Bits and pieces

This evening didn't go as planned, but I did manage to:

a) Book the club Xmas dinner

b) finally hang the D&D campaign world map (thanks to Pippa of the many sewing machines for hemming the edges so I could)

c) assemble Sarissa's cute little "Altar of the Unknown God" and give it an undercoat. Hey, it's a start!

A new RPG blog, and lots of club admin

I have created a new blog, as I have a need to brain-dump some stuff about rôleplaying games that doesn't really belong on here. It's at The Sage DM, and will cover such topics as general thoughts on the art of DMing, converting D&D 2E to 5E, email/play by Google Docs, cartography, DnD Beyond (becoming the game aid I wish I'd written), and so on. I don't know how much I'll be posting (by no means as regularly as here), but I wanted to have a place to talk about these things that isn't this blog. I may flag articles in it if they crossover with aspects of the wargaming hobby.

And I'm not counting it towards the #hobbystreak after this post :D

Tonight is club night, and for once I don't have a game, having played all of yesterday :D We did have a committee meeting to discuss what to do while St. John's Ambulance are decorating our venue in July, which we think we've sorted, so I've offloaded the keys for locking up to another mug committee member, and am headed home for an early night.

Plan for the week:

• I need to cobble together a couple of MDF buildings for OML.
• Record a podcast (now I know what I'm talking about!)
• More Dux Compendium
• Order some Citadel Contrast paints
• OML! Beer! Curry! Lard Assembled! Wargames!

Posh Lard prep, mapping

Today I've finished re-grassing the Omaha Beach boards... didn't think you'd really want photos as if you aren't fed up of the process by now, I certainly am :D

Also tarted up the Flames of War obstacle and barbed wire sets I picked up at Campaign. Just, you know, to make life harder for the Americans than it already is.

The car is packed. I'm sure I'm missing something :D

You will also notice on the left a stack of pots of basing grass, aka the stuff I've shaken off the boards once done. Should last me a while.

I've also been playing with Wonderdraft, a rather fabulous mapping program that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. It'll import existing maps and allow you to keep them as a tracing layer, or let you draw your own, with a wide range of symbols for everything from continent down to city-scale maps.  I was actually using it to produce a better version of the map for my old D&D campaign, but I could also see it being useful for (say) Sharp Practice campaign maps etc. 

For those of you who missed it on Twitter:

The original map - 42 (+6) sheets of hand drawn A4. Has been hiding under my wife's jewellery case on her bedroom chest of drawers (for no reason either of us can explain) for the last decade.

A scan of a printout of the first attempt to computerise it (and reduce it to a manageable size!) using Pro-Fantasy's Campaign Cartographer (which is all very lovely but Windows only). In about 1994.

Using the above as a master to trace over using Wonderdraft. Total time about 2 hours.

Today I recorded...

...well, about half a podcast.

I'm not 100% sure if I'm happy with it, so I may toss it and have another go when I've listened to it tomorrow - mostly just being out of practice and working without notes, which for some reason didn't work out as well as it usually does.

Either that or I just need more tea and cake. The wife is baking as I type, so we'll see :D

Spent a chunk of the day watching rugby (ouch!) and continuing to compile a background bibliography for Dux Britanniarum, as well as reading The Great Pendragon Campaign which...

Wow. Talk about ambitious. It's an 80+ year, 400+ page campaign book that basically takes three generations of PCs from about the time of the birth of Arthur till the last battle with Mordred, at roughly a session per campaign year. Obviously it's based on the Geoffrey of Monmouth / Malory / Tennyson Arthurian myth, which makes it not much use as a reference for Dux, but it is just a stunning piece of work.

Which sets me to idly wondering... would the Dux setting work for an RPG? Or does the fact that everyone playing in that kind of setting probably wants and expects 'real' magic rather spoil it?

Catchup...

Having been a little side-tracked by Chain of Command-related stuff, and being suddenly inspired to write the next heraldry post, I should catch you up on the rest of what I've done this week!

The 15mm Brits and Germans are progressing slowly - the British have painted helmets and faces, and aren't that far from done. I also have a batch of Shermans to paint, but due to wanting to run another CoC playtest on Monday, the deadline for those has moved a bit! I've just picked up some MiG pigments to use with those.

I'm involved in a game of the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG, Edge of Empire... over Skype, of all things. It's being run by Rich Jones, with Neil Shuck (of Meeples and Miniatures fame) and Mike Hobbs (Gripping Beast's SAGA ambassador) among the players. The short review? Fantastic system - it's very much an RPG, not a wargame - very little need for figures, and as Mike puts it, it uses the best HD display of all - the human brain. Fortunately for my already busy schedule, we're working on playing only alternate Wednesdays, which, since that's my essay deadline....

My archaeology course is on week 3 (of 8). I'm just about caught up, having been a bit last-minute over weeks 1 and 2: I have a 750 word essay to submit by Wednesday which I'm hoping to get done tomorrow. And so far? One essay peer-reviewed, maximum marks, and it's great fun and I'm learning quite a bit.

For Sale - assorted RPG books

I'll be popping these on eBay when I get back from Seattle, if none of my readers are interested.

We have:

• the Champions rulebook
• the Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook and Clanbook: Tremere (yes, I'm ashamed!)
• TORG (there's a system to conjure with!) plus the Living Land and LA Sourcebooks
• The Car Wars compendium
• GURPS: Space

Offers for the lot or individual bits entertained.