Honey Festival Game Handouts

Due to our trip out of town last weekend my husband is running his game two weekends in a row. (It usually alternates weekends with another campaign.) So I spent the weekend preparing for his next session. First of all I finished up the mansion map for the session on the 8th. I went back over all the lines with black marker so it would be easier for players to see from a distance. Then I started adding color. The ground floor and basement are entirely stone so I used a grey crayon to color in the large area. To add a bit of texture I actually colored on our cooler so it picked up a bit of the pebbly texture. The stairs and upper floors are brown to represent wood.

Next I used watercolor to create a pond in the courtyard and fill in the garden around it. I'm really happy with the way the ripples in the pool turned out but not so excited about the edge around it. I tried to add a bit of yellow to represent a bit of shore or more gradual change but it didn't work quite the way I envisioned. Still it turned out great overall. This particular location was destroyed in the course of the adventure but we plan to keep the map in case it might be useful for something later. Nothing says that another noble somewhere didn't use the same base plan.

Next week the party arrives in Port Leyer just in time for the annual honey festival. The adventure is connected both to the festival itself and to other people who are in town to celebrate. To help make locations more memorable we are trying to make up details for each town that are memorable. So for the upcoming game session I've made flyers for the Honey Festival and a menu for the inn where the party is staying.

I started out by making both in Photoshop and then added in some extra details after printing. And yes I do know that 'schedule' is spelled wrong. It was a typo that I didn't catch before I printed it and Bear said to just leave it. It just adds more character...maybe the poor town scribe can't spell, who knows.

I made the watercolor a bit too wet and it seeped under the stencil. I may try again before the weekend to see if I can get one with more clearly defined edges but if not its not a huge deal. I also have a version of the menu where I added splatters and drink rings using photoshop brushes I have. The plan is to cut them apart into separate menus and give everyone a copy as a fun in game handout.

Celebrating Small Victories (Plus Gaming Maps from Clouds)

The past few weeks have not been the greatest. Nothing is seriously wrong, just lots of little things that have added up. So while nothing has been completely resolved we are making progress so I wanted to use this post to focus on the positive parts of things.

Last week I talked about the fact that I caught poison ivy while trying to mow our backyard. It still needs mown. I'm embarrassed to say exactly how badly it needs work. However my husband and I have made plans to get it taken care of, hopefully by this Sunday. Also my poison ivy is almost cleared up.

We still don't know for sure what caused our hall to flood in the rain, but there has been enough sun that our lawn doesn't have standing water in it anymore. We are still trying to figure out the problem but I was finally home and awake while it rained overnight. It seems like cleaning the gutters out more at least helped. When I looked out our gutters were not overflowing and we had no standing water on the patio where everything has been flooding. Its not conclusive evidence but it is as start. We still need to figure out how to make that side of the house drain better during heavy rain.

My husband's game is going great. Everyone seems excited about it. He's been running without a map because we bought into a Kickstarter for a program called Worldspinner that allows you to input basic information about your world and then ages it. It creates and names cities based on the culture that lives there and creates a history adding details like wars. It can also add information about heroes throughout the world's history and plot hooks for each city. We only donated enough to get Beta access and it hasn't opened up yet. He was trying to hold off on making a map until it was available but the campaign is quickly moving to the point where a map is necessary. Since my cold has caused me to spend a lot of time on the couch I started working on the problem.

I don't really remember where the idea came from but at some point we had a conversation about using the shapes of trees of clouds to make a map. Both of them have irregular outlines as well as internal details that could be used to define mountain ranges or rivers. So since I've been collecting cloud photos I opened a few up in Photoshop and got to work.

This is the photo I started with.

I just zoomed in on an area and start looking for shapes to outline. I did create a new layer so that the drawing was separate from the photo.

Then I used other colors to mark interior features of the cloud that could be water or mountain ranges.

Then just keep looking for more shapes.

In the end you can delete the photo layer and just have a map left.

In ended up with six countries. They are still very rough and need more details added but its a good start. I figure we can print and cut them out so we can play around with how to arrange them into larger continents. When we do that some of the borders will have to be tweaked so things actually fit together but it sounds like a fun afternoon. I'll leave it to my husband to add in cities because he has it sort laid out in his head already.

Work In Progress- Gm's Notebook

I've been a little off this week so forgive me if this post gets a bit rambly and confusing.  Also I don't have good pictures related to this post but I've been trying to get more exercise by stopping for a walk on the way home so I'm just going to share some picture I've taken on my walks these past few weeks.

                   

My husband had some unexpected time to prep for his game because the last session was canceled while some players were out of town. Since they only meet every other week this gave him a month between sessions. We have been attempting to take advantage of this time by making him a GMing notebook.

Actually what we ended up with was a notebook for keeping information about his world and a separate calendar/planner for tracking events in game.

 Right now the notebook has 7 tabs all with folders for holding extra papers or pictures he might find inspiring. 

1. History- a place to write about historical events like great battles and the origins of the world

2. Religion- list of the worlds gods, creation myth, and information about how people worship

3. Organization- includes some info about organized religion but also knightly orders, guilds, criminal organizations and so on

4. Nations- different countries and their customs, import/ export information, type of government, etc

5. Maps

6. Magic-  place to keep track of unique magic items created just for his world, maybe some custom spells eventually

7. Campaign- where he'll keep notes about adventures, notes on players and npc's

The planner part if more what he'll use to take notes during game. The plan is to set it up like a regular day planner where it has both a monthly and weekly calendars. The monthly calendar will be for marking uneventful days of travels, keeping track of phases of the moon, and also in game holidays. I've found a nice blank calendar so we can fill in the dates and month names as we go since I don't know if he wants to create new names for the months or not. Each month also has a small space for notes.

The weekly calendar is a two page spread I made using Photoshop with check boxes for marking weather, space to make notes about game events, and a spot to reference other campaign notes.

The idea behind the thing one the left is to make a quick check mark wherever the desired row and column meet. So for example severe rain or no clouds. It needs some kind of grid or maybe actual check boxes because right now it could be hard to tell which column a check was in, especially if you got in a hurry. We also plan to add some lists for naming things on the fly. Male and Female npc names, tavern names, guild names, town names, etc.

Here are some other sites you can check out for additional inspiration in creating a notebook of your own.

Newbie DM

Roleplaying Tips.com

Off on an Adventure- How to Organize your Gear

My personal Pinterest account is a little out of control...

I realized earlier this week that I have 100 boards on Pinterest, but all of them represent some type of inspiration. My latest idea comes from an image that's appeared in my feed a lot recently. The link takes you to a series of pictures showing a character sheet organizer.The first few times I saw it I tried to determine what was used for the base and think of how I could make something similar.

Eventually my husband was able to identify it as the box from World of Warcraft Trading Cards and told me we even have a couple hiding out in our house. So I decided to make a couple to help keep us organized for games away from home. I'll show you how I customized the boxes as well as some alternative bases you could use to make a comparable box. Also as a bonus I've included another project we've been working on for my husband's campaign.

My first thought was to use one of the large PC game cases, but after looking at one more closely I'm not sure its the best plan. It does have the clips on the side and technically would work but I think the disc holder would be in the way. As an alternative (for those that don't want to buy the card sets) I was able to make a simple mockup using a large VHS case. I used cardboard to make a divider for holding dice and also duct taped on a flap to make a lid. If I were going to make one for actual use I would glue down the divider and use some other material for the hinge. My initial thoughts would be either ribbon or maybe a flexible plastic like from a milk jug so that it would be more durable.  For the other side you could glue in some kind of binder clip and a loop of elastic to hold a pencil.

The basic card boxes look like this:

                                         

Remove the cards and fill it up with dice, minis, or other game supplies. Then all you need to be ready to roll is a new  custom cover.

To Make a Case Cover:

Click File, New, Blank File. It will pop up a box like the one below. Enter in the size cover you need. The card boxes are 7.5 inches high by 11.75 but you might want to adjust it to 7.5 by 11 if you are printing on regular paper, otherwise you will end up losing part of the design.

I used the shape tool to add a rectangle to mark the spine portion and help with placement of other items. Then I added a text block to the left (back) side. I used it to type up the information about my background but you could put lots of stuff there. The inspiration piece used a reference for attacks of opportunity, another idea would be to make a kind cheat sheet for new players showing what modifiers they needed to add to their rolls to accomplish different actions. I also added name and other character info to the spine portion.

Finally I dropped in a character portrait for the front and used the paint bucket tool to fill in the remaining background. I also added a picture to represent a mysterious orb that my character has. For my husband's I put a magic circle on the back and made a transparent rectangle over it to help make the text more legible. 

Curious about that stack of cards with the scimitar on top?

That's the bonus project I mentioned at the start of the post. Part of the fun of a RPG is gathering up cool weapons and other equipment but usually they are just numbers on your character sheet. We thought it would be nice to have a visual reference so we decided to make item cards. Hopefully it will add some visual inspiration to our games. It even opens up the way for more difficult upgrade decisions. Almost anyone who has played an online game has experience the difficult choice between a weapon that's super ugly but powerful or the less effective but awesome weapon. (My husband plays World of Warcraft and is constantly transmogrifying items so they look better with his armor.) They can also be used for items that are more a part of the plot than a piece of equipment, like a mysterious magical gem or a key to an unknown lock. We have also thought about making a deck with character portraits to use for NPCs. If you don't want to make item cards you could hold other things there like extra dice or maybe a critical hit/miss deck if your game uses one.

To Make the Cards:

Start by opening up the template for Item Card Fronts. (Download at bottom of post)

The screen should look like this:

Click on File and select Open to chose the photos you want to use for the cards. They will appear next to the template in the photo bin along the bottom of the screen.

Use the Move Tool to pull on of the pictures up onto the template. It will most likely either fill the background of the template or appear on top of everything. Now on the right hand sidebar grab the picture you just added and move it so it is directly above one of the card shapes. It will now hide that card shape.

In the same sidebar, right click on the picture and select Create Clipping Mask. 

This will make it so that only the portion over the card is shown. It will also add a little arrow on the side to show what layers are clipped together.

Use the points on the corners and the move tool to resize and move the photo so that the portion you want is showing on the card. For some things, like swords, this can get a little weird. You will either need to focus in on a specific feature like the hilt or leave the background color showing along the edges.

                                 

Repeat these steps until you have all 6 cards filled and it's ready to print. If you want something on the back side check your printer instructions to see which way to turn your paper for two-sided printing. After you print the front open which ever template you want for the back, turn the page and re-insert it, print the template for the back side. I left the back sides colored to show where the edges are but you could change them to white if you didn't want to print the color.

We used the backs to give quick reference information for items attributes while leaving the main portion open for a description of special abilities or other notes about the item. We also plan to use them to make a portable mini spell book for any spellcasting characters we may play. You can print out just the spells you know or print them all but only take out the ones you have prepared for the day. With just a small stack of cards you can reference the exact damage for a spell without having to flip through pages of spells that aren't even for the class you are playing. Let me know if you have any other ideas for how to use cards I'd love to hear about it.

You can download the templates I made by clicking on the links below.

Templates:

Item Cards- Front

Item Cards- Armor

Item Cards-Weapons

Item Cards- Other

Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you think or offering suggestions for improvement. Also this is my first attempt at adding a download so let me know if it's not working right and I'll try to get it fixed.