Gaming, however, has certainly not strayed from my thoughts, and while browsing the forums, I've noticed that people are talking about minis in 4e, and how it's not good for a system to have the use of miniatures be so deeply inherent in a game system.
While I don't deny them their opinion, for me, it's a moot point. I need minis. I have such a bad handle of imaginary space during gameplay that, to be blunt, if there aren't minis involved, or some other form of visualization of the action, I get completely and totally lost.
I'm fine with imagining stuff like this when reading a book or writing an action scene, but when it comes to gameplay, there are so many distractions going around the table. Other people are talking, other people are rolling dice, there are things I'm not in control of happening, and it all builds and builds until I have no ability to track what's happening.
I don't care if it's something like Vampire, or Call of Cthulhu, or Mutants & Masterminds. Tactical combat or no, if there isn't at least a piece of paper with little doodles on it to help me out, I'm out.
Even when I played older editions of D&D, I used minis. I have never not used miniatures in some fashion while playing D&D. So while I can understand why some people might not like gaming a system that outright requires you to have minis to play, I'm perfectly happy with D&D 4e assuming that players are using them.
Because otherwise, I basically wouldn't be able to play.
