RPGaDay 2021 - Day Twenty-Two

 DAY 22 - SUBSTITUTE

All I can really think of is the used of proxies in miniatures games. For the record, I'm just not interested in using proxies. I try to keep things as WYSIWYG as possible. I guess you could say I WILL ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES. 

I love using miniatures in my role-playing games. For ME it helps a lot with immersion into the game. Nothing kills that for me more than putting on miniature on the tables and saying it is something completely different. (This knight in full-plate armour, one handing a great sword with a giant shield with the coat of arms of an important noble house of the real… yeah, that’s my Halfling thief with a sling and a dagger and a codpiece and NOTHING ELSE!?) Honestly, I’d rather someone use a meeple or some other featureless token. 

I’m not saying this to be a gate-keeper, or sound elitist or a snob. I do not care at all what other people do. I have used other tokens and am fine with that. But if I’m going to use a miniature in my game, I’d like to use an appropriate one. 

At this point, I have over 12000 painted 28mm foot figures organized into those drawers in my game room (each drawer has the capacity for about 100 28mm foot on the bases I use, do the math - No, they're not ALL completely full, and yes, I do have cavalry and they take up more space, and yes, there ARE a LOT of unpainted miniatures in those drawers - that I WILL NOT use n games until they ARE painted). If I have them, I’d really like to make USE of them.

One substitution I WILL make is, if a published adventure calls for one type of foe and I don’t have miniatures for them, I‘ll usually have something similar that I could use I will SUBSTITUTE a different antagonist into the story. If the adventure calls for Kobolds and I don’t have those… but I do have LOADS of painted Goblins - that tribe of Kobolds will simply become a tribe of Goblins. In a Wrath & Glory game the characters were to encounter a Plaguebearer of Nurlge. I don’t have any Plaguebearers… but I DO have loads of Daemonettes of Slaanesh and Bloodletters of Khorne… so that’s what they faced… (I don’t remember which, I think it might have been the Blootletter). 

For what it’s worth, I also will not play with, or against, unpainted miniatures or terrain. When I have SO MUCH STUFF that IS FULLY PAINTED Why would I play with unfinished stuff - just change the scenario to incorporate on of the THOUSANDS of miniatures I DO have available. 

As I said, this is what I do in my house, at my game table. I do not care what other people to and do not judge you for it, I am KEENLY aware of extremely fortunate I am to I have access so many painted minis. It has taken a LONG time (4 decades of collecting and painting!) to get to this place. It's been a lot of work. Why would I do all that work to have an unpainted mini on the table - when there are 12000 painted ones within reach that could be used..