Category: RPG

A Rapid Ruin Terrain Build

On By NuadaIn Adventures in Middle Earth, Fantasy, RPG, TerrainLeave a comment

Background

My gaming group has been playing some Warmachine and Iron Kingdoms RPG lately, but as mentioned earlier, the man running the game is getting busy. As such, I’ve started to run some adventures set in Middle Earth. It’s a setting that everyone knows, and the published background and adventures from Cubicle 7 are excellent and easy to run.

Now with the Christmas season upon us, I knew that it was quite possible that I would need to run the next adventure in the campaign in very short notice. In that adventure, the heroes are supposed to find a ring fort, or at least the ruins of one. When I think of ring forts, Cahergall in County Kerry comes to mind.

Cahergall near Cahersiveen, Co Kerry. Ballycarberry Castle in the background (which is a lovely ruin). The interior of this ring fort is quite something. Stairs and levels everywhere. It almost seemed like it was half auditorium, half defensive site. (My photo).

While I do want to build up a ring fort like Cahergall eventually, there was no way that I was going to carve thousands of small stones, especially on a compressed timeline. Now, I could have simply drawn out the terrain on the whiteboard we use, but I figured that I could piece together something reasonable with limited effort. My intent was to finish this over the course of 3 dark and rainy evenings before the possible game date. I figured I could spare about an hour each night. This meant I had to keep moving and not let any roadblocks or mistakes slow me at all.

Step One: The Plan 

As I was putting my progeny to sleep, I drew out a very simple layout of a ring fort that I could build with some scraps of foam I had. This plan was drawn on my phone, so wasn’t detailed and was also limited by materials hidden away in my gaming supplies: some bits of extruded foam (that I had used under a terrain matt) that were small in size and I had some blue foam kicking around, but not a full sheet, in fact, merely off cuts. The plan was fairly simple. A way in, and out. Two layers of foam to make a hill, some bushes, and ruined walls:

Initial thoughts on the ruin. 2 layers thick, a ruined wall with a small interior wall as well. The “s” marks a statue.

Step Two: Rough Assembly

I started the clock and got to work.

First, the sheets of white extruded foam. Much smaller than I had remembered. My maximum base size was set. I knew that I needed to carve the sides down to make a somewhat gentle slope. That would also reduce the amount of space up top. 

With a rough shape for the top of the hill drawn out (and carved by pencil by my spawn), I took my hot wire cutter and started to cut away and smooth down the sides, checking to see if minis could stand on the slopes. There was no way that there was enough room to make a real ringfort, not by a long shot. I had to keep moving and roll with the punches.

The real premise about the ringfort was that it was an old ruin that was also a defensible strongpoint. This meant that as long as this was a ruin and met the criteria of having a way in and out I was good. A ruined tower or part of a larger, disappeared building would work. That allows me to have asymmetry – great, backstory for oddities. I cut up the blue foam into some simple pieces that I tried out against the basic shape of the hill I had.

The second fitting shown here. I was pretty sure that this is what I wanted so I had started to carve off the ends of the walls so they would fit together well (enough). The paths are clearly marked, as is the location for the statue. A smaller scale tree is helping to give me an idea of what looks good where.

I tried about 4 different layouts before figuring out which pieces I wanted on the ground where. The second layer and internal wall bits were moved around a lot, but despite difference in thickness and some awkward joins (I did not accurately measure my cuts to join the pieces together), I figured this was going well. I had a small area for a tree, and another for a statue, as per my original plan. There would be an entrance and exit, and the elevated walls would make this defendable. I used white glue and toothpicks to secure everything and called it a night.

Step Three: Carving the details and undercoating

I guess that is pretty much two separate things, but it took such little time that I lumped this together. I carved the walls while they were in place on the hill. I didn’t use a template at all, just free-handed it very quickly. In 15 minutes I had finished the carving (with some errors) and then threw on a burnt umber coat on the base layer and a strong black on the walls.

A very quick paint job with some inexpensive acrylic craft paints. You can see that not everything is actually in its final form yet. At this point I noticed that the side with the low walls was looking pretty sad and needed a tall tree to balance it out.

Step Four: Flocking

Flocking was next. I didn’t blend anything, or do anything fancy. Simply watered white glue, some flock, and some sand. I left some bare earth areas as well as I felt that it looked pretty good along the steeper edges of the build. I put in a cheap tree from an internet purchase.

A quick flocking and tree glued in place. The piece was starting to come together. You can see some unpainted figures I was using to make sure that the slopes were gentle enough to allow minis to stand on.

Step Five: Grey for the stone

Next was a coat of grey paint. I applied it a bit too thickly in places, but it was another 15 minutes so the return of investment for the time was pretty good.

A coat of grey over the black. The paint dried unevenly as the terrain piece was close to some work lights in my cold addition. I rather liked how it made the paint assume a different colour.

Step Six: Dry brushing the stone

I needed to lighten up the stone. I like using three coats of grey on top of black for stones, with the last being an aluminum white. For this, I only went with two. I simply lightened up the grey and threw another coat on, again a bit too thickly but I think rather effectively.

It seems like overkill but when the piece fully dried it looked much better

Step Seven: Hiding Errors

I stood back and then paused. There were some places that the two pieces of white foam were clearly separated. In other areas the walls were too widely spaced. I wanted to hide some of the imperfections. Mistakes! Never. Flock that! I figured. So I did.

Flock and bushes coveres up most of the gaps in the white foam. I left the rough cut up areas near the top of the walls as I like how it looks. Some poor paint coverage in the far corner was covered with some underbrush and darker flock to make a dripping alcove. I also added some sea foam to make the terrain more interesting on the statue side.

As you can see, the result is pretty good, especially in comparison to a whiteboard. This will hopefully make the combat around this terrain piece be a bit more dynamic and memorable.

Step Eight: Sprucing it up with a simple statue

I really enjoy having the statue detached, as it allows me to change the piece up.

Blocking off one of the ways in but blending in nicely
The statue blocking off the other entrance, but looking rather stately here
And standing proudly on the walls!

There are always flaws in a work, and I can clearly see where I went wrong, and there is also a lot more I could do to make this piece perfect. I will likely work on the flock a bit, maybe add some rubble and some more small plants. But for now, I’m extremely pleased with how this has turned out. It’ll move to a shelf in anticipation of a Yuletide goblin killing with friends.

Time Breakdown: Did I finish it in time?

The total time I spent on this project is roughly as follows (I looked at the time after each bit but I was hardly scientific about it):

  • 25 minutes of drawing on and cutting the white foam
  • 20 minutes cutting the blue foam into wall segments
  • 15 minutes choosing the layout and gluing in place
  • 15 minutes carving relief into the walls
  • 20 minutes painting the undercoat for the ground and walls
  • 20 minutes flocking (hard to say, I was on the phone as I did this and but it was shorter than the call)
  • 15 minutes painting the first coast of grey
  • 15 minutes on the second coat
  • 15 minutes to put on the foliage

So, a total time for the project of 2h40 minutes over 3 evenings (not including the blogging and picture taking/uploading/editing). I would say that doing this in 3 hours of building is reasonable. I did start with a plan, and did think about how I was going to approach each step during the day so there was no delay in getting things done once I repaired up to my hobby room.

Lessons Learned

  1. You can do a pretty good build of terrain in 3 hours if you have a clear plan and aren’t too focussed on making it perfect. Perfection is absolutely the enemy of good enough for fast builds. 
  2. Small errors can be covered up and corrected easily at later stages. Like Bob Ross says, there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.  
  3. Despite number 2, if you are joining 2 layers of foam, it is very difficult to correct once you start flocking.
  4. Simple trees can really balance out the look of a piece and make it look complete.
  5. Statues and the like, if left unattached, add versatility to the work

Overall,

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I mashed this together. I really enjoyed building this and it was quite something to see it take shape so fast. I have a feeling that once I finish off painting my 28mm WW2 buildings I’ll be getting some foam and making some more terrain.

Adventures in Middle Earth: a play report and some first impressions

On By NuadaIn Adventures in Middle Earth, Fantasy, Play Report, Review, RPGLeave a comment

Disclaimer: the art in this post is copyright Cubicle 7. I do not own the pictures. I am putting up here to showcase the style they use in their games for this review. 

One of my friends stepped up to GM for our RPG group and has been running the Iron Kingdoms RPG for a few months, with some Warmachine thrown in for larger battles (though Warmachine is more of a mass combat game rather than a wargame – more on that in a future post).

He’s been a bit busy, so I decided to dip my hand back into GMing again, and for the first time in many, many years, use a pre-generated setting. The setting I chose was Middle Earth, having been drawn in by Cubicle 7’s excellent game, The One Ring (TOR).

Cubicle 7’s “The One Ring“ RPG is a great game for the setting of Middle Earth but relies on a more abstract combat system

TOR uses one d12+d6s based on skill level for resolution, with a novel fatigue and injury system. It is properly heroic without being overpowered and really captures the feel of Middle Earth. For instance, you can remove your helm (and increase the risk of being wounded) to reduce your fatigue and be able to better strike your enemies as you grow more tired in battle. Combat is abstract, designed to be used without miniatures and is based on stances. The stances are about risk/reward, which is a nice change from the standard “you hit the orc, the orc hits you.” I have yet to play it, but it really strikes me as a great game for Middle Earth.

Despite my keen interest in TOR, I know that my group really likes gridded combat with as many tactical options as possible. I therefore took a look into Cubicle 7’s other Middle Earth offering: Adventures in Middle Earth (AiME) and am very glad that I did. AiME is a modification of the core 5e rules and is excellent. It is by far the best d20 based rule set I have seen. It is low magic but retains a strong sense of fantasy. It even improves on the already innovative journey and audience rules that are in TOR. Items get more powerful as characters do, and wealth is less important than in many other games, with social interactions and trust built over time being more important than silver or gold.

Compared to 5e, the cultures, classes, and even magical items have a much better feel and have very different roles across play. Where balance in 5e is all about everyone having an equal part to play in battle, AiME allows characters to shine throughout the game. That said, the combat rules are detailed and fun, and have all kinds of tactical options allowing for ruins, swamps, and forests to be used to best advantage. There is a corruption mechanic (shadow) that reflects the influence of Sauron and the despair a character can experience. In fact, almost all of the core 5e rules have been modified to be as close to Tolkien as possible for D&D. Characters choose a culture, a class, and background. Each has a real mechanical impact on the game. The cultures  reflect the peoples around the Mirkwood, and each has its own virtues (which are like feats but far more interesting), cultural heirlooms and skill sets. The backgrounds feed into roleplaying with an inspiration mechanic that is modelled on the concept of hope in Tolkien’s written work. The resulting heroes are balanced and have mechanical reasons to invest in non-combat skills and be part of the greater fabric of Middle Earth. The game really tries to reduce the murder-hobo concept that dominates D&D and as we shall see, it does a good job.

The art work is a nice change from the Pathfinder style (as I call it), where armour is skimpy and swords are massive. I know that it’s supposed to be fantasy, but unless gravity is different, weapons and armour don’t look like that!  Rant complete.

So, having a ruleset and the Wilderland Adventures I suggested running AiME about once a month when our Iron Kingdom GM was unavailable. Using an established setting and campaign would make it less onerous to run, and it was a familiar world to all. Additionally, AiME is designed to have breaks in adventuring, with a set Fellowship phase, where people live in the world for a bit. It is recommended that only 2 or so adventures happen a game year. This means that a once a month game will actually help accentuate that impression of time passing. It is also great as you can have a campaign span 30 years!

 

The Wilderland Adventures are set around the Mirkwood and lead nicely into other published campaign products so you can keep building characters and their enemies as the years roll on.

Now onto a quick report on how the first adventure played out. 

*** Spoiler Alert ***
If you are going to be a player in the Wilderland Adventures (for TOR or AiME) stop reading here.
********************

The party consisted of a Dwarf warrior, a Dwarf rogue, a Wood Elf scholar, and a Dunedain warden (similar to a bard but more combat oriented and not at all responsible for opening cell doors). 

I rather clumsily started the adventure with the party wandering the edge of the Long Lake near the ruins of the original Lake Town discussing what to do when the passes over the mountains open. Out of nowhere a shout rings out. The pretty Dunedain warden was too busy thinking of how impressive he was to notice. He failed 7 perception rolls over the course of the night, always by a large margin, most of them with a critical failure. I ended up changing his heirloom to a mirror as he clearly was admiring himself and not his surroundings!

The others were more aware and all ran to help the boy who was screaming that his father was being attacked by his own guards. Covering the ground quickly, they saw the merchant in the trees with his back to a tree holding a branch in his hand while 3 thugs threatened him.

The thugs are up to no good

The treasure hunter ducked into the bushes as the warden shot to lightly wound. He messed up and did real injury. The thugs then tried to bribe the party to look the other way as they took care of the merchant, but the boy cried out and was restrained by the elf. The warrior charged, figuring that being asked to turn the other way while a murder happened was not on. He swung hard but missed, as did the treasure hunter (despite advantage) who got a thump on his head for his trouble. The warrior’s armour took a blow and the warrior then hit the leader. Not expecting this much violence, the thugs gave up and were detained by the party. After properly introducing themselves to the merchant Baldor and his son Belgo, they all agreed to return to the new Lake Town, restock (and heal up) and turn the the three reprobates over to the bailiff before escorting Baldor through the Mirkwood. The three thugs were known to have supported the old Master of Lake Town, and now that he disappeared, they’ve taken to odd jobs so the bailiff was unsurprised to see them.

I’ll note here that the party had really think to adapt from a traditional D&D murder-hobo style for that first encounter. Seeing the thugs threatening a man they had to consciously hold back from immediately killing but the cost from shadow (corruption) mechanic and the benefits character builds reinforced good behaviour.

After returning to the path, the party, now escorting the thankful Baldor, his son, and his ponies across Mirkwood, met up with some Woodland Elves who had earlier arranged to meet Baldor and buy some goods. Rafting into the Woodland Realm they got to try audience rules and wisely had the elf and Dunedain speak up as Dwarves were no help, especially the socially impaired treasure-hunter.

After a nice meal and a good rest they got on the main trail and went into the fastness of the Mirkwood, being careful to remain on the path. I explained the journey rules and the roles the party had to play and the possible outcomes. The journey rules have each member of the party assume a role. The guide has to roll for how the journey starts, and then random journey events will test the skillsets of the all of the members (scout, hunter, lookout). All of these rolls influence outlook, giving shadow points or exhaustion or bonuses depending on how the journey went. This really reinforces the idea that journeying to a ruin is not a simple undertaking but must be planned carefully. That same journey though, becomes an adventure in and of itself, which I really like. 

The departure roll in this case didn’t go with the party getting depressed wandering in the dark, dank wood, gaining a shadow point each. That evening, the first event had the party surprised by King Thranduil and his guards. The King was actually most impressed by the grumpy treasure hunter, who had a short discourse with the royal party about the King’s hunt for the White Hart. The King then advised the party to prepare to sacrifice a pony if one of the greater spiders attacked and rode off into the darkness.

Rather overwhelmed by the encounter, Baldor and Belgo went to get a drink from a nearby stream. Belgo started to scream and Baldor ran off into darkness The party stood to immediately. Belgor was beside himself, saying that his dad drank the water and didn’t recognize him and was shouting about the dragon fire and his wife (who died during the burning of Lake Town 5 years ago). Leaving the 2 dwarves to console the child and guard the camp, the Elf and Dunedain tracked Baldor up the stream to an old ruin.

Note, the published adventure has Baldor go mad in front of the party but leaves the party unable to restrain him. In order to maintain agency, I had the madness happen “off screen”. I made other minor adjustments to the adventure to set the ground work for future aspects of the campaign and to clean up some poorly disguised railroading.

There, suspended in a web was Baldor, but also a giant eagle. The elf climbed up the webbing and freed Baldor, but the webbing began to quiver. The group rushed to free the eagle and convinced it to take the confused merchant back to the party. The two heroes booked it back towards the camp.

Back at the camp, the eagle flew off immediately and soon after a large spider approached. The fire was built up and as the spider came out, it was warded off by some flaming brands. As the party reunited more spiders appeared, with 3 pressing the attack. These spiders were tough, and potentially deadly, but the party did well and killed all 3 while taking only a few wounds. The group then set alight some of the webbing in the woods and ran down the path, hoping to put as much distance between themselves and the spiders as possible.

As they ran rain began to fall and it became miserable out in the dark. Though Baldor began to regain some of his memory his son was still upset, but had taken a shine to the gruff treasure hunter. The cold rain and wind were going making the going hard and the Dwarves wanted to get the humans into someplace dry quickly. Luckily the party spotted a bit of smoke rising from what seemed to be a hollow tree. Being very mindful of social niceties, the group didn’t wait in the tree for its owner after searching inside, but rather outside to ask permission. In short order a stinky hermit showed up and, after being given some food, calmed down invited the party to stay in shelter as the storm passed. The party did extraordinarily well due to their social acumen and that really reinforced playing a respectful adventurer.

The adventure has tips for playing characters and nice little drawings to give you a sense of who you are playing. Also included are motivations, which makes it easy to jump into character for a GM

Feeling refreshed the party began to head out, the day was nice and getting warmer, and there was even a bit of sunlight filtering through the trees. Up ahead a large clearing looked like a good place to rest, and in the middle was an old stone well. The warrior was very interested in it as the others flopped down to enjoy the Spring sun. But the Mirkwood is full of deceit and tentacles came out of the well and attacked the warrior as he investigated, trying to pull him in. The party responded quickly and did a great amount of  damage to the thing in the well in just 2 short rounds and it withdrew, leaving some mangled tentacles behind.

The clearing began to look menacing so the party moved on quickly. In a few more days the party was almost at the Forest Gate. Just before they got out the final journey event had them run into some goblins. The party surprised the goblins and quickly took them out. 2 ran for it and the treasure hunter chased them, stepping off the path. The Dunedain followed and soon both were lost under the eaves of the Mirkwood. They had wounded 1 of the goblins with a called shot (and killed the other) so captured it. They bargained with the goblin to have it lead them back to the path in exchange for freedom. The goblin agreed and soon the party was reunited.

The goblins look suitably devious and their abilities are varied. Mirkwood goblins fight differently than those in the Misty Mountains.  The varied nature of the monsters means that saying “orc” or “goblin” will have the party trying to figure out how to best approach the threat.

The treasure hunter bent over as the goblin turned to the Dunedain to receive its freedom. The burglar cut the goblin’s ankles from behind, crippling it. The goblin shouted that they had promised to let it go as it fell on the ground. The treasure hunter (who detests goblins even more than most Dwarves) said the goblin was free to go and should be thankful. As the noise grew the warrior stepped in and put the goblin out of its misery before spiders came to eat them all. The treasure hunter earned more shadow points for that, and the rest of the party was actually uncomfortable with his actions, which speaks to the ruleset. In 3 hours the group had bought into the Middle Earth mindset, which is great and speaks to the well designed system.

The Forest Gate and the end of journey was next, with the party ending the journey on a high note, gaining advantage on social interaction checks. They then headed  down to the Most Easterly Inn, from where they will start their next adventure. It was a good session, despite some rough descriptions on my part, and I think everyone enjoyed the setting that they knew. The adventure itself was easy to run with minimal prep. While there were some problems, the Wilderland Adventures are overall very well done and I shall continue to use them. 

AiME is a great version of 5e, and I am definitely planning on using it as the basis for the ruleset for my homebrew world in a year or so. If you play 5e, or Pathfinder or any OSR clone, I highly recommend you check out AiME as it has great ideas for even high fantasy realms. The books are high quality but are expensive. If you buy from Cubicle 7 you get the pdfs and the hard copy. If you are concerned about cost, the pdfs are more reasonable, and both the Adventurer’s and the Loremaster’s Guide are worth it.

November Rain

On By NuadaIn Blogging, Island Life, RPG, Terrain, WIPLeave a comment

Well, we’ve had a break in the rain here, and it’s been gorgeous.

No, that’s not the Lonely Mountain in the centre, that’s Mount Baker 116km away peaking up over the San Juan Islands. The picture was taken in a Garry Oak meadow that’s ready for the rains. And yes, 116km. There’s a plinth nearby with the measurement.

Sorry for the over exposure. The white below the mountains in the distance is thick, thick fog that flows into the Straits of Juan de Fuca and has nicely stayed away for some sunny days

On the gaming front I’ve finished my wire fencing, and also put together some 4Ground barbed wire barricades. The fencing has turned out okay, but when I need more I’ll be building them a bit differently. I’ll probably use skewers in MDF as balsa is just too flimsy. I’m happy enough with them, considering the time and energy involved but they’ll be touched up sometime.

The wire fences are done for now. I’ll probably weather the wire later and dress up the base more, but they do the trick and it’s time for me to finish getting bigger piece of terrain finished

I’ve also noticed that my shortening RPG blog list on this site is no aberration.  Monsters and Manuals, a great RPG blog, has decided to stop blogging. Dungeon of Signs (who created some great adventures) did so about a year ago. Many of the blogs that I enjoyed in the OSR community (a community centered around the return to an older style of play or “Old School Renaissance” in RPGs) seem to be going dark. Now, I know that people say that 10 years is the lifespan of an average blog, but as blogging is relatively new, I’m not sure how much I trust that data set. I think it in the OSR world, it has more to do with acrimonious debate and incivility. The debate tends to be about things ranging from gender-roles in game worlds to what Saint Gygax wrote (seriously, to some people everything in the first editions is sacrosanct). There seems to be increasing polarity, and that is being coupled with RPG blogs being used less to share interesting ideas in the hobby and more to  reinforce how others are having BADWRONGFUN and that they alone hold the answer to how to have fun as is proper.

Personally, I’ve avoided reading blogs that focus on debate, choosing to frequent blogs that share an interesting take on a particular narrative or rules situation, or neat adventure hooks and so on.  Monsters and Manuals had the great idea of a world that rotates slowly and nights last hundreds of years. The edges of darkness would be full of strife with creatures from the darkness running rampant while nomadic cultures would rediscover old ruins when they once again returned to the light. Great stuff and really thought provoking. So, it’s sad to see blogs that come up with gems that you can chew on go dark. It’s also sad to see people lose faith in each other and merely use the Internet as a medium for attack and not discourse or support.

The online wargaming community certainly has its share of characters and opinions, but in my limited experience, it seems to be far more about sharing the joy of the hobby than to bash others. I think that’s why the list of wargaming blogs I’m following is steadily increasing (and if you have blog suggestion, please pass it on).

So, if you’re feeling offended when you read a blog post and want to write something nasty, think twice. Instead, keep on gaming and sharing stories, and pictures and your crazy project ideas. I know my lead pile needs more reasons to keep growing.

Now, back to the rain…

 

Project Planning – Fantasy

On By NuadaIn Cunning Plans, Fantasy, RPGLeave a comment

I’ve not only got plans for WW2 and Napoleonic, but also fantasy (with some history thrown in for good measure).

Dux Britanniarum – TFLs ruleset for skirmishes and battles with a campaign system baked in. I’m hoping to use this for an Arthurian campaign with full on Sub-Roman Britain with heavy cataphracts riding down Saxons, raids on the Saxon shore and all. I’m happy to play some of this solo to keep the story moving but while I have some bits standing by in the lead pile, this project is a ways out.

Daughter of Rovas (DoR)  – I have been slowly building a world for RPGs/fantasy wargames. It’s low magic, a bit gritty, and fun. But I’m biased. I’ve run an RPG campaign in the world, with the players part of a mercenary company, “The Iron Band.” This was modelled loosely after The Black Company, by Glen Cook. In between adventures there were battles (using Hail Caesar or Dragon Rampant). The adventures fed into the battles, and vice versa. It was an experiment and was fun for all. Due to life, the campaign is on pause, but we will be restarting soon with a Dux style system before warping a few hundred years into the future for an RPG set in the world that the players have helped shape.

King’s Stone – DoR – In the campaign world set above, I have a cunning plan to run a convoy escort over several terrain boards. I’ve got the rules I’m going to use already modified, the forces are partly painted, and next is the construction of the terrain boards that will include a night battle with (electric) bonfires! This particular project keeps me smiling as I think of it.

LOTR – No idea which ruleset, but maybe use a Dux system with the Enemy being the Saxons and the others being the Britons. I have a large number of LOTR figures and this one sounds like a good way to have some fun.