D&D Basic Game- OK, so now what? [Archive] - Wizards Community

D&D Basic Game- OK, so now what? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Sonicboom
08-07-05, 09:00 PM I love to play games with my kids. They usually beat me but that's a good thing I guess. They've been goading me to teach them D&D for quite some time and I diligently did the good Father thing, picked up the rulebooks, even read them, picked up the D&D Basic game, we played that, yea, great OK I'm getting the feel for this.

So, off to my friendly local game store.

Me: "Right! Enjoyed that. What's next"?

Shopkeeper: "Hmmm... how about Sunless Citadel. It takes level 1 characters to level 3. That fits the bill".

Me: "OK. We'll try it. I'll need more monsters right"? I'm handed a thin glossy booklet which I start paging through.

SK: "Uh... yea.

Me: "Is there a list of them in here somewhere"?

SK: Uh.... no.

Me: "OK. Let's see..... here we go, first monsters, I'll need Twig Blights...Dire Rats, OK I've got 1 of those, but I really need a couple more... Do you have any of those? Is there a set I can get for this adventure"?

SK: "Uh.... no". At this point it's explained to me that the miniatures are purchased as part of another game: D&D Miniatures. Several aisles over is a display of the packages which reveal little of their contents.

Me: "So you don't know what you're getting"?

SK: "Right. But if you know what you need you can buy the sets, Aberrations, Dragoneye, etc., that are likely to have them included".

After what seemed an eternity of looking up the monsters in Sunless Citadel and having the shopkeeper reference some obscure database on the store PC, we finally determined the set I might need. I bought a starter and some boosters and headed home with the booty.

Later that day, the kids and I cracked open the packages. While they thought they were cool, I was more than a little disappointed that not a single miniature was one I needed for this adventure.

Kids: "Dad, can we play this now"?

Me: "Uh...... no".

I was starting to understand the shopkeepers dilemma with me. I then explained to my kids about the "collectible" miniature business strategy, etc.

Kids: "That's stupid".

Me: "Uh..... yea". Tough to deny them their logic.

Kids: "Doesn't anybody else make this game"?

OK, so I obviously need some learned wisdom here. I don't recall ever having to work this hard to be a customer. I would think there would be some simple solution to this. I'm not anxious to purchase 20 or 30 boosters in hopes of getting only a few of the monsters I need. I also don't relish the thought of going through the Sunless Citadel and substituting creatures throughout, hoping I know enough about what I'm doing that everyone doesn't get killed in the first fifteen minutes. Is my local shopkeeper grossly misinformed? Is there some secret product line I'm not aware of?

Searching the WotC site has yielded little help. As I don't actually know anyone else who plays this game, Im a bit alone here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Sincerely,
Disgruntled Dad
Giant Turtle
08-07-05, 09:10 PM So what everyone else does, no one wants to buy hundreds and hundreds of mini's looking for a single piece when they aren't even playing the miniatures game. Use little paper tiles with names on it, or use dice, or you can try just about anything that fits the size. I believe the back of the Dungeon Master's Gude 3.5 has a little diagram showing how many hexes different sized critters take up. But really, mini's aren't that important, I own like 200 mini's and I have used them like 3 times since mini's came out. Good luck, feel free to e-mail me or message me on AIM or MSN if you want some more help, or just post here, posting here works great for me!
Azzy
08-07-05, 10:20 PM Yeah, like the last poster said--you don't actually need miniatures.

However, if you really want to use real minis there are other companies that produce miniatures that you can use in your games (Reaper Miniature, immediately springs to mind). Mind you, minis from most other companies come unpainted and unassembled.

Personally, I'm refusing to buy the D&D minis so long as they continue to be blind packaged. I want to know what I'm getting.
Martryn
08-07-05, 10:25 PM I usually buy some generic minis that can be used to "represent" certain creatures. And for large creatures that take up more than one square, I'll use tiles.

I have a wolf mini that I'll use for dogs, cats, ect. A horse mini makes a good griffin, hippogriff, etc. Some elementals can pass as ogres. Then of course there are humanoids that can go as pretty much anything. I would recommend shopping around at some different hobby stores and trying to find pewter minis instead of the DnD minis. Some online stores also have relatively good selections, like Reaper minis, ect. And then there are always figures from board games like hero quest and a variety of other fantasy style board games.

If you are still looking for good adventures, try Dungeon magazine. They print three adventures an issue, all of pretty good quality, one for low-level, one for medium-levels, and the third for high levels. They also used to print monster tiles for all creatures in their adventures, although I don't know if they still do that or not.
MerricB
08-07-05, 11:02 PM You don't need minis to play D&D. Trust me on that one.

However, it probably will make it easier. One trick is not to obsess about having the right minis. Anything will do.

Look, I have over 1500 D&D minis, and I still use dice, bits of cardboard, glass beads or chess pieces when I can't be bothered tracking down the right ones, or when I don't have the right ones. Or I use goblins as twig blights. :)

Another part of this is that the minis can be bought singly online (or in groups), or traded. There's also a large trade in metal miniatures.

If I want lots of Dire Rats, I'd find people who had them and then trade minis. Or I'd buy them singly if I could find a place that had them in stock.

This site - http://www.maxminis.com/ - is the main trading site for D&D Minis. (I act as a moderator there). You can get a lot of advice on trading or buying individual minis there.

One other thing to consider is this: D&D Minis are actually very new. The Sunless Citadel was written four years before the first plastic D&D Mini was made - you had to buy metals, then assemble and paint them yourself. (If you used minis at all).

Cheers!
High Octane
08-08-05, 01:30 AM You dont need minis. You need a players handbook, monster manual and Dungeon Masters Guide.

You can use graph paper for visual reference, but it may get a bit crowded around that little piece of paper.
ccerose
08-08-05, 01:41 AM I'll add my 2 cents. If there is a mini handy, I'll gladly use it. However, that is not often the case. Any mini that has the correct base size will do the trick. Any mini that looks reasonbly close to the actual monster will do the trick.

If I only have one mini, but the encounter calls for five of them, I will use the one mini and then 6 sided dice for the other five.

Another thing I've started doing is using the artwork from the Monster Manual (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20030712a) and resizing it onto circles of the appropriate base size and printing and cutting them out. For example, if it's a ghoul, I draw out a circle 1" in diameter and then resize the jpg of the ghoul to fit within the circle. If its a hill giant, I draw out a circle 2" in diameter and then resize the jpg of the hill giant to fit.
GreyLord
08-08-05, 01:05 PM Exactly. Use a miniature that sort of resembles what you need or want.

That's what I do. Skeletons are good for a generic undead, orcs for any sort of goblinoid, etc.

WotC does the collectible miniatures game so that they make money, if you really want particular miniatures plan on supporting them in that arena, otherwise you could use miniatures that could sort of resemble the creatures that you want to use.
Cole Deschain
08-08-05, 01:20 PM Ral Partha used to make some lead-free pewter minis, if you absolutely have to use miniatures. In practice, I find the a pad of graph paper and a penicl do wonders for describing things.
Ravenseye
08-08-05, 02:43 PM I just posted something similar in the DM section. I've used random miniatures, but I didn't like using a kobold to represent an orc, etc. So I just cut up index cards into appropriate sizes and then wrote 'orc' on them. Other people use dice, wooden spools, etc.

Now i'm starting to try taking the images out of the monster manual, and printing them in the correct sizes on card stock. This way they're the rigth size, I don't have to worry about things not looking the way they should, and I get more immersion. I'm going to be trying them out in game for the first time tonight. Here's a reduced down version of the first sheet of the monster manual. In general though i'm creating them on the fly with what I need. All I have to do is print them out, then cut them in the right sizes and I have my own paper miniatures.

btw: Good for you playing D&D with your kids. I can't wait till my daughter is old enough to play with us. She's still too young, but loves watching us play.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v287/Ravenseye/001_Aboleth_AssassinVine.jpg
Sonicboom
08-08-05, 06:14 PM Thanks alot for all the good advice. I'm realizing that the problem here is the D&D Basic game as an introduction. It hands the game to you on a platter with everything you need. So, of course, the kids think that all the games will/should be like that. In reality, D&D seems to be more homemade, and that's a good thing!

I just have to start turning their mindset toward that and away from the pre-packaged dungeon crawls like DungeonQuest, Return of the Heroes, etc. that they've played. The Basic game really is like one of those.

But hey, should be no problem for me. I am, after all, "The Dad" and I'm in the ultimate position to brainwash my minions into submitting to my every gaming whim, MUHAHAHAHA!
(It's OK, I'm only neutral evil)

I'm liking the idea of printing the monsters on card stock. I can get my slaves... er, my kids to start working on that.

Anyway, thanks again. I'd love to hear from anyone who has either taught D&D to themselves or has tried to teach it to kids, or both as is my case. Keep up the good feedback!
Edymnion
08-08-05, 06:34 PM I love to play games with my kids. They usually beat me but that's a good thing I guess. They've been goading me to teach them D&D for quite some time and I diligently did the good Father thing, picked up the rulebooks, even read them, picked up the D&D Basic game, we played that, yea, great OK I'm getting the feel for this.Congratulations, you are officially a cool dad, the world needs more people like you in it. :)

I can help you with some of your miniature woes, so don't worry too much about it. Yes, the DDM random minis do suck unless you actually play that game (I don't). You have several options you can consider:

Using Real Miniatures
eBay for DDM
If you go onto eBay, you can find pretty much every one of the DDM minis already opened, so you can see what you are getting. Most of the common ones will run you less than a dollar. The rarer ones will run you more in the neighborhood of $5-$10 each.

Using "Real" Minis
The DDMs are typically not seen as being "real" gaming minis by many older gamers because they are cheap, badly painted plastic dealies. Many prefer (as I do) to use metal minis. There are downsides to this one though, which if you're playing with small children will be a problem. One, they're not as cheap as DDMs, typically running $3-$5 a piece. They also come unpainted, meaning you have to (or in my opinion, "get to") paint them yourself, with whatever colors you like. With a little practice, you should be able to match the paintjob level on the DDMs with about a half hour to 45 minute's work per mini. What many people now days do is to get and paint these good miniatures for important characters (like the players), and then use the cheaper DDM minis off of ebay or second hand from gaming shops for the cheap monsters.

Some people will say you need expensive paint, but don't listen to them. I have been painting minis for many years now, and I get excellent results out of simple Apple Barrel craft paints from walmart. And considering the "good" paint for minis runs $5 for this little bitty pot, and the Apple Barrel paints are more like 60 cents for a 2 ounce bottle, you can see why I use craft paint. ;)

The best metal mini maker out there today is Reaper, here's a link to their homepage: http://www.reapermini.com/
Generally, if you don't want to order from them directly, you can find the mini you want in their online store, write it's name and number down, and take the list to your nearest gaming store and they will either find it for you on their shelves, or special order them for you (and they should not charge you anything for the special order). Just a note though, Reaper's minis are not "official" D&D material, so the names won't match up. You would want to look for something like "giant rat" instead of "dire rat" for example.

Using Makeshift Minis
Cardboard
If you have a good printer, look for pictures of the monsters you want to use (WotC has art galleries on the main site, you should be able to download the picture of the monster you want to use). Shrink them down, and print them out on pieces of cardstock. Split the bottom of the card so it'll stand up, and tape it onto a quarter. Instant mini.

Candy
One that I still use, and one that your kids should love that will really get them into the game. Hit a candy store and buy a bag of gummie bears, or hershy kisses, or whatever small candy your kids like. Use the candy for monsters. And whoever kills the monster, gets to eat their candy mini. "Quick, shoot the archer!" "No way, I don't like caramel, I wanna kill that chocolate wizard!"

Dice
You can buy dice, relatively cheaply, in almost any color combination you want. You can have a hundred of the same dice, with no two being the same. And its natural for D&D players to tend to collect dice over time. So, you can use dice as miniatures. You can even work up a little system of something like "The more sides on the dice, the more important the monster is", so you could have the big bad evil guy use a d20, his henchmen use d6's, and then have a bunch of d4's to represent dire rats.

Whiteboard
Hit walmart and pick up a dry erase board and some markers. You can draw the grid onto the board (I actually have a dry erase board that I scored a grid into with a hobby knife so that the dry erase dust gets stuck in there, permanent grid that you can erase on without losing the lines!). Then grab a pack of dry erase markers in multiple colors. You can then draw all over the board, and move minis that way. The circle with the W in it is the wizard. When you want to move them, you erase the circle and draw it again in the new spot.

Basically, as has been said already, you don't need the DDM minis to play. Heck, you don't even need little people minis either, dice or coins work just as well. And there are those of us out there that typically don't use any kind of miniature at all, that just keep track of locations in our heads. But, since you're playing with your kids, that probably isn't going to be a good option.

And one more note to leave you on, you don't have to use the printed adventures either. Most of us (well, those of us with enough free time) like to make up our own adventures. A good way to do this is to buy one of the campaign setting books (like the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting or the Eberron Campaign Setting). They've got lots of info about a gaming world in general, the normal stuff that goes on in them, etc. You can then pick a place to start, and make your own adventure. Or, you can just make everything up as you go along yourself. You could do anything from the classic "rescue the princess from the evil dragon" to political intregue, or whatever else you want to do. The limit is literally your imagination.
The_Battlemage
08-08-05, 06:37 PM Well, if you really want to use miniatures you can buy them in singles.

However, that can be fairly expensive.

Here is a list of all of the miniatures you need.

http://vesivus.com/tiles/sunless_citadel.htm

He sells single miniatures as well as a complete dungeon map (availible in PDF, Cardstock or on CD) of the Sunless Citadel.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sonicboom 08-07-05, 09:00 PM	I love to play games with my kids. They usually beat me but that's a good thing I guess. They've been goading me to teach them D&D for quite some time and I diligently did the good Father thing, picked up the rulebooks, even read them, picked up the D&D Basic game, we played that, yea, great OK I'm getting the feel for this. So, off to my friendly local game store. Me: "Right! Enjoyed that. What's next"? Shopkeeper: "Hmmm... how about Sunless Citadel. It takes level 1 characters to level 3. That fits the bill". Me: "OK. We'll try it. I'll need more monsters right"? I'm handed a thin glossy booklet which I start paging through. SK: "Uh... yea. Me: "Is there a list of them in here somewhere"? SK: Uh.... no. Me: "OK. Let's see..... here we go, first monsters, I'll need Twig Blights...Dire Rats, OK I've got 1 of those, but I really need a couple more... Do you have any of those? Is there a set I can get for this adventure"? SK: "Uh.... no". At this point it's explained to me that the miniatures are purchased as part of another game: D&D Miniatures. Several aisles over is a display of the packages which reveal little of their contents. Me: "So you don't know what you're getting"? SK: "Right. But if you know what you need you can buy the sets, Aberrations, Dragoneye, etc., that are likely to have them included". After what seemed an eternity of looking up the monsters in Sunless Citadel and having the shopkeeper reference some obscure database on the store PC, we finally determined the set I might need. I bought a starter and some boosters and headed home with the booty. Later that day, the kids and I cracked open the packages. While they thought they were cool, I was more than a little disappointed that not a single miniature was one I needed for this adventure. Kids: "Dad, can we play this now"? Me: "Uh...... no". I was starting to understand the shopkeepers dilemma with me. I then explained to my kids about the "collectible" miniature business strategy, etc. Kids: "That's stupid". Me: "Uh..... yea". Tough to deny them their logic. Kids: "Doesn't anybody else make this game"? OK, so I obviously need some learned wisdom here. I don't recall ever having to work this hard to be a customer. I would think there would be some simple solution to this. I'm not anxious to purchase 20 or 30 boosters in hopes of getting only a few of the monsters I need. I also don't relish the thought of going through the Sunless Citadel and substituting creatures throughout, hoping I know enough about what I'm doing that everyone doesn't get killed in the first fifteen minutes. Is my local shopkeeper grossly misinformed? Is there some secret product line I'm not aware of? Searching the WotC site has yielded little help. As I don't actually know anyone else who plays this game, Im a bit alone here. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Sincerely, Disgruntled Dad
Giant Turtle 08-07-05, 09:10 PM	So what everyone else does, no one wants to buy hundreds and hundreds of mini's looking for a single piece when they aren't even playing the miniatures game. Use little paper tiles with names on it, or use dice, or you can try just about anything that fits the size. I believe the back of the Dungeon Master's Gude 3.5 has a little diagram showing how many hexes different sized critters take up. But really, mini's aren't that important, I own like 200 mini's and I have used them like 3 times since mini's came out. Good luck, feel free to e-mail me or message me on AIM or MSN if you want some more help, or just post here, posting here works great for me!
Azzy 08-07-05, 10:20 PM	Yeah, like the last poster said--you don't actually need miniatures. However, if you really want to use real minis there are other companies that produce miniatures that you can use in your games (Reaper Miniature, immediately springs to mind). Mind you, minis from most other companies come unpainted and unassembled. Personally, I'm refusing to buy the D&D minis so long as they continue to be blind packaged. I want to know what I'm getting.
Martryn 08-07-05, 10:25 PM	I usually buy some generic minis that can be used to "represent" certain creatures. And for large creatures that take up more than one square, I'll use tiles. I have a wolf mini that I'll use for dogs, cats, ect. A horse mini makes a good griffin, hippogriff, etc. Some elementals can pass as ogres. Then of course there are humanoids that can go as pretty much anything. I would recommend shopping around at some different hobby stores and trying to find pewter minis instead of the DnD minis. Some online stores also have relatively good selections, like Reaper minis, ect. And then there are always figures from board games like hero quest and a variety of other fantasy style board games. If you are still looking for good adventures, try Dungeon magazine. They print three adventures an issue, all of pretty good quality, one for low-level, one for medium-levels, and the third for high levels. They also used to print monster tiles for all creatures in their adventures, although I don't know if they still do that or not.
MerricB 08-07-05, 11:02 PM	You don't need minis to play D&D. Trust me on that one. However, it probably will make it easier. One trick is not to obsess about having the right minis. Anything will do. Look, I have over 1500 D&D minis, and I still use dice, bits of cardboard, glass beads or chess pieces when I can't be bothered tracking down the right ones, or when I don't have the right ones. Or I use goblins as twig blights. :) Another part of this is that the minis can be bought singly online (or in groups), or traded. There's also a large trade in metal miniatures. If I want lots of Dire Rats, I'd find people who had them and then trade minis. Or I'd buy them singly if I could find a place that had them in stock. This site - http://www.maxminis.com/ - is the main trading site for D&D Minis. (I act as a moderator there). You can get a lot of advice on trading or buying individual minis there. One other thing to consider is this: D&D Minis are actually very new. The Sunless Citadel was written four years before the first plastic D&D Mini was made - you had to buy metals, then assemble and paint them yourself. (If you used minis at all). Cheers!
High Octane 08-08-05, 01:30 AM	You dont need minis. You need a players handbook, monster manual and Dungeon Masters Guide. You can use graph paper for visual reference, but it may get a bit crowded around that little piece of paper.
ccerose 08-08-05, 01:41 AM	I'll add my 2 cents. If there is a mini handy, I'll gladly use it. However, that is not often the case. Any mini that has the correct base size will do the trick. Any mini that looks reasonbly close to the actual monster will do the trick. If I only have one mini, but the encounter calls for five of them, I will use the one mini and then 6 sided dice for the other five. Another thing I've started doing is using the artwork from the Monster Manual (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20030712a) and resizing it onto circles of the appropriate base size and printing and cutting them out. For example, if it's a ghoul, I draw out a circle 1" in diameter and then resize the jpg of the ghoul to fit within the circle. If its a hill giant, I draw out a circle 2" in diameter and then resize the jpg of the hill giant to fit.
GreyLord 08-08-05, 01:05 PM	Exactly. Use a miniature that sort of resembles what you need or want. That's what I do. Skeletons are good for a generic undead, orcs for any sort of goblinoid, etc. WotC does the collectible miniatures game so that they make money, if you really want particular miniatures plan on supporting them in that arena, otherwise you could use miniatures that could sort of resemble the creatures that you want to use.
Cole Deschain 08-08-05, 01:20 PM	Ral Partha used to make some lead-free pewter minis, if you absolutely have to use miniatures. In practice, I find the a pad of graph paper and a penicl do wonders for describing things.
Ravenseye 08-08-05, 02:43 PM	I just posted something similar in the DM section. I've used random miniatures, but I didn't like using a kobold to represent an orc, etc. So I just cut up index cards into appropriate sizes and then wrote 'orc' on them. Other people use dice, wooden spools, etc. Now i'm starting to try taking the images out of the monster manual, and printing them in the correct sizes on card stock. This way they're the rigth size, I don't have to worry about things not looking the way they should, and I get more immersion. I'm going to be trying them out in game for the first time tonight. Here's a reduced down version of the first sheet of the monster manual. In general though i'm creating them on the fly with what I need. All I have to do is print them out, then cut them in the right sizes and I have my own paper miniatures. btw: Good for you playing D&D with your kids. I can't wait till my daughter is old enough to play with us. She's still too young, but loves watching us play. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v287/Ravenseye/001_Aboleth_AssassinVine.jpg
Sonicboom 08-08-05, 06:14 PM	Thanks alot for all the good advice. I'm realizing that the problem here is the D&D Basic game as an introduction. It hands the game to you on a platter with everything you need. So, of course, the kids think that all the games will/should be like that. In reality, D&D seems to be more homemade, and that's a good thing! I just have to start turning their mindset toward that and away from the pre-packaged dungeon crawls like DungeonQuest, Return of the Heroes, etc. that they've played. The Basic game really is like one of those. But hey, should be no problem for me. I am, after all, "The Dad" and I'm in the ultimate position to brainwash my minions into submitting to my every gaming whim, MUHAHAHAHA! (It's OK, I'm only neutral evil) I'm liking the idea of printing the monsters on card stock. I can get my slaves... er, my kids to start working on that. Anyway, thanks again. I'd love to hear from anyone who has either taught D&D to themselves or has tried to teach it to kids, or both as is my case. Keep up the good feedback!
Edymnion 08-08-05, 06:34 PM	I love to play games with my kids. They usually beat me but that's a good thing I guess. They've been goading me to teach them D&D for quite some time and I diligently did the good Father thing, picked up the rulebooks, even read them, picked up the D&D Basic game, we played that, yea, great OK I'm getting the feel for this.Congratulations, you are officially a cool dad, the world needs more people like you in it. :) I can help you with some of your miniature woes, so don't worry too much about it. Yes, the DDM random minis do suck unless you actually play that game (I don't). You have several options you can consider: Using Real Miniatures eBay for DDM If you go onto eBay, you can find pretty much every one of the DDM minis already opened, so you can see what you are getting. Most of the common ones will run you less than a dollar. The rarer ones will run you more in the neighborhood of $5-$10 each. Using "Real" Minis The DDMs are typically not seen as being "real" gaming minis by many older gamers because they are cheap, badly painted plastic dealies. Many prefer (as I do) to use metal minis. There are downsides to this one though, which if you're playing with small children will be a problem. One, they're not as cheap as DDMs, typically running $3-$5 a piece. They also come unpainted, meaning you have to (or in my opinion, "get to") paint them yourself, with whatever colors you like. With a little practice, you should be able to match the paintjob level on the DDMs with about a half hour to 45 minute's work per mini. What many people now days do is to get and paint these good miniatures for important characters (like the players), and then use the cheaper DDM minis off of ebay or second hand from gaming shops for the cheap monsters. Some people will say you need expensive paint, but don't listen to them. I have been painting minis for many years now, and I get excellent results out of simple Apple Barrel craft paints from walmart. And considering the "good" paint for minis runs $5 for this little bitty pot, and the Apple Barrel paints are more like 60 cents for a 2 ounce bottle, you can see why I use craft paint. ;) The best metal mini maker out there today is Reaper, here's a link to their homepage: http://www.reapermini.com/ Generally, if you don't want to order from them directly, you can find the mini you want in their online store, write it's name and number down, and take the list to your nearest gaming store and they will either find it for you on their shelves, or special order them for you (and they should not charge you anything for the special order). Just a note though, Reaper's minis are not "official" D&D material, so the names won't match up. You would want to look for something like "giant rat" instead of "dire rat" for example. Using Makeshift Minis Cardboard If you have a good printer, look for pictures of the monsters you want to use (WotC has art galleries on the main site, you should be able to download the picture of the monster you want to use). Shrink them down, and print them out on pieces of cardstock. Split the bottom of the card so it'll stand up, and tape it onto a quarter. Instant mini. Candy One that I still use, and one that your kids should love that will really get them into the game. Hit a candy store and buy a bag of gummie bears, or hershy kisses, or whatever small candy your kids like. Use the candy for monsters. And whoever kills the monster, gets to eat their candy mini. "Quick, shoot the archer!" "No way, I don't like caramel, I wanna kill that chocolate wizard!" Dice You can buy dice, relatively cheaply, in almost any color combination you want. You can have a hundred of the same dice, with no two being the same. And its natural for D&D players to tend to collect dice over time. So, you can use dice as miniatures. You can even work up a little system of something like "The more sides on the dice, the more important the monster is", so you could have the big bad evil guy use a d20, his henchmen use d6's, and then have a bunch of d4's to represent dire rats. Whiteboard Hit walmart and pick up a dry erase board and some markers. You can draw the grid onto the board (I actually have a dry erase board that I scored a grid into with a hobby knife so that the dry erase dust gets stuck in there, permanent grid that you can erase on without losing the lines!). Then grab a pack of dry erase markers in multiple colors. You can then draw all over the board, and move minis that way. The circle with the W in it is the wizard. When you want to move them, you erase the circle and draw it again in the new spot. Basically, as has been said already, you don't need the DDM minis to play. Heck, you don't even need little people minis either, dice or coins work just as well. And there are those of us out there that typically don't use any kind of miniature at all, that just keep track of locations in our heads. But, since you're playing with your kids, that probably isn't going to be a good option. And one more note to leave you on, you don't have to use the printed adventures either. Most of us (well, those of us with enough free time) like to make up our own adventures. A good way to do this is to buy one of the campaign setting books (like the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting or the Eberron Campaign Setting). They've got lots of info about a gaming world in general, the normal stuff that goes on in them, etc. You can then pick a place to start, and make your own adventure. Or, you can just make everything up as you go along yourself. You could do anything from the classic "rescue the princess from the evil dragon" to political intregue, or whatever else you want to do. The limit is literally your imagination.
The_Battlemage 08-08-05, 06:37 PM	Well, if you really want to use miniatures you can buy them in singles. However, that can be fairly expensive. Here is a list of all of the miniatures you need. http://vesivus.com/tiles/sunless_citadel.htm He sells single miniatures as well as a complete dungeon map (availible in PDF, Cardstock or on CD) of the Sunless Citadel.