unfortunate combat I love minis and maps for combat situations. I'll reuse maps Ive drawn (on large drafting pads with a grid on them) from past games, and maps i may have gotten from past gaming products from the game that gives you cancer.

For minis I use the Ral Paltha minis (they are being issued through Iron Wind Metals) Star Wars and D&D platic minis and reaper has a line of minis called Chronoscope that have good shadowrun feel to them. On the maps we keep it simple, 1 square = 2 meters, if an object occupies a square (or Hex) it prodes some sort of cover and or interrupts line of site. yadda yadda yadda.
I heard through the grapevine that Catalyst is planning a miniture line in the future. So it's not as if the game is anti mini's, it's just not mini dependant.

Oh yea, very true... At Gen Con 2009 we spoke with a few folks at the Catalyst booth as well as at the Shadowrun Q&A where they did all seem to agree that some form of SR mini line would be released...

A few variations mentioned were using plain plastic (like the new battletech figs), pre-painted (but still not the "flimsy sword" PVC that other cancer causing systems use) and some other hybrid where you might buy "Dwarf Street Sam" PC model in a box that comes with some random pre-painted thugs.

I personally am really looking forward to whatever they come out with in that department... especially if I get to paint them myself (but can live with it either way... plenty of unpainted 40k, WHFB, and Warmachine/Hordes figures to finish.)

OL, have you ever tried running a game without minis? Shadowrun differs from D&D in that you can attack from much farther away. And mapping out large areas can be a huge pain. Also, unlike D&D, there tends to be a lot more going on in the enviroment, especially vertically (tall buildings, drones, multileveled areas, etc). Portions of the SR system isn't very map friendly and you'll need to make some goofy houserules to use one (unless you use the 1 square = 1 meter approach).

Like a story I explain an area to my gamers and let their imaginations fill in the blanks. An old SR gamer named Blackjack recommended this and it works wonders. In fact, allow your gamers to make up the scenery occasionally. If they're in a warehouse setting and someone wants to dive behind a crate or toss a box, let em. Only say no if a piece of scenery simply will not gel with the situation.

All of this is bunk if your gamers don't have the imagination though. If everyone has been "map trained" then I guess using a 1 square = 1 meter will have to do. Have fun drawing an elaborate map for the 2 turns of combat the enemies (or the runners) stay alive.

I think drawn maps will work better for Shadowrun: the surroundings are likely to suffer heavy damage during the fight. Blowing up the opponent cover or escape through walls are perfectly viable options, for instance.

I'm actually going to make minis for my group in the near future...out of LEGOs...because I am a LEGO freak.

Before you knock it, you should take a look at BrickArms and BrickForge. Both produce highly detailed accessories for LEGO Minifigures, which combined with the ability to be creative, allows you to custom create a miniature which replicates your character better than any pre-cast plastic or pewter miniature could...plus, no paint is required, and LEGOs are pose-able for all sorts of neat positions...no, not those kind of positions!

The only difficulties I foresee are recreating our Troll team member, and finding a LEGO face in my collection which accurately expresses just how pissed off my Highly Cybered Ork typically is...

When running D&D, I use miniatures, but for Shadowrun I tend to stick with small hand drawn maps, and little marks that show where people are. I just feel more descriptive when running Shadowrun, and don't spend as much time looking at the map as I do the players. There's certainly nothing wrong with a battlemap. I've built some beautiful battlemaps using tiles and levels. They can help engage the imagination. But sometimes they just get in the way, or take too long. Usually, I just get a better effect leaving it mostly to the imagination, and using a very basic map drawn in pencil on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper.

easy button XXXL grid paper! a must have for the technical minded combat monsters.
and to keep up with player, and npc locations arrow tabs "your looking the direction you tab is pointing"

So, i said we had never used miniatures.
This tread got me thinking though, I think i might try it for this campaign we are about to start (on friday )
i found some plastic bases that we can easily stick paper into, though they are a bit big (2,5x1,5cm) but at least they wont fall over too easily.
Now i am just trying to figure out how exactly to do it, we will probably only be using them for potentially confusing battles. As for rules, I don't see much reason standart rules wouldn't get the job done? Yes, people moves oddly (standing still for some time, then suddenly moving 25m, then standing still again) but it is like that wether you use a map and miniatures or not.

I think I'll go for some really simple maps, in order to still allow for peoples imagination, its just nice to be able to tell distances and positions relative to walls. (especially for those situations with grenedes rebouncing off walls)

Such things as vehicle combat clearly wasn't made for miniatures, so in that cases like that i might ditch the idea. But i really want to test the whole miniature idea, and i don't think it will hamper peoples creativity/imagination much, since the miniatures will essentially small pieces of paper (on bases) with characters initials or a very generic picture.

A suggestion for vehicle combat-use matchbox cars (or equivelant) to represent relative position.

In a way, this can make maps more helpful than a game with mostly melee combat. Both Magic and firearms are all about whether you have LOS to the enemy, and it's hard to arbitrarily say who was caught and who was obscured behind the half-opened door unless player (and NPC) positions are clearly marked out. Also, AOE weapons (spells, grenades, etc.) need you to know exactly where everybody's standing which is hard if they don't have a way to demonstrate it graphically.

Do not underestimate the customizability of metal/plastic figures. Or Green Stuff.

I know full well the might of the vorpal X-acto knife, for I frequently use such myself, I was simply referring to stock figurines. Whereas anybody with a pocketbook can afford to go the custom LEGO or stock pre-made figure route, it does take a certain amount of skill, and a non-too-common steadiness of the hand to achieve good results with customization of very small plastic bits...and the same can be said for the painting thereof.

I'm not saying you can't achieve good results, I'm just saying it's harder, and the outcome often tends to be more fragile than the stock variants...and paint smudges.

Legos are a really cool idea. I'll have to rummage round my old stash one of these days..