To wonder why so many people on here love Playmobil?

[SchnitzelVonKrumm]

(Clearing out the toy boxes). I know some of the detail is cute, but Playmobil stuff falls apart as soon as you look at it. See also: Sylvanian Families.

My DSs are playing with the coastguard boat in the bath right now, the Playmobil figures have been ditched in favour of a collection of Dr Who baddies!

It's good but it's such a PITA! DS has the campervan and my god teh bits just get EVERYWHERE!

I had so much Playmobil when I was a kid; my sister and I had the big mansion. We got rid of everything because we moved around so much and I always regretted not being able to keep even a little bit of it. Now I buy it for DD and the quality and detail is even better, yet it's still simple. I think its fantastic for honing imagination!

I was persuaded (on here) that Playmobil is the best thing since sliced bread, and bought loads of it (when it was cheap on Amazon) for Xmas and DS birthday a few weeks later.
I even got PM Xmas sets and advent calendar. The putting together of them made me dread the big sets, so I started with a smaller one, the Native Village. It took me all sodding afternoon, and he played with it once. It just sits there looking, admittedly, good. The school, the pirate ship and the pirate island are under the stairs, in their unopened boxes. DS hasn't asked about them once - but the kilo of mixed Lego is played with every single day :/

Playmobil & Sylvanian Families are great for developing narrative play. All the role playing with the different characters going to work in their dust cart or driving off in the speed boat is great. There were a lot of schools in our house with registers, exercise books etc all being maintained by the DCs. They also made fantasy towns out of Lego which were very popular.

I really love it, have done since I was a kid. DD has the hotel set and it's played with every day. There was mass hysteria over the loss of a teeny tiny juice carton one day. Don't want to forget that.

I can't stand playmobil and sylvanian families, it's all too Stepford. The dc's have totally ignored all the playmobil they were given a few years ago.

Give us Lego any day.

We had tons of castle & viking PM stuff & would have huge all-day fights with trebuchets & cannons lobbing things around the landing including pumpkins & cows Quite sad when it became outgrown & went via Gumtree.

Hate Sylvanians thought - pretty weird & creepy IMO - urgh!

though not thought! I don't know what or if Sylvanians think

My children absolutely loved Playmobil - they would sit playing with it for hours, making elaborate scenes. My son loved the fire engine, police station, rescue helicopter etc and my daughter adored her mansion and the palace. (sexist but chosen by them!) They loved all the fine detail, and the fact that you could move the arms and legs and put the figures in different positions. The sets are quite expensive but very good play value. My son also loved Lego, so it wasn't a matter of one or the other.

I think some DCs do Narrative play and some think it's deadly dull (DD1, DH and me are scientists and firmly in the deadly dull camp).

DD2 likes history and English, she wants to be a primary school teacher. She loves playmobil, SIMs and writes fan fiction.

I wonder if the appeal of mine craft is that it lets you build things and then make a narrative and so appeals to both groups.

I like playmobil because it has lots of real-life things and isn't heavily gendered. As a child, I always played with lego but I HATE the way it now divides into angry male fighting things and pretty female silly things. I like just building houses! Playmobil still allows my kids to play with figures that look like families and do family things, which is what they like most. And it is good quality and really lasts. I don't bother with the big houses / ships etc. Just lots of people and vehicles and accessories.

Mine are all about narrative play so they love the actual Sylvanian figures (also Octonauts, My Little Pony, little Lego figures, Schleich animals...) But the houses and vehicles break SO easily. Whereas even the Playmobil figures lose their hair/hats/helmets almost instantly.

Yes, I'm surprised that the OP finds that Playmobil falls apart easily - I always found it very hardy. The real hazard, we found, was losing vital little parts as some bits were so minute. However, my children were so keen not to lose thingsthat they were unnaturally thorough at tidying it up!

i wonder if it falls apart more when younger children are playing with it? hard for 3 and 4 year olds to handle gently

One thing we learned very quickly was not to play with Playmobil on a patterned carpet - that is how all the tiny bits disappear! It's all much more visible on a self-coloured surface for tidying up purposes!

Yes I hate the modern Lego too.
I built totally gender free houses, cars, windmills and loads and loads of planes.

We had lots of little wheels and railway sleepers that became vast air fuels of light aircraft.

Air fields

Yanbu we had the playmobil pirate ship and some vehicles, the bin truck? And others, we got rid in the end as they drove me mad.

But my dd has lots of the playmobil dinosaurs and the volcano, that's fine, doesn't come apart and dd loves it.

They also have a range with dragons and unicorns that dd and ds4 like and doesn't fall apart so ime it depends on which range of playmobil, some are OK itS mainly the buildings that are shit.

I never know what to build from Lego. . mine only have duplo atm
Playmobil facilitates lovely imaginative play IMHO.
And the rescue dinghy has the coolest little stretcher and medical bag and oxygen cylinder. It adorable.

I hate it too. Dds had accumulated a massive aeroplane, an ambulance, a hospital and loads of other large things they never played with (thanks dad), so we donated the lot to a childminding neighbour. Good riddance!

Playmobil is no good for most children until they're at least five. Ds was still playing with it the the holidays, just before starting at secondary school.

We've loved Lego too (still have heaps of it in the loft, ready for grandchildren, next to all the Playmobil, I can't wait to get it all out again he he). However, I don't like the fact Lego cash in on the gender-stereotypical, eg, pink buckets of bricks aimed specifically for girls, and as someone said above, angry-faced baddies. They also cash in on films, like Star Wars and Harry Potter, for instance. Playmobil doesn't do that. Yes, they have the mansions and dolls houses, forts, pirates and castles, but it is not specifically aimed at either gender, and they don't bring out film or well-known character-based ranges. Daughter, son and all their friends were all happy playing with the pirates, cowboys, knights and doll's house, and they all played together happily. The End!!

The mansion was particularly bad at falling to bits though - the number of times I had to rebuild that thing - Grrr. The first time was Christmas Eve, when o/h and I had planned ahead and put it together so we wouldn't have to do it on Christmas morning. Carefully getting it out of the loft (just outside daughter's bedroom it fell to pieces, with all the little bits clattering down the metal ladder. Aaarrrgh. Thankfully, it didn't wake her, but of course we had to build it again, and by this time we'd both had a glass or two of wine hic

JohnnyBarthes - Playmobil do have the 1-2-3 range, which is much chunkier for little hands, with none of the tiny bits.

Our PlayMobil campervan is wrecked, I think 3 was too young for it. I should have gone for the Daisy one from ELC that DH vetoed because it was too pink.

I don't understand some stores' marketing of Playmobil - they put it in the preschool section, which (other than the 1-2-3 range) it really doesn't belong.

Ds also liked Lego, but once you've built a model it's difficult to play with as it falls apart.

Evans, Lego had to push film toe-ins to compete with cheaper imitations, I believe.