Now I am about to run a new Judge Dredd campaign (Mega City Blues) its time to spruce up Sector 55 with some new sci-fi orientated Mega City geomorphs. So far I've created a set of 9 tiles which you can download here Mega City Morphs Set 1 zip
I have submitted these to Dave's Mapper in the Sci-Fi City collection and they should be available soon.
example of 9 tiles arranged in a 3x3 grid
The whole point of this exercise was to generate a quick and dirty map for my Judge Dredd campaign which I am running online in Discord / Roll20. You can follow the exploits of Judges Hammer (Apo), Teal (Mark) and Uthred (Ryan) in the Sector 55 Blues weekly session reports.
I will also be publishing occasional articles where I detail house rules or tips which make my GMing life easier.
Finding a tabletop RPG group near me has always been a challenge and I've ended up creating more than one club to satisfy my passion.
I know others out there find it very difficult to find clubs or groups to play their favourite roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons near where they live too.
Are you looking for a group of friends like this?
Local Tabletop RPG Groups Need Committed Members Like You
My club is on a recruitment drive at the moment and we are looking forward to resuming our normal Friday night sessions in our community hall in Chislehurst, South East London.
We try to host 3 games each week and to ensure lots of variety and prevent Games Master burnout we like to rotate the GMs in and out of GMing and playing 3 times a year. Our typical game rotation is about 17 weeks long so we are actively looking for members who are going to turn up every week and take an active role in an entire campaign session. We do string sessions back to back and I for one have run at least one campaign which ran for 60+ consecutive sessions.
That's a heck of a committment from GMs and so we try to recruit members from towns within easy reach of our venue such as Bexley, Bromley, Eltham, Lewisham, Orpington and Sidcup. This makes travel to club easy on public transport especially when our games finish at 11pm and it's a cold dark wet October night. This is the UK after all.
How Do I Find a Roleplay Club Near Me?
Obviously our club is just not going to be a viable option if you are living in North London, but the internet has a bunch of resources to help you find the right club for you.
Google - I know it sounds obvious but many Tabletop RPG clubs have websites which they use as their primary advertising mechanism when they are looking for players. The most popular search terms are "Tabletop RPG near me", "DnD near me" and "Dungeons and Dragons near me" but also consider using terms which include "in (your town name)" for a more local search result. Avoid the term "Roleplay" as this tends to throw up adult orientated or early years educational resources.
Meetup - Is a useful listing service which many clubs (my own included) pay to use. However, remember that RPGs are typically are a long term time commitment so if you are looking for more casual drop-in play or if your other real-life commitments such as work or home take precedent then consider looking for the boardgame or online game groups.
Reddit - The homepage of the internet has a thriving roleplaying community and many subreddits dedicated to specific systems or genres of tabletop RPGs. Three places I would look are:
r/rpg (1.3M members) - a sub for Tabletop RPGs of all flavours
r/DnD (2.3M members) - a dedicated sub for fans of Dungeons and Dragons
r/lfg (155K players) - a sub for those people looking for a group. Post a message and see who replies.
Your Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) - Will usually have a clubs register or a notice board where people can advertise their clubs or groups. Talk to the staff as well as they may know of some themselves. Check their website too as they may offer free advertising for clubs. My FLGS is Orcs Nest in Central London and my club is on its listings page.
Register with Tabletop Wizard's Tabletop Finder - This is a relatively new worldwide personals ad space dedicated to the needs of Roleplayers, Boardgamers and Wargames looking for a game either face to face or online. It's got a growing community with just under 40,000 members.
Check with Forums - There are a few big tabletop game forums out there and meny have dedicated threads for players seeking games and game group announcements.
Roleplaying is a social contract between people and you might not fit in with the first group you appraoach. Many things can influence a game; GM play style, age, experience and exposure to pop-culture tropes.
Don't get disheartened if you don't gel with the first group you try. In my experience new groups tend to be a bit reserved with new players and likewise people new to a group. Everyone is on their on their best behaviour until they work out exactly who you are.
My advice is to be you and engage with everyone. This gives the group the best opportunity to get to know you and work out if you are going to be a good fit for their group.
More Advice for Players Looking for a Tabletop RPG Group
If you have any useful advice, tips or tricks which have worked for you then please share in the comments below.
The original boardgame that didn't launch a million computer games or make Sid Meir a household name. This is infact the earlier boardgame version by Francis Tresham and is complete, unpunched and minty fresh.
Clearly an unwanted Christmas gift from circa 1988. The giftee must have opened the box looked at all the tiny pieces of cardboard and smiled back saying "thanks I can't wait until they bring out a version of this on my MS DOS PC."
One for the real Grognards. Soldier Raj is a traditional counter wargame simulation of the British Raj period between 1767-1848. I'm not one to cast aspersions about the people who like to play these sorts of heavy wargames.
My introduction to gaming was through my father who was a dedicated wargamer back in the 80s. He gravitated from Napoleonics to Ancients, dabbled in a bit of micro-armour gaming and even converted the Pony Wars game to the Condominium of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 1899 - 1956.
Sadly, playing this sort of game comes lower on my bucket list than poking my eyes out with red hot pokers. Never mind "The Struggle for India" I'm struggling to stay awake and I've only just opened the box.
Controlling the amount of light leak is very difficult and if you overdo it you lose the transparency effect. Sometimes it's difficult to actually see what you are painting on these minis as the raw transparent plastic doesn't create shadows which define things like facial features. A blackwash to begin with really helps.
A much better painter friend of said I should really be using inks so maybe on my next transparent mini I can throw some 30 year old Citadel shade on it.
Big shout out to Daniel of dhump3.com for the tips. If you are looking for some quality graphic design for your company or a fantastic digital painting give him a shout.
In the best tradition of John Craven's Newsround here's my rundown of "What I Learned" on the Internet this week.
New Easy to Use VTT - Owlbear Rodeo
If you are ovewhelmed by the likes of Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 then this relative newcomer in the Virtual Table Top (VTT) space might be more your kind of thing.
Owlbear Rodeo is entirely free to use (although Patreon funding is welcome) and browser based promising all the usual map sharing functionality that GMs demand of their online game experiences.
I was very impressed with the feature set as reviewed by WASD Roleplay so if you have tried it out let me know in the comments below what you thought of it.
Alan Tudyk Stars in New Alien Doctor Murder Mystery Comedy - Resident Alien
Resident Alien - Alan Tudyk
Yes, you read it right the inimitable Alan Tudyk (Firefly / Doom Patrol / Dale & Tucker vs Evil / Rogue One) stars in this new SYFY original and they have covered all the genre bases and then some. Set in a small ex-mining town in the Colorado mountains this show has all the vibes of Due South but instead of a mountie, it's an alien.
Tudyk of course is a joy to watch and his comedic character acting chops are in full view as the alien on a mission to destroy humanity but having to masquerade as the towns new doctor. His arch nemesis and the only resident who can see his true form is a 10 year old boy.
Throw in some mysterious paranormal researchers and you've got a recipe for some serious shenanigans.
This is not a laugh out loud (there is no laughter track) joke-a-minute show, more a gentle comedy about messed up people with messed up lives. Resident Alien is full of pathos interspersed with some fish-out-of water and cultural confusion moments keeps you engaged throughout.
Avatar Gets a New Roleplaying Game
Viacom CBS Consumer Products and Magpie Games have signed a deal for a new roleplaying game based on the popular noughties Nickolodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and the sequel series The Legend of Korra.
Now I for one think this is long overdue and am looking forward to seeing what results. Magpie are already slated to release a ROOT RPG based on the art of Kyle Ferrin’s in LEDER Games very popular ROOT Boardgame.
No scheduled release date yet but fingers crossed it will happen and happen soon.
Avatar The Last Airbender - Ang
Blacklist Miniatures - Fantasy Series 1 Unboxing & Fantasy Series 2
Those lucky backers who managed to get in on the Fantasy Series 1 Kickstarter way back in May 2020 are about to receive their rewards.
Flush with success the Kickstarter for Series 2 is expected to launch on 30th March so put that date in your diary and get your wallets ready people.
In the meantime here's an unboxing video from Guerilla Miniature Games to whet your appetite
