Game Design Sins

[DeadBob]

Having said all that, I also think that a minis using game design really should have either a bunch of downloadable starter stuff ( like printable minis and tiles/locations) for a top level outfit like WotC or at least a coherent buying/building plan ( for cottage industry level stuff) with links.

 

[Fenris-77]

So the model you're working on is that you have different minis for everything that hits the table? Jesus. That's ... crazy pants (but awesome). I tend to have a handful of big figs, some horse sized ones, a bunch of humanoid ones, and some small shit. I call them 'enemies' and never you mind that they look like goblins and we're facing psychotic halfling cannibals.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

So here's a small example of shit that gives me the pip, in this case an example from a game I actually love, Spelljammer. This particular issue plagues a lot of games that have ship rules, spacefaring or otherwise. My issue here is with the notion of tonnage, particularly cargo space related to tonnage. So in Spelljammer a ship will have about half its tonnage available for cargo space, so a 30 ton ship has 15 tons of cargo space. So far so good. Here's where things fall apart for me though. Each 'ton' of cargo space is described as 50 cubic yards of cargo space. My problem here is that measurement means almost nothing to most people. Even people who suffer under the lash of Imperial measurements probably don't think in cubic yards. How many barrels of dwarven ale can I fit into 10 tons of cargo space? you ask. To which I reply, fucked if I know, let me get out my slide rule. Never mind the fact that no one knows how big a barrel of dwarven ale is in the first place because in no case will it be described in a way that's useful for determining cargo space. It's simply not terribly useful as a basic mechanic or description.

The 50 cubic yards thing struggles a little even if you want to do the math. The easy part is that a yard is 3 feet, so a cubic yard is a 3'x 3' cube. Cool. So a normal crate might reasonably be one of those and a large crate maybe two. How about those barrels of ale though? Well, maybe it's one each, IDK? Close enough I suppose. How about a crate of pikes? Arrgh. How about a big sack of tiddly winks? Double arrgh. How about a cargo of ornate giraffe statues crafted by artisanal Gnomish carvers on Phlogiston IV? Jesus wept. Don't get me wrong, I can do the math and 3D whatsits, but I don't want to have to, especially not at the table. Just gimme a cargo rating based on a range of easily conceptualized exemplars and call it a day.

What I found in practice with these kinds of things in most groups I was in, was we would usually have 1 or 2 math guys and everyone would just trust what they said about it. And if no math guy, it would become very shoot from the hip

 

[Fenris-77]

What I found in practice with these kinds of things in most groups I was in, was we would usually have 1 or 2 math guys and everyone would just trust what they said about it. And if no math guy, it would become very shoot from the hip

Yeah man, I feel ya here. I would just prefer a system that doesn't need that level of specific personnel. Something, you know, easy and manageable at the table.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

On the miniature front, I generally have avoided them in play when I can. When I first started we didn't use miniatures at all. Then in 7th grade my cousin and I got obsessed with them, mostly using them for marching order. But I found I didn't like having a figure to represent my character (no matter how you described your guy, it seemed like people always pictured the miniature). And I got sick of buying them. So I ditched them entirely when I ran my own campaigns (during 2E dungeons and dragons, which we were playing at the time, it was quite easy to play with no miniatures). When I played 3rd edition D&D, at least by 3.5, it seemed pretty much like you had to use miniatures. So I used them running those campaigns (avoided them for other games).

For me the biggest issue with miniatures is I feel like I am warping into a whole separate part of the game when combat begins: the transition from whatever is going on in the game world to combat, just never feels very organic to me. But when I do more theater of the mind, combat feels like it is a part of everything else.

 

[DeadBob]

So the model you're working on is that you have different minis for everything that hits the table? Jesus. That's ... crazy pants (but awesome). I tend to have a handful of big figs, some horse sized ones, a bunch of humanoid ones, and some small shit. I call them 'enemies' and never you mind that they look like goblins and we're facing psychotic halfling cannibals.

It's a little more halfway between those two.

Everyone substitutes at some point. They just do.

For me it's about minimizing that substitution.

 

[Fenris-77]

It's a little more halfway between those two.

Everyone substitutes at some point. They just do.

For me it's about minimizing that substitution.

It's been a long time since I've been able to run games in person, so even half way seems like a big ask for me. It's super cool that you want to go even that far though. It takes dedication and not a small amount of disposable income. Kudos.

 

[ffilz]

I do as well.

Let's see, offhand...

1) What is the buying plan for miniatures?
Who buys them? Which ones? How many do they buy? What's the best to do expand that?

In general, most minis games (as opposed to RPGs) have some thought put into those issues, if only in the form of Points Value systems, that every player then uses.

How does this translate into another type of game where traditionally the GM plays the world and everyone/everything except the PCs?

This has real world budget implications.

Those real-world budget implications then tie back into substitution/re-use/reskinning issues, which may then play into fictional/setting creation issues. Of course, the ties can go in the other direction as well.

For example, if I somehow take a whole bunch of D&Dish humanoid and demi-human fantasy races and say, for the fiction of the setting, they're all Fae collectively, and they can be allied to or opposed to humans in the setting (and differences in attitude are largely between families and tribes, not species of demi/humanoids), I've just given an in-setting fictional reason for why I re-use all the elves/dwarves/kobolds/whatever together in whatever fashion I feel like, rather than collecting a dozen or so of each variety.

On the flip, I could create a more generic baddie race or two, and encourage a culture of re-skinning that to whatever you have in your game. That's a big part of the culture that surrounds the Joseph McCullough *Grave miniatures skirmish games. If his baddies are Gnolls, but you use orcs and call them such? More power to you. Or bandits. Or Sleestaks.

2) How Big is the bestiary and how often do I expect different critters to come up in play?

Related to this, do I need more of certain critters because of a curve in PC power over time.
I like to think of this as the How Many Owlbears Do I Need? Conundrum.

How many owlbears do I need?
(By my estimation, somewhere between 0 and 7, but that's just me.)

How many dragons? Whatever.

Thing is, you can have a big bestiary. How do you make it manageable over the course of play? How do you keep a smallish, limited collection fun while expanding it.

Most of the gaming I did with miniatures, I was happy to provide them. I made various attempts at various times to get everything I needed to run the most common combats, plus some of the cool more unusual monsters. And yea, this is a problem with miniatures if you play any game that has much of a bestiary at all. And that was a factor that DID contribute to decisions to not use miniatures.

3) How much play space do we have?
My experience is that, in RPGs, there is very little unused space on which to set up, so rules need to be written in some fashion to either increase the space (by using less reference materials perhaps to regain table space) or making the best use of a small amount of space. That will then impact all kinds of design thinking as well, especially movement and ranged combat rules.

When I used miniatures, I was gaming on big conference tables, or had a pretty large table.

4) How often do we expect to change locations?
It has a big impact on your choice of terrain.

RPGs tend to change location a whole lot, so do you modify the RPG expectations? I mean, that's one answer. On any given game night, the table is set out wargame style and all of the action takes place there. Maybe there are multiple small locations on the table not physically adjacent in the fiction, becoming multiple small boards (now we're back to the need for interesting small table space rules). This could work with very traditional 3d wargame style terrain.

Okay, maybe we still want a fair amount, but not unlimited location change in any given session. 2d Printed boards/tiles perhaps with some spot terrain are possibly desirable. That allows you easy in, easy out with only really moving character/opposition miniatures, especially if you have them preprinted on something the size of posterboard/foam core presentation sheets. A whole lot faster than using smaller individual tiles or any but the most basic sorts of dry erase drawings. Once again, small space rules become desirable.

It also becomes desirable to start thinking about a library of these (just like the miniatures collection of the group as a whole, and the bestiary, and...) and their re-usability. How does that fit in with playstyle? Are we looking at something where there are recurring locations, with later additions for flavor, like a game centered on a town/castle/county/starship/space station/Casablanca, and only an occasional off-site to spice things up?

Other than the big battle I set up at home described above (where I had access to some terrain bits) I for the most part never use terrain. My big go to is a battle mat. I also started using a big sheet of plexiglass I could lay over maps. During some college gaming, I made heavy use of some Steve Jackson Games hex maps for outdoor encounters. The players got used to setting up camp in particular on one of the maps... When I ran Ptolus using Arcana Evolved, I had access to a color printer at work and printed off battle maps. I've done things like that at other times. I also made some use of dungeon tiles for a while.

5) How many times does that guy come back and why???
We all know, even with lots of minis in a collection, somebody (miniature) is going to get re-used and substituted along the way. Howabout fiction that justifies it?

I mean, no one really has to justify why random baddie trooper #3 with the sword and SMG gets re-used. They come from central castling. And no one really needs to justify why a really common non-human threat gets re-used (there's just lots of gators, wolves, and bears in these here parts). But it's bit different when it comes to a dragon, vampire noble, or beholder or whatever.

Is this mechanically a game where lots of characters go Combat Ineffective for the encounter, but rarely die or carry long term effects? That's certainly common in skirmish campaign minis games, and with generally a very simple post-battle roll system. Some RPGs use it, but not a lot.

Do baddies regularly have Comic Books Villain survivability somehow? Sure, the volcano fell on them, but later one, they're just back.

Is this a setting where lots of combat occurs, but rarely to the death (at least among certain people). Are there rules of ransoming or capture and parole? Are there required promises that must be made, recognized, and kept under some sort of penalty? Is there some high tech/magics that ted to almost always prevent death? Do people just plain have multiple lives?


And all that is just off the top of my head. There's plenty more if I guzzle another pot of coffee or so.

That all goes way beyond This is how the little dudes move, this is how they shoot .

I mostly never worried about unique miniatures. I would buy cool miniatures at times. If I really liked a miniature, at various stages I might engineer to have more encounters with something for which the miniature could be used.

So these concerns make sense. I'm not sure I've ever seen an RPG that depended on miniatures in a way that tokens couldn't be used instead, either full time, or for that special creature that you just can't make a miniature (or other object) you have work for.

 

[DeadBob]

On the miniature front, I generally have avoided them in play when I can. When I first started we didn't use miniatures at all. Then in 7th grade my cousin and I got obsessed with them, mostly using them for marching order. But I found I didn't like having a figure to represent my character (no matter how you described your guy, it seemed like people always pictured the miniature). And I got sick of buying them. So I ditched them entirely when I ran my own campaigns (during 2E dungeons and dragons, which we were playing at the time, it was quite easy to play with no miniatures). When I played 3rd edition D&D, at least by 3.5, it seemed pretty much like you had to use miniatures. So I used them running those campaigns (avoided them for other games).

For me the biggest issue with miniatures is I feel like I am warping into a whole separate part of the game when combat begins: the transition from whatever is going on in the game world to combat, just never feels very organic to me. But when I do more theater of the mind, combat feels like it is a part of everything else.

This is partly why I said that RPGs meant to use miniatures, sold to people who want to use miniatures, require more thought than they normally get.

For example, I know of an RPG offshoot made by a guy normally associated with miniatures skirmish rules (He made the Songs of Blank series and other stuff).

In his offshoot RPG, part of chargen is, essentially:
1) Look through the collection of miniatures you have available.
2) Find one that seems interesting to you that you'd like to use as your character.
3) Use the point buy system to give them appropriate stats, goodies, and gear. Use your judgement and creativity as different interpretations are possible.
4) Let the miniature inspire your portrayal of the character.

Normal RPG approach is more like, pick the miniature last. That's why there's almost always a bad rift between the imagined character and the miniature. It's a constant recurring complaint.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have some serious doubts about a TTRPG that starts with find a fig you like.

 

[DeadBob]

It's been a long time since I've been able to run games in person, so even half way seems like a big ask for me. It's super cool that you want to go even that far though. It takes dedication and not a small amount of disposable income. Kudos.

I don't buy console games. I haven't had a gaming system since an Atari in the early 1980s.

The money my pals spent on those over the years got spent by me on miniatures instead.

 

[Simlasa]

So the model you're working on is that you have different minis for everything that hits the table? Jesus. That's ... crazy pants (but awesome).

That's why I've always shied away from trying to use miniatures and terrain to any great degree in RPGs. They're fine for wargames where we can base the games on what we have... but it's too constraining on the openess of RPGs to stick to any collection. Our local GM has a pile of Dwarven Forge and loads of the rubbery plastic D&D minis... and it took a while to set up, take down... to sort through his figures to find what we need... and we STILL ended up using a lot of proxies and hand-wavium.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't buy console games. I haven't had a gaming system since an Atari in the early 1980s.

The money my pals spent on those over the years got spent by me on miniatures instead.

Well, shit, there was a time where I owned 5 or 6 large armies for 40K, so I get it (I don't play console games either). I've never been a huge fan of mini-centered TTRPG play though, so it never even occurred to me to build that kind of collection.

 

[ffilz]

Yeah man, I feel ya here. I would just prefer a system that doesn't need that level of specific personnel. Something, you know, easy and manageable at the table.

Traveller is nice. Big stuff is measured in tons. Cargo space is in tons. The trade system is in tons. A ton does have a specified volume. Technically big stuff listed as 1 ton is 1000 kg but that's not actually clear. Mostly it doesn't matter. Sometimes someone wants to know how many weapons are in a ton of "Firearms"... (well, 30kcr divided by the cost of the individual weapon? maybe x2?).

 

[DeadBob]

I have some serious doubts about a TTRPG that starts with find a fig you like.

And that's where the problem is.

It isn't a Fenris-77 problem specifically. It's an across the board problem.

I mean, it's a solution to the distance people feel from the miniature that they grab to represent their character after they've envisioned and prebuilt the character.

It's super simple even.

But if people don't do it...shrug.

 

[Fenris-77]

Traveller is nice. Big stuff is measured in tons. Cargo space is in tons. The trade system is in tons. A ton does have a specified volume. Technically big stuff listed as 1 ton is 1000 kg but that's not actually clear. Mostly it doesn't matter. Sometimes someone wants to know how many weapons are in a ton of "Firearms"... (well, 30kcr divided by the cost of the individual weapon? maybe x2?).

That seems a little better, yeah. My ideal system would be one that requires almost no cognitive overhead and zero math that can't be done with a crayon.

 

[DeadBob]

Well, shit, there was a time where I owned 5 or 6 large armies for 40K, so I get it (I don't play console games either). I've never been a huge fan of mini-centered TTRPG play though, so it never even occurred to me to build that kind of collection.

I got sucked in by the Reaper Bones KSes and it got out of hand.

Honestly, I never meant to go back to fantasy games at all.

 

[ffilz]

This is partly why I said that RPGs meant to use miniatures, sold to people who want to use miniatures, require more thought than they normally get.

For example, I know of an RPG offshoot made by a guy normally associated with miniatures skirmish rules (He made the Songs of Blank series and other stuff).

In his offshoot RPG, part of chargen is, essentially:
1) Look through the collection of miniatures you have available.
2) Find one that seems interesting to you that you'd like to use as your character.
3) Use the point buy system to give them appropriate stats, goodies, and gear. Use your judgement and creativity as different interpretations are possible.
4) Let the miniature inspire your portrayal of the character.

Normal RPG approach is more like, pick the miniature last. That's why there's almost always a bad rift between the imagined character and the miniature. It's a constant recurring complaint.

OK, that's an interesting model.

Actually, since I have this cool Lego castle setup, I HAVE contemplated how to use it in an RPG. In that case, the bestiary would also be "What do I have Lego bits for, or can realistically build from my Lego collection." And then I consider ALL the logistics of the game, and go back to gaming and building cool stuff with Lego as separate hobbies... With the gaming being on Roll20...

 

[Simlasa]

I have no idea how well it plays with them, because the translation on that RPG remains the worst I ever encountered in the hobby, and I'm not convinced tha game was ever even playable

I got to play a few scenarios (street fights) with it and I think it works. It's baroque and would take me a while to get smooth with it. People on the Rackham forums were a big help in deciphering some of the odder corners.

There's a lot of stuff I do like, like how the magic works and the 'attitudes' approach.
It's a fun setting, IMO, but when I've set games there I've just used B/X D&D or Magic World.

 

[Fenris-77]

And that's where the problem is.

It isn't a Fenris-77 problem specifically. It's an across the board problem.

I mean, it's a solution to the distance people feel from the miniature that they grab to represent their character after they've envisioned and prebuilt the character.

It's super simple even.

But if people don't do it...shrug.

So, some context, I worked in a FLGS for many years, so I probably had better access to 'figs' than most people, and the notion still strikes me as .. hmm ... something. I want people to be connected to their character, not the fig. YMMV.

 

[Sharrow]

The SJ equivalent has a ton set at 450 cubic feet. 'Nuff said.

Which happens to be close to Traveller's 'displacement ton', which is defined as the volume of a tonne of liquid hydrogen. This is assumed to be 14 or 13.5 cubic metres, depending on edition (or 500 cubic feet for GURPS Traveller, it being all US customary measure).

 

[Fenris-77]

Which happens to be close to Traveller's 'displacement ton', which is defined as the volume of a tonne of liquid hydrogen. This is assumed to be 14 or 13.5 cubic metres, depending on edition (or 500 cubic feet for GURPS Traveller, it being all US customary measure).

Which, no offense, is still bloody useless as playable information. How many medium giraffe sculptures equal the volume of a tonne of liquid hydrogen? To which I answer sweetly: fuck off sunshine.

 

[ffilz]

Which, no offense, is still bloody useless as playable information. How many medium giraffe sculptures equal the volume of a tonne of liquid hydrogen? To which I answer sweetly: fuck off sunshine.

Well, at some point, if you've found a trove of medium giraffe sculptures, the GM just has to declare by fiat how many tons they are, and if a player challenges, either stand firm, or take a counter proposal, and make a decision. Assume that there is a certain level of abstraction in the system and don't get fixated.

I think it would also be sometimes fair to say "sure, your scout ship has a 4 ton cargo hold, and that giant giraffe sculpture might weigh 2 tons or be 2 tons by volume, but it's 12m tall and your cargo hold is 4m x 4m x 2m and there's no way a 12m thing can be put in there. Now sure, that merchant ship with a 40 ton hold can easily take 20 giraffe sculptures.

 

[Sharrow]

That seems a little better, yeah. My ideal system would be one that requires almost no cognitive overhead and zero math that can't be done with a crayon.

Which is why I recommend just taking a 'ton' to be a unit of both volume and weight that come out to about the same amount of 'stuff' most of the time. The 100 cubic feet/1 ton ratio just happens to be handy as has a certain weight of history behind it (which also tells us that it's a useful rule of thumb).

I run fairly maths-heavy games and have an annoyingly nitpicking number-crunching guy as a player, and using this rule works out okay for me (probably irritates said player, but I'm not spending time tracking down exact densities, etc. for various cargoes and nor am I holding the game up while he does).

Basically a 'tun is a ton is a tonne' and don't sweat the details. And yes, Spelljammer and others that have 'tons' or the like that bear no relationship to any real-life use of the term bug the hell out of me.

 

[ffilz]

Last option on the cargo... Go with my idea of everything is Lego. Build the ship out of Lego. Build the giraffe sculpture out of Lego. How many Lego giraffe sculptures can you physically put into your ship's cargo hold? Are you allowed to partially disassemble the giraffe sculptures? :-)

 

[Sharrow]

Which, no offense, is still bloody useless as playable information. How many medium giraffe sculptures equal the volume of a tonne of liquid hydrogen? To which I answer sweetly: fuck off sunshine.

But that applies to any measure. At least Traveller also told us that two grid squares took up a ton, and the grid squares are 1.5m x 1.5m (which is very close to 5 ft x 5 ft), which is an easy size to visualise (with a 2.5m/8 ft ceiling, if that matters).

The thing is, 'close enough' is good enough, especially as there's going to be space wasted for access, tie-down points, due to odd shapes and so on unless everything is containerised, and I don't know about you, but I don't run games where managing a container ship down to how it's containers are loaded on is a thing.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, at some point, if you've found a trove of medium giraffe sculptures, the GM just has to declare by fiat how many tons they are, and if a player challenges, either stand firm, or take a counter proposal, and make a decision. Assume that there is a certain level of abstraction in the system and don't get fixated.

I think it would also be sometimes fair to say "sure, your scout ship has a 4 ton cargo hold, and that giant giraffe sculpture might weigh 2 tons or be 2 tons by volume, but it's 12m tall and your cargo hold is 4m x 4m x 2m and there's no way a 12m thing can be put in there. Now sure, that merchant ship with a 40 ton hold can easily take 20 giraffe sculptures.

Yeah, I get you. What I actually want though is a system that doesn't need me to make random calls about things like how big is half a giraffe.

 

[DeadBob]

OK, that's an interesting model.

Actually, since I have this cool Lego castle setup, I HAVE contemplated how to use it in an RPG. In that case, the bestiary would also be "What do I have Lego bits for, or can realistically build from my Lego collection." And then I consider ALL the logistics of the game, and go back to gaming and building cool stuff with Lego as separate hobbies... With the gaming being on Roll20...

I've met a few big LEGO fans in these kinds of conversations before.

My suggestion would be to shoot for fewer games, but bigger more dramatic games, and get any other LEGO fans in the gaming group to come in and help you build, working their ideas in.

So if your group meets every week or so, shoot instead for a single all day affair every month or so.

I'd also probably go with the Big Table (and maybe multiple small areas) concept. Do you have a garage or basement or similar as potential play space?

With the adaptability of Lego people, you really do have almost an unlimited ability to create new individual characters and players can literally build their characters from parts available.

I would think the big thing would mostly be getting the non-Lego folks to heartily buy int the Lego aesthetic. Once that was done though, the sky is the limit.

 

[DeadBob]

So, some context, I worked in a FLGS for many years, so I probably had better access to 'figs' than most people, and the notion still strikes me as .. hmm ... something. I want people to be connected to their character, not the fig. YMMV.

You can put whatever soft, invisible features into the character that you choose, so there's still lots of flexibility.

Look, have you ever tried what I suggested?

Try it. See what you think then.

 

[Fenris-77]

People are getting lost in the idea of 'managing' existing systems and whatnot. I know perfectly well that can be done. My point is that it's often realized badly and requires far more cognitive overhead in most cases that what should be required by a very minor game system.

 

[Fenris-77]

You can put whatever soft, invisible features into the character that you choose, so there's still lots of flexibility.

Look, have you ever tried what I suggested?

Try it. See what you think then.

Not likely to happen. My character building is already contextualized by setting, genre and rules. I really have no interest in it being further contextualized or constricted by what minis I might own. No offense.

 

[TJS]

In a game in which transporting cargo is a major thing I don't see why you can't use a basic abstract number.

This ship holds 50 cargo. A crate of guns is 1 cargo. A scupture of a giraffe is 4 cargo.

 

[Fenris-77]

In a game in which transporting cargo is a major thing I don't see why you can't use a basic abstract number.

This ship holds 50 cargo. A crate of guns is 1 cargo. A scupture of a giraffe is 4 cargo.

That's more like the thing, yeah. In order to realize that, when cargo can be essentially any shape, you need to have a table of easily pictured equivalents that make it easy on the GM to figure out how many fucking giraffes fit in the cargo hold of a Elven Dragonfly or what-the-hell-ever.

 

[DeadBob]

Not likely to happen. My character building is already contextualized by setting, genre and rules. I really have no interest in it being further contextualized or constricted by what minis I might own. No offense.

Presumably your minis collection is contextualized by those same things.

But again, you didn't try it so..shrug.

There's the water. Drink or don't drink.

 

[TJS]

Simulationist rules that exist purely for simulations sake and don't seem to have been given any thought to how they will actually be useful in the game does seem to be a thing that has become less common over time.

We played a short Shadowrun campaign last year and I remember looking at the rules for grenades and what happens when they miss their target and thinking "ok in terms of purely and realistically simulating what might actually happen this situation this might actually work - in terms of actually being usable without stopping the combat for 20 minutes to work through this?"

I know games in the 90s were full of these sorts of rules and we just pretty much ignored them, but it's weird coming across them now.

 

[Fenris-77]

Presumably your minis collection is contextualized by those same things.

But again, you didn't try it so..shrug.

There's the water. Drink or don't drink.

To be blunt, I think it's a silly idea. However, I'm not here to ruin anyone else's fun and that's just my opinion. So if you have fun with it or anyone else does, awesome.

 

[Fenris-77]

Simulationist rules that exist purely for simulations sake and don't seem to have been given any thought to how they will actually be useful in the game does seem to be a thing that has become less common over time.

We played a short Shadowrun campaign last year and I remember looking at the rules for grenades and what happens when they miss their target and thinking "ok in terms of purely and realistically simulating what might actually happen this situation this might actually work - in terms of actually being usable without stopping the combat for 20 minutes to work through this?"

I know games in the 90s were full of these sorts of rules and we just pretty much ignored them, but it's weird coming across them now.

This actually brings things back around to my initial point. Simulationist is fine, up to a point. However, taking SJ as the example, it's not really a game that is focused on trade and trade goods. It could be, but that's really not the design thrust of the game. Which should mean that the rules in question match the peripheral nature of the idea, which they don't.

 

[Brock Savage]

Pardon the huge multi-quote reply, I will try to be succinct

1) What is the buying plan for miniatures?
Who buys them? Which ones? How many do they buy? What's the best to do expand that?

You use the same strategy as when buying tools, clothing, or a 40k army; if you can't pay for everything you want in one lump sum you break the purchases into useable chunks and start with what you're going to use most. When it comes to RPG miniatures, you start with the most common encounters and work from there. My collection started with undead and dungeon vermin.

I dislike the idea of a DM soliciting players for $$ to purchase group miniatures. I encourage players to buy their own PC and henchman miniatures but do not require it.

Reaper Bones, Nozlur’s Marvellous Miniatures and Pathfinder Deep Cuts are all budget miniature lines of decent quality. You could get set up with a gameable collection of undead, dungeon vermin, and bandits for under $50.

2) How Big is the bestiary and how often do I expect different critters to come up in play?

Related to this, do I need more of certain critters because of a curve in PC power over time.
I like to think of this as the How Many Owlbears Do I Need? Conundrum.

How many owlbears do I need?
(By my estimation, somewhere between 0 and 7, but that's just me.)

How many dragons? Whatever.

Thing is, you can have a big bestiary. How do you make it manageable over the course of play? How do you keep a smallish, limited collection fun while expanding it.

I am a "less is more" DM who sticks to curated bestiaries for whatever setting I am running and don't feel the need for every creature in the book to make an appearance in my games. Even then, my collection is pretty substantial. I don't think it is practical or even desirable to account for dozens of slightly different humanoid races and multiples of the 300+ creatures in the Monster Manual.

The "how many owlbears are needed" question feels like a non-issue, the answer being "however many you want." I imagine them as solitary apex predators that congregate briefly to mate so I own 1. If parliaments of owlbears rampaging through the forest are a thing in your game, I guess you'll need to buy more.

The sweet spot for most combat-heavy RPGs like D&D is warband/squad sized conflict so I buy as many miniatures as I think will be practically used, which is about a dozen at the top end for things that come in big numbers like giant rats, bandits, ape-men and zombies but more often less. In the rare event that I need to represent more creatures on the table than I have miniatures for, I fill out the ranks with Litko plywood bases of the appropriate size as stand-ins (which are the first to be removed as casualties, naturally).

3) How much play space do we have?
My experience is that, in RPGs, there is very little unused space on which to set up, so rules need to be written in some fashion to either increase the space (by using less reference materials perhaps to regain table space) or making the best use of a small amount of space. That will then impact all kinds of design thinking as well, especially movement and ranged combat rules.

With all due respect, I think it goes without saying that space is needed. Obviously, if no one in the group can secure enough space to comfortably host, gaming with miniatures is probably a bad idea.

4) How often do we expect to change locations?
It has a big impact on your choice of terrain.

I do not feel it is practical to accurately represent terrain and find that a measure of abstraction is perfectly fine, especially if PCs are blowing through multiple biomes in a session like a video game. I have a Paizo battle mat that's dungeon flagstone on one side, generic green grass on the other that works for the vast majority of encounters. I own number of themed grids like desert, city, and even a ship but they are rarely used.

Again, I think less is more applies to terrain. I use a little 3d dungeon terrain, mostly doors, chests, altars and pillars. I also pack a small number of representative outdoor items for whatever biome they party is in (e.g. palm trees for tropical forest). I don't feel the need to cover the table in wargame terrain; a handful of strategically placed, inexpensive thematic terrain pieces can make a battlefield pop without wasting a lot of time.

That said, I am looking for good dungeon tiles to up my tabletop game. Dwarven Forge tiles are absolutely gorgeous but experience has shown me that walls get in the way and setup takes too much time.

5) How many times does that guy come back and why???

As a general rule, I buy miniatures with utility in mind and all of them are going to get used multiple times.

Then again, the money shot of my current game is gonna to be a showdown with Juiblex and in this case I don't mind blowing 60 bucks on a miniature that may only be used once (it will probably be recycled as a super-shoggoth or something though).

 

[Shipyard Locked]

All this talk of miniature selection headaches and I'm here being unbearably smug with like:

 

[Shipyard Locked]

Oh, and I shouldn't forget these either: