Atmosphere

[Boozer]

khaydhaik said:

As for miniatures, I got so tired of them. I agree with Quoghmyre that miniatures limit player creativity. The game too easily becomes a board game, and people stop asking questions about the scenario; they just want to get into another encounter and set up the miniatures.

I completely agree Khaydhaik, I had the same problem. Nowadays, when we play, which is rare, I just prepare some key NPCs or monsters out of sight, and announce the arrival of the creature or person by displaying the miniature. It's a good way also to show-off newly painted miniatures

[verdius]

I like minis for combat, unless it's an open field setting. But in a hallway where only so many delvers can get thru a door each round, LOS, etc, it's very nice. Just make sure to put them out of site/out of mind and get back to the storytelling mode. It's never been a problem, but i can see how it might.
I've never painted miniatures but i think it would be loads of fun. I do like models, any kind of representation, which is what RPG is anyway.

PS> Great to see Khayd'haik here!

[khaydhaik]

From the Lost and Found archives:

The group I used to play with before I relocated last year would play new age music at a very low volume in the background during games. It didn't always go with the theme of the game, but no one cared. I think they wanted to play the music louder, but like Mahrundl, I have some hearing difficulties, and couldn't hear the goings-on in the game with the music too loud. So they kept it down.

As for miniatures, I got so tired of them. I agree with Quoghmyre that miniatures limit player creativity. The game too easily becomes a board game, and people stop asking questions about the scenario; they just want to get into another encounter and set up the miniatures. Bah! Give me some well-written descriptive verse any day! And read it with some passion! Better yet, memorize it, and storytell it to the players while you look each of them in turn in the eye. Use a voice appropriate for the scene. When non-player characters (NPCs) speak, use different voices for different NPCs. (I'm terrible at doing a voice for a female character, but I did my best when I GM'ed, and the players always knew when the female characters were speaking.)

Get into the scene yourself, and you will pull your players in. Then you won't need to worry about music or miniatures--the players will be too engrossed in the scene to really care about other things.