Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I remember years ago when Microsoft had that surface table they were showing off, and people would use it to play D&D. I will admit they look cool, but I never used battle mats. My efforts go only as far as "who is in the front" and "who is in the back". Like many, we couldn't afford miniatures when we were kids and learned to play the game without them. I usually get leery of a DM with battle mats, as my initial thoughts are that the combats in their game will be quite long and involved.

ARTICLE

When you start broaching these areas of technology with D&D games, you can quickly turn a relatively inexpensive hobby into a money sink.

We've never used battle mats with graphics or without. We use unmarked whiteboards and a measuring cord. The PCs aren't going to know precisely how many feet away something is. You cast a fireball where you point then we measure what all got hit by it.

I've looked over battle mats with graphics on them at the stores but even with animation there's always one deal breaking problem for me: it's always the same scene. That one ship will be your only ship. A battle mat of a ruined castle will be your only ruined castle. Even if everyone doesn't get tired of the monotony of that there's the problem of refining tactics to that particular scenario with those measurements.

Maybe in 25 years when a variable, easily programmable holographic gaming grid becomes available I'll give serious consideration to a purchase. Assuming I'm still alive.

Its superfluous is my first reaction but it may aid certain types of DMs.

I don't think that I need it though. I have a 24 inch DM screen...

Seriously, too much energy to nail down visual dynamics can also be said for the rubberized D&D miniatures from a few years ago. I have big one (a storm giant) and its too off. How do you customize rubber? Same thing for computer visuals the energy you're going to spend making boat after boat after boat could be spent gluing together a model with real light and real shadows.

This hobby was a money sink from the get-go. In the late 70s I wanted to get the AD&D corebooks and was told by a vendor that they were around $30 apiece ($101.17 in today's dollars)!

He was lying when he said that.

Falconer wrote:He was lying when he said that.

I don't remember them being that expensive. When I bought my first AD&D books in about 1985 (orange spine) [was playing Moldvay before that], I remember needing about $25 a book.

I got back into the game several years ago, when 4th Edition came out, after a hiatus in gaming. That edition essentially was just a miniatures skirmish game, and I had money to burn at the time, so I played with a multitude of battlemats, chessex mats, dungeon tiles, and Dwarven Forge terrain. It was fun (for what it was).

But the experience more or less convinced me that minis and terrain are an unnecessary and unproductive distraction. It shifts the focus of the game. If that mess is on the table, then the players focus on it, rather than the things that actually matter in old-school games (like carefully listening to descriptions, exploring, mapping).

So the animated/computerized version does nothing for me. I think it would suck the imagination out of the game.



* Edit to add: I bought the orange-spined books from KB Toy & Hobby for $14.99 back in the day.

Falconer wrote:He was lying when he said that.

Not impossible. However, irrespective of the actual quoted price, that was still outrageous for my family's threadbare budget in the Energy Crisis America of the late 70's.

MageInBlack wrote:

Falconer wrote:He was lying when he said that.

I don't remember them being that expensive. When I bought my first AD&D books in about 1985 (orange spine) [was playing Moldvay before that], I remember needing about $25 a book.

I never bought the orange spines ones, but the original ones were $12 with the DMG being $15.

JCBoney wrote:

MageInBlack wrote:

Falconer wrote:He was lying when he said that.

I don't remember them being that expensive. When I bought my first AD&D books in about 1985 (orange spine) [was playing Moldvay before that], I remember needing about $25 a book.

I never bought the orange spines ones, but the original ones were $12 with the DMG being $15.

That’s correct. When UA was released in 1985 it was $15 and they repriced the older books to match, and made the DMG $18, which is where they stayed until 2E was released. That was the list price, but discount stores like KMart and Toys R Us sold them for a couple dollars cheaper. A couple years ago I bought a set of orange spine books off eBay that still had KMart price tags on the covers - $9.98 for the PH and MM, $11.98 for the DMG.

EDIT: Just checked the books and the KMart prices were actually a dollar less: $8.96 for the PH & MM and $10.98 for the DMG

it was $9 PHB and $12 DMG in 1981 in the shops but I had ordered a PHB from a catalog in 1982 (Dungeon Hobby Shop) and it was more expensive. ($12?)

T. Foster wrote:in 1985 it was $15 and … the DMG $18, which is where they stayed until 2E was released

And beyond! Remember, all of the orange spine series (at least MM1, PHB, DMG, L&L, and MM2—who cares about the rest) were still being reprinted through 1990, and UA through 1991!

Paid about $12.50 (1981) for the DMG in Buttf*ck Arizona. I believe the MM and PHB were $10.50, all at KMart. Modules were $5.50 in the early 80's, going up to $6.50 around 1985.

The flatscreen idea would be nice if the maps were static and it didn't take more hours to find and edit images than a group actually spends playing.

geneweigel wrote:it was $9 PHB and $12 DMG in 1981 in the shops but I had ordered a PHB from a catalog in 1982 (Dungeon Hobby Shop) and it was more expensive. ($12?)

Then they must have gone up in 1982 when I got my stuff.

JCBoney wrote:

geneweigel wrote:it was $9 PHB and $12 DMG in 1981 in the shops but I had ordered a PHB from a catalog in 1982 (Dungeon Hobby Shop) and it was more expensive. ($12?)

Then they must have gone up in 1982 when I got my stuff.

Probably the "satanic tax".