Graph Paper Games

I made five 4" by 4" dungeon tiles, which is 80 square inches, almost twice my usual batch of tiles.  When added to what I've done already, this is how big a single room I can make: 14 by 14 squares, with four squares to spare.  That's a pretty big room (70 feet to a side).  If I wanted to mix it up, I could build something like this: I'm probably going to take a little break from this project.  It has turned out well, but until I'm closer to doing a fantasy game I'm going to focus on the games I'm actually doing. Speaking of which, it's game night tonight...

I picked up 13th Age last week and have been perusing it since then.  I had played the game at KantCon and had been reading a bit about it on the internet.  When the game finally showed up at my FLGS, I picked up a copy and got a free pdf version for good measure. For those who don't know, 13th Age is a pared-down version of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.  Fewer class-related powers, fewer feats, no grid-based tactical movement.  There's a few odd additions like a d6 die whose number goes up each turn of combat in an encounter, triggering various effects in the PC's and the monsters to accelerate the action. I've mentioned this before, but there are two aspects of PC creation that bear a bit more detail.  The first is the pre-generated epic-level NPC's who make up the power factions of the world: some good, some bad, some neither.  They are deliberately vague (e.g. the high priestess of the temple of light, the ruler of all the orcs in the land, et...

I'm cross-blog posting about this both here and over at my other blog, The Army Collector . Right now, I'm reading the book  The International Bank of Bob: Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time   It's about a travel writer who gets involved with the microfinancing organization  Kiva  (which also happened to win a Nobel Peace Prize) after seeing the gross disparity of wealth and poverty around the world.  With $25 loans to individuals who are seeking to improve their lives and build local industry, it got me thinking about the fact that I can drop $60 on a copy of the new Star Wars RPG without difficulty, and what that means. So here's what I decided to do.  I took the remainder of my hobby budget for this month and gathered my two children around the computer.  They each got to pick a single $25 loan to make to an individual.  Kiva loans have a very high rate of repayment, so I will actually get the money back within the next ...

I continue to plug along on this project, in hopes of one day having a pretty flexible dungeon layout.  Here's the third round of tiles and what I can make with them.

After the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying  session, we had a little chat about where we wanted to go with the campaign, which rules we wanted to use, and the possibility of a second team.  As it turns out I have four players teed up for the second team: another couple, a fellow from my church, and my daughter, who is young but the same age my son was when he began. Interestingly enough, despite several of the players being at least familiar, if not having played Mutants & Masterminds , the group was happier with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying .  I had thought, given how much they had played D&D 4E, they would want a "crunchier" game, but the group seemed to agree that the more fluid, imagination-driven rules of MHR.  I suppose it makes sense--there were a couple of moments in the M&M game where a player attempted what would be considered in MHR terms a "stunt" only to be told there would be some sort of penalty.  In addition, as I mentioned previously, there ...

My regular gaming group got back together Friday to once again play the Ultimate Posse with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying .  I'll freely admit I lifted much of the adventure from "The Protean Plot" by Green Ronin Games. The game began with a bit of a transition scene where the team was contacted by the Ferret, who had escaped the demonic invaders.  He was able to tell them that the home dimension of the demons was Stygia, which Abrasax said he would research. Suddenly, the Posse gets a call from the police chief that a group of metahumans is breaking into Genesis Technologies (home of Lancelot, a rival "hero").  The group of metahumans is the Multipower Gang , and the Posse (wondering where Lancelot might be) heads over and mixes it up with the power-shifting thieves.  The Multipower Gang proves to be a bit of a challenge for the group, stressing out Dr. Mind and injuring others, and right before they are overcome one of the Gang attacked the group with an area ...

I made another round of simple Hirst Arts/Taskboard floor tiles for my "when am I ever going to use this?" modular dungeon. It doesn't look like much since it is virtually identical to the previous batch, but when you put the two together, you can get this... A 40' by 50' room.  Or you can make something a little more interesting like this... Also included in that picture is the second of my Reaper Bones set that I have painted up, a harpy. I'm continuing to make progress on a project that doesn't really seem to have a specific goals.  But I'm enjoying the work, and every now and then think about a fantasy game again. Editor's note: to the one who will ask--I did file this post while on vacation.  I took the photos in advance and loaded them up in a draft.  So don't worry--I'm relaxing!

So in my last post I mentioned I was putting together some simple pieces to use as a modular dungeon made from Hirst Arts and Taskboard .  Here are the pieces, having been sprayed with black primer. Now I paint the pieces using cheap house paint purchased at a local hardware store.  After the paint dries, I hit it with a coat of matte sealant, just to help prevent chipping. Then, because I'm ridiculously anal sometimes, I cut pieces of foam sheets, the kind you can buy very inexpensively at a craft store, into small pads that will do under each floor tile section so the taskboard doesn't flake away.  Each foam pad is cut slightly smaller than the tile so it doesn't stick out. Here's a final photo of my first batch of floor tiles, just enough to make a classic 30' by 30' room!

I hop around a great deal from project to project.  One I've been thinking about for a while is doing yet another modular dungeon using Hirst Arts bricks and Taskboard bases.  Unlike some my previous one, I thought I would not encumber myself with walls, which both limit the use of tiles but also block player's views.  I don't really have a plan here, I thought I would just build it up and see where it goes.