Filling Out a City

About six months ago I made this post where I stuck the Cedarwood map in all of its pixel-busting glory in these un-hallowed pages.  I've referred to it quite a lot over that time mostly when dispensing GM advice.  Well today I want to post some of the finer-grained pieces for similar examples.  So here goes.

These are two of the neighborhoods of Cedarwood in exactly they detail that I built them in when I needed them.  In fact, there's probably too much detail there for what I needed.  For the most part, aspiring GMs don't really need to go into this kind of detail.  In the case of the Kelldra map, we ran like three sessions there so having that detail really helped.  For the Greypeak map, we spent, I dunno, a couple hours there so most of that wasn't used.  

This is a common trap that new folks tend to fall into:  wanting to figure everything out, but if you've watched my prep: tools and tips video, then you know how bad an idea this usually is.  Both of these maps have spaces where I can fill in what the labeled buildings are.  (Pro tip:  those buildings were chosen for their easy representation with the terrain I've built.)  Heck, most of the buildings aren't even labeled so I'm not in any real trouble if I run out.  That's the trick:  GMing magic happens where we leave space because we can fill it in when we have a need.

Feel free to use both of these for personal use but please not in your publication or anything like that (copyright me 2019).  If anyone really wants, I'd be happy to post the rest of the ones I have detailed if it'll help your game be a little more awesome.

In other news, I no longer have to be unhappy about having only a video to post this week :)

Crafting challenge, week 17

Output this week was low but there's been a breakthrough!  (video here)  I've not been a proponent of top N lists but in retrospect, I don't really know why.  Maybe they felt really lame to me or artificially forced content into a form they didn't necessarily fit.  Well, I feel differently now.

This one has been pretty fun.  With a formula, I'm both able to see if a point can stand on its own and mercilessly distill the idea if it seems too big.  The result is a better and punchier set of data.  In my script I'm looking for 20ish bullet-like points which stretches the tape to around 7 minutes which isn't terrible.  I was able to harvest all the advice I've been giving out on reddit and massage it into some hopefully evocative advice.

Because the scope is limited, it takes less time to write and edit.  I also did a dozen-ish read-throughs (out loud--my neighbors probably think I'm crazy) which helped smooth out some of the rough spots.  I found that a lot of the jokes I liked when I wrote them didn't work when delivered and a handful of jokes sort of came out of a lousy practice delivery.  I think this is probably the best piece of content I've put on youtube which helps it all feel more worthwhile.  No idea how it'll be received but I'm hopefull it'll be better than bad.

I also did a bunch of design and graduated my sci-fi game to v0.02 which is a real thing, just not one that has anything to show.

Note:  youtube is currently being very bad and uploading very slowly.  I've fixed the link after many trials and tribulations.

Crafting challenge, week 16

Again I had grand plans for all the stuff I was going to get done and again all I can show is a video.  (I think it's a good one, though.)  I also made this google sheet that rolls character concepts randomly. 

I did do some painting, though not much.  I've got five skeletons from Reaper Bones recent kickstarter that'd been prepped.  I want to explore some blending and weathering techniques otherwise I probably would have burned through these guys.

The way the math works out is 8.3 figs per month to get to 100 which means 67 by August which feels like a long way away.

Crafting challenge, week 15

This week we have things other than a video!  (finally) ((though, the video is right here.))

The Regault pods are finally done and pictured over there on the right.  Like the Veritechs, they look better in the picture than they do in real life.  Everything about this project has been awful and I'm super glad these are done.  I experimented with different painting approaches and pretty much hated all of them.  I don't like doing washes over large areas and I don't like doing base coats.  I wasn't able to reasonably handle pin lines and many of the pieces were so small I couldn't pull the flash and mold lines off of them.

This one goes into the "welp, that sucked" bucket.  I suspect that my OCD will get the better of me at some point and I'll be forced to go over some of the worst parts of these but boy did they need to be done.  The only upside to this whole debacle was experimenting with Pro Arcyl paints which are still awesome.

2019 finished mini counter:  52/100

Crafting challenge, week 14

This week I did a super mess of work but only finished one thing, this video.  This is a little frustrating.  I did manage to move my crafting station to a different room, something I've wanted for a while.  Unfortunately, moving my recording area didn't work out--the acoustics were lousy over there.

I also did a bunch of painting but didn't finish anything so by my own rules, I don't get credit this week.  I also recorded enough video for next week's post and a channel intro but since neither of those are done either, I also don't get credit for those this week.  So, yeah.  Who wrote these rules, anyway?

Two very nice upsides worth noting:

• The new crafting area is much tidier.  It almost certainly won't stay that way for long, but it's got more options than the old area.
• I got my Pro Acryl paints in the mail.  They are awesome.  They seem to go out of stock really quickly, though.