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Post by geneweigel on Mar 7, 2017 13:52:18 GMT -5
I think we should have a separate thread some kind of stimulus for doing more for D&D fan material and gaming so I starting a new thread for people to join in daily and give updates about what they're up to provoke.
So far I've got pending:
CREATIVE:
TOEE add on: needs more final maps BLOG with incoming Content: update I've settled on an all new "monster" column coming soon Middle Earth AD&D 4th Age material: Considering having at as a column for the blog
PLAYWISE:
I know it doesn't seem like it sometimes but I am unbelievably busy on a daily basis. It just doesn't seem that way with the phone technology and writing posts in unlikely spots (shopping, subway, etc.).
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Post by Scott on Mar 7, 2017 21:24:37 GMT -5
I was working on an adventure arc, but it grew way beyond the original scope. It started out as an introductory adventure, but the finale grew to the point that I would need to scale the whole thing up. Maybe I can drop the plot altogether and just go for a sandbox? I've been thinking about my idea for a Wild Coast sandbox, and have recently decided that a Woolly Bay sandbox is more appealing with game play similar to that outlined in FFC. I'd like to get players to be involved in developing the area, some allies, some enemies. I've been thinking about sacking two towns, probably Badwall and Elredd, to provide more adventure/development hooks. My cousin has gotten over the trauma of being a new father, and is back to our online game. He's just moving into a small castle on the bank of the Velverdyva where it passes through the north bulge of the Gnarley. He is a vassal of the king of Furyondy and holds a position similar to knight.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 8, 2017 9:06:33 GMT -5
That is what happened with this last troll entry for the blog. I started with my idea off the top of my head from the memory of something that I saw at RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT museum then I did research on North American folklore in a big way. Then I digested it and came up with a parallel to how the D&D kobold was devised (its authentic but it isn't at the same time). Now its snowballed in such a way that its a lot of material. I think perhaps its because no one has really used North America as a D&D type location. China, yeah, yeah, yeah Mexico, eh, maybe but North America.... no way! I remember my friend in high school who was native American had all his D&D characters worship the American mythos and it was synonymous with grabbing a Chinese deity but it did work. I think that is what I'm aiming for. So its bleeding everywhere to "make it work medieval".
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Post by GRWelsh on Mar 8, 2017 14:29:27 GMT -5
When I think of American Mythos in fantasy, I think of Roger Zelazny in a book like EYE OF CAT. I loved the way he used the Navajo mythology in that book with Nayenezgani, Coyote, the Chindi, etc. It was sf but felt very much like a fantasy with sf trappings.
Our only real link to the medieval European fantasy tradition is New England witchcraft, when you think about it.
I like the thread idea... I've been busy with work which tends to drain my brain, but I have some things I'm working on. I've been casting, mounting, gluing and painting Hirst Arts terrain to make modular dungeon flooring, and painting a lot of miniatures, lately. I'll post some pics when I get a chance. I want to do some other Hirst Arts and crafting projects next (like an inn, gatehouse, break-away tower, dungeon detail bits like bookshelves, weapon racks, crates, etc.). And, I have some more old drawings I'd like to catalogue and scan. I have stuff scattered throughout notebooks all over the place.
As far as play goes, I've been hosting a regular AD&D game every other week (my friend Eric is currently the DM), and playing quite a bit of Warhammer 40K this winter (my friend Wes has a terrain table set up in his garage). I need to finish painting my Space Marine army, as last week they were still mostly the 'Black Company' (just black primer). I was thinking of painting them all yellow, gold and black and calling them the "Space Chickens."
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Post by grodog on Mar 8, 2017 21:42:49 GMT -5
When I think of American Mythos in fantasy, I think of Roger Zelazny in a book like EYE OF CAT. I loved the way he used the Navajo mythology in that book with Nayenezgani, Coyote, the Chindi, etc. It was sf but felt very much like a fantasy with sf trappings. I haven't read that, will have to check it out! I like the thread idea... I've been busy with work which tends to drain my brain, but I have some things I'm working on. I've been casting, mounting, gluing and painting Hirst Arts terrain to make modular dungeon flooring, and painting a lot of miniatures, lately. I'll post some pics when I get a chance. I want to do some other Hirst Arts and crafting projects next (like an inn, gatehouse, break-away tower, dungeon detail bits like bookshelves, weapon racks, crates, etc.). And, I have some more old drawings I'd like to catalogue and scan. I have stuff scattered throughout notebooks all over the place. Gary, you should post some pics to the Old School Miniatures group on FB @ www.facebook.com/groups/339877386089536/ A very good group! You might also like Duke of the Bloodkeep---he's been building a pulp 20s/30s theatre for minis since last year @ dukeofthebloodkeep.blogspot.com/search/label/Pulp%20City Allan.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 9, 2017 10:48:10 GMT -5
Creatively miniature-wise I've slowed down to nothing. I recently through out an overabundance of styrofoam scraps that I was keeping just in case that modular fortress idea was going to come into fruition. I bought all these cases for the miniatures ages ago and not one miniature has been put away despite having low no games for a long time.
On a positive note, my nephew is coming down from far upstate, in a few weeks and I haven't seen him in over a year. He used to be begging me to play D&D all the time so I might just entertain him. He cheated when he was younger (pencilled in some BS extras) and then he realized that I could be omniscient as a dungeon master.
I honestly still don't understand how to do an online game with a schedule. Its just going to be considered "computer time" by everyone in the house unless someone is physically there.
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Post by GRWelsh on Mar 9, 2017 11:20:56 GMT -5
My friend Eric was also collecting lots of styrofoam to use for miniatures terrain. But after you collect enough of it, for years, without doing anything with it -- it does begin to seem insane.
But if you are going to do something large scale, like a fortress, that's not a bad way to go, when you compare it to the hours and hours of assembling Hirst Arts castings. My own insane dreams are to build the KEEP from B2 and the above-ground cathedral from the Temple of Elemental Evil. Of course that's crazy, but it would be awesome. The styrofoam could be used to make the rock promontory the KEEP sits on, as well as the different levels of elevation within the KEEP, for the inner and Outer Bailey. I was even thinking of lighting it from the side with purple and orange lights to make it look like the Erol Otus painting... The Temple of Elemental Evil cathedral would be the ultimate "Black Mass" kind of medieval place, with little stained glass windows, gargoyles and everything.
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Post by GRWelsh on Mar 9, 2017 11:28:08 GMT -5
Thanks for the links, Allan. I liked the superheroes scenario! Yeah, I've been on a miniatures phase lately, as my artistic outlet. Another site to look at what people have done over the years is the Hirst Arts forum. The scale of what some people have done is just mind-blowing. Like I was impressed with the Inn of the Welcome Wench, the moathouse from T1, the hill giant stealing from G1 -- and they are all large projects -- someone built the city of Pelargir from Middle Earth and it's titanic... As in "fills up your two car garage and probably causes a divorce" titanic: hirstarts.yuku.com/topic/7684/Project-Pelargir#.WMGCZoTR_IU
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 9, 2017 11:58:20 GMT -5
The dynamics have changed but I'm still "Dungeons and Dragons and Breathing" almost every day. My biggest problem is that the "play area" is also the basement dump for the whole household. So its like why bother organizing it when I've got bigger fish to fry? Out of sight, out of mind.
Strategies for organizing a game room might be a good question.
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Post by Scott on Mar 9, 2017 13:35:17 GMT -5
My friend Eric was also collecting lots of styrofoam to use for miniatures terrain. But after you collect enough of it, for years, without doing anything with it -- it does begin to seem insane. But if you are going to do something large scale, like a fortress, that's not a bad way to go, when you compare it to the hours and hours of assembling Hirst Arts castings. My own insane dreams are to build the KEEP from B2 and the above-ground cathedral from the Temple of Elemental Evil. Of course that's crazy, but it would be awesome. The styrofoam could be used to make the rock promontory the KEEP sits on, as well as the different levels of elevation within the KEEP, for the inner and Outer Bailey. I was even thinking of lighting it from the side with purple and orange lights to make it look like the Erol Otus painting... The Temple of Elemental Evil cathedral would be the ultimate "Black Mass" kind of medieval place, with little stained glass windows, gargoyles and everything. You should do a multi level ToEE with all the dungeon levels underneath.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 9, 2017 14:06:37 GMT -5
I think while a big Gygax model would be awesome (regardless of taking up the whole basement!) there would always be a question of accuracy.
The weird lighting suggestion is definitely an idea that might be something to implement at the table.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 9, 2017 18:17:25 GMT -5
On the creative side, I've finally started putting down in writing the various ideas that have been floating around in my head for the past few months for a low-level "sandbox" centered around Narwell in the Wild Coast. It started out as a sort of prelude/expansion to T1-4 and while there are still a lot of connections to that content it's grown into something that can also stand on its own. Once I started writing stuff down more ideas began coming quickly, to the point that I'm having trouble finding time to write them all down and am afraid I'm going to forget some of them before I do. The current intent is for there to be 3 dungeon areas, 1-2 outdoor areas, 4 town areas, a dozen or so important NPCs, and several potential plots that tie all that stuff together, tie back to T1-4 in a few different ways, tie to the A series, etc. At the moment I'm doing a high-level outline/summary sort of thing to get all the concepts down. I'm hoping if I can get all of that in place (and so far I'm only at most a quarter of the way there) it will then seem less daunting to work bits and pieces into something more detailed and playable (with maps, full stats, encounter tables, names for the NPCs, etc.).
On the play-side, my schedule doesn't even come close to allowing for anything (I'm struggling to find time to even write down a set of notes...) and that doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. If I actually get any of the above written into something playable, though, I suspect I'm going to want to try to play it. I've got some friends who've expressed occasional interest in playing whom I've blown off in the past because I didn't have time (or, really, interest) who I could circle back to to see if they're still game. My wife wants to move to a bigger place in a less-crowded area, so if that happens I might even be able to host, which would obviously make things a lot easier logistically. But all of that is at least months, if not a year or more, away.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 10, 2017 10:51:55 GMT -5
Things could be worse for me I guess. Gamewise, I have a lot of excuses but there are a lot of factors that really are hard to get around.
The family is pervasive. If my wife is around she will hijack any game players to eat, talk, drink, watch a movie, etc. So she literally has to be physically gone because she's like a siren leading sailors to their doom... Well, gamer doom anyway. The kids have a lot of friends so its like Grand Central Station with them just pouring in the door at a moment's notice. The basement is an unoccupied apartment and the living room area is their designated goof off zone. I think because we're 3 blocks from a Wendy's that its the designated private stall for the whole neighborhood to eat their burgers down there,
The back of the basement is "the Dungeon" with literally everything junked thrown in there for processing. So if I was to have a game at a moment's notice I would have to "reset" the whole thing which would take a few days so that would eat into any game prep time. Plus, its also my hobby workshop (the tool table area is in another section of the basement). I really want to get the back room primed for play at a moment's notice.
One thing that I inherited a few years ago was a Time Life set of old west books and in the back of my head I was thinking BOOT HILL campaign but I don't know. I feel like if I revive GW or BH it has to be totally converted to D&D ala the DMG.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 15, 2017 13:12:56 GMT -5
On the creative side, I've finally started putting down in writing the various ideas that have been floating around in my head for the past few months for a low-level "sandbox" centered around Narwell in the Wild Coast. It started out as a sort of prelude/expansion to T1-4 and while there are still a lot of connections to that content it's grown into something that can also stand on its own. Once I started writing stuff down more ideas began coming quickly, to the point that I'm having trouble finding time to write them all down and am afraid I'm going to forget some of them before I do. The current intent is for there to be 3 dungeon areas, 1-2 outdoor areas, 4 town areas, a dozen or so important NPCs, and several potential plots that tie all that stuff together, tie back to T1-4 in a few different ways, tie to the A series, etc. At the moment I'm doing a high-level outline/summary sort of thing to get all the concepts down. I'm hoping if I can get all of that in place (and so far I'm only at most a quarter of the way there) it will then seem less daunting to work bits and pieces into something more detailed and playable (with maps, full stats, encounter tables, names for the NPCs, etc.). Thanks to a slow stretch at work I had some free time to spend on this and have gotten through almost all of it (the only piece left is a "hexcrawl" in the Welkwood that's sort of tangential to everything else and should perhaps be saved for later anyway). I've now got 12 pages of handwritten notes (~4K words?), no maps yet, and I think it's pretty good. There's Narwell town proper, a couple of outlying villages (one on the river, one in the woods), a spa/casino resort that draws wealthy travelers, and three dungeon-y areas for those who just want to kill monsters. Spread across these areas are about 18 important NPCs with various interconnections and affiliations, both to each other and to the larger world. There's drug-smuggling and slave-trafficking and all manner of other unsavory business going on beneath the seemingly-placid surface. At least eight different deities/cults are involved. One of the Lords of Balance is discreetly on the scene, and so is one of the DMG artifacts. There are various adventuring opportunities for 1st level characters, as well as a lot of ways for them to get in way over their heads, and to thoroughly clean the place up would surely require considerably more resources (I originally envisioned that a party would start out here, get in trouble, relocate to Hommlet to take the heat off, gain power there, and return here later (around maybe 5th-6th level) to resolve unfinished business; there might be enough content here to work all the way up, but that would probably require adding the Welkwood section back in as a sort of XP-building side-trek).
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Post by grodog on Mar 15, 2017 17:27:54 GMT -5
Sounds cool, Trent!---I'd love to read your notes sometime. While I still lived in San Jose, Marc-Tizoc Gonzalez ran a fabulous campaign for us set in the Wild Coast just before the fall of the Pomarj, which significantly shaped my sense of that region, and also influenced some of my take on the religion of Wee Jas.
Allan.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 28, 2017 12:58:20 GMT -5
Still plowing away at the first module made some huge leaps.
Hopefully, once this is in the can I can go on "vacation" for a weeks.
I think everyone around here is freaking out because of all the artwork I've been generating. What is this for?
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Post by Scott on Mar 29, 2017 6:45:36 GMT -5
I''ve still got the online game with my cousin going. Play by post, and we're trying to play a video chat session once every 2 weeks or so. There's also the face to face game with my kids. They have been fairly often, but no real schedule. It's all been 1E, but I'm thinking about trying a short face to face 5E campaign. I've been tossing around ideas for a from scratch home brew campaign, but the gaming is all still Greyhawk so far.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 30, 2017 8:16:42 GMT -5
My nephew just started a new job so that game potential was nixed. Heh, I think one of the major flaws of getting a game together is that I've become a triple Advanced player i.e I played out "Advanced" in the 80's, spent a decade crawling out of Williams' TSR products then made contact with Gygax himself who gave me a freeform DMG take on other subjects from clarifications to expansions. So I think that I'm looking at game sessions like the way people obsess over wine thats put aside. Let the 25 year olds drink beer!
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Post by grodog on Apr 1, 2017 20:04:01 GMT -5
I didn't mention this before GaryCon, but Tony Rosten and I published a dungeon design newsletter 10 days ago: the Twisting Stair #1 (#2 will be available in time for the North Texas RPG Con at the beginning of June): The first issue's features include: - Combined Hoards as Adventure Hooks: Treasure Maps in the Mega-Dungeon (Part 1 of 2) - New monster - the Sasquatch - New magic item - the Ring of Reflection - An 11"x17" centerfold dungeon map, with 9 pre-generated geomorphs and three blank geos, that can be mixed and matched and placed into the 3 blank geomorph locations built into the map - Wandering Monsters table - An article on the unique design requirements for first levels of dungeons, focused on the need for replayable encounters; details three such centerpiece encounters as examples Allan.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 4, 2017 12:53:04 GMT -5
Having a hell of a time auditing my campaign material. Its vast as you can probably guess. Right now I'm quantifying all the Deities & Demigods from every game notebook. I dare say it might be more than DEITIES & DEMIGODS and certainly more than just WORLD OF GREYHAWK including deity-like monster inclusions of the MMs, (Cat Lord, devils, etc.).
I found another related monster from a "Dungwa Dym" (the deity that I detailed in the blog) based adventure notes so I might do a PART DEUX because there was more forgotten details in the temple notes.
The worst thing while going through old game notes are the maps with number scribbles all over and character/player initials next to HP scratched out and I can't recall what the fuck its from and its my handwritting.
I have a problem with coming up with stuff that I've already came up with when I misplace things then I'll have variants of everything: magic items, gods, monsters, NPCs.
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