Today is American Censorship Day and although I am not an American Citizen I feel very strongly against this poorly drafted bill which has the potential to do more harm than good.
Here in the UK we've already failed at preventing bad internet legislation from being passed in the form of the anti-democratic whitewash that saw the introduction of the Digital Economy Act (DEA). This law sought to create a situation where ISPs were responsible for actioning take down requests and for providing copyright owners with infringing customers account details without a judges court order or legal test to determine whether the content in question actually infringed anything.
Truth be told the mechanics of the enforcement of this bill are in such a state of dissarray that no-one knows how to implement this new law. This has recently led to the issuing of legal demands by copyright owners to ISPs to block traffic to certain domains. The impact of course is that every domain everywhere is subject to the same potential action. If you give government the tools in law, sooner or later they'll use them. The SOPA is similarly well intentioned but poorly drafted and dangerous legislation and I urge you to contact your congressman/woman.
You may well ask WTF has this got to do with RPGs?
Well, just from a blogging perspective this means that you could be censored for a whole range of posts where your original content draws on themes from movies, characters, locations or even ideas or even sharing that link to a funny fan generated karaoke video. If the owner of the copyright deems that you've crossed the line, at best you'll be staring a DMCA Takedown Notice in the face with no recourse to "fair use" or "safe harbour" and at worst you could be facing a legal challenge and potentially a punitive fine.
As a roleplayer I'm concerned that this legislation will ultimately damage our hobby and as a member of a democracy I am against the corruption of democracy by the money and power of "big business" for its own agenda against the will of the people. If you're like me and feel that we are on the brink of a cyberpunk dystopian future, act now before its too late. And here's a message from your Vice President Joe Biden.
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday 16 November 2011
Sunday 13 November 2011
On the Workbench: Harlequin Giant Forest Troll - Complete
Yesterday I posted a progress photo of my first miniature painting project in rather a long time. Here's the finished miniature (apologies for the crap photography).
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Saturday 12 November 2011
On the Workbench: Harlequin Giant Forest Troll
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| Giant Forest Troll |
I was given this miniature many moons ago as a birthday gift and I had one abortive attempt at painting it soon after moving into my new home 9 years ago. The miniature is a multipart casting comprising of torso, legs and a huge log club which the troll wields with both hands. So the first order of the day was to de-flash the parts and then pin and glue them together with superglue. The gaps (and there are plenty) were then filled with milliput and textured. I then mounted the miniature to a Foundations of War 60mm Round - Battlefield Debris Base and sprayed it with black primer.
I never liked the painted image on the box lid as it was far too troll-like, so I decided to make mine a bit more generic so it could serve equally well as a giant or a giant ogre. I use Miniature Paints (the ones in the little glass bottles), they're cheap and have a reasonable consistency and don't seperate too much unlike other paints I've tried in the past. My painting style is to build up layers of colour from a black base getting gradually lighter and lighter and I find that this gives a good balance of detail at a stand-off scale, particularly when you are painting a bad casting.
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| Progress: face and skin all painted |
The giant troll is wearing a sort of animal skin toga which barely covers its bum but the painted example on the box shows no trousers. Clearly this creature is fashion concious ( and enough of a seamstress to sew an animal hide toga) so I decided that it wasn't going to be comfortable without trousers. These I'll paint as a patchwork of different smaller pieces of cloth which it has clearly picked up off the battlefield (including a rather fetching red gingham tablecloth).
Thursday 10 November 2011
RPG Mapping Tools Part 3 - Region Maps
In part 1 and part 2 of this series I looked at Battlemaps and Dungeonmaps which conventionally use a square grid. Now I zoom out a little bit more and look at options for Regionmaps and enter the realm of the hex.
Regional or Wilderness Maps
Regional maps use a variety of scales, my own maps use a notional scale of 1 hex = 50 miles. Erin Smale over at Welsh Piper has done some amazing work with a trio of hex templates which you can download in PDF and Hexographer format which use, 125 mil, 25 mile, 5 mile wide scales. Welsh Piper also has articles about demographics and campaign building for a low fantasy campaign and comes highly recommended. However, the purpose of this series of articles is to explore and evaluate the free (or as near as free as it gets) software tools available to the budding cartographer, and for the purposes of demonstration, I will be using a sample from TSRs HRW2 Kingdom of Nithia a Hollow World sourcebook and the usual 1½ hour (or thereabouts) timelimit to see what is possible.
Hexographer (www.hexographer.com)
A free Java based map editor (There's also an offline Pro version available for $24.95) which comes complete with the majority of icons you will find on a standard TSR map. I have had trouble running this software before on my mac which is notorious for its Java implementation but a quick look in the support forum got me the answer I needed and I was up and running in no time. The interface is fairly self explanatory and after a bit of trial and error got some great results on the Hollow World map. I particularly like the option to fill the bottom half of each hex for the "features" such as towns and cities which is so characteristic of the TSR style of regional maps. 9/10 - "Almost Perfect"
HexMapper (http://www.mentalwasteland.net/HexMapper/)
Not to be confused with Hexmapper, is an interesting Java application which focuses on a single hex and allows you to drill down to smaller and smaller scales. Unfortunately the interface is a little cumbersome and there's not much of a manual to go with it. The colourset the tool uses is roughly similar to that of the sample map, but there is a limited amount of terrain choice and icons to depict settlements. I'm sure that given more time I could make a good looking detailed map as I learned how to and when to use the various tools. I especially liked the line drawing functions but it wasn't enough to keep me interested enough to persevere beyond the time limit. 4/10 - "Interesting... but no more than that"
Old School Hex Mapper (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/old-school-hex)
An interesting project from Alex Schröder which generates black and white wilderness hexmaps from ASCII input. Although it seems simple on the face of it getting the syntax right can be a bit of a challenge and there aren't many feature options. As an exercise in ASCII to Hexmap it's a bit of fun and I expect it was more of a development challenge than an attempt to create something genuinely useable. One thing I did like was the oriental caligraphy aesthetic which was most pleasing on the eye. 2/10 - "because Alex could..."
Other Notable Tools
WildGen (http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isomage/wildgen/)
As its name suggests Wildgen is a random hex terrain generator and is an excellent resource for the time-poor DM. It just generates the base terrain and there's no options to edit or add features such as settlements or roads, but if you are world building in a entirely random fashion it may have some uses.
Conclusion
I was quite surprised that there aren't that many options out which are cross platform bar the excellent hexographer (which has been around for a while). Perhaps there are some enterprising HTML5 developers out there who feel like a challenge?
Regional or Wilderness Maps
Regional maps use a variety of scales, my own maps use a notional scale of 1 hex = 50 miles. Erin Smale over at Welsh Piper has done some amazing work with a trio of hex templates which you can download in PDF and Hexographer format which use, 125 mil, 25 mile, 5 mile wide scales. Welsh Piper also has articles about demographics and campaign building for a low fantasy campaign and comes highly recommended. However, the purpose of this series of articles is to explore and evaluate the free (or as near as free as it gets) software tools available to the budding cartographer, and for the purposes of demonstration, I will be using a sample from TSRs HRW2 Kingdom of Nithia a Hollow World sourcebook and the usual 1½ hour (or thereabouts) timelimit to see what is possible.
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| Nithia |
Hexographer (www.hexographer.com)
A free Java based map editor (There's also an offline Pro version available for $24.95) which comes complete with the majority of icons you will find on a standard TSR map. I have had trouble running this software before on my mac which is notorious for its Java implementation but a quick look in the support forum got me the answer I needed and I was up and running in no time. The interface is fairly self explanatory and after a bit of trial and error got some great results on the Hollow World map. I particularly like the option to fill the bottom half of each hex for the "features" such as towns and cities which is so characteristic of the TSR style of regional maps. 9/10 - "Almost Perfect"
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| Hexographer Output |
HexMapper (http://www.mentalwasteland.net/HexMapper/)
Not to be confused with Hexmapper, is an interesting Java application which focuses on a single hex and allows you to drill down to smaller and smaller scales. Unfortunately the interface is a little cumbersome and there's not much of a manual to go with it. The colourset the tool uses is roughly similar to that of the sample map, but there is a limited amount of terrain choice and icons to depict settlements. I'm sure that given more time I could make a good looking detailed map as I learned how to and when to use the various tools. I especially liked the line drawing functions but it wasn't enough to keep me interested enough to persevere beyond the time limit. 4/10 - "Interesting... but no more than that"
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| HexMapper Output |
Old School Hex Mapper (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/old-school-hex)
An interesting project from Alex Schröder which generates black and white wilderness hexmaps from ASCII input. Although it seems simple on the face of it getting the syntax right can be a bit of a challenge and there aren't many feature options. As an exercise in ASCII to Hexmap it's a bit of fun and I expect it was more of a development challenge than an attempt to create something genuinely useable. One thing I did like was the oriental caligraphy aesthetic which was most pleasing on the eye. 2/10 - "because Alex could..."
Other Notable Tools
WildGen (http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isomage/wildgen/)
As its name suggests Wildgen is a random hex terrain generator and is an excellent resource for the time-poor DM. It just generates the base terrain and there's no options to edit or add features such as settlements or roads, but if you are world building in a entirely random fashion it may have some uses.
Conclusion
I was quite surprised that there aren't that many options out which are cross platform bar the excellent hexographer (which has been around for a while). Perhaps there are some enterprising HTML5 developers out there who feel like a challenge?
Other Posts in this Series:
Wednesday 9 November 2011
A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - G is for Games Designers Workshop
As I've said earlier I started roleplaying in the 80s with Tunnels and Trolls and then gravitated to AD&D (1e) but my first experience of Sci-Fi roleplaying was as a player in a Traveller campaign.
Although I never owned the LBBs (Little Black Books) or the boxed set I did (and still do) own a copy of Double Adventure 1: Shadows / Annic Nova. At this time White Dwarf was still covering all RPGs and regularly featured scenarios for traveller, a favourite of mine being "The Sable Rose Affair" featured in WD#17.
I loved the hard edge that traveller put on the whole Space Opera genre. It wasn't so much about racing through the galaxy to rescue the princess, it was about dealing with the day to day minutia of staying alive in the cold depths of space and yet trying to eke out a living and possibly making that big score. In other words more "Alien" than "Star Wars".
Believe you me, this was hugely influential to my 11 year old self whose Sci-Fi diet at that time was limited to Doctor Who, the odd episode of Blake's Seven, Battlestar Galactica and re-runs of Lost in Space. Traveller also heavily influenced one of the breakthrough 8-bit computer games Elite by David Braben and Ian Bell which I spent many hours playing on my school's only BBC Micro. Yes back then the entire school shared one computer!!
In 1984 GDW released Twilight 2000 which focused on the plight of the survivors of WWIII assembling their rag tag militas to fend of the remnants of the soviet army. This got quite a bit of play at the club I was a member of at the time, but it never fit in with my cold war childhod as I recall most of the scenarios being set in the US.
Towards the end of the decade GDW released Space: 1889 which in hindsight shows how groundbreaking GDW were when they published the first victorian Sci-Fi RPG before cyberpunk had truly emerged never mind steampunk. In recent years I have come to enjoy victorian sci-fi more and more, partly as a refracted, quintisentially English, vision of Empire and partly as a result of my fascination with the aestetic of heavy engineering during the industrial revolution (with brass finials and plenty of scroll work).
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| GDW Traveller |
I loved the hard edge that traveller put on the whole Space Opera genre. It wasn't so much about racing through the galaxy to rescue the princess, it was about dealing with the day to day minutia of staying alive in the cold depths of space and yet trying to eke out a living and possibly making that big score. In other words more "Alien" than "Star Wars".
Believe you me, this was hugely influential to my 11 year old self whose Sci-Fi diet at that time was limited to Doctor Who, the odd episode of Blake's Seven, Battlestar Galactica and re-runs of Lost in Space. Traveller also heavily influenced one of the breakthrough 8-bit computer games Elite by David Braben and Ian Bell which I spent many hours playing on my school's only BBC Micro. Yes back then the entire school shared one computer!!
In 1984 GDW released Twilight 2000 which focused on the plight of the survivors of WWIII assembling their rag tag militas to fend of the remnants of the soviet army. This got quite a bit of play at the club I was a member of at the time, but it never fit in with my cold war childhod as I recall most of the scenarios being set in the US.
Towards the end of the decade GDW released Space: 1889 which in hindsight shows how groundbreaking GDW were when they published the first victorian Sci-Fi RPG before cyberpunk had truly emerged never mind steampunk. In recent years I have come to enjoy victorian sci-fi more and more, partly as a refracted, quintisentially English, vision of Empire and partly as a result of my fascination with the aestetic of heavy engineering during the industrial revolution (with brass finials and plenty of scroll work).
Thursday 3 November 2011
RPG Mapping Tools Part 2 - Dungeon Maps
Dungeon Maps
These usually conform to the scale of 1 square to 5ft and come in a variety of styles from the original D&D module "Blueprint" style to isometric maps for complex multilevel dungeons. For the purposes of comparison I will attempt to recreate small sections of maps from each of the TSR modules B1 In search of the Unknown (a 2D map) and DL1 Dragons of Despair (a 3D map). Again I am restricting myself to only using free tools or web based apps and from start to finish each map should take no more than 1½ hours to create.
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| 2D Map Sample | Isometric Map Sample |
Google Sketchup (sketchup.google.com)
Free to use 3D modelling application (Windows/Mac OSX) which has a 2d export function. First thing, make sure that you position the camera to be facing the "Top". Then you can start off by creating a grid (Sketchup is very flexible when it comes to unit measurement so if you want to create 5ft grids do just that, using the appropriate template) it is possible to use the draw line function to draw in all the floors doors and walls. Sketchup is always trying to fill enclosed shapes, so bear this in mind and make sure that when you close a shape you either delete or fill the "face". It isn't really designed to do this, but the learning curve is shorter compared to other free vector graphics tools like inkscape or CC3. Once you have a flat map it's trivial to use the isometric camera and Parallel Perspectives options to turn it into a full 3D map. Extra depth can be instantly added by extruding (google calls this push/pull) a short distance, you can even animate the result (Cue spinning Death Star animation). 7/10 - "Who's The Daddy?"
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| SketchUp 2d Output | SketchUp Isometric / 3d Output |
Tiled (http://www.mapeditor.org/)
This is a free bitmap level editor (Windows / Mac OSX) designed to create level maps for 2d scrolling games and although it's not designed as an RPG mapping tool it is seriously versatile as it supports an unlimited number of user generated layers. However, you do need to supply it with an image of your tiles to begin with so this tool is more of a DIY approach (ie: if you don't have a good bitmap editor then you'll struggle). Here are my classic blue tilemaps if you want to try it out (the tilemaps are set at a size of 50 pixels square). It can do isometrics but I spent far too much time putting the 2d tilemaps together to get round to drawing an iso tilemap, but I'll get there as this tool is just a joy to use.
The interface is really easy to learn and if you've struggled with Pymapper like I did try this with my DT1 tilemap. In my opinion this could also easily replace Dunjinni for Battlemaps, and the ability to have all your objects instantly available in the tileset window is infact a big advantage, so no more struggling to locate that one particular tree which you accidentally loaded into the wrong folder. 9/10 - "The future so bright I gotta wear shades"
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| Tiled 2d Output | Example of Battlemap Output |
RPG Map Maker X (http://fmteau.perso.neuf.fr/rpgmapmaker/rpgmapmaker.htm)
A Mac OSX native donateware tool ($37 to buy) which has been around for donkeys years. Although the feature set is huge as it has autogenerate dungeons, I found the interface frankly bewildering at almost every stage. The output is also quite primitive in comparison to other free options I tested and given the low pain threshold I have I couldn't even be bothered expend the extra energy to persevere with it beyond the 2d sample. 2/10 - "There's better fish in the sea"
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| RPG Map Maker X 2D Output |
Other Posts in this Series:
Wednesday 2 November 2011
An infinite number of humans cannot type Shakespeare
Please accept my apologies if you have been unlucky enough to see sneak peaks of future articles which were inadvertently published in the last 12 hours. Unfortunately there has been a breakdown in the trained humans used, and this will not happen again.
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| "Trophies" by Jason Edmiston |
Tuesday 1 November 2011
A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - F is for Fighting Fantasy
F is for... Fighting Fantasy
My first exposure to the world of Adventure Gamebooks was actually a copy of Weirdworld, a Tunnels and Trolls solo adventure which my dad brough back from one of his trips home whilst working in Durham in the North East of England. I was mesmerised by this crudely made book and I didn't let the mere fact that I didn't have a copy of the T&T rules stop me from repeatedly entering the Madhouse of Maximilian the Magnificent.
My father (who is to blame for all of this) was a keen wargamer and so I ended up going to the Bradford Wargames Society and being exposed to full blown Roleplaying Games such as D&D and Tunnels and Trolls at quite an early age. Then came the first great gaming hiatus as we moved away from Yorkshire to South East London.
I was already a veteran when the first of the Fighting Fantasy books was published in 1982. Schoolmates who had not already been exposed to RPGs devoured the Fighting Fantasy books with gusto and whilst I enjoyed playing their copies and followed them on their trips to the only gamestore in the area, I didn't buy any of these gamebooks at the time. However, it was on one of these trips that by chance I discovered a copy of the Corgi Tunnels and Trolls rulebook, money exchanged hands and I was now ensconced as the group DM.
So although my relationship with Fighting Fantasy is not atypical, I can acknowledge the huge debt owed by UK roleplayers to Steve Jackson and Ian livingstone for setting many of our friends on the path to exploring our own adventures, not just choosing them.
My Collection Includes
Warlock Magazine
Fighting Fantasy fans could also indulge their passion on a monthly basis via the pages of Warlock Magazine which was a brilliant piece of marketing and essentially contained at least one new adventure per issue.
My favourite issue was the one featuring the monster form the Uriah Heep album "Abominog" painted by one of my favourite artist Les Edwards.
Les Edwards was pretty much the go-to-guy if you wanted a fantasy or horror painting for your new paperback or movie poster.
When they needed an artist to immortalise Hawk The Slayer, you guessed it they went to Les.
For some strange reason Games Workshop produced an artbook called Blood & Iron containing high quality prints of the many artworks they had used as cover for their games over the years.
Maybe this was part of the deal with Les, but they never did it with any other artist to my knowledge although John Blanche did publish the book The Emperor's Will under the Warhammer 40K banner.
Board Game
In 1986 Gamesworkshop released the Warlock of Firetop Mountain Boardgame in their defacto Bookcase format. A race to the finish with heavy Player vs Player interraction this was an immensely popular game in its day and still has a cult following over 35 years later.
Want to know more
In the course of dragging these memories from my caffeine addled grey matter I have encountered some very fine Fighting Fantasy resources:
NEXT: G is for... GAMES DESIGNERS WORKSHOP
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| Flying Buffalo not Fighting Fantasy |
My father (who is to blame for all of this) was a keen wargamer and so I ended up going to the Bradford Wargames Society and being exposed to full blown Roleplaying Games such as D&D and Tunnels and Trolls at quite an early age. Then came the first great gaming hiatus as we moved away from Yorkshire to South East London.
I was already a veteran when the first of the Fighting Fantasy books was published in 1982. Schoolmates who had not already been exposed to RPGs devoured the Fighting Fantasy books with gusto and whilst I enjoyed playing their copies and followed them on their trips to the only gamestore in the area, I didn't buy any of these gamebooks at the time. However, it was on one of these trips that by chance I discovered a copy of the Corgi Tunnels and Trolls rulebook, money exchanged hands and I was now ensconced as the group DM.
So although my relationship with Fighting Fantasy is not atypical, I can acknowledge the huge debt owed by UK roleplayers to Steve Jackson and Ian livingstone for setting many of our friends on the path to exploring our own adventures, not just choosing them.
My Collection Includes
|
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Warlock Magazine
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| The Abominog - Les Edwards |
My favourite issue was the one featuring the monster form the Uriah Heep album "Abominog" painted by one of my favourite artist Les Edwards.
Les Edwards was pretty much the go-to-guy if you wanted a fantasy or horror painting for your new paperback or movie poster.
When they needed an artist to immortalise Hawk The Slayer, you guessed it they went to Les.
For some strange reason Games Workshop produced an artbook called Blood & Iron containing high quality prints of the many artworks they had used as cover for their games over the years.
Maybe this was part of the deal with Les, but they never did it with any other artist to my knowledge although John Blanche did publish the book The Emperor's Will under the Warhammer 40K banner.
Board Game
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| Warlock of Firetop Mountain Buy it on eBay |
Want to know more
In the course of dragging these memories from my caffeine addled grey matter I have encountered some very fine Fighting Fantasy resources:
- Fighting Fantasy Collector - A full listing of all the FF books and a price guide
- FightingFantasy.com - Official site of current FF publisher Wizard Books
- Fighting Fantasy Fandom - Wiki containing over 8,000 articles about the Fighting
- Big Blue Bubble Inc have released iOS versions of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Deathtrap Dungeon, Citadel of Chaos and City of Thieves.
- Fighting Fantasy Miniatures - Atlantis miniatures plans to release miniatures of all the cover art.
- Search for Fighting Fantasy on eBay - Help support this channel buy using the affiliate link
NEXT: G is for... GAMES DESIGNERS WORKSHOP
Thursday 27 October 2011
A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - E is for Elric of Melnibone
E is for Elric of Melniboné (it's mel-nib-o-nay not mel-ni-bone)
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| Stormbringer RPG on eBay |
The Novels
My fondest memories were of my school mates and I swapping the London Panther editions in the playground like kids do today with XBox games.
- Elric of Melniboné (1972) - Where Elric, the 428th Sorceror Emperor of Melniboné and he discovers the runeblade "Stormbringer" from which he derives power and vitality.
- The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1976) - Forced to flee Melniboné, Elric journeys across the sea and learns his fate, to become the Eternal Champion.
- The Weird of the White Wolf (1977) - Where Elric returns to Melniboné with his companion Moonglum and confronts the usurper Yrkoon.
- The Vanishing Tower (1977) - Where Elric turns mercenary sorceror
- The Bane of the Black Sword (1977) - Introduces the love of Elric's life Zarozinia and sets up the events of Stormbringer
- Stormbringer (1965) - Elric must confront the Sorceror King of Pan Tang, Jagren Lern, who has allied himself with the Lords of Chaos in an epic final battle.
Elric is one of the many incarnations of The Eternal Champion, a hero who exists in all times, universes and dimensions who is charged by Fate to defend the cosmic balance between the gods of Law and Chaos. Other incarnations being Doriam Hawkmoon, Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Oswald Bastable and of course Jerry Cornelius.
The RPG
With all this rich source material and an established fan base it was an obvious move to publish an RPG based on the books, which Chaosium promptly did in 1981 with the release of Stormbringer. This then led to a small (in relative terms) collection of sourcebooks, modules and expansions.
The Miniatures
When Games Workshop began distributing Stormbringer for Chaosium one of the first things they did was to make a set of miniatures. The Eternal Champion range was quite extensive and, beyond the boxed set of hero characters, featured Melnibonéan infantry and cavalry and Pan Tangian infantry, and tiger handlers.
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| (Top: L to R: Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Elric Kinslayer, Elric of Menibone, Erekose) (Bottom: L to R: Jerry Cornelius, Moonglum, Count Ulrik Skarsol, Duke Dorian Hawkmoon) |
The Music
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| Buy it from eBay |
This lead to the album "Chronicles of the Black Sword" based largely on the Elric Saga, the notable exception being the track "Needle Gun" which is based on Jerry Cornelius another work by Moorcock and another incarnation of The Eternal Champion.
Tracklisting
- "Song of the Swords" (Dave Brock)
- "Shade Gate" (Harvey Bainbridge)
- "The Sea King" (Huw Lloyd-Langton)
- "The Pulsing Cavern" (Bainbridge, Alan Davey)
- "Elric the Enchanter" (Davey)
- "Needle Gun" (Brock)
- "Zarozinia" (Brock, Kris Tait)
- "The Demise" (Bainbridge, Brock)
- "Sleep of a Thousand Tears" (Brock, Michael Moorcock)
- "Chaos Army" (Bainbridge, Brock)
- "Horn of Destiny" (Brock)
Tuesday 25 October 2011
RPG Mapping Tools Part 1 - Battle Maps
My old friend +James Graham plussed me the other day (is this actually a verb, I can't decide) with the question "Do you know any good RPG Mapping Tools" and I'm sorry to say that I couldn't give him a straight answer. Although Jim wasn't very specific in his request, the underlying quandry with mapping is that there's so much choice in terms of the types of map you want to make. At the macro level you have Starmaps but at the micro level there are Battlemaps, with all manner of world maps, region maps and dungeon maps inbetween. First lets look at...
Battlemaps
This type of map is mostly for use during play (with or without miniatures) and often uses the 1" to 5' scale convention. To test the output of each of the maps I used Inkwell Ideas Random Inn Generator to build a simple one storey building which I would then build in each of the mapping tools trying to stay as close to the original as possible and include as many items of decor as possible.
I restricted myself to free tools available to either download or use in a web app interface and limited myself to around 1½ hours time in order to learn the interface and build the map.
Dungeon Maker (http://www.stonesword.com/dungeonmaker.php)
A free web app tile based editor which appears to be either a hobby project or a technical exercise. Limited functionality with only 4 layers per grid square (Floor, Walls, Objects, Special. Limited default tiles reduce its usefulness, but if you are in need of a quick map it has no learning curve at all and a reasonable output. One word of warning though, make sure that you keep your plan entirely inside the editor frame otherwise you will have difficulty exporting the result as there are no save or export functions - 5/10 " Simple, perhaps too simple"
Dungeon Painter (http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/)
A free web app tile based editor, this one has a much better interface and more tiles are available in the default set. The learning curve is a little steeper but the results are exponentially better. Still has the feel of an unfinished project about it as some tile sets don't appear to be populated (wooden floors and roofs). The export to jpg/png and export to pdf functions don't appear to work, but it is possible to upload to a server (which generates a png) and then use URL to access the png for saving to a local drive. There are other tilesets which can be used depending on the genre of game you're mapping for and your artistic tastes. All in all a great little tool which sets the bar for me. 8/10 "Very useable"
Dunjinni (http://www.dunjinni.com)
Although it is not possible to buy Dunjinni (the online store remains closed until further notice) it is possible to use the free demo version to knock out a quick map. This can then be further embellished by adding in any items in a bitmap editing tool which you can find in either the Dundjinni forums or in the CSUAC (User Art Collection) available from www.halegaming.com. Unfortunately the demo app has the Save and Export functions disabled so you may have to resort to screen capture (as I did). 7/10 "Still worth trying"
Other Noteable Offerings
Tiamat (http://www.rpgobjects.com/tiamat/index.php)
Fans of Ed Bourelle's Skeleton Key Games map tiles can use TIAMAT which is a tile layout web application. Obviously I was unable to test the software with the sample tavern map I used with the other apps because there are no editing functions. The map I made took literally 5 minutes to put together, but with 3,216 different tiles to choose from, you could easily spend hours pouring over the gorgeous tiles. Although the app is free to use, exporting them is done through the RPG Objects storefront, you will need to set up an account and each map export costs $2.00 (RPG Objects are giving away 1 free export a month as an incentive). 8/10 "So many tile options..."
BattleMAPR (http://battlemapr.com/)
This free web application is limited to an 8x10 grid and has a very limited tile set and you can only only uses 3 layers per square. Once you've set up an account you can add your own tiles, but there is a submission and approval process so it's not instantaneous. Development seems to have stalled at the moment and I hope that the coders pick up work again soon as this is a veery noble effort and I really like the clean no nonsense interface. 4/10 "I will follow your progress closely young Jedi"
Pymapper (http://www.pymapper.com)
This is a free Windows application (and alledgedly Mac OSX and Linux using a Python interpreter) and is like a cross between TIAMAT and Dungeon Painter/Dunjinni. It's predominantly a tile layout system for use with the WotC D&D tiles, the idea being that you can build a library of the tiles you have and then design using only those tiles. The tiles are double sided and therefore you sometimes have to choose between one side or the other. Fortunately there is an "unlimited" mode which allows you to use multiple copies of the same tile. The interface is slow and a little clumsy as the tiles often don't snap to where you've dragged them, but it's better than nothing. The tiles themselves are quite low res scans of the original and I'm not sure how good they'd look when printed out. One big issue is that the tiles do not include any transparent "objects" like tables or chairs so if you want to dress your battlemap beyond the WotC offerings you are still going to have to hunt down the images in the CSUAC or in the Dunjinni forums. 6/10 "Almost a real contender"
Apologies if I've missed out any other tools, or if you know of any you want me to try out, just drop me a comment below.
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| Sample Inn Schematic |
This type of map is mostly for use during play (with or without miniatures) and often uses the 1" to 5' scale convention. To test the output of each of the maps I used Inkwell Ideas Random Inn Generator to build a simple one storey building which I would then build in each of the mapping tools trying to stay as close to the original as possible and include as many items of decor as possible.
I restricted myself to free tools available to either download or use in a web app interface and limited myself to around 1½ hours time in order to learn the interface and build the map.
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| Dungeon Maker |
A free web app tile based editor which appears to be either a hobby project or a technical exercise. Limited functionality with only 4 layers per grid square (Floor, Walls, Objects, Special. Limited default tiles reduce its usefulness, but if you are in need of a quick map it has no learning curve at all and a reasonable output. One word of warning though, make sure that you keep your plan entirely inside the editor frame otherwise you will have difficulty exporting the result as there are no save or export functions - 5/10 " Simple, perhaps too simple"
Dungeon Painter (http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/)
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| Dungeon Painter |
Dunjinni (http://www.dunjinni.com)
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| Dundjinni |
Other Noteable Offerings
Tiamat (http://www.rpgobjects.com/tiamat/index.php)
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| TIAMAT |
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| BattleMAPR |
This free web application is limited to an 8x10 grid and has a very limited tile set and you can only only uses 3 layers per square. Once you've set up an account you can add your own tiles, but there is a submission and approval process so it's not instantaneous. Development seems to have stalled at the moment and I hope that the coders pick up work again soon as this is a veery noble effort and I really like the clean no nonsense interface. 4/10 "I will follow your progress closely young Jedi"
Pymapper (http://www.pymapper.com)
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| Pymapper |
Apologies if I've missed out any other tools, or if you know of any you want me to try out, just drop me a comment below.
Other Posts in this Series:
Monday 17 October 2011
A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - D is for Dungeon Floors
As some of you are aware I am based in the UK and I've blogged before about how the roleplaying scene differs in Blighty to that across the pond (and probably that over in the Eurozone to boot). Here's an attempt to pick out some of the highlights of what it was like to be a roleplayer back in the dark days of Thatcher's Britain of the 1980s (cue the V for Vendetta trailer)...
D is for Dungeon Floors
No self respecting DM in the 80s could get away without using cardstock dungeon floor plans. Back in the 80s we didn't have photoshop and photo-quality printers, so if you wanted nice floorplans you needed to either make your own (and be very arts and crafty) or you could pop-along to your local specialist retailer and buy some ready made ones. There were quite a few ranges to choose from:
Endless Plans (Endless Games 1983-?) - Not much info has survived about these other than that they were mostly two colour plans and were also featured in The Complete Dungeon Master series of boxed sets and Tortured Souls magazine. There were at least 8 sets, with Set 8 being Forests, and they were very architectural in design. As I recall you were meant to cut them out along the dotted lines and you could then build up quite intricate and irregular dungeons by layering pieces one on top of another. This approach was novel, but futile and unplayable unless you had access to plenty of magic tape and an A3 photocopier. The wilderness tiles did have overlayed crosses for movement but they were far too intricate to be really useful (in comparison with the Dungeon Planner or Dungeon Floor Plans sets around at he same time.
Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Floor Plans (Games Workshop 1979) - Published by under license from TSR these are the granddaddy of all the Games Workshop floorplan sets and were reprinted in 1982 without any reference to the Dungeons and Dragons brand and also form the basis for the Dungeon Planner series reusing the same ground artwork.
Dungeon Planner (Games Workshop) - Neither of these are the traditional type of floorplans. Each box set came with an A2 map of the area in question (1in to 5ft scale) and a booklet for the DM to write scenario specific information in blocks corresponding to the numbered locations. The covers of the booklets also doubled as a DM's screen containing Encounter Tables and a black and white DM's version of the map with the rooms and doors numbered. I particularly liked the fact that the doors were seperately numbered as it is irritating when running a commercial scenario to find the status of the doors in the last line (or worse buried in the middle) of the room description.
Dungeon Floor Plans (Artist Uncredited) - Designed in the same style as the Dungeon Planner series and based on the original Dungeons and Dragons Floorplans tile design. The latter sets included an overlayed cross grid to aid movement which was also used in the Judge Dredd RPG floorplans which were included in the boxed game. This series included:
DUNGEON Floor Plans (Games Workshop) - The previous sets released by GW all had a very flat feel to them, being at most 3 spot colours and no attempt was made to light, shadow or texture them. The next floorplans series attempted to fix that and hence moved to a full colour printing process but the lack of a defined grid made them far less useful for roleplay even though they were very pretty. The series was made up of:
Role-Play Floor Plans (Playtwice Ltd) - I have one sheet (I have no idea when or where I acquired it) from one of the two sets published and they mimicked the Dungeon Floor Plans Set 1 but were slightly more colourful. No lighting effects were present but you did get a good spread of floor accessories as can be seen in this period advert from Adventurer Magazine.
Other NoteableFloorplans from the Era
Despite the rise in popularity of digital roleplaying platfroms such as Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, there is a large base of players still using analog floorplans. As result the products above can command high prices for what is essentially pieces of cardboard. If you are a completist that doesn't matter you just have to search for Dungeon Floors on eBay.
Next: E is for Elric of Melniboné
D is for Dungeon Floors
No self respecting DM in the 80s could get away without using cardstock dungeon floor plans. Back in the 80s we didn't have photoshop and photo-quality printers, so if you wanted nice floorplans you needed to either make your own (and be very arts and crafty) or you could pop-along to your local specialist retailer and buy some ready made ones. There were quite a few ranges to choose from:
Endless Plans (Endless Games 1983-?) - Not much info has survived about these other than that they were mostly two colour plans and were also featured in The Complete Dungeon Master series of boxed sets and Tortured Souls magazine. There were at least 8 sets, with Set 8 being Forests, and they were very architectural in design. As I recall you were meant to cut them out along the dotted lines and you could then build up quite intricate and irregular dungeons by layering pieces one on top of another. This approach was novel, but futile and unplayable unless you had access to plenty of magic tape and an A3 photocopier. The wilderness tiles did have overlayed crosses for movement but they were far too intricate to be really useful (in comparison with the Dungeon Planner or Dungeon Floor Plans sets around at he same time.
 |
| Example of Endless Plans floorplans (as found in CDM3 The Watchers of the Sacred Flame) |
Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Floor Plans (Games Workshop 1979) - Published by under license from TSR these are the granddaddy of all the Games Workshop floorplan sets and were reprinted in 1982 without any reference to the Dungeons and Dragons brand and also form the basis for the Dungeon Planner series reusing the same ground artwork.
Dungeon Planner (Games Workshop) - Neither of these are the traditional type of floorplans. Each box set came with an A2 map of the area in question (1in to 5ft scale) and a booklet for the DM to write scenario specific information in blocks corresponding to the numbered locations. The covers of the booklets also doubled as a DM's screen containing Encounter Tables and a black and white DM's version of the map with the rooms and doors numbered. I particularly liked the fact that the doors were seperately numbered as it is irritating when running a commercial scenario to find the status of the doors in the last line (or worse buried in the middle) of the room description.
- Set 1: Caverns of the Dead (1984) - (Artist: Gary Chalk) - This map depicted a typical dungeon and came with an extra A4 map of the region of Koss.
- Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh (1984) - (Artist: by Albie Fiore and Robert Neville) - This set was part of a waterside village called Blackmarsh.
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| Set 1: Caverns of the Dead | Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh |
Dungeon Floor Plans (Artist Uncredited) - Designed in the same style as the Dungeon Planner series and based on the original Dungeons and Dragons Floorplans tile design. The latter sets included an overlayed cross grid to aid movement which was also used in the Judge Dredd RPG floorplans which were included in the boxed game. This series included:
- Dungeon Floor Plans (1982) - 12 Sheets of generic dungeon floors including; 4 sheets of grey "crazy paved" stone floor, 3 sheets of beige flagstone floors, 1 sheet of wooden floors and 1 sheet of stone steps.
- Dungeon Floor Plans 2 (1982) - 12 Sheets of exterior floors including; 3 sheets of grass, trees and Hedges, 3 sheets of water, 2 sheets of grey corridor features, 2 sheets of beige and 2 sheets of beige flagstone floors.
- Dungeon Floorplans 3 (1983) - 12 Sheets of exterior features including; 4 sheets of roof tiles, 2 sheets of roof junctions, 2 sheets of timber features, two sheets of boats and two sheets of stone/dirt features.
- Dungeon Floorplans 4 (1984) - 12 coloured sheets including; 5 rocky cavern floor Three Tunnel and Cavern walls 2 sheets of junctions openings and corners, 1 sheet of Cave features and 1 sheet of mine rails, rail junctions and accessories such as wagons, wheelbarrows and buffers.
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| Dungeon Floor Plans | Dungeon Floor Plans 2 |
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| Dungeon Floor Plans 3 | Dungeon Floor Plans 4 |
DUNGEON Floor Plans (Games Workshop) - The previous sets released by GW all had a very flat feel to them, being at most 3 spot colours and no attempt was made to light, shadow or texture them. The next floorplans series attempted to fix that and hence moved to a full colour printing process but the lack of a defined grid made them far less useful for roleplay even though they were very pretty. The series was made up of:
- Dungeon Floor Plans 1 (1986) - (unknown artist) - A re-imagineering of the 1982 set with full colour artwork including doors and furniture.
- Dungeon Caverns (1986) - (Artist: Dave Andrews) - 12 Sheets of Caverns including 3 cavern floors, 1 cavern floor with stream, 3 curved cavern tunnels, 1 straight cavern tunnel with mine rails, 2 junctions 1 entrance and 1 sheet of cavern features such as steps, planks, treasure and weapons and a magma river.
- Dungeon Rooms (1986) - (Artists: Tony Ackland, Dave Andrews, Colin Dixon) - 12 sheets including 23 rooms: Torture Chamber, Necromancer's Study, Armoury, Temple, Bedroom, Mausoleum, Apothecary, Guardroom and Cell, Treasure Room, Throne Room, Alchemist's Laboratory, Orc's Den, Wizard's Study, Great Hall, Forge, Kitchen, Barracks, Mortuary, Gladiatorial Pit, Library, Large Stairwell, Magic Well, Dragon's Lair plus Corridors and Passageways.
- Dungeon Lairs (1987) - (Artists: Dave Andrews, Colin Dixon) - 10 sheets of monster lairs including: Sewers, Tunnel Complex, Troll Cave, Chaos Cavern, Chaos Temple, Ancient Temple, Barrow, Goblin Hall, Mossy Cave, Tree Root Cavern, Water Filled Cave, Ice Cavern Chaos Throne Room.
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| Dungeon Floor Plans 1 | Dungeon Caverns |
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| Dungeon Rooms | Dungeon Lairs |
Role-Play Floor Plans (Playtwice Ltd) - I have one sheet (I have no idea when or where I acquired it) from one of the two sets published and they mimicked the Dungeon Floor Plans Set 1 but were slightly more colourful. No lighting effects were present but you did get a good spread of floor accessories as can be seen in this period advert from Adventurer Magazine.
Other NoteableFloorplans from the Era
Halls Of Horror: Gothic Floor Plans (Games Workshop 1986) - (Artists: uncredited) - Although not technically in the "DUNGEON Floor Plans" series these came out at the same time and were squarely marketed at Call of Cthulhu players even though GW did not brand them as such (probably due to licensing issues). 12 Sheets of floorplans depicting a gothic mansion including 11 Rooms; Hall, Dining Room, Kitchen, Conservatory, Laboratory, Guest Bedroom, Drawing Room, Library, Scullery, Attic or Cellar, Master Bedroom, Bathroom and 2 sheets of accessories including 2 cars, staircases sarcophagi and some
corpses.
Heroquest (Games Workshop / MB Games 1989) - This boardgame featured a big full colour dungeon which although it has some unfavourable design characterstics it is still quite useable for smaller dungeons.
- Advanced Heroquest (Games Workshop 1989) - Came with some really nice floorplans with jigsaw connectors so they didn't slide all over the place. Far nicer and more useable than the DUNGEON Floor Plans which GW released 3 years earlier.
Judge Dredd: Slaughter Margin (Games Workshop 1986) - (Artist: Dave Andrews) - A campaign scenario boxset which included 8 A3 playsheets depicting scenes from the scenario but designed to be quite generic and 3 sheets of accessories like furniture and machinery.
- Judge Dredd: Citi-Block (Games Workshop 1987) - (Artist: Dave Andrews) - 8 A3 Floorplans representing an open area, park, entrance plaza, office units, helipad/hover bus stop, 2 pipeway/corridors, and sky-rail station and 4 A4 sheets of cardstock vehicles, street furniture and machinery to populate your own Mega City block. Fully compatible with the earlier Slaughter Margin and very useable for all manner of Sci-Fi games.
Despite the rise in popularity of digital roleplaying platfroms such as Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, there is a large base of players still using analog floorplans. As result the products above can command high prices for what is essentially pieces of cardboard. If you are a completist that doesn't matter you just have to search for Dungeon Floors on eBay.
Next: E is for Elric of Melniboné
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