Players and DMS: Custom or General Minis?

[Laserlight]

I used to paint Reapers but the FLGSs don't have much stock, the minis take up space, painting takes time, you have to sort through them to find the mini you want, and then the player stops playing her tabaxi monk and switches to a halfling paladin and you have to start over again.

I print tokens, use a 1" circle punch, and glue the disk to a 1" felt furniture pad.

PCs get their name, symbol, picture, whatever they want.

Monsters are done the same way but instead of pics of goblins, orcs, etc, they're just generic counters numbered 10-49. That way I don't have to waste time looking for "the skeletons" or "the trolls" or "I know I had some drow around here somewhere". I'll probably get around to making another set of monster counters with their combat role (something like axe for Brute, sword and shield for Defender, bow for Ranged, etc).

[Oramac]

If I have a character that's really special to me for one reason or another, I'll pick up a HeroForge mini for it. I have a friend that is AH-mazing at painting minis, so I ask her to paint it for me.

For general use as a player or DM, I'll use whatever is handy. Doesn't even have to be an official mini. I used some random plastic dragon model for an Adult Dragon just the other week. It's a good 8" tall and maybe 6" wide, and cost all of maybe 8 bucks. Way better than the WOTC official stuff.

[ruy343]

I actually eschew miniatures generally, because I'm a lazy DM, and I don't actually care about placing miniatures on the table. People manage to enjoy my game sessions without them.

Recently, I had some players express itnerest in trying out miniatures for D&D, so we used the printable minis that the Giant made ("A Monster for Every Season" - the PDFs are available through Gumroad, I believe), and my players loved them... until they realized that there actually are kobold minis for civilians, and they felt super guilty for killing a kobold mom and baby kobold.

Man, my players are suckers...