Dicehaven

Tabletop RPG Podcast and Roleplaying Resources

Author: Stan Shinn (Page 66 of 111)

Board Game Grand Prix

October 2, 2015 /

Grand-Prix-LogoIMG_0431[1]IMG_0433[1]
In the first meeting of the Board Game Grand Prix, four games were played at Common Ground Games.

  • Splendor — winner Martin — 2 points
  • Splendor — winner Martin — 2 points
  • Star Wars Imperial Assault — Martin 1 point (for the Imperials)  [Robert 1 point, Nick 1 point, Brooks 1 point, Patrick 1 point]
  • Ticket to Ride — Winner Brooks  3 points [2nd place Robert 1 point]

We determined that there should be four tiers of games, Tough, Intermediate, co-op and opening.  If you win a tough game, 1st gets 4 points, 2nd gets 2 points.  An Intermediate game winner gets 3 points, and 2nd gets 1 point.  For co-op, the runner automatically gets 1 point.  The group each gets a point if they win, and the runner gets another point if they don’t.  Opening gets 2 points for the victory, but no second place points. So the tally with week one done:

  • Martin — 5 points
  • Brooks — 4 points
  • Robert — 2 points
  • Patrick — 1 point
  • Nick — 1 point

At Christmas time, three gift certificates will be given to the overall first, second and third place finishers. Next week we are at it again as I pushed my DnD game one week.

Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion — Episode 04

September 26, 2015 /

It is a dark time for our heroes.

In a rush to rendezvous with Skelly Kandos on Thrin, the crew of the O.R.C. Tyrannus takes off—without checking their ship for deadly, hissing space-assassin-ninjas.

It proves to be a fatal mistake.

Halfway to the moon, the crew is ambushed by five assassins.

Surrounded, A9-LX is reduced to a pile of smoking rubble.

A…TICKING…pile of rubble.

In his death-throes, the droid activates the bomb stored within him. Quick action by Isshtatha and Daymont save the ship from certain destruction. Daymont grabs the bomb, leaps through a window, sprints to the garbage chute, and ejects the incendiary into space.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tark Malin is having fun with molasses.

Vin Sai and Cornelius Vaan jump in to help Dr. Malin finish off the strangely tattooed—and now sticky—assassins.

There is no time for the meat-bags to mourn the passing of A9-LX, however. They arrive on Thrin for a hush-hush meeting with a hoarse miner and his data cube.

But Count Vidian nearly foils their plans with a surprise inspection.

Back on the ship, the zombified Garr Juun slumbers, and the data cube reveals imminent destruction for Thrin and Vor Deo. The heroes ponder their next move…

Hex Mapping Middle-Earth

August 28, 2015 /

Author’s note: this page has a lot of high-res images. Be patient as they load. Don’t forgot to scroll down to see all the images and comments!

I’m doing some long term planning about an epic, multi-year Middle Earth RPG campaign. One key element my game group guys want is Kingdom building rules, so we’ll likely hack the Pathfinder ‘Kingmaker’ OGL rules to serve this purpose. Kingmaker rules presume you have 12 mile hexes, and they have rules about exploring and settling (and defending) hexes, so this should work well. But — we’ll need an epic map to make this work like I want. Here’s my prototyping so far.

First up is taking a high-res fan-made map and cropping it to fit on an 18×24″ aspect ratio. This will be our World Map we work with for the campaign.

MERP Hex Map 0

Next up I zoom in on the top left corner. I could make this NE quadrant into an 18×24″ map if we decide we need that.

MERP Hex Map 1

Then I overlay a hex grid over the quadrant. Each hex is 60 miles, which is the D&D 5e Kingdom scale, which will play well with setting up 12 mile sub-hexes inside them. We’ll be adventuring in the Third Age, around T.A. 1400-1600 (centuries before The Lord of the Rings adventures). This area of Middle-Earth has several MERP (Middle-Earth Roleplaying, the old 80’s RPG) modules we may want to leverage so I think this is a great place to adventure. Also, it’s close to Angmar and near enough to the Witch-King to get into trouble with his foul minions. But I digress…

So I overlay a the sub-hex map with a rectangle that will, once zoomed, make for another nice 18×24″ map, this time portrait instead of landscape.

MERP Hex Map 2a

Here’s what it looks like zoomed in.

MERP Hex Map 2b

The above topography is simple enough we can ‘explore’ in traditional hex-crawl format and draw in features as we explore using wet-erase pens on the poster frame in which I’ll put it. Alternatively we could use the uber-awesome Peter Fenlon map from the MERP products. Looks really cool. If I go this route I’ll need to fix the colors in the scans and also sharpen and possibly re-typeset the labels for legibility.

MERP Map 4

A third option would be to use a hex map that has no details at all and we draw in features as we explore or as they become relevant. Anyway, lots of cool option.

Want to track my progress? Follow me on Google+ where I’ll share out once in a while the maps and other tools as they progress 🙂

Hex Map 18x24

Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion — Episode 03

August 23, 2015 /

In the aftermath of their skirmish with Storm Troopers, the Rebels clean up the carnage. Daymont Syko hails the home-base of the dead Storm Troopers.

His ruse works. He discovers the location of Garr Juun, a Sullustan who worked with Dalin Show to betray the rebels.


Disguised as Storm Troopers, the party pays a visit to Garr Juun. Vin Sai notices that the armor seems to be a perfect fit on only one: Daymont.

The phony Storm Troopers gain easy access to Juun’s house in Tanga City.

Meanwhile, the alien—er, non-human—rebels circle around to the back.

Talk is cheap, and blaster fire is cheaper as a fight erupts. While the lasers fly, A9-LX disarms a baradium bomb with 10 seconds to spare—and keeps it as a handy souvenir.

The rebels capture Juun alive. Cornelius Vaan is all for torture, and Vin Sai almost delivers.

When Juun accidentally inhales some of the shroom-drug he deals, Dredge Myolnon enters his consciousness, and senses an evil presence—emanating from Andooweel.

And Daymont, lost in thought, recalls a time, when he was fighting against—not for—the Rebel Alliance …

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