Believable Female Miniatures

I'm back after a weekend away in Cardiff, watching the Rugby World Cup and revelling in the atmosphere created by Irish, Welsh Canadian and Uruguayan fans, as well as seeing Japan beat the might of South Africa (I watched that one on TV but it was still amazing!)
Yet... this is not a rugby blog.

In a roundabout way I want to tell you about the Dice Bag Lady and her Believable Female Miniatures.

One of my favourite things about going back to Cardiff, apart from catching up with family and friends of course, is a visit to Firestorm Games on Trade Street. This shop has grown from being a good local games store to an amazing warehouse dedicated to gaming. It switched venue about a year ago and is now run out of what used to be, I think, a furniture store. So there's masses of space, huge gaming tables, couches, toilets, everything you need really. Plus loads of really cool miniatures, board games and terrain on sale.

This is the old venue which was a little ... cosy

The new place is unbelievably cavernous

I always love a chance to go down there and browse, and because I only get back to Cardiff two or three times a year I rarely come out of there without blowing a small fortune! They're celebrating their sixth birthday at the moment with discount on their website, and some of the prices are already pretty decent, so check them out.

However the main point of this post is to tell you about those miniatures. Last week I spotted The Dice Bag Lady / Bad Squiddo Games on Twitter and got tempted to buy! I had no idea that Annie actually operates out of Firestorm Games and offers loads of weird and wonderful things including handmade dice bags (want one of those), flickering smoky explosion markers (got some of those) and what is claimed to be the largest collection of female miniatures in the world.

To quote DBL herself,

"The theme is “Believable Female Miniatures”, this means the focus is on attire and poses that are realistic to the task that lady would be performing. In a nutshell it can be summed up by “no chainmail bikinis or oops-I-dropped-my-pen stance”.

There are some very cool fighters and other sculpts of non-humans including heavily armoured dwarves which I really like. Check them out here

I wouldn't object to someone using a mini with a chainmail bikini at my table if they really wanted to. But as I am gaming with my parents, wife and kids, it's nice to have a choice of genders that doesn't involve lots of pink bits on show!

Battle Systems - Apocalypse NOW!

(Well, not NOW - but tomorrow anyway)

Just a quick post tonight because it's very late here and I've been working flat out for the last nine hours. It's time for BED! But very excited for tomorrow (not least because it's the start of the Rugby World Cup) - it's also the start of a new kickstarter from the brilliant terrain company Battle Systems.

It's basically 3D cardboard terrain that folds and clips together - but, oooohhhhh. What terrain.

This is just a small slice of what their dungeon kit has to offer

I backed their dungeon terrain kickstarter last year and was blown away with what I received a few weeks ago. I blogged about the first game I enjoyed with my toddler son here but also my disastrous decision to leave a window open on a summer's day in Ireland here.

In doubly good news, the majority of the stuff recovered which is incredible testament to its quality and durability. Other dungeon tiles I had lying nearby which got wet simply fel apart (cough* Wizards *cough)

And furthermore the fine guys at Battle Systems said they'd send me a few sheets to replace the bits that got absolutely soaked beyond repair.

Now, THIS!

Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse terrain in all its apocalyptic gloriousness

 

 

The new Urban Apocalypse terrain features buildings, sidewalks, crates and other street furniture which means it's going to be awesome for modern, superhero and most importantly ZOMBIE games!
I was chatting to Colin Young of Battle Systems and he said like me, he's a big fan of Zombiecide. So this is a pic they took during one of their home games when they were testing the new terrain.


The whole thing goes live at 8pm BST tomorrow, Friday September 18 (which incidentally is the EXACT same time as the rugby kicks off, so I've a busy evening lined up!)

You can check out the Battle Systems homepage  or else have a look at some more lovely pictures on their blog.


Until tomorrow evening of course, when I expect this kickstarter to kick off big time!

The Clean Slate - stuff to remember when playing with kids, parents, and other newbies

Every newbie DM makes mistakes, and even the veteran DM running for a new game group is going to put their foot into it sometimes. But there are even more mistakes that can be made when trying to corral together a disparate group of misfits and ne'e-do-wells (ie your own family) and get them engaged in a fantastic world.

Believe me, I should now.

Fortunately, the sword in this instance is very much double-edged:

The Positive

1) The wonder of it all - The first time a skeleton comes alive and swings a rusty scimitar, your players will be scared. The first time a fat and hairy giant spider drops from the webs onto their face, they will be terrified. The first time they open a treasure chest and count out 100 silver pieces, they will feel rich. Embrace all this.

Remember, to most people in the real world, the idea of the dead coming to life is actually terrifying.

2) They don't read modules at bedtime - They don't know that Expedition to Barrier Peaks involves a crashed spaceship (er, sorry - spoiler alert there). They don't know the drow are the major force behind the giants. They haven't flicked through the latest Wizards or Paizo adventure path just to see what's in it. Don't use these products as written (too complicate - see below). But certainly steal all the best ideas and mash them into a simplified adventure

Spoiler, this module also involves you getting attacked by a plant thingy

 
3) It's only game - Your players will equate gaming to fun and expect to have fun around the table. That in itself is a good start.
 They shouldn't get into tedious arguments about rules lawyering or interpretation of area effects. Because they don't actually know the rules. And you can bring in any house rules you want. Just be sure to keep the game light, positive, and empower the players by taking on board their ideas. If a PC wants to use a pot of melted cheese to make a spider too gunky to climb through its webs, go for it.

The Negative

1) Time is of the essence - Most family board games take half an hour, or an hour tops. Even the more in-depth games can be done in an evening. Dnd can theoretically go on forever. Don't let it. People will be overwhelmed, they will get tired. I'd plan for 90 minutes at first. That is VERY short when it comes to Dnd so you'll have to really move fast to get in two encounters. You can have a spare encounter on standby if things are moving fast, or if people are really getting into it.
Believe me, that will be enough. I've tried to cram four encounters into an evening and it ended up running almost four hours. That's fine for a RPG group but it gets far too long and drawn-out for most casual gamers.
2) What the heck are you talking about? - Your players will not have watched every fantasy film or game show, played every RPG video game or read every Dnd novel. In fact they have probably done none of the above, being more interested in kids cartoons, reality TV, or gardening shows, depending on their age. So they won't necessarily recognise the meaning of words like sage, scimitar, wight, rogue, caltrop, barding, stave, or electrum. That's just the basic vocabulary.
You cannot tell them they're in Waterdeep and expect them to picture the City of Splendors. You have to work hard to paint that picture.
You can't describe a monstrous, bulbous creature with one central eye and several twisting eye stalks floating eerily towards them and expect them to scream 'BEHOLDER!' and run away. They might try to pet it, or think it's some kind of mook.
They won't get the in jokes, so don't bother making any. But at least everything will seem new, wondrous and fresh (see above)

Well, he MIGHT be a friendly one ...

3) I'm confused...! There will be a player who doesn't understand how attack and damage dice differ. There will be a player who doesn't understand how ability scores translate into ability modifiers. There will be a player who doesn't understand how the Vancian spell system works (and they won't be alone). So you'll need to stop and explain. You'll need to take things very slow and help them understand.
The best tip I can give here is to keep the rest of the moving parts simple. Keep NPCs to a minimum. Two per adventure is grand. Keep the monsters basic - something with one attack like a goblin swinging a sword. If a fight is dragging on to long, then reduce the enemy's hit points and get through it quicker.

And remember the goldern rule: have fun!

You can now follow me on Twitter @Awakenedshrub to see all my musings in shorty form.

RPG village in 30 seconds - how to generate population and make a map with only a pack of playing cards

This is a cool idea that came to me for generating a small settlement for any RPG of any genre. The examples I give will be fantasy, Dnd-style stuff because that's what I play - but I see no reason why it shouldn't work for a Wild West town, modern day hamlet or even a settlement on a remote planet.

The best thing about it is it takes mere seconds and only needs a pack of playing cards. And you can either do it in advance, use it for inspiration and try to flesh things out further, or simply chuck it on the table and run it completely on the fly.

It came to me when I woke up early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep as my mind started racing. So, now I am tired. But those sleepless hours are when some of the best ideas come, right?

By the way I read that the Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure Scenic Dunnsmouth also includes a system for generating a village using playing cards. I haven't read Dunnsmouth yet, so apologies if this is similar - but I stress, any similarities are purely coincidental. 

Getting Started

1) Grab your pack of cards and a surface to place them. you might want to use a battle mat or flip-mat for some kind of scale, but really a floor or table top will do just as well.

2) Each suit is going to represent a different family or faction, so decide what suits your campaign. For my purposes, let's keep it simple. Clubs = the Butscud family, local ruffians. Diamonds = the Effington-Smythe family, local posh toffs. Hearts = members of the church of the high priestess. Spades = the Tumpkin family, mostly agricultural labourers or peasants.

3) Decide how big your settlement will be. Shuffle the cards then deal as many cards as you want buildings. Place them face down on the surface. Put a card wherever you want a building to be, roughly aligned the way you need to create 'streets' or 'squares' on your 'map'.

4) Now you can flip over the cards to see what's in each building. You can do it in advance to allow you as a DM to plan ahead and map out some ideas, even draw a full map on graph paper if you wish. Or you can simply run your PCs through the village asking them where they want to check out, flipping the cards as necessary.

5) The cards that turn up represent what's found in each building. The number shows the inhabitants, the suit shows who they are. So if I flip over a six of clubs, that's a nest of the rough and ready Butscud family, no doubt living in some rundown hovel. I flip over the next card - a two of hearts. Maybe there's two nuns living there alone, devoted to the high priestess. But ... maybe they're unhappy with their neighbours? Already the ideas are percolating.

6) The face cards are specials. I suggest the Jack might be a tavern, the Queen might be a store, and the King might be something grander - a temple, tower, fortified farm, manse or large coaching inn. The suit can again give you inspiration as to who controls this property. The Joker can be a special too - perhaps a derelict house that is home to a monster, or the entrance to a dungeon, or something else bizarre.

Expanding it further

This works best for small settlements, which are the most common type you'll need to generate for your PCs in a pinch. It works less well for larger towns or cities because there's likely to be more than four families living there! But if you have grand factions at play in your campaign (a la the 13th Age RPG) then you might work something out, where the Spades represent the Dwarf King, the Diamond represents The Emperor, or whatever works for you.
These factions may not exactly the inhabit the property as such, more that they have an interest or connection there.

Or you could theoretically make a giant table of all the possible cards and run it from there, as specific or as general as you like, eg:

Ace of Diamonds - Rundown house of grumpy old dwarf who has lost his prized pocket watch.
Two of Diamonds - Apparently deserted, this is really the hideout of an urban-based druid scheming to turn the entire city vegetarian by poisoning the local abattoir.
Three of Diamonds - A smithy where basic weapons can be repaired or purchased at PHB prices
Four of Diamonds - House of four peasants - father, mother, two young children

But that's not this post was about, that is surely a job for another day...

Appendix N for Generation Z

A heck of a lot has changed since Gary Gygax placed Appendix N at the back of the very first Dungeon Master's Guide. Gary was writing for a select audience - wargamers, fantasy and sci-fi freaks, people to whom he could suggest books that had inspired different aspects of the new game - be that mood, monsters, or spellcasting.
In the 1980s this was a revelation, because the only books I knew at the time were the Lord of the Rings trilogy and even then, it was heavy going.

Now we live in a different world. Kids understand what hit points mean (or at least 'energy bars') and they know what statistics like Strength, Dexterity represent from playing video game RPGs.
They understand Plate Mail +1 and Potions of Healing from games like that too.
They have their own ideas of magic items, magic mounts and spellcasting from reading Harry Potter.
Vampires and zombies are ubiquitous. 
The most popular drama series on TV features dragons, dire wolves and an army of the undead.

I'd actually missed out on most of this, dropping out of fantasy fandom for a few years and actually not having read JK Rowling's efforts, nor watched Twilight.

So I started considering a list that would help frame a 'modern' view of a fantasy world, and instead of just books I included movies, video games and even anime that I felt had either been influenced by Dnd or indeed could themselves influence a young gamer.

This is a huge list but by no means exhaustive so if anyone out there reads this, I'd appreciate your thoughts... 

FILMS

Star Wars series

Indiana Jones series

The Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings series

Pirates of the Caribbean

Alien quadrilogy

Conan films – original and modern

The Mummy series

Blair Witch Project

Dungeons & Dragons trilogy

Hellboy

The Descent

The Cave

The Abyss

Willow

The Dark Crystal

Labyrinth

Krull/ Legend

Clash of the Titans – the modern remake, and the original films including Jason and the Argonauts/ Seventh Voyage of Sinbad

Van Helsing

The 13^th Warrior

Ladyhawke

The Goonies

Inglourious Basterds

Kill Bill

Snow White and the Huntsman

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Jack the Giant Slayer

300

47 Ronin

Disney – Aladdin, Hercules, Frozen, Robin Hood, The Black Cauldron, Alice in Wonderland

Big Trouble in Little China

Avatar

How to Train Your Dragon

Brave

Howl’s Moving Castle

Sherlock Holmes

Pan’s Labyrinth

Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail

A Knight’s Tale

Braveheart

Kingdom of Heaven

Princess Monoke

Highlander

Alice in Wonderland – movie with Johnny Depp et al

Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves

Flight of Dragons

The Road

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Coraline

Spiderwick Chronicles

Gladiator

Thor series

Dune

Shrek series

TV SERIES

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

Game of Thrones

Merlin

Supernatural

Rome

Adventure Time

Atlantis

Grimm

Once Upon a Time / Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

Vikings

Dungeons and Dragons cartoon

Record of Lodoss War

Legend of Cristania

Rune Soldier

Scrapped Princess

He Man/ Thunder Cats

Gorgoth of Barbaria

Grimm

Sleepy Hollow

Xena Warrior Princess

Kindred: The Embraced

Arrow

The Walking Dead

Mysterious Cities of Gol

The Heroic Legend of Arslan

Red Dwarf

Black Sails

GAME SHOWS (!)

Knightmare

The Crystal Maze

VIDEO GAMES - these are just some of my own favourites or games I've heard good things about!

Diablo series

Dungeon Hunter

Zelda series

Elder Scrolls/ Skyrim

Fable

Final Fantasy

Secret of Mana

Dragon Quest

Dragon Age

Baldur’s Gate, Eye of the Beholder etc

Kingdom Hearts

Phantasy Star

BOOKS

Anything at all by Robert E Howard

Chronicles of Narnia

Orcs trilogy

Fighting Fantasy gamebooks

Grail Quest series and Barmy Jeffers books (by JH Brennan)

Harry Potter 

Skullduggery Pleasant series

Pullman’s Dark Materials - Golden Compass etc

Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

Chronicles of Prydain

The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings

Dragonlance series

Usbourne Puzzle Adventures (an awesome source of story and puzzle ideas, DMs!)

Horrible Histories

Spiderwick Chronicles

The Sword of Truth series

Joe Abercrombie’s books

 The Road

The Myth series by Robert Asprin (esp Myth Conceptions)

Gotrek and Felix (only the first book unfortunately although younger readers might enjoy the formulaic instalments that follow!)  

HP Lovecraft, including: The Call of Cthulhu

·       The Whisperer in Darkness

·       At the Mountains of Madness

·       The Shadow over Innsmouth

·       The Shadow out of Time

This is the Neverwinter cleric, but I decided it was Luciana the Wise...

In the ancient times  .... how the early games went down

The first person I gamed with was my wife, simply because I didn't really have anyone else. We started off playing the Dnd Castle Ravenloft board game which came with a few tiles and miniatures, and I couldn't resist hacking it - to add extra monsters, and a bit of roleplaying, and different magic items... and then it basically morphed into Dnd proper.




I should point out that I was a huge RPG, Fighting Fantasy and Warhammer fan back in school before the usual happened - life got in the way. I took a LOOOOONG break from gaming as I went to college, formed rock bands, partied, failed to impress girls, got a job which turned into a career, bought a house and got married.

Then when my wife was pregnant with our first child, I took a deep breath and remembered the person I was all those years ago. Call it extreme forward planning, but I was thinking about gaming with my children one day. I dusted down what was left of my RPG collection (and there wasn't much of it ... I'll tell you that story another time). And then I casually started surfing the web for the latest news in the world of miniatures and RPGs. I was looking for something casual that I remembered from my youth - something like the Heroquest board game or maybe the Fighting Fantasy RPG which sprung from the gamebooks of the same name.

So, this is to blame for tempting me back... as I said, lots of tiles and miniatures come with the game (actually, this pic does not even seem to show half of them - there are 42 miniatures total, see below)

This was early 2011 - and what I found surprised me. I think I expected that things would hardly have changed since 1996. Maybe a few more online games. But Dnd had gotten as far as its fourth edition and was all obsessed with miniatures. Dragon magazine didn't exist anymore! (at least not in physical form...)
There was something out there called Pathfinder, that was Dnd, but apparently also wasn't. There were Robot Chicken, Penny Arcade and Acquisitions Incorporated videos on YouTube. The OSR was beginning to rumble but I wasn't sure what OSR stood for. Warhammer had gone all plastic (or was it finecast?) and the prices of the miniatures made my eye pop.

What I didn't realise then was that, in the case of Dnd at least, the game was in a period of great turbulence - the miniatures line was about to be cancelled, within months there would be no 4e releases, there would be an interminable wait while playtesting happened for the 'Next' edition to appear.
So not the most intuitive time to jump back in to Dnd, but still ... I had plenty of catching up to do.

I wanted a board game we could play on the long nights at home with a baby son so I picked up Castle Ravenloft. As I said it comes with loads of miniatures, which I could not resist painting up, reawakening another childhood obsession for all things 30mm tall, plastic and lead.

This is from the WoTC community pages by some dude called Pewfell. They look stunning, far nicer than my early efforts

We played a few sessions (you don't need a DM for the board game, so that's cool) and had fun - but after a while I sorta turned to my wife and said: "You know, this board game is actually based on a roleplaying game which I played a lot of when I was in school..."
She looked at me funny, unsurprising given that RPGs were never that big a deal in Ireland - certainly not in the 1980s or 1990s. So I grabbed some paper and scrawled out a character sheet from memory, based on my memories of the Basic red box from about 25 years earlier. Luckily most of it is seared on my brain because I was, like, eight when I pored over those two paperback books and I seem to remember EVERYTHING I read when I was eight.

Thus Luciana the Wise, first level cleric, strolled into Waterdeep in search of adventure. Castle Ravenloft features heavily simplifed 4e rules, so we were using those mashed up with what I remembered from Red Box basic, a fairly bizarre hybrid that would have munchkins and grognards alike appalled! I kept in the idea of healing surges because I only had the one PC, but as it turned out even that wasn't enough...

I'd been listening to the Robot Chicken adventure with DM extraordinaire Chris Perkins just that week, trying to get my head around what 4e was like. So the adventure I ran that evening borrowed heavily from his Tomb of the Orc Slayer, plus some other bits I remembered from favourite adventures back in the day.

My wife nearly died in the first room. She went down the webbed corridor (rookie mistake) and I threw two deathjump spiders at her (also... rookie mistake). I soon learned that you can NEVER outnumber a lone PC because one lucky dice roll is gonna end it all. Which is what happened here. She couldn't hit a barn door in the first two rounds while my creepy crawlies went to work.
She was down to 0 in two rounds.
I decided to have some mercy and ruled that she woke up, suspended upside down from a giant web in sorta Aliens-style coccoon. A 13 Strength check and she could burst out and stumble away from danger. She rolled a 15. And luckily, she had some healing surges.

As my family has come to realise, I love giant spiders. Sooo creepy.

So we both learned our first lessons of playing Dnd with your family. And I avoided sleeping on the couch that night.


PS: The Learning DM wrote a cool post about how you can use Castle Ravenloft material for wider Dnd campaigns, as well as looking at some of the other board games and miniatures available. It was written a while back, but it's still worth checking out.

Introducing The Party

After a couple of posts about gaming with my son, I'm now turning to the other subject that will feature heavily on the blog - gaming with family of all ages, up to my parents who are in their mid to late sixties.
In the next few posts I'll relate how we all came to sit around a table rolling dice together, but for now prehaps I'll just introduce you to some of the characters  involved:


Dad - Late sixties. Characters include Glyndwr the human bard and Taliesin the halfling druid.
* Likes - Naming characters after figures from Welsh folklore, little historical tidbits dropped into games, appreciates jokes and puns. Genuinely seems to take pride in achieving stuff in-game like solving puzzle or downing a huge monster. Is the only person I know ever to have rolled four crits in a row (I told him I'd give him my house if he managed to do it, but we settled on quadruple damage).
* Dislikes - Identifying dice, writing coherently on his character sheet, staying focused for more than two hours

Mother - Mid sixties. Characters include Puffball Faffyelf the elf wizard and Little Rev the dwarf cleric.
* Likes - Chatting with NPCs, leading the conversation in increasingly ludicrous directions, remembering clues and casting magic missile A LOT
* Dislikes - Rolling dice generally (seems to feel under pressure) and remembering rules


Sister #1 - Early thirties. Hasn't played so much, so just the one character - Mellt the elf druid.
* Likes - Making up silly solutions to problems, some of which actually work. Talking to monsters and animals in funny voices. Acting all malodramatic (she has a DRAMA background) and casting flashy spells.
* Dislikes - The idea that she might actually be enjoying a game that is meant "for losers"

Sister #2 - Mid twenties. One character, Umake Kamakoze the human fighter.
* Likes - Strange accents, singing in character, hitting things very hard for lots of damage. And she is a HUGE fan of Labyrinth.
* Dislikes - Any kind of attempt to bring levity to the game.


Wife - Early thirties. Has played Luciana the Wise, human cleric, and Kaleesi the elf ranger.
Likes - Tactical problems - figuring out advantages in combat, either in the rules or just by giving me 'the look'
Dislikes - Actually learning the rules. Coming up with original character names. Playing for too long. Playing too late. Not eating while playing.

Boyfriend-in-law - Boyfriend of Sister #2, early twenties, has played just one character Commander Lux Flex Plaxiter the dragonborn rogue.
Likes - A lot of stuff about the game, actually. Probably the most natural to grasp DnD having played video games and miniatures games in the past.
Dislikes - Not much, but... Playing in front of his girlfirend and prospective in-laws is probably kinda daunting.