Walking Dead... Mini Painting

 

So, no... I'm not away... lol

I've started painting a wack of miniatures from the Walking Dead (No Sanctuary) board game and it's 2 major expansions.

One of my kids is helping with painting as well. We are attempting to get the 80-90-ish minis painted for a possible Halloween gaming session. My wife is a HUGE walking dead fan and she has no idea we are working on this... 

I got the main game and the 2 expansions at 40% off at my local game store, which was a sweet deal.

I have to say, there was a bit of fixing needed on the miniatures, as they are pre-assembled, and the slotted bases are quite mis-aligned, having variances in spacing. I had to break out the milliput and make a batch of milli-butter (milliput mixed with Iso-alcohol to make a slurry) and fill in these gaps.

I painted them with black primer and dry-brushed a grey over top to bring out the details.

The sculpts are not the best, but I have seen worse. These shouldn't take too long to get painted as long as I don't lose focus.

Holidays...

 So, perhaps a couple of you peeps out there realized my lack of posting lately.

I'm off work on paid holidays, got to use up these hours before cut-off after Fall. Retail kicks it up a notch from Fall until Christmas, and they don't allow management to take time off during the busiest part of the year.

I'm currently visiting with friends I've known since grade-school, jamming with old musician friends and hanging out with who's left of us that are still alive.

Going back to my old hometown (this is a 12 hr drive, so very far away) last October, I realized that my move (4 years prior) was the best thing I've done. The old stomping grounds is a tourist area that is now ravaged by an overpopulation of homeless, bussed in from other areas to clean up other cities of their degenerates and mentally ill. Little did I know that my hometown would be the landfill.

Think about that, it could be used as an adventure trope in sci-fi or Fantasy.

BTW, I'm not in the USA, I'm in the Northern part of Canada, the oil-rich region. Times are actually not bad considering the cuts in the oil and gas industry, this city I'm in is still booming and there is a lot of opportunity to be had.

Anyways, I thought I'd pop in here and let you folks know, I'll be following up on Cha'alt and Metamorphosis Alpha and some other acquisitions. Also a full expose on my painting progress on DEEP MADNESS.

The Grind to paint minis...

Sometimes, there is a call to action...

The players, who know you are a SCI-FI gamemaster, with a hundred or so SCI-FI fully painted miniatures, say... "hey, can you GM a fantasy game?"

So I take the players on and of course, my miniature collection has very, very few Fantasy figures.

So, I went to my local store and pick out a set of minis that look like the players characters... then I collect up Gnolls, Orcs, Goblins... a giant, an Ogre... 30+ some odd miniatures later, you have a problem when game time is a week away and you hold down a full time job and you got a family as well.

Well, the only solution is to stylize... and so I have, Statuesque Miniatures.

So we mount our subject onto a 25mm base, this being a Barbarian Gal from Reaper bones...

and we mix up a bit of milliput to blend out the mini-base to the miniature, I usually do this in batches, getting as many miniatures based as possible. This stuff is sticky and messy on your fingers. It does dry rather quickly and rock hard. A couple of hours tops.

I try to get the appearance of rough ground on these bases so you squish it onto the base with fingers, then use a dental tool to help mash it on solid... and damp down with my fingers to pat it down evenly.

A grey primer works, I'm also trying to match the natural grey color of the Wizkids minis, fresh out of the package. This bones figure needs to look like a grey Wizkid mini... note the other minis and the effect I'm going for.

After the base primer is dry, it resembles the same grey as the others, time to wash it.

I use a combo of black primer, Airbrush Thinner and Airbrush flow improver (All Vallejo as well).

And with a final dusting of grey once again as a drybrush...

Looks good enough to tabletop for now...

All the minis are painted like this and when I finally have time to mass-paint all of these, I'll break out the colored paints and go at it. They are ready for color when the time comes.

Building Worlds... D&D and all RPG's

So there has been a lot of "outsiders" looking into RPG's in general and displaying their disdain for the genre. Outsider: meaning someone with very limited information on how RPG's work, feeling that what is written in the rules is LAW, and have contempt for any "triggering" content.

The DM/GM has to read his participants, gauging what will promote situations in the game, resulting in the participants resolving the situation, resulting in catharsis.

It's part of the DM/GM's job to create something that "triggers" the participants, so they play with an emotional attachment to resolve.

Without this, the game becomes a theme-park and the goal is XP... which leads to the game being dismissive and unmemorable.

NPC's are the DM/GM's tools to evoke conflicts or aid in such conflicts. They must portray a persona that comes from the imagination of what a good villain or commoner in the imagined world would be.

Many DM/GM's will use voice acting and even accents to portray these NPC's.

I once had a game of Space 1889, Victorian, Jules Verne era Sci-fi.

One of the most beloved NPC's I made was the manservant Gungi Jim, companion to the lead player's character, the very British, Matthew Cross.

I used a pseudo India influenced accent to bring the NPC to life.

Cross was eventually joined with a US Gunslinger and a Canadian Inventor (no longer remember the characters names, this was back when the game first came out in the 80's)

Cross' main antagonist was Danton Mignon Monet... a French aristocrat, that was attempting to woo Cross' love-interest Miss Stephanie.

Monet was based on the powder poof white-wigged Casanova, complete with white makeup and fake beauty mark... and he was a bondage fanatic... (I knew this would really, REALLY irk the RL player).

Stephanie's kidnapping and the search for ancient treasures in the Amazon ruined cities (complete with giant scorpions, pythons, and giant Cyclopian-Centaurs... French mercenaries under Monet's command...

THIS was the most memorable campaign for all the players involved. and is STILL talked about to this day almost 40 years later.

With the incursion of SJW policing, how would you then re-create this masterpiece of brain-candy?

No matter what the SJW's write within the rule books... Roleplaying games are not chained to the rules. Any mechanics system that players gravitate towards, will be used to invent new worlds with all kinds of "triggering" tropes, and there is nothing they can do about it.

Even the setting promoted (Faerun/Sword Coast, Ravenloft. Theros...) will be torn asunder by DM's that will cannibalize the parts they deem fit for their group and add their own twists and creative ingenuity. Making EVERY world different and diverse in their own way through the gameplay between participants in the game. 

Take heed readers, that you are empowered to create ANYTHING you want, if you have the audience/participants willing to interact with it. You can use any "trigger" to have at your disposal to give participants, for the best game experience possible.

The players will either enjoy it or leave it for another game suited for their tastes.

 

Mythic Odysseys of Theros

So I got my hands on the Kevin Tong Foil cover (I really wish they would also have a Tong non-foil option, as the foil isn't the most vibrant, but it matches my 3 book foil set)

Regardless, the contents of this 256 page volume is to replicate somewhat the Greek-style of heroic mythologies...extracting the misogyny... turning it into a bland paste of what could be an epic.

It will be truly, up to you as the DM, to muscle this one up.

The extras are the Centaur's, Saytr's, Leonin's, Minotaur's and Triton's.

If they were to really make this good, I would have Muse's replace Triton, and Demi-god replacing Minotaur's... so you could have diety-touched players (Akin to Perseus or Kira from Xanadu)

A missed opportunity for real-couples to be a power team.

Playing a Minotaur? ok... but it's not the cursed villain of Greek Epics...

The world of Theros is very VERY basic 19 pages of exposition, which feels like a Flash Gordon theme park ride. (Here be the land of  Bull headed people, here be the land of Lion headed people... and here be water world of the Fish people...)

It's not all a miss though. There are a lot of cool ideas on running a Greek-Epic using the strands given for adventure ideas (which I like) and with a clever DM, you could really turn this setting into something great.

I feel like this was only a teaser for a larger archive to come (if it passes muster to the masses).

There was also a 2 sided handout (for free from my local game-store) with laminated maps from within the book. Great for dry erase or overhead-projector pens (aka wet-erase)

A little small for anything except reference... but cool.

The art throughout is a mix of cool and meh... flavors of  Colin Ferrell's Alexander with pretty boys with hands in each other's hair... fine if you are into that, I'm not here to judge you.

If you want pictures of Hercules manliness, you get to look at muscle-Minotaurs... there are a few pics of heroic looking warriors, but most are bland in stature.

You get a few beasts in the bestiary to play around with, Nymphs are more like elemental's than womanly seducers, so crush that one...

The God's theme is pretty good and worthy of some game-play. It's got its own set of rules on death and possibly coming back which brings in conflict with the order... which I feel is cool enough to use.

So... it's not a fail for my uses. I like some of the plot ideas and rules of the gods, and some of the beasts are great. I just really wished they gave more flesh to the land regions with more culture... but it's enough to get a DM started. I'd probably homebrew with my own map of the world and create my own flavors of diverse human cultures (instead of warrior-ish ones and the stagnant knowledgeable ones) 

How to fix? First off, you want the players to become the legends. So nuke the expositions, create a clean slate of several civilizations, with the common thread of the same gods. Create a few legends of gods vs gods and perhaps about some of the nightmares spawned through these ancient clashes.

Now you need a common enemy, evil-god decides to guide his/her champion of doom to thwart the good-guys (steals the kings daughter, going to be fed to the kraken in x amount of days... some sort of trope like that.). Now the players must become the Perseus/Hercules/Achilles/Udysseus... of the EPIC that must travel unknown lands to the edge of the world to gather the items fabled to destroy the evil...

You need to make the players feel like they are writing the legend to come, not some Discount-Jason and the Argonauts following in what already has been done by some other epic hero in the past.

The Hero must have an enemy

The Hero must search for a weakness in the enemy by following possible leads (oracles, seers... way out in forbidden territories) for these secrets, they must do some possibly questionable bidding.

The Hero and his/her troupe of talented daredevils decide what leads to take and what legendary items to quest for to stop the evil enemy...

The KEY is you don't want the players hearing the deri-do of "Herseus" (the great hero and his band) doing this and that and stopping the kraken bla bla blah... YOU WANT the players themselves to BE the "Herseus and his band" and they must travel an epic for themselves, so that generations to come will write poems and songs about their deeds...

Hating the New Layout... and more... C&C Campaign

So... I'd like to say, I'm not a bit fan of this new editing layout.

But I guess blogger has forced us to use it.

I've been busy working on my group TTRPG, which is Castles & Crusades, revamped version of the original "L" series starting with the Secret of Bone Hill.

Perhaps one of the worst layouts for a module. Try being a DM for that and locate the caves under the Abandoned Guard post section... You definitely need sticky tabs.

Well, so far the adventurers arrived in town, their mission was to bring a poisoned hero to the Abby to be cured of his ailment. [I needed a way to get them to Restenford from their last location in a homebrew].

The group consists of a Male Human Thief, Male Elvish Paladin, Male Human Wizard and Female Elvish Barbarian.

After stopping at the Tavern of the West Wind, they learn of the Abby's location, and heard a rumor about a missing farmers daughter, a youngster. 

On their way to the Abbey, crossing the bridge, the Thief of the party noticed a smell of death in the air, and a silver locket in the mud.

He further investigates, finding a small cave opening in the bushes...

They party takes note, but keeps on wards towards the Abbey, the poisoned hero is unconscious and wains.

Leaving their wounded friend to the acolytes of Phaulkon, they head back to find the cave.

Encountering a horde of giant rats and some undead (Zombies and Ghouls), they managed to fight off most of them, however the Wizard was hurt badly and out of spells, enough for them to make a retreat.

Returning to the West Wind to tell their tale to the interest of the town guards and Haki (whom they befriended). The exchange of information led to the townsfolk relaying the information to the parents of the missing girl... with a good nights rest, the party made their way to the Abbey to get more supplies.

The guards entrusted Mark with the group, as a representative of the Baron's men... a young brash fighter who will report back to the Baron on what the party finds.

Eventually using the time of the tides to their advantage (I had the caves flooded on their first attempt, but Haki's advice to go while the tide was low, made for a less scary event) They managed to kill all the undead and discovered the grizzly murder scene... the girl was used in some dark ritual.

The players returned to the West Wind with the tragic news, and receive further news that the mother is at the family farm, but the father is also now missing. The Guards work out a plan for the Guard post and there is some talk about the players using the loaction as a home-base once the Priests of Phalkon cleanse the area, and some arrangements are made to see the Baron for consent on the property.

That is where we left off (Game on again for next Saturday night)

Numenera Limited Edition Card-box (Storage box)

So, I got this package Monday, and it looked like there would be some bad damage to it as the corner of the package was dented in... luckily, the corner hit was minor on the actual storage box.

This is the Numenera Limited Edition storage solution for your Numenera cards.
I think I have every card deck except for the random salvage deck. You've seen my collection already on a post below. I thought I might even get in my TheStrange card decks as well in this, which could work if I remove all the dividers. As it stands with dividers, It would probably give me just enough room if I also had the salvage deck.

There are 4 mini-boxes within. A pull-ribbon is glued in the center with the loose ends coming out of the edges. Makes it a lot easier to get out your boxes, as it's snug.

Well, this works much better than having upright cards in the old box. I can store my cards properly now in my bookshelf. Well done MCG. Lucky for me, when I got my TheStrange box-set, there was a coupon inside that takes $10US off an item in the MCG store.
The Box lists at $29.99US, so $19.99 + shipping was ok by me.

The box is sturdy and seems well made. Artwork was smoothly laminated on each box and looks great, no creases or smears... fantastic job.

Tome of the Unclean (Castles&Crusades)

This is 111 pages of traditional old-school Demons and Devils to wage war against in your C&C role-playing games. It's the standard fare that you would find in any 1e tome of monsters and then some.
The Illustrations are fair, and not excessive. You get a lot of lore notes with each monster and it's all in Black & White (color cover). I received this as a bonus item included with my kickstarter pledge back in 2017.
My players have yet to reach higher levels, however this will come in handy later with my re-imagining of the "L"series in my home game. 
Is it worth getting?
It's alright, it's got a lot of "in aihdre" notes throughout in case you play the campaign. The little side-story, A Paladin in Hell, was kinda lame, lol... It's won't win any awards...
The monsters are plenty though 82 in this volume.

The Master's Tome (GM screens)

Fairly inexpensive, the Master's Tome screens are a 4 panel (double-sided clear slots) GM's screen that stands upright (not on the long-side, like 5E D&D screens).

This works for me with my TRAVELLER games or something else that I do not have a screen for.

It's a little hard to insert standard paper, buy the printable cardstock to use as insert paper, the sleeves are a tight fit.
They seem to be built like a traditional school-binder cover material, so I'm not 100% certain of the lifespan of folding, but I suspect it will last a year (like a school-binder would before it cracks apart).
We will see over time how long this lasts, I'll post in the comments section sometime in the future, when it finally fails.

Call to Adventure

Well, I bought this after watching a YT channel called Dungeon Craft, and Professor Dungeonmaster said it was a great way to tell a background story for your Hero.

So, I tried playing this with my daughter and it's actually not a bad game.
It's kind of like a choose your own adventure with cards.
Divided in 3 acts, you build your character by attempting one of many tasks before you (in cards). Succeed in a task and you get better runes (you toss runestones instead of dice for successes).
Interesting enough, the Runes relate to different physical aspects of your character (just like D&D with attributes). After succeeding in 3 tasks, you move to the next ACT of your story.

After getting used to the main game, there is an expansion called the Name of the Wind. I haven't tried that yet, but it's ready for us once we've felt proficient with the base game.

Professor is correct, this is an easy way to choose your back-story, 

Layer approach to Miniature painting

I've always held the approach to painting miniatures... skin, clothes, armor, weapons, in that order.

Painting the skin is usually the first step, all other layers overlap the skin physically, so it is easier to get the skin completed.
The brush is a crude instrument, and its easy to accidentally touch any protruding parts of the mini, thus having to go back over the mini with a previous paint color.
I hate wasting time.

Drybrushing is my favorite technique, and it works better with this layering approach, you don't have to worry about over-paint, you are going to paint that with another color anyways so you can get sloppy with skin. Or in the video's case, the musculature below the armor plating.

Progressing further, I take a little more care in the plates over the musculature when drybrushing over the new color... and same again with any shoulder padding and weapons on the next stage. 

TRAVELLER Starter System #1

STARFALL: (2411) Glimmerdrift Reaches


Star: M2 V Dwarf
3 Gas Giants
No Planetoid Belts
10 Other Planets

Mainworld: Starfall
World Profile:  B 654554-A
Starport: B
Size: 9600km
Atmosphere: Thin
Hydrosphere: 40%
Population: Hundreds of Thousands
Govt Type: Feudal Technocracy
Law Level: Light assault weapons prohibited
Tech: Interstellar (Early)

Perfect starter world for the damaged Jump Drive situation.
Either the players starship has just emerged from an emergency jump evading pirates from a previous system, or the ship is currently in orbital drydock with a vexed Jump Drive.

Tech 10 makes Jump Drive parts not readily available or limited to military/scientific use only.

Several colonies are located within this system including an orbital base at one of the Gas Giants.
This will give ample opportunity for the characters to ferry goods within the system.
There is also a ship graveyard in the outer worlds of this system and a secret military testing world.

Recent events:
The Baron Atir Eradon, has recently survived an assassination attempt, putting the system on high alert. Complications can arise with contraband weapons or suspicious activities.

Orbital station: TERIS
Population: 1200 (security detail ~100 personnel)
Capable of repairing all early starship systems except Jump Drives (this will need access to the secret military testing world)

System imports and exports:
Starfall mainly has a crop/foodstocks export to the outer worlds and minor exports out of system.
Imports most valued is technology and military related stocks (high tech weapons for ships and personnel)

The Royal fleet consists mainly of 32 System defense ships and 2 Jump capable Starships (that rarely leave the system), and a strike-force of 127 LR fighter/bombers.
The fleet contends with Pirate raiders skirting the outer worlds, scavenging the graveyard.
Main points of defense are the Homeworld, TERIS, and the orbital base TIRON orbiting the innermost gas giant (Tor). Minimal investment with colonies, colonies fend for themselves mostly with outdated Tech-9 space-fighters.

Intrigue:
The Baron has 3 sons, Geltar(Clever/Ambitious), Trygan(Cunning/Extreme gamer), and Redel(Recluse/Disabled). Each son has jurisdiction over parts of the homeworld.
Capital city: Triguard, pop 82,000

GM Notes: It is likely one of the son's are behind the recent assassination attempt, however most media is broadcasting possible ties to out-of-system influences (remnant "Shuki" Shukikikar League agents or Pirates) There is also a case for it being connected to the Idam Lee system whom has recently subjugated several systems, as of recent, nearby.
Perhaps the agents of Idam Lee are working a secret deal with one of the Baron's son's for power?
Is it the Shukikikar, who is desperately clinging for survival from a recent devastating war? or is the Glimmerdrift Federation planning deterrents from Idam Lee's greed?


 

Hostile (TRAVELLER/Cepheus)

Space, as imagined by Zozer will be familiar to those who have watched Alien or Outland. With a page count of 335-ish, It delves into a volume of space mapping 6 sub-sectors (each 8 x 10 hexes/parsec's). In space, there will be a lot of screaming. This also includes a ship to die in, and all the tips and tricks to make your alien as regrettable encounter to possibly ever experience.

The Company corporations are as close to FOX litigation, team on notice, as alphabetically possible. The rules are standard TRAVELLER with a bit of upgrading to it. You will need either the Cepheus rules or TRAVELLER rules to play as far as mechanics goes. The book has a lot of cool weaponry and near-future technologies to give that ALIENS movie a run for its attention.
If you don't want to play original TRAVELLER with the Vilani/Solomani/Vargr/Aslani/Zhodani... and you want a background based on what the Wyland-Yutani style universe would look like. This will be your book to start off your adventures. Feel free to use your own imagination and mix. Mortality in this game is much like all TRAVELLER, space kills, guns kill, predator aliens kill, hunter aliens kill, Corporate Marines kill... kill, kill, kill...

Numenera Case Set Discovery and Destiny

There are not a lot of RPG's that I've encountered lately that innovate from what is the normal D20 style of play, that I've connected with.
However, Numenera has to be my favorite NEWER game (and as you might tell I have a lot of RPG's in my collection).

The 2 book set is detailed on my other Channel on Youtube if you care to watch it. You can sub if you want but its a channel that I do music on mostly or talk about computer games and stuff.

I did this video when I first received it by mail. I got it for a reasonable price, a lot less than getting it directly from MCG. My first encounter with the system was through Humble bundle, there they had bundled all the existing Numenera PDF's together for a really affordable price. I was impressed how the mechanics worked, and the idea of the players rolling their own fate in combat without the GM rolling dice, blew my mind.

My first group made their characters and played during the first session, we didn't even do a session "0" because we made the character easily, and it was practical in the way it linked the players together.
I added a Mad Max style feel, with their village settlement being besieged by marauders of unknown origin, their army mounting to take the town by all means necessary. The village elder had the small group of 3 venture out, sneaking past the marauders vehicles and encampments to find out if the town to the South of them were also in peril. If not, get them to send reinforcements if they could. They manage to flee the scene, and traveled to the Town, along the way encountering some strange hound-like beasts and managed to fend off their advances.

Arriving eventually to a town that had been built around some strange ruins, they find out the people here had the same troubles, however they had been paying off the marauders to leave them alone (a mad max version of Negan/Walking Dead situation).

The one session was 3 hours and a lot of adventure was had in that time, normally the first session would only be character creation, THIS was impressive and easy to run.

What was even better, was I had the Card Decks, which the players found as an interesting mechanic, I loved pulling from the decks and running the results from the seat of my pants... it was liberating and a fun sort of challenge for myself.

The Cypher system became my next purchase along with TheStrange.
TheStrange was also featured on Humble recently, and I picked it up without hesitation.

Yeah, I know Monte Cook Games is one that virtue signals, but the system is complete genius, we all have our quirks and faults, it's unfair to judge a product via politics, but MCG has always been inventive, and I loved Planescape Torment. We all could judge but whats the point.

All I cared is that the system made for a great role-playing session, one that I'm wanting to do again, just waiting for the Covid scare to be over with so we can play again.

Handy Graph paper Set

So, need to make a journal? want to make a journal?

The arrangement is in 2 page sets, print page on both sides, margin's will be correct:
1-2 (Hex-Landmap/Journal-page)
3-4 (Journal-page/journal-page)
5-6 (Zoomed-Landhex/Zoomed-Landhex)
7-8 (Square-Graph/Square-Graph)

LINK TO DL PDF

All you need to do is print, then use your binding of choice:
1) 3 ring hole-punch
2) Coil Binding
3) ARC Ring binding (as pictured)
4) or send to printing company that makes booklets

Now draw, make dungeons, like the wind...

Adventure Writing like a Fucking Boss 1 & 2

Venger Satanis presents his take on Adventure writing in two small but edible installments available on PDF on DrivethuRPG.

The first overviews what he looks for in presentation of an Adventure Module for Kort'thalis Publishing, so in effect it does read as some kind of advertisement for fishing the Internet for fresh writers.
An Ad, that you purchased.

However he does go over the aspects writers should cover when creating an Adventure for publishing. It's well presented and gives adequate tips and examples to get most new writers started.
For the minor affordable fee, it's really not bad.

Part 2 is a little more tastier, where he gets a little more personal on his own writing style. Giving examples of writing structures that are important at keeping the Adventure focused and easy to read, Vengers reflections here are welcome.
Both articles are easy to read through within an hour, and they do give the reader a good bearing. I personally think it would be cool to see the both combined into one volume.

Reading the second part without the first wouldn't come across as well as reading both.
Personally I would use these guides as a focus, he does have some great tips.
That's all I have to say on the content, I'd rather have you pick up a copy and read it over yourself.
It is worth a read, if you plan on writing modules for Adventures, or focusing your GM notes a bit finer.

Mechwarrior Destiny

Destiny is pretty much a condensed version of the Time of War RP of Battletech.
If you already have A Time of War, this will be very familiar.
Is it worth the new book?

Well, considering I have not seen "A Time of War" on shelves for a while, it is nice to see it back in the Catalyst online store (only in PDF form).
In comparison, A Time of War is a much larger book (400+ pages) involving a more broader scope of character creation. Destiny is 240 pages and is more concentrated on Mech Warrior pilots, however everything in "classes" are the same. There is a large cutback on fluff. You can translate back and forth from both RPG's no problem.

So in a nutshell its A Time of War, lite.
The book Destiny, will be obviously more cheaper to produce as a hardcover.
I don't know if there is a plan to re-print A Time of War, who really knows. Catalyst happens to be really terrible at responding to emails.
I while ago I had written them about transitioning ATOW rules into Fantasy Grounds. I had all the information from the book already in place as a ruleset, all it took was to program a proper character sheet and their reply/contract/cut.
It took over a year and a half before they responded to a previous inquiry of the box set, I still haven't heard back about my Fantasy Grounds related Email. It's been over 3 years.

I STILL get asked about it on the FG forums, sorry guys, I don't think there is a head on any shoulders as far as Catalysts response team is concerned.

As far as the book goes, it looks like the only physical option available to RP your Mechwarriors.
There isn't much changed since the original edition, which is cool, as it's a nostalgic blast from my past.

Makoto Kobayashi

The Art of Makoto Kobayashi

One of my favorite sites (follow the link)
Very much influenced me in many ways with Role-playing games, particularly the AS-Wars stuff included on his site.

A small sample of what you will find on this site.
Please help keep this site alive, if you like what you see, email the site owner and tell him.
The site has been around since 2003 and has not been updated in a while.
It is a collection of magazine clips from Hobby Japan magazines from the 80's and 90's.

Most of it concept art for his movies as well.
The above images are actual figures he modeled. Fantastic work.

Two Shelves of Board-games

Yes, board-games are FUN.
Some of these are great ways to introduce your own family into the realms of Role-playing games.
The game Talisman, was my family's first introduction to the Story-game, and we still play it at least twice a year for fun.

These two shelves are my current game collection (besides the bookshelf you seen in my posts when showing various RPG books).
One of my prized games is the Avalon Hill version of Freedom in the Galaxy. Very rare now.

I'm a fan of Arkham Horror games, I even have the Card game version as well with a few add-ons.
The only add-on missing from my original Arkham Horror set is Kingsport... dammit. I have all the small add-ons as well. The Firefly game is my wife's favorite, but Betrayal at Balders Gate is a great one that she likes as well. The Pathfinder card game box has all the subscription boxes from the 1st run. Including some special cards.

Um, this pic also shows a Red Variac and a Transformer device that was built into a Lichtenburg burning device, ignore those, lol.

Star Saga is an excellent starter set for those into TRAVELLER, who want to have some 28mm miniatures of the Sci-fi variety. You get a LOT of miniatures in this box. The 2 boxes of Battlesystems is great looking terrain for any sci-fi situation (Starport or City or Deathstar), you can even multi-level the stuff.
The Deep Madness 2 box set is the all in one kickstarter, it's pretty much fully painted now, except for a few boss miniatures. (the red box is FULL of miniatures of unspeakable horrors)

If you want me to elaborate on any of these, I'll post pics and more on the blog, just comment below.

By the Love of cards...

I don't know about your experiences, but DTRPG has this convenient Card section where you can buy decks of cards... BUT DAMN! the shipping charges to Canada are BRUTAL.

One deck of cards will require $20CAD for shipping. 2-3 decks will usually be $50+
(and that's for cheapest shipping, it can be $50 or $116 for the other 2 options for just 1 deck)

FYI: The Pictured box full of cards is the Numenera Cypher box set with a lot of add-on card decks with it. The Box set gives you a lot to already work with (just not this many) You will notice a difference in coloring from the Box set vs the once you get from DTRPG. Even a slight size difference as well (noting the last picture below in the white/gray cards)

I've slowly built my collection of TheStrange and Numenera decks, first by purchasing the box sets, and then slowly adding new decks if I can get them on Ebay or Amazon, if possible.

The Decks I have from Monte Cook Games, I use in pretty much all my sci-fi gaming.
These are great in the Expanse RPG as well as TRAVELLER (usually dealing with alien technologies that could be billions of years old).

Another way to make decks is to purchase the PDF versions, print them yourself.
There are also office store companies that can print these on full page sticker paper in full color, and you can adhere these onto regular playing card decks purchased from the dollar stores.

I haven't done this myself, but I've seen this done on YT videos. Seems to be a cool hack to get past some expenses.

I've played numerous games of Numenera, and it's honed my skills at improv during the game. The cards give enough information to let your brain chew on, and you can pull partial ideas out of the cards that fit the situation. I use these cards for snake-eye rolls in TRAVELLER or Expanse, or 1's in all other D20 systems.

I love the idea that a "fail" roll is not just a fumble, but could also be a situation being enhanced with a further complication.
Find the chart in the book, Rolling, and then figuring out the result can add up in game-time. The cards can be and easy flip, read, and result, all in one motion. Pull 2 cards, read the best idea of the two... or combine the best idea of the two.

There are a number of new products on DTRPG that have taking the MCG decks idea and made them their own. These will be cards with multiple entries on them, also showing a random color, and number and maybe some sort of symbolism on it.

These are great tools for Game-Masters out there. Some are even genre themed for Sci-fi and Fantasy. I really recommend using cards to help enhance your game.

Starter Systems (prelude)

So, taking some ideas from some other blogs, I'm really thinking this will be a cool idea that could draw more people to my blog here.

I'm going to start a series of Starter Systems, based on TRAVELLER.
These will be a handful of Starting locations for your TRAVELLER games.

These systems will actually exist in the TRAVELLER universe, you can go to the TRAVELLER maps and look up these systems yourself, they will be identical in stats. The difference will be in the way I set things up in each system, creating the numerous worlds besides the main one and adding my own flavor of gimmicks (companies, organizations, politics) within.
You can use these as your own start for a campaign, I will even detail out the external forces at play outside of each starter system to drive some of your own narratives and give you the tools to make these places your own.

Thanks for the Views...

Wow, it's great to see my blog doing quite well in its first month.
I really appreciate the visitors, even the ones that disagree with me are most welcome.
Every person in this world is a unique individual with their own abilities and disabilities, strengths and weaknesses.
I am just like you in this way.

I'll keep on posting, keep in mind I'll be featuring games that interest me most as well as books that will influence me most in gaming.

My future plans include articles that you can use with your Tabletop and Digital RPG's.

I can do a multi-camera setup for streaming games in the coming months, or stream games through Fantasy Grounds as well (players only need the free demo version to join, I have the Ultimate version at hand in both classic and the new Unity powered version in beta). However, due to scheduling this might prove hard to do with my full time career.

But who knows.

I'll likely post more TRAVELLER, Cypher-System, and Castles&Crusades (OSR-compatiple) goodies that you can download or print.
3D artwork as well as schematics of Sci-fi related stuff.
(I love Sci-fi, or things relating to inter-dimensional worlds)

Well, enough typing... Thank you, for committing your valued time to look at my content so far.

What if?

There are reasons why I have always gravitated towards TRAVELLER as a game.
The foremost reason is character creation.

The thing with D&D and Pathfinder and all those style of games are... LEVELS.
(What does levels have to do with character creation Mr 28mmRPG?)

In D&D (and all thats common), in most cases you start as a level 1 "nobody" as in general
which is kind of the meat and potatoes game-play that we see with all starting campaigns.
{NOTE: yes you could play making a higher level character, but I'll get into that}

We see a lot of cringe-worthy player-driven exposition, explaining how special your character is in the current world... or none but sullen brooding, thus Edge-Lords are born, lol...

If players just accepted the fact that your character has just emerged from the cloister, left the chicken farm, or just left the nest of Mommy and Daddy's coddling homestead (like they SHOULD), things will go as GM and Players accept them, building your character as you go... you are not a hero yet, but you could become one, with time, game-play and experience.


TRAVELLER is a little different...
YOU ARE that Space Pirate that everyone fears, that grizzled half-cyborg with a mean streak...
YOU ARE that Super Spy from Cyron-12, with deadly silent hand-to-hand skills that can break necks in a second.
YOU ARE the Hyper-Marine, space-battler, Gunned up, smoking a cigar, sporting an eye-patch, with the fresh smell of napalm in her hair.
That is how you start, now how does it play out from here on-wards?

What would be really cool... for D&D (and all thats common) is if you play with higher level characters, adopt some kind of TRAVELLER-like system to build your character each level.
Now I don't mean with Feats and abilities, those naturally come with your levels as you advance.
What I mean is building a background like TRAVELLER does, introducing life-experiences, developing contacts, allies and rivals that you encounter throughout.

TRAVELLER does this well, but with a DM/Ref that will work with you to fill in those blanks with the player rolling their results with each level the player gravitates towards.

TRAVELLER does this in 4 year intervals, D&D could possibly use an interval of 1 or 2 years per level... 3-4 or more for those long-lived species of humanoids.

This would make things very interesting for say, a group of level 3+ Characters. A random life-table for each class with options to be chosen for special instances that will gain an ally or enemy, gain a special random item, or lose one. A quest won or lost? Gain a love, lose a love... build a relation-hook with another Player-Character... just like TRAVELLER does.

If I had the extra time... I might just create something like this for my Castles & Crusades games...  but it doesn't stop YOU from possibly doing the same as well.

But there again, I just might work on this.

The LAST Truth about D&D

So, there is a lot of assumptions today about what D&D was in the past.
What I see being vomited out is some concept that D&D is a white-only exclusive group.

Canada is not high on the list of PRIME destinations of immigrants, most would prefer to inhabit the more warmer regions like that of the USA. It's just a fact.
Canada, despite its cold, is still multi-cultural, heck we had it drummed into our tiny heads back in grade-school.

Throughout the 70's and 80's, there was many people coming to the country to make a fresh start. There were a lot of kids of all cultures going to our schools. Some had trouble adjusting, some fit in quite well... just the same as everyone else.
There were bullies, heck, lots of bullies. I was bullied as well in the early teens.

The D&D culture was kids of all ethnicity, gathering for the love of the game. A lot of these kids were bullied, and socially awkward... and never could garner the courage to even talk to a girl, let alone associate with one. Self-esteem was at low point in a lot of these kids that even as they grew up, was still an issue deeply rooted in their minds.
Some of these players have disorders, including obsessive ones on rules and numbers, some of these have a hard time trying to communicate emotionally, even amplified when it comes to the opposite sex.

There is a new movement today that is taking over this gaming culture. It strives to label the culture as TOXIC. It's goal it to create a safe-space against all perceived threats... including ones they have not even considered understanding (like socially awkward players) and just labeling them as a threat to the game.

I've fortunately had a turning point in 1980, when I finally had enough of the bullies and fought back. Breaking a nose of one bully and smashing the face in another. The guy whom had the nose broken had a 180 turn and is actually, to this day, a super-nice guy to everyone. The other whom I face-smashed ended up respecting me for standing up against him.

I've had a long career as a solid contractor, working for myself building my name and reputation. Building a sales-savvy personality that teaches today, how to read people and sell to them.

These influencer's to our Gaming culture are nothing more than bullies, preying upon the Socially awkward people that use role-playing games as their get-a-way from harsh reality.
And this needs to be realized from the TOP, and it need to STOP.

And I wont apologize for that.   

Truth about D&D 1978 Pt. 2

Ah, back to GAMMAWORLD...
So with fundamentals learned by fellow (friends-older brother) Guru, we charged along with GAMMAWORLD with interesting results.
Being newbs, it was a learning experience with all these new dice. We were entranced with these cool shapes, we only knew of 6-sided dice from out Avalon Hill games, this was so different.

The older-brother Guru who helped us out, was a guy who actually traveled to Vancouver to a game convention. He learned how to play via the experts of the time, made his own notes on what he observed and brought his knowledge home with him.

GAMMAWORLD was, for us, a clusterfuck failure. The Characters fanned out on their own accord and the GM (myself) death-spiraled with the loss of control.
We were all new to this, and had no idea how to create "bonding-experiences" to make the players into a group that stayed together... GAMMAWORLD wasn't geared for that. D&D held the Class system which was the glue for group-think (healer, tank, puzzler, glass-cannon that we know of today).

 So Holmes Edition D&D was our next experience (yes, I had this pictured Edition with chits instead of dice).


As suggested by the older-brother Guru, the box set was our next purchase. The Guru's room had the profound 1st edition hardcovers that he allowed us to page through, but the costs were out of our reach.

You could buy the dice separately, I used the set I bought from my GAMMAWORLD experience, that looked like this.


So with new ideas in brain, and the module Keep on the Borderlands, I managed a group of friends into the hobby. I was a terrible DM. 15 years old now, and it was 1980. However now the brand of D&D was getting more popular and games were being held in the classrooms at lunch-time.
More groups that I attended as a player, I learned new tricks from fellow DM's, learning what worked and what didn't work.

In the meanwhile there were more and more pocket-games to ponder at the hobby stores, I also had ingenious friends that used the school copier machines (these were new to us) and made their own paper-games. One really cool one was a WW2 fighter pilot game, our friend made 2"x 2"  counters with top-views of WW2 aircraft, he made a set of rules and skills, character sheets, and we added bits of role-playing into it as well. IT WAS FUN. This friend was also great at being a D&D DM, he had all the 1st Edition Hardcover books (and I started buying them as well), Interesting enough as well, his parents were devout Jehovah's Witnesses... and that was a problem for them.

The Satanic panic was currently a thing.

Despite their objection (our friend suggested we attend his studies with him with his parents to help him.. thus his parents allowed us to game with him) we managed to keep our friend in the gaming loop. We didn't mind attending his studies, we nodded and smiled, and his parents were now "ok" with us being his friends...  We gamed out nights with a vengeance!

D&D was exploding on the market, the Satanic panic was giving the game TV face-time, so it kind-of backfired on the Religious front. At least in Western Canada.

I thank you for reading this blogpost, I know a lot of new players today have no idea what it was like back in the early days of D&D, but I hope this give people who wonder, a little insight on what I remember of those days.
I hope other older gamers 55+ can also post their experiences so they never get lost as we die off slowly in this world.

Batch Painting

With Economics of time in mind, you might find yourself doing painting in batches.
For me this usually numbers between 10 to 15 miniatures at a time.

One of the key things to keep in mind is having enough containers to store your paint mixes.
Often I'll go to Micheal's art supply to pick up a set of empty capped containers, these will be rather affordable "Artist Loft" branded. You don't need expensive ones, I usually buy the mix of small containers and medium.
Medium containers stand about 2" high and these I'll use for making washes. My mix will be paint and Airbrush thinner and Flow improver (no water). You will be amazed at how little amount of paint you will need for the mix. Water is bad, it doesn't have any properties in it to "thin" the paint properly and usually dries stringy or blotchy (keep in mind it's a good way to make veins on beholder eyes if the paint dries stringy, or on body parts if you want veins in general).

The small containers are not even an inch high, but I use these a lot to mix paint or ink with paint. I'll also use Airbrush thinner if I need to thin it out (Vallejo paint tends to be thicker than Army Painter).

I'll experiment on one miniature first to test color arrangement and application. I'll find out what things pop out with drybrushing and washes. I might fail and then soak the mini in LA Totally Awesome to strip it and start over. Once I have my plan worked out, I start mass painting.

Please check out the video above and subscribe if you want to see more video stuff.
Ask questions in the comments section.

DM Solutions the ARC

You can find this at STAPLES stores or via Amazon by searching "Staples ARC".

The ARC system is a ring-binding system that allows you to pull pages in and out of your book very easily.
I combine smaller pages with larger ones (smaller pages being notes or NPC details) that I can pull out and re-attach into the next page of the campaign journal.

I find this system to be the most practical of all binders out there in the office stores.
The paper punch is sturdy and affordable, it should last you a long time. The rings can be purchased by the dozen. I use these rings to make smaller books of NPC or ROOM blanks that I can pull from and insert into my campaign book. I create my blanks using Xara software for page layout, and a paper cutter. My Cannon laser printer is a workhorse at making all the B&W blanks I can think of.

Purchase #1
The ARC book comes in various styles. You can get a cheap plastic cover version or the Faux leather cover... I like the leather version.

Purchase #2
ARC graph paper blanks. These are pre-punched sheets that will fit right into your full sized book.
Something to think about if you are not adventurous to print and punch your own.

Purchase #3
ARC paper punch. This is the next step to making your ARC Campaign book totally functional with custom pages. The punch can be adjusted to take smaller paper widths. Standard printing paper pages can be cut into 1/2 or 1/4 pages and punched.

Purchase #4
ARC Expansion disks (2 sizes). Used as a temporary book for your NPC/ROOM blank pages, these rings will keep your papers together until needed.