So as you might have guessed from my earlier posts, I'm devoting a lot of my time to RPG scenery. I have been running a lot of Pathfinder Society games recently and I have been looking for a better method of map representation. For one thing, Paizo sells some of the maps for their scenarios, but not all of them. Also, many of those maps are now out of print. So sure I could just get a blank flip map and draw on it with wet erase markers but I have found this annoying for two reasons.
1) The flip mats are folded. They do not lay flat easily and mine has begun to warp with age.
2) It's not fair that I get to see what the tavern interior looks like but my players only get a line drawing with some hastily scribbled tables.
I want something that actually shows the room, lays flat easily, is reusable, not too expensive, and is portable.
So my choices are...
A) Either make my own tiles or buy tiles like these.
Pros: They are generic and modular. As long as you are creating your own scenarios, you can design within the constraints of the tiles you have.
Cons: They can get real fiddly if the tiles are too small, room decorations will have to be placed on as separate tiles adding to the number of fiddly bits, their is a finite amount of room shapes you can make unless you add a heap more custom tiles, and the maps in Pathfinder scenarios can't really be built with tiles unless you have a ton of custom ones. Finally, the more tile options (rooms and decor) you have, the more likely it will slow down the game as you set the scene.
B) Make a magnetic board.
Pros: I just have to lay out the boards and I can place magnetic walls, doors, and other furniture around at will without fear that it will all tumble over when someone shakes the table. I may even be able to make the base tiles in 8x10 sheet for portability.
Cons: The base sheet or sheets may get heavy if they are made of metal, this lends itself best to 3D terrain items which aren't very portable. There is some question as to weather it would be cheaper to make the base sheets metal and attach magnets to the terrain or to get magnetic sheets and attacked metal to the terrain, and finally I'm hearing a lot of mixed reviews about using magnets (depending on type) and terrible things about magnetic paint.
C) Make hardback tiles with plastic slip covers so I can change the tiles inside with custom printed images.
Pros: I save the cost of not mounting every tile I make, the slip cover would accept wet erase or dry erase marks if needed.
Cons: I would have to convert Pathfinder maps with my own art, maps wouldn't be reusable with other pieces.
Any thoughts or comments? As I go through the design process I'm going to keep a record here on my blog so other crafters can see what I did that worked, what failed, and hopefully it will sparks some ideas in you.
BTW on a lark I bought a bag of .75 inch cubes of wood from a craft store. There were 24 cubes in the bag I think. here's what I did with them.
I made a .75 inch crate texture and copied it six times to the side. Then I made copies of that group and slightly adjusted the hue and lightness for different shades of crate. I then printed out the sheet, cut out the sides and glued them onto the wooden blocks. I took a few of the blocks and glued them together into stacks, making sure I left one single crate unglued just in case.
Now I have crate stacks for whenever I need them, or when I start running home games again. Best of all they are light and very durable.
Looking for the means to spice up your Star Wars space combats?
They're live and ready for download...
Right here at Drivethrurpg.
I had to take some sleeping pills to get over my insomnia. Let me tell you, Zzzquil is a heckuva knockout. Maybe now I can get beck to planetary design.
And some more miniature painting...
This was the plastic dwarf miniature that came with Warhammer Quest. I decided to make him a Minnesota Viking.
To say that I have been in a creative block for the past few years would be an understatement. But apparently that has changed. I'm creating art like a madman. I have had insomnia for the past 4 days as my mind races with creative game aids. And while I am having a lot of art fun, I haven't made much progress on the planetary descriptions.
I just uploaded a new set of tiles for space combat to Drivethrurpg. I'll have a link once it gets approved for sale. I even went so far as to add some papercraft items into the pdf (like a papercraft asteroid).
Like my Forest Tiles, I'm posting this for a paltry $2.
My next project is likely to be some sci-fi interior tiles. I know there seems to be a glut in the market but hey, maybe mine will offer something different. I'll do a basic set that has hallways, doors, and some empty rooms. The follow up set will likely have decorated rooms.
One thing I have been pondering is whether the papercraft stuff is worth the effort. Yeah it's cool, but it is also "some assembly required". Also, considering they are made of cardstock, transportation is a bit of a problem for the gm-on-the-go.
So leave me a few comments below. Would you rather see some papercraft doors and computer stations in the sci-fi tile set or would you rather have pre-decorated rooms (albeit 2d representations)? Also, what would you like to see that you haven't seen yet?
PS:> It seems that Blogger automatically makes my account +1 my own pages. So my narcissism seems to completely automated.
So my forest tiles are finally for sale thru Drivethrurpg. Support your local starving artist. It's only $2 and for that you get 16 rotating tiles to build your random forest encounter.
And here's a saucy Giantess for lovers of cheese-cake minis. My roommate was a part of the reaper miniatures Kickstarter and got two of these lovely ladies. He let me paint one and named them both Candy and Tanqueray.
Update: Sooo... regarding the planets I've arted out. I think I'll release about one planet a week. Hopefully I can keep up the pace. If not it may got to a Planet every two weeks. I'll release a jpg of the planet for individual use, and a Savage Worlds write up (which is what will honestly take the most time).
If I can't keep up the pace of the write ups, I will focus on the art side. Honestly, that takes little to no time at all.
Alon-sy!
With the launch of the Sci-Fi Companion I have been tooling around with trying to make my own planets. Of course that means generating the art for them...
...which turns out to be fairly easy. There are plenty of tutorials online for how to build a planet in Photoshop.
I am currently mulling over what to do with this art. Either release a planet a week as a free resource for GMs, or put the worlds into a Sector book. The problem with the Sector Book is that it pidgeon-holes GM's into my setting.
Any thoughts?
Here is a rough of what I am thinking for a Sector Map btw...
Okay so those technical difficulties were actually relationship difficulties. My wife and I have decided to split after seven years. Suffice to say I haven't been in the mood for making rpg stuff for a while.
However I am back, and while I wait for a new video game contract, I have created a few tidbit tools you all might be interested in.
For instance, I have put up a set of terrain tiles on Drivethrurpg and I am just waiting for permissions to be granted and they go on sale. The first set is Forest Terrain made up of 16 different 7"x7" tiles with both a 1" square grid for movement and 16 without the grid if you prefer. All for a paltry $0.50. I will have a link when it is available.
And as a bit of eye candy, I have been painting miniatures as a means to keep my sanity. Here's my Reaper Bones Earth Elemental...
So the household drama just doesn't seem to end. We haven't even finished unpacking and already there are roommate issues.
So in the meantime...
I was a part of a discussion on the Pinnacle forums regarding a crew I was designing for a potential Con one shot. During the critique, some one mentioned that there were skills assigned to the pregens that were unlikely to come up during the game.
It struck a sore spot in me, and that is the idea of making characters who are not people but tools to deal with specific situations. I've never run a con game one shot before and I can see his point, but it seems to me that there is no reason to build a character with that mentality. You might as well just list the "class" of the character and assign a skill level for it.
Anyway, it gave me the idea for some rpg demotivational posters. Here ya go.
