#RPAaDAY 2017, day 12

Which RPG has the most inspiring interior art?

This is a tough one, this is definitely a subjective question and to say which is most inspiring means out of all games this one is best, that's a little presumptuous especially if you haven't seen all the RPGs out there. So i'm just going to talk about several games that have great artwork.

D&D has some good stuff, in every edition, but there is also some terrible pieces spread throughout. I really like the image of the hobbit fleeing down a hall away from some unknown beast in the Basic Set. I also really like the contrasting images in Karameikos: Kingdom of adventure showing both traladaran and karameikan art styles. It really helps to emphasize that there is a cultural dissonance among the people. There are a lot of hidden gems in the various TSR modules.

I also feel Cold and Dark does a great job of giving inspiration relevant to the genre intended to be played with the game. Even if the reader has not seen the movies, like Alien, that the game is trying to emulate, there is still an understanding of the atmosphere intended for the game just from the artwork.

The same can be said for Shadows of Esteren. Not only does the art provoke a certain mood and mystery to the setting, but it is also beautifully done. The art put forth for this game is just amazing, and it is one of the few games I would recommend on the quality of it's artwork alone.

#RPGaDAY 2017, day 9, 10, and 11

What is a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions?

Well, I'll give the same answer as yesterday; D&D or any RPG really. It's a matter of style over system. Deciding ahead of time to have a game where everything is resolved after a certain period of time, and keeping the game under control matter more than what game you are playing. It's fine to just end a game in the middle or after a so called 'milestone' if you want to move onto something else; there is nothing wrong with leaving a campaign unfinished. It's only fruit for more ideas later.

Where do you go for RPG reviews?

Again the same as news, either ENworld or blogs or other forums/review sites, sometimes I just look at reviews on RPGdrivethru, but that only confirms what I have already seen about the game.

Which dead game would you like to see reborn?

hmm, it doesn't help that I know of so many games and done research about them, but never actually played most of them. my first knee-jerk reaction is Alternity, but it is being redone, so . . .

I'm thinking maybe Pendragon, It has always been something I want to play, but I've never seen a hard copy and finding players interested in that sort of game is another matter entirely. I think if it was new game people might want to at least try it out.

RPGaDay 2017, day 8

What is a good RPG to play for sessions of 2 hours or less?

Most people may not think that D&D is a good fit for extremely short games, but in my experience that is one of the best ways to play the game. Having frequent short sessions can be great fun and players tend to get more involved with the long term game. I think not just D&D really, but any RPG can be played as a short game and still be great. It's just a matter of confining the scope of the game to something that can be done quickly and moving things alone, eliminating time where players just kid around. Having short 1 or 2 hour games has more to do with style of play than with the actual game or system used.

#RPGaDAY 2017, day 7

What was your most impactful RPG session?

I'm not sure off the top of my head.

It may have been the session where my elf PC, Galron, befriended a White Dragon. We were exploring the Basic Module B1, I know because we also found the room with lots of pools in the same session. We found a lump of Ice blocking one of the tunnels. We were trying to find a way past it when it started to move; before we could do anything there was a white dragon breathing ice at all of us. Galron was the only one to make his saving throw, and everyone else was frozen solid.

I must have been 9 or 10 when this happened. I tried talking to the dragon, but not much came out. I didn't know what to do or say; I had never had to actually role play before without the help of others(I was shy as a kid, so being put on the spot made it worse). After several minutes of my blubbering, the dragon burst out laughing, and decided to help this stupid elf. The dragon brought the rest of the party to the room with the pools and we put them in one which was full of healing potion. After that we had a long term friendship with that dragon, and even protected some eggs for it once, and went on to found the Dragon City. Galron became my favorite character for a long time.

That session had a lasting impact on the setting. Also I started to role-play more and take a more active part in the game after that session.

#RPGaDAY 2017, day 6

You can game every day for a week. Describe what you would do.

Well obviously, I would game every day. I have done this before, back in high school during parts of the summer or winter breaks. Right now I would probably run 2 or 3 games of my current campaign, and be a player in other games the rest of the week. Hopefully different genres.

#RPGaDAY 2017, day 5

I know I missed a few days, maybe I'll catch up this weekend.

Which RPG cover best captures the spirit of the game?

I know it's cliche, but I think the Players Handbook of 1e fulfills this description best. It shows what might be a common party of adventurers looting a dungeon. Though the Holmes cover is a close second. I really prefer the style of the Holmes cover more than the Players Handbook. The Holmes book also shows an entire party and a room full of treasure and they are fighting a dragon, so it has a certain appeal to me.

A Change

After reading this post by Alexis, I have decide to change some things in my DMing methods. I am going to ditch the screen once and for all. I have been convinced for a long time now that running without the screen is better. I have talked about it and even tried it a couple times, but I was never committed to it. I always went back to it, at least for D&D, because of all the charts on the screen; they can prove to be so useful. If I really need them so badly I can print out a cheat sheet an store all the info I need immediately in a binder or folder.

I am also going to change my approach to teaching the game to new players. I have been used to a rotating cast of new or relatively new players changing every week due to my running for the tabletop club at CSUN. I would just tell the player what die to roll and then tell them what happened, I would not tell them why they were rolling or what their chance of success was or any basic principles of the game. And this worked because there were very few players who showed up every week and people enjoyed themselves and didn't have to worry about reading and memorizing a 300 page tome. In all my time at CSUN there was only one player who showed any interest in the actual rules and the book, though he had played 3.5 and 5e before, so that may have prompted him. I sent him a PDF of the Cyclopedia, but I don't think he actually went through it thoroughly.

To change this apathy in the rules I am going to actually try to teach the rules through play and maybe even give them some of the DM responsibilities such tracking npc hp. When I ask the players to roll I will tell them their chance of success and why they are making such a roll. Why are they making an ability check instead of a saving throw? why use wrestling rating instead of an ability check? why a to hit roll instead of an ability check, why does an ability adjustment apply here and not there? Simply put I will tell them what type of roll they are making, chances of success, bonuses or penalties, and the why of it all.

Also I am going to make a stronger effort to engage them in the fiction of the world; explain the possible motivations of npcs and why things happen the way they do. A goal here is to encourage cooperative play. All the players should work together toward a goal of their own choosing, not something I have dangled in front of them and they feel obligated to follow because "that's how you play D&D." I will try to encourage them when they suspect danger where there is none or they are foolhardy when they should be cautious. If there is some danger the players should be warned of it before it appears so they always have a choice, and have complete control of their characters' agency.

#RPGaDAY 2017, day 4

This is an easy one, I've played D&D most in the last year. Since I started a Tabletop club at CSUN, I figured the best game to start people with was D&D, so that is what I ran. I'm most familiar with Classic D&D, enough so that I don't really need the books to run a game, so there was very little prep needed giving me plenty of time for schoolwork. Also I figured the Brad name would draw a lot of attention. Probably about 80% of the people who showed interest in the club wanted to play D&D and at least half of them had never played any RPG before. So that is why I have stuck to D&D for the past couple years.

Alternatively if you don't count the time I ran games, but only those in which I was a player, I have played Iron Kingdoms the most int eh last year. I started playing with a group I found at a FLGS near CSUN before I started running D&D. we finished that game in january or febraury I think because of scheduling conflicts, but it was fun while it lasted.

#RPGaDAY 2017, day 3

I learn about new RPGs mostly through ENworld. I check it every so often to look at rpg industry news. I also sometimes checks out other websites like rpggeek. I also tend to be extremely interested when one of the blog writers I read publishes a game. Those are my two main sources for rpg news, enworld and blogs; really the internet is the best way to get any decent news about any subject these day.

#RPGaDAY 2017, day 2

What is an RPG I would like to see published? I'm not sure . . .

I asked my Dad this question and he gave me The Princess Bride. As of right now there is no published Princess Bride RPG I know about, but there is one being worked on which should be coming out soon.

Personally I don't see a reason to create a whole new RPG just for the Princess Bride; I would prefer a setting book. Maybe include state for a preferred system such as 5e. It is a fairly standard Fantasy realm and uses many of the tropes, so it would just be a matter of expanding on the lands of Florin and Guilder, the types of characters available for play, and some adventure hooks. A fairly simple affair with a lot of potential. No need to waste half the book detailing a new system or special rules adapting another system; just make it system neutral with some optional stat blocks as examples for a favored system.

Still I'm pretty excited for the upcoming Princess Bride game, and will probably buy it.

#RPGaDAY 2017

I've decided I'm going to do RPGaDay. I know I'm a little late to the party, so I'm going to start with the 1st question today and try to catch up throughout the month. This years' questions come in a nice gold colored info-graphic.

Day 1: what published RPG do you wish you were playing right now?

Lately I have really wanted to play the Firefly RPG. I own the core book, but just haven't dedicated the time needed to really learn the rules and run a campaign. I would really rather be a player in a Firefly game than the GM though. The trouble is finding someone else willing to run it. I have also been thinking of doing an online firefly game over google hangouts or Roll20 with my friends who don't live nearby, but the issue of me learning the game and prepping for it are still an issue. One of these days I'll get around to playing it.

The Sorcerer

I haven't posted all week because I just started working at a new job, and have been getting used to my new schedule.

I have been thinking about adding a new class to my games, the sorcerer. They would use magic in a similar way to my houserules for elves. No spellbooks or rituals; magic is simply an innate ability of certain people. The source of their power might be elvish or draconic blood, or they might be 'chosen' by the gods, or made a pact with some otherworldly force. What's important is how they use magic in the game. Sorcerers wouldn't have to memorize spells from books like magic users, but would have a limited number they could know. The spell progression of the sorcerer will be slightly slower than an elf, but also go all the way up to the ninth spell level. I would also make the sorcerer be able to fight better than a magic user, maybe equivalent to the cleric with different weapon allowances. I am thinking of letting the sorcerer have access to the full spell list, magic-user, cleric and druid. It is possible I will limit the spells available to active spells like magic missile, fireball, healing, etc.

I am also envisioning the sorcerer in a similar capacity to the wise men/magi of the east in biblical times. Given that Religion is going to dictate the religious class of certain areas, the sorcerer could fit into one of the religions. I'm not sure which region/religion they would fit into right now. Clerics are associated with Thyatis and Darokin, Druids with Glantri, I know there is variant on the cleric or druid in GAZ 2 for Ylaruam, there is also another variant for the clerics of the northern reaches from the gazetteer(maybe I should have a runic caster as their cleric). So that leaves maybe Atruaghin or Sind or Alphatia as the area where sorcerers reign. It might fit well with Alphatia and their ruling body of 1000 wizards. It might make more sense if they were just sorcerers, and a large percent of Alphatians had an affinity for magic.

Just some thoughts on how I might make sorcerers fit into my current game.

Religion as Alignment

Alignment in D&D has always been something that is criticized, caused countless arguments, and seemed completely arbitrary. For the past several years I have used my own version of alignment. I have still been using the standard labels of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic from Classic D&D, but with different meanings. In my games alignment is more of a general philosophy or mindset of the character; alignment represents how the character views the world. Someone who is Lawful beleives that government and Laws are good and that man needs government to be good; while a chaotic person believes that man is naturally good and that society and government corrupt the soul. It is basically the argument between the the philosophies of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Neutral would be someone who has a middle ground philosophy or doesn't care/hasn't put much though into it.

Despite sticking to alignment for so long, I'm finally going to abandon it. I am thinking of using religion instead to guide how NPCs will react to characters and as basis for the clerical class. As argued on Grognardia and Delta's D&D Hotspot Clerics in the original game belonged to a monotheistic/christian faith. There was an implicit presence of an underlying politically powerful and christian based religion in the early games of D&D run by Gygax and Arneson. Also, if I am using the Known World setting, the Empire of Thyatis is described as having a Byzantine culture. How can I have a Byzantine culture without Christianity? The Church was an intrinsic part of the culture of the medieval byzantine empire, not to mention the other countries of the known world based on medieval Europe.

The Known World won't be drastically different due to this change, simply many of the churches will be monotheistic instead of Polytheistic. Religions/ Churches of different regions are as follows. Thyatis, Karameikos, Corunglain, Minrothad, Darokin, Ostland = monotheistic(Christian). Atruaghin, Akesoli, Akorros, Ierendi, Selenica, Ylaruam = monotheistic (Islamic).  Glantri = polytheism (Druidic). Ethengar = Shamanism. Sind = polytheism (Hindu). Heldann, Vestland, Soderfjord = polytheism (Norse). Malpheggi Swamp = polytheism (Egyptian). In the future I will go into more detail about the dominant church in each region and the class associated with each faith. Basically the traditional cleric would belong to the christian analog and the druid class would be present in Glantri.

Drausi Company, Part 2

Date: 8 July 2017

Characters:
Woluf, Dwarf level 1
Orianna, Thief level 2
Litzy, Cleric level 2
Wylfus, Fighter level 1
Eff, Magic User level 1
Taber, Hin level 1
Daila, Elf level 1

Calendar Date: 13 Yarthmont AC1231
      In the morning the party is in the green ale tavern; Eff and Taber just graduated training and decided to join Drausi company. Daila who had been on a few adventures decided to join up with Drausi company for now. The party looks at the job board and decide to talk to Aleena, Patriarch Sherlane's daughter. They find her in the town hall. She says a local druid in north of the lake has been courting her and she has had no word from him and sent servant to find him but they never returned. she gives the party an advance payment of 50 sp each.
     They leave and head along a trail to the north. past the lake before they ascend into the mountains they are ambushed by 2 men with crossbows who retreat into the woods. The company doesn't follow and continue to Eltan's Spring. At the edge of Eltan's Spring they are attacked by a giant Wasp who poisons Orianna. she takes a potion of cure disease to stop the poison.
     Once in town they go to the local tavern, the crock and goblet, and speak to village elder Gernon. He offers information about bertrak the druid and says he has been infatuated with a raven haired beauty and has not been takingcare of the village crops or the local woods.

Calendar Date: 14 Yarthmont AC1231; weather=mostly sunny, warm, calm and dry
     Inn the morning the company leaves Eltan's Spring and head to the Druid's Grove. At a rope bridge below a waterfall they are ambushed by goblins and kill them. they interrogat one of the goblins. They find the goblin lair and battle with the tribe. they shut up the hole into the goblin lair and kill the remaining goblins on the surface, keeping 1 alive for interrogation.

XP: 272 each

Death in D&D

Yesterday Alexis at Tao of D&D put up a post comparing golf to D&D and said this "If the DM of a campaign plays according to the original precepts of D&D, players will die.  If the players are of the sort that find the business of living to be obvious and dull, if they're not challenged by the process of going to work or being part of a group, they will want this.  They will see the risk of dying as a good thing.  Not because it doesn't matter if they die, for they will feel the pain and the sadness of losing their characters as keenly as anyone; but because if that chance of dying isn't there, the game just isn't hard enough."

Dungeons and Dragons is not just a game. If we played it just to have fun, or experience a story, or to socialize with friends, we could just play video games or read a book or spend time hanging out. D&D is more. D&D challenges our mental faculties. Death is such an intrinsic part of D&D that even for those games where character death never happens, the DM still works to make it look like it could happen. Even with my houserules, which makes death a much less likely possibility, a PC will die if they are foolish.

This is a problem I always have with players who have experience with other DMs and they're coming to my group for the first time. They become connected to their character, and because their character has never died or only when there was dramatic reason for it, they mope and complain when the PC dies. These players somehow get the idea that they shouldn't be as closely attached to their PCs as a result of the high risk of death. In reality the player does and should feel a connection with their PC, but that doesn't mean the player shouldn't be ready to generate a new character and learn from their mistakes.

As an example, a few weeks ago I DMed a solo game for a new player and, even though she hired 3 npcs to go with her, she died within the first half hour of play. She ran into a lair of ghouls and stayed to fight and every round 1 more ghoul came out of a burial mound, and she was outnumbered pretty quickly. But she went ahead and made a new character and some other players showed up and the rest of the session she was very cautious. She used what she learned to improve her chances of survival with the next character. If anything her change in behavior shows how she had an attachment to the first character and didn't want the same thing to happen to her new character.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Players should have some emotional attachment to their characters, but without the real presence of death and other consequences in the game, there is no challenge to the game. People who have never played before ask how do you win when playing D&D. You win by having your character survive.

Drausi Company, Part 1

Last Saturday I had my first game since moving to Vegas.

Date:1 July 2017

Characters:

Woluf, Dwarf lvl 1

Orianna, Thief lvl 1

Litzy, Cleric lvl 1

Wythus, Fighter lvl 1

Calendar Date: 6 Flaurmont AC 1231 - 13 Yarthmont AC 1231

6 Flaurmont

     The charataters have just completed their initial training at the Adventurer's guild in Threshold and are given their first mission as a last test/trial before becoming full members of the guild. They are told to retrieve a red silk blanket that was stolen recently. They follow the trail of the robbers, which leads to ruined castle on an island in the Foamfire River at the entrance to the Foamfire valley. There is a broken bridge leading to the castle and at the base of the bridge they kill a crab spider. They eventually cross the bridge with some difficulty. They set off a trap of boiling oil in the gatehouse. They enter the main keep and the ceiling collapses blocking the entrance. They find the Kitchen. In the Kitchen are some kobolds, whom they defeat. They kill giant centipedes in the great hall. They climb onto the roof of the keep and find a small hole leading into room below. In the room is canopied bed and a red blanket. they take the blanket and flee. At the wall are some skeletons and Litzy turns them. They make it back to the Guildhouse safely and are given rewards and granted full membership.

7 Faurmont

     The Characters sell some loot they found and order pieces of armor which will be completed in a few weeks

8 Flaurmont

     The company goes back to the castle. They head to the tower at the north end of the island and find some zombies. Orianna and Woluf get infected. Litzy turns the zombies. The company flees to Threshold and pay the Guild Priest to cure them. They buy some burning oil from the guild.

     They return to the castle and burn the zombies. They find a naked man named Heli in the ruins. He claims his partner was killed by a person who looked just like his partner and then betrayed him. The company climbs the roof again and this time Heli's partner is in the bedroom and attacks them. They retreat temporarily and when they return to the room, the partner is gone. They loot the room and find a treasure chest some magic quarrels, scrolls, and an ancient tapestry. Wylfus tries to make the hole in the roof bigger and ends up collapsing the whole keep. they dig around in the rubble looking for loot for the rest of the day and return to Threshold.

9 Flaurmont

     Orianna and Litzy begin training for 2nd level. Woluf and Wylfus sell stuff.

13 Yarthmont

    Training is completed along with armor for Wylfus.

The Adventurers Guild

The Adventurers Guild was established in the Dragon City as a training facility and common meeting place for adventuring parties. It began as an extension of the first Green Ale Tavern. The Guild is organized into different companies; each adventurer is part of a company of adventurers. Generally when a group of adventurers complete their training they form a new adventuring company; each individual adventurer also may opt to join the company of an adventurer who agrees to mentor them. The adventuring company allows a group of adventurers to pool their resources and and have companions on which to call when in need of aid. All treasure found is property of each company; a company member may withdraw up to half of company resources from any chapter house with the available funds. Adventurers of different companies may work together; usually each company will agree to a percentage of any treasure found.

Each adventurer receives a magically enchanted iron badge after completing training and joining a company. The badge identifies the wearer and the company to which they belong. Any adventurer may be voted out of his company by a unanimous vote. An adventurer without a company receives none of the privileges of membership in the guild and may often be hunted down by the guild. When a character is ousted from a company he must relinquish any magical items owned by the company. Such a character may petition to join another company at which time they regain all their past privileges.

The Adventurers Guild has three types of establishments: the guild house, the chapter house, and the safe house.

A safe house is usually a single story one room building of sturdy wood or stone provisioned with 40 rations and water. The food and water is restocked every week by a permanent create food and water spell. The Safe House contains 3 bunk beds, has a single door which can be barred from the inside, and no windows are present. A permanent protection from evil spell has been cast on the building. The inside of the house also has a permanent control temperature spell present, keeping the temperature at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. There is also a small stone embedded in the ceiling with a continual light spell cast on it. Once the door to a Safe House is closed, it is sealed by a Wizard Lock. Access to a Safe House can be gained by pressing a guild badge against a small circle on the door, if the door is barred from the inside the adventurer trying to gain access will also have to circumvent that obstacle through negotiation or force.

A Chapter House is fronted by a Green Ale Tavern. Adventurers receive one free pint of Green Ale and one free meal every day, and may stay at the Inn without charge. The chapter house has a backroom available only to adventurers stocked with provisions and supplies. These supplies are given at a standard rate no matter location. Items stocked will include everything from the Expert Rules equipment section. The Green Ale Tavern will also always have a bulletin board where locals or adventurers may post help ads. Often the local populace that frequent the Green Ale Tavern can be hired as Hirelings or Torchbearers. Torchbearers generally start at 1cp/day, and Hirelings start at 1sp/day. The Chapter House will also have the same enchantments as a Safe House, excluding ration replenishing and the wizard locked door. The continual light will only be present in the main tavern.

A Guild House has all the amenities of a Chapter House with the addition of training facilities. A Guild House is a compound composed of  a large chapter house and separate buildings for each type of class to train in. In the center of the compound will be a courtyard dedicated to weapons training. The Guild House also contains a small alchemical laboratory available for the creation of potions and scrolls. Sometimes the Potions and Scrolls will be available for sale, these will be priced at 100sp/spell level of the potion/scroll. It is also possible to sell potions and scrolls to the guild at 3/4 price. If a character(the whole company must agree to such a sale) wishes to sell a more permanent magic item(such as a sword) he can do so by putting up an ad on a selling list in the Guild House and must negotiate for the price with the buyer. There is a 10% chance that 1-4 magic items will be up for sale at any time. Each Guild House has a secret closet with a teleportation spell which will take the Character to any other Guild House. An adventurer wishing to use this device must contact the local Guild Master who has a key to unlock the closet and a separate key to specify destination.

Training at the Guild House is as described in the current house rules document. To level up a character must pay 1/4 of xp needed to level and take 10 days to trains per level. Weapon mastery training is as described in the Masters Rules as if trained by a Grand Master.

Government in the ancient world

I have been reading Caesar and Christ by Will Durant. It's a history of Rome and the rest of the ancient world at the time of Rome's dominance. Reading about the intrigues of the Romans, simply impressed upon me how complicated the laws and government of the Republic were. Often in modern society we have this opinion that our government is better than those in the past and that government was smaller and simpler. Yet if we study ancient history we find quite the opposite, their laws and customs were just as complicated and obscure as ours are today. just because their constitution wasn't written on a piece of paper doesn't mean it wasn't just as binding or important to them. The corruption present was probably greater then anything we have ever seen in the US. Everything we know about ancient Rome shows they were our equals in bureaucracy, legislation, class warfare, and corruption. This also applies to all the other ancient governments we have good records of. We can conclude that everyone of the ancient world, whether we have good records for them or not, had sophisticated governments because of all the ones we do know about and it doesn't make sense for other peoples not to govern themselves; it's not like certain groups of humans are less intelligent then others.

To link this topic to D&D is pretty simple. Every village, city, and country should have sophisticated laws and customs and methods of self-governance. There should be no group of humanoids (by humanoid I mean any species like humans in mental function and physical appearance) in a Utopian society where everything is shared and there is no central government, everybody just gets along. That just doesn't happen. There is always a government. The strong try to rule the weak, whether that is one very powerful man, or a group of aristocrats, or simply the majority in a democracy. Their is always a government and the methods by which it functions are complicated and based on ancient customs called "the constitution" and "common law". It is not like cities just appear overnight with no previous history. The history of a people determines and is determined by their laws and government.

Armstrong Company, part 1 & 2

So there are a few session notes that I haven't posted yet, this is going to be from this last week, the first games of the summer.

Date: 31 May 2017
Characters:
Edge, lvl 3 Mystic
Thaddeus Lightbringer, lvl 1 M-U

Calendar Date: 27 Kaldmont - 24 Thaumont

27 Kaldmont
     Thaddeus Lightbringer is lost in the woods/looking for adventure. He finds a gecko lizard that appears to be injured sprawled on its back in front of a cave. He attacks it, it fights back, more lizards come out of the cave, and he is injured and knocked unconscious.
      Edge is walking by on a nearby trail and hears screams. He runs into the woods and sees Thaddeus being munched on by lizards. He runs, picks him up and runs away. After he gets a safe distance away he performs first aid on Thaddeus. While traveling on the trail, a Tuatara lizard comes out of the trees and attacks Thaddeus. They manage to run away from it.

      They set upcamp for the night. Not long after dark, they are ambushed by a group of 10 iron ring bandits. The bandits try to put manacles on them, but both Thaddeus and Edge manage to escape, killing 2 bandits in the process. They are separated, and Thaddeus climbs a tree and sleeps the rest of the night. Edge plays a game of cat and mouse with the bandits for a good portion of the night and manages to kill 2 bandits, and capture 1.

28 Kaldmont
     In the morning Thaddeus and Edge find each other. They continue south along the trail through the forest (Edge is on his way back to his monastery). They reach Wereskalot in the afternoon. Told by Innkeep that a beast has been killing local sheep and kidnapping children. Edge gives his Iron Ring prisoner to Azemur, the only human in the halfling village, and Azemur gives him a pearl in return.When Thaddeus goes to Azemur's house afterwards, it is dark inside and no one answers the door.

29 Kaldmont
     They go north into the hills to hunt down the beast. A trail of sheep fur and blood and bits of cloth is easily followed. They pass an Ogre cave and the trail leads to a Dire Wolf den. They go back to the the Ogre cave and draw out and ogre and run towards the wolves. The wolves rush to attack them, they climb a tree; The Ogre throws the wolves a piece of meat and then proceeds to shake the tree in an attempt to shake the PCs out of it. They jump out of the tree and manage to run away towards Wereskalot.

30 Kaldmont
     Thaddeus writes a letter to the Adventurers Guild asking for help from his company to defeat these monsters.

31 Kaldmont - 24 Thaumont
     Edge and Thaddeus stay in Wereskalot allowing Thaddeus to heal from his injuries.


Date: 1 June 2017
Characters:
Edge, lvl 3 Mystic
Thaddeus Lightbringer, lvl 1 M-U
Beren, lvl 5 fighter

Calendar Date: 25-26 Thaumont

25 Thaumont
    The Armstrong Company (12 NPC adventurers ranging from lvl 4-7 led by Beren) arrives in the morning. Beren sends one of his halfling adventurers to scout the territory. He finds evidence of 5 ogres and 5 dire wolves. The party journeys into the hills and and sets up camp before reaching the ogres' territory.
      During the night, Edge sees a moonbeam that looks nearly solid in the woods. He wakes up the rest of the party. Only some of the characters can see the moon beam. They decide not to investigate and go back to sleep

26 Thaumont
     In the morning they appraoch the Ogres' cave and hide in the trees nearby. Edge draws the ogres out. 5 ogres chase him into the trees, the rest of the party surprises the Ogres and attack. 4 Ogres are killed in the first round, the 5th Ogre runs back to the cave and rolls a stone in front of the entrance.
     The party then travels to the wolf den and attack them. they manage to kill all the wolves. They return to their camp and find it has been ransacked by Ogres and see tracks leading toward Wereskalot.

XP: 623 Each

Building a Web Map, part 8

Since I'm going to be running a game today,  I wanted to be able to use the web map.  A big part of that usefulness fro me is the presences of hexagons for distance measurement. I know I already have a scale bar on the map, but I always find those pretty useless on interactive maps. So I generated hexagonal tessellation in ArcMap at 3 different scales: 6 mph, 24 mph, and 96 mph. I know Mystara is traditionally mapped at 48 or 72 mph at the smallest scale, but I felt I should be consistent in size difference because 24 is 4 times 6, whereas 72 is only 3 times 24, which works for the 8 mile hex, but I'm using 6 mph because I'm trying to stay consistent with the older source material and the 6 mile hex is great for measuring in general. Yes, that was a ridiculous run on sentence.

You may notice that the hexagon layer doesn't match up with the size of the hexes in the original maps. This is due to actually placing the maps in their geographic locations on Earth. I'm am positively sure that the "Continental Map" published in X1 and "The Grand Duchy of Karameikos" map published in the Expert set were developed prior to and independently of the "Known World" map which appeared in the masters set. So the map from Isle of Dread was smashed into a place on the world map that looked like it might fit, and the scale was retroactively applied to the world map. The scale of the hexagon layer and the scale bar are the accurate scale produced by matching the "Known World" map up with the map from the Jurassic, giving me actual geographic coordinates and a basis for an accurate map. If you prefer the original scale, it is fairly simple to convert; in most places the original hexes are 2/3 the size  they are supposed to be. So the 6 mile hexes in the original map are each about 4 miles across, thus the 6mph layer would be 8mph at the old scale.

Also you may notice a distortion of the hexagons as you get closer to the poles. This of course is due to the mercator projection used in pretty much all web maps. The hexagon tessellations appear as regular polygons in the mollweide projetcion (the original projection of the Known World map), but become warped in any other projections. Displayed in another equal area projection, such as the cylindrical equal area projection, the hexagons still maintain their area while shape is distorted.

Building a Web Map, part 7

Sorry to anyone who actually keeps up with this blog, I know I haven't posted all week; I have been distracted by TotalWar. I haven't played any computer games all semester and I decided I have time and deserve a break, but then I got sucked into the hole that is Europa Barbarorum.

So, I finally updated the web map. It now shows a version of the poster map, along with a scan of the original known world and brun maps. I have started digitizing the smaller streams, and once I 'm done with that I plan to fix a few anomalies I didn't catch earlier so I can run the interpolation again. Then it should match the stream network on the poster map and I can move on to creating hexagons for the webmap and filling them with data.

Building a Web Map, Part 6

School is now over!

I presented my thesis on monday, I'm going to upload it as a link in the sidebar. The web map has all of the locations placed with custom icons and popups.

also I finished a poster of Karameikos for another class, I'll also post a link along with the paper for that project, but here is a screenshot.

Of course I continue to plan working on this project, I am going to upload a modified version of the of the poster to the web map as a new basemap. From there I will probably be working on a hex overlay with info tied to each hex.

There are still a few locations that need to be placed, I'll listthem below with pertinent information, If you have any input, let me know.

• Village of Kaldarak/plains of desolation, on road, between carrabridge and ford, several farms nearby, near dapleth woods home to elves and treants, Dungeon 15 pursuit of the Slayer
• Elven Home, in sylvan wood, treeant, Dungeon 1 Elven Home
• Elwyn's Sanctuary, deep wilderness, in domain of patriach sherlane, elwyn made deal with shrine of evil chaos, B9 and B1-9
• fire giant home, large mountain with cae entrance in foothills, AC10
• Tuma, mountains spurs in west, sylvan forest in north, desert around ctiy of tuma, most likely northwest of wereskalot in 5 shires or lake amsorak in darkokin, B8
• Giant's castle, in northern mountains, more than 3 day journey from town to castle, above the treeline on a black mountain, AC10
• guido's fort, probably on edge of malpheggi swamp south of darkin, B5
• Haven, original orange book in gulluvia/glantri, green book in karameikos - 'valley in heart of altan tepes' according to B 1-9, placed north of lake of lost dreams south of zargash mountains in 83 expert
• Highdell, on duke's road, at source of river, 83 expert
• hive brood lair, near rugalov north of road, Dungeon 13 of nest and nations
• mist raven, destroyed in explosion rebuilt, AC11
• white dragon cave, 10 day journey into mountains, trail leads past and through mountains, in ravine with spring, pine trees, AC10
• Mt Caylorne, abandoned dwarven city
• port town, trade from caravans to south to north sea, zenopus tower on hill near city, Holmes Basic
• Gray Mountain, in elven forest, middle eastern overtones, mountains to north, B7
• spinyon, small village far from trade routes, grows corn and wheat, AC11
• stonefast, abandoned dwarven stronghold, on edge of human territory, white dragon, classic D&D 
• stone peak, dwarven kingdom, AC11
• dragon lair, dragon in wulfwolde hills raiding peasants on edge of moor, Dungeon 27 Tarfil's tomb
• Zanzer tem's Tower, near town, salt mines and dungeon below, classic D&D

Building a Web Map, part 5

I have begun redoing the location markers. I have divided locations by category: settlement, stronghold, lair, ruins, and dungeon. I Have been working on updating one category at a time. I have finished the settlements. They can be seen on the webmap split into different layers with different icons. The categories of the settlements are based on the population of each place, based on the pop figures in the RC or Expert books. The different categories are Homestead, 1-49 pop; Village, 50-1,000 pop; Small Town, 1,000-4,999 pop; Large Town, 5,000-14,999 pop; City, 15,000-99,999 pop; and Metropolis, 100,000 or more pop, the last category being one I invented.

Of course Karameikos has no cities or metropolises, if you go with pre-gazetteer numbers. I think I am going to have Specularum have a population of 7,000 because it is stated as having 70,000 in Kingdom of Adventure. My general rule of thumb for pop figures post gaz is to divide everything by 10, but the city as shown in B6 is a little large for a medieval town of 5000 people even if you take the scale which shrinks the city. So I think 7,000 is a good compromise number; 5,000 of the people could be of thyatian origin, and 2,000 could be traladaran. the traladarans just aren't included in population figures normally. The same principle applies to Threshold. In the expert set the town is said to have 400 inhabitants plus 100 visitors, and then it says it has 500 inhabitants and 50 demihumans and visitors. Both those numbers are given on the same page. we could reconcile that by saying the extra 100 are traladarans not given full citizenship by the karameikans/thyatians.

Anyway, I created the settlement markers in Adobe Illustrator. I just traced an image of the legend given in the Kingdom of Adventure poster map, with some slight modifications. I have also created symbols for the stronghold and dungeon categories, but have yet to put those locations on the map and port them over to the web app.

Because blogger kept messing up the map, and the marker symbols, I decided to just have the blog redirect to a web portal on my student account at the school for now. It seems to be working just fine so far. I'm currently working on a new base map, based on the elevation model I created, as a side project for another class, and hope to finish it over the weekend, when I do I'll be uploading it to the web map as another base layer.

Building a Web Map, part 4

Well, the most difficult and time consuming part of the project is done; the DEM is finished. It's not perfect, but the original data wasn't perfect either. Here is the finished product, followed by an explanation.

The first thing I did was I identify points where I knew the exact elevation. There were just a few of these such as mountain peaks. For others I had relative elevations, such as the keep on the borderlands. the contour lines were marked as change of 25ft in elevation, but I had no base elevation. At other places I had general descriptions or average elevation. Also there were the maps from B10, Night's Dark Terror which had ridge lines of mountains depicted. This was useful for knowing the direction of slopes and adding more details to those areas.

In order to determine which method of interpolation was best, I did some testing with the keep on the borderlands map, which can be seen in a previous post. Interpolation is a mathematical method of predicting what the values of a certain geographical point will be based on the known values of surrounding points. I ended up working with the Topo to Raster tool which uses the ANUDEM method developed by the Australian National University Fenner School of Environment and Society. It is essentially a modification of the standard spline interpolation method, which can be described as taking a rubber sheet and spreading it over a given area and making certain it passes though specific points. The ANUDEM method is unique in that it allows for the input of more than just points; you can include rivers, cliffs, contour lines, coastlines, hydrological sinks, and lakes.

I first created contour lines, cliffs, and rivers. Then to create elevation points I created a single point for each hex from various maps, whether they were 6mph, 3mph, 2mph, or 1/2 mph. then I selected different hexagons within a certain area and generated random values within a certain range based on descriptions in the text. For the mountain ranges shown in B10, I detailed the values a little bit more meticulously. Though this may sound fairly easy and simple, it was extremely time consuming and took a lot of fine tuning to get just right. In the end there were over 8000 input points! I often had to go back and run test interpolations to catch anomalies and fix those points to better match the description of the text. Below is a screenshot of all my input data. From the final result I created a hillshade which I then placed over the DEM as a transparent layer and got what you see above. I will upload it to the web version shortly.

The Open Table

When I was younger I would play D&D with my family and a few friends. Whenever there was sufficient number of people present at our house interested in playing, we would start a game. we all had multiple characters who we would use in different campaigns/adventures. some time we would have the same character playing in two different adventures at the same time. which adventure we played was determined by who was present and out mood. We also tended to switch DMs for the longer campaigns, the prime example of this my Federation of Dargunn Campaign/setting, there were 6 different people who DMed that one continuous campaign with no less than 10 changes between DMs. We never completed any single campaign or adventure; there was no distinct change between games, and everything was just seen as a different adventures we played in D&D. By the end of High School I had approximately 30 characters, only 2 of which reached 10th level(David a fighter, and Galron the elf).

Since then, I have found that the rest of the RPG community doesn't play this way, they tend to stick to one campaign with one character until that campaign is finished or falls apart. Play tends to be a lot less free form, and more structured; because of the very nature of committing to play at a specific time So, what is an open table? It is a style of game play that involves a large pool of players that play frequently in smaller groups among a shared world. Many modern gamers are amazed when they hear that Gygax and Arneson had 20 or 50 players; they imagine how dificult it would be to run that amount of players all at once. What is misunderstood is how they would handle all those players. They played in smaller groups and many solo sessions, but the players in a group would rotate so there was no constant single campaign occurring.

The open table consists of a large group of players who may each have more than one PC. Depending on who shows up to any single gaming session, the players pick the PC they want to play at that time.This style of play can encourage greater participation and engagement in the setting of the game. Dungeons aren't meant to be 'cleared', and if they are something will take up residence in the now empty dungeon. The wilderness is constantly changing, there are always new things to discover. The world may change because of the actions of another group of PCs. Different parties can interact with each other, and ultimately multiple DMs can run run different groups in the same setting.

Following are some ground rules for the open table I am starting an open table at the college. Any company of PCs who goes adventuring will be part of that group until they return to chapter house of the adventurers guild. If Bob the fighter, Sally, the cleric, and Jim, the Thief, go into the dungeon of scary things, and they don't return by the end of the session, then those characters remain in that position until the game is picked up later by the same players. Bob the fighter would not be available for play in a different adventure until he is played again and returns to a chapter house. In this fashion, each player may have several different characters on several different adventures simultaneously, and also may have some in reserve at an adventurer guild house. Once a character has returned to a guild house, he or she is available for play in a later session at any location with a guild house. I will detail the Adventurers Guild in my next post.

Keep on the Borderlands Hillshade

I used the elevation data from keep on the borderlands to test out DEM creation/manipulation. I used a ANUDEM interpolation tool in ArcMap, and from that I constructed a hillshade. below the original is is shown transparent over the hillshade both with and without color.

 The keep itself

The Caves of Chaos

I imported it into ArcScene so you could see it from different perspectives.
view from the road approaching the keep

 

view from the keep looking across the river

view into the ravine

Wandering Stone part 1

Played a short session yesterday.

Date: 19 April 2017

Characters: 

Tavish, lvl 1 Dwaarf

Edge,  lvl 3 Mystic

Calendar Date 25-26 Kaldmont

We started out with just Tavish in the tavern in Luln. He asked the Barkeep if there was any adventure/work nearby. the barkeep told him about the haunted keep nearby, and that mistress Sascia might have some work for him. He went to talk to Sascia and she told him abut some bandits that had been waylaying merchants on the trail to fort doom. Tavish then went to the local brewer to fill up on mead, but he didn't like the price and wasn't able to successfully haggle the price down, so he left without buying anything. He left on the trail to fort doom and after a few hours came upon a border post. Tavish had to pay a toll to enter the Black Eagle Barony. after traveling for a few more hours night fell and he made camp.

In the morning Tavish found that he had drunk all his water so he quickly looked for a farm nearby. after about an hour he happened upon a farmhouse and was welcomed inside by a young mother. Soon after, Her husband came in from the fields for Dinner(lunch). They allowed him to restock on water and asked him to stay for the meal, but Tavish said he had to get going.

Later in the afternoon Tavish saw a strange spiderlike creature eating a horse on the road. After seeing him, the Rhagodessa attacked, and Tavish was almost immediately overpowered, but Edge happened to be traveling along the road at that instant. With Edge's help Tavish was able to kill the monster. 

XP: 125 each

How are we not dead yet, part 3

Yesterday's game was kinda short, and I felt it was a little dull. Not every game is amazing though, and you have to take the good with the bad in D&D. I think part of the problem is my style of DMing because this has happened before with this group and others. I don't want to change because I view player choice as the fundamental heart of all RPGs, yet there are times when the players fail to make any choices. I don't want to push any sort of 'story' on the players; I try to present the world as it is, and it is the responsibility of the players to interact with that world. I am a referee or judge, not a storyteller. The story is a byproduct of the game, not what moves or creates the game; the players' actions and choices are the core of the game. Then again when sessions like yesterday occur I question myself and try to find what I did wrong or how I can improve.

Anyway on to the recap, the party finally picked a company name: How Are We Not Dead Yet (HAWNDY). Every adventuring group is part of the adventurers guild. The group is identified by a company name within the guild and may be composed of more adventurers than are currently being used. I'll have to write another post about the adventurer guild at some future point.

Date: 14 April 2017
Characters:
Ozbrave, M-U lvl 3
Raveling, Thief lvl 5
Willem, Elf lvl2
Dilbert, Lizardman lvl 1
Dalia, Elf lvl 1

Calendar Date: 23 Kaldmont - 25 Kaldmont

23 kaldmont, weather = 11-20 degrees Fahrenheit, moderate humidity, 15 mph minds from north

We left off just after the party had defeated and captured an old elf hermit on an island in the bog. The session began with the interrogation of the Hermit. Ozbrave really wanted his spellbook, so kept asking questions to its whereabouts, but the mad ravings of the hermit were the only response he got, so he killed the hermit.

They then continued on to the forge. as they approached, they saw that there was a 20' tall wooden stockade guarded by kobolds and gnolls. they approached the gates, and told the guards they were interested in buying some swords which were supposed to be made here. The gnoll captain, Cosann, deliberated with them for a while and then left to go speak with his boss. After a few minutes he came back with an ogre named Graah. He showed them a blight blade, claimed that a wound from it would cause the victim to bleed continuously, and said they might be able to purchase one for 85 silver. he said before any purchases were made, he would have to talk to the 'Queen', but the party could stay inside the stockade while waiting for her reply. He left to talk to the the Queen, and Cosann led the party into the stockade to the gnoll barracks and said they could sleep there. after some initial non-conversation with the gnolls in the barracks, they decide to sleep outside.

24 Kaldmont, weather = 30-50 degrees Fahrenheit, High Humidity(misty), moderate rainfall

The party awoke just after midnight  when Graah arrived and said the witchqueen wanted to speak with them immediately. They were led to her residence, and talked with her in her foyer, which was decorated in demonic artwork. They negotiated with her and she led them on a tour of the facility, showing them the forge where Graah made the swords, the chasm where the blight was mined from the swamp, and her sacrificial platform above the chasm. They finally agreed on purchasing 10 swords at a total price of 850 silver. She said the crafting would take a few days, so they left and set up camp on the island outside of the stockade.

25 Kaldmont, weather = 15-35 degrees Fahrenheit,  High Humidity(misty),  15mph winds from North

At dawn, the a Merrow comes out of the swamp water and begins talking to the PCs. No one can understand him at first, but then he starts speaking in broken Lizardman. He asks for their help in curing a sickness and says lizardmen are the source of it. He dissapears back into the swamp. later in the day, Cosann and 5 kobolds come out of the stockade and say they have the swords. They deliver them wrapped in a bundle of hides. Ozbrave hands out the swords to the party members, and puts the extras in their wagon, and then they turn around ready to attack the kobolds.

XP: 40 each

Building a Web Map, Part 3

I know its been awhile since I've updated the project; there's still a lot of work to be done before it's really finished. I just finished tabulating all the data from every source that gives information about karameikos.

Sources used include: 81 basic rules, 81 expert rules, x1, b5, holmes basic, 83 basic rules, 83 expert rules, b1, b2, ac2, sword of justice, ac10, b10, companion rules, chapel of silence, b9, elven home, x12, gaz1, b1-9, of nest and nations, wererats of relfren, in pursuit of the slayer, b11, ac11, tm1, tm2, b12, in the dread of night, tarfils tomb, hrothgar's resting place, night of fear, dda3, who's who among dragons, rules cyclopedia, dda4, warth of immortals book, novel ideas, ac1010, Ransom, champions of mystara book, karameikos ho, magic of karameikos, hail the heroes, classic dnd game, first quest adventure book, night of the vampire, menacing malady, voyageof the crimpshrine, kill bargle, karameikos kingdom of adventure.

I can finally move on and work on the actual map. YAY! Mapping is the easy part; data acquisition and preparation are always the most time consuming and difficult part of any GIS project. From here I am going to integrate all the maps from the above sources into my ArcMap document. I have already done many of them, such as the wilderness maps from b10 and ac2, but there are a few that need to still be added such as the map of the black eagle barony in dda3. At the same time I will be working on analyzing any topographic data and applying that to a Digital Elevation Model(DEM) from which any further basemaps will be developed.

In the morning I will be running my game continuing where we left off in the kelven moor.

One Shot Session Notes

This last friday, no one showed up for the game at first besides one person, and I was about to leave and do some homework, when a new guy showed up. So because it was just the two of them and I knew I had to leave for work in a few hours I decided to run a short adventure I've done before, 'The Sword of Justice'. while the adventure is designed for 1st level characters, I gave them higher level characters because there were only two players. Later a few other guys showed up and I gave them some equal level characters. So without further ado, here are my notes:

Date: 7 April 2017

Characters: 

Orinthe, 3rd level Dwarf

Ozbrave, 3rd level M-U

Willem, 2nd level Elf

Aldren, 3rd level M-U

Ralph, 4th level Thief

Our party of heroes started in the town of Farstead looking for new adventures. They entered the Judges Inn and asked the barkeep if there was any work for them in town, who promptly directed them to a poster which Judge Miles had put up earlier that day. The poster simply said that the judge was looking for bounty hunters and to speak with him if interested. At this point Aldren and Ralph(we still only had 2 players at this point) went to the town hall and spoke with the judge in his office. He told them a story about a murder in town and the trial of an elf, Falrik, and how he had fled the trial and taken the sword of justice with him. After the elf had fled, the judge had discovered the true culprit of the crime was the captain of the watch. The judge wanted the party to find the elf so the judge could grant him a pardon and also to recover the sword of justice. he agreed to pay the party 200gp for the return of the elf, and 300gp for the return of the sword, and maybe 20 or 50 gp if they returned with clues about the whereabouts with either. The judge told them a peddler had seen an elf near the abandoned mansion of the wizard kanos, and that was the best lead the judge had right now.

The group then left town and traveled along an old trail leading to the mansion. On the trail they met an old witch gathering herbs, who they traded with. they gave her an enchanted dark ritual black candle in exchange for some snakespike, which can be used in a healing tea. 

When they arrived at the mansion Ralph circumvented it looking for other entrances and anything interesting. Aboiut 3/4 of the way around the house he found a well and a small side door. from the well he heard a voice calling for help. they rest of the party came around to look, they threw some rope and burning cloth down the well and determined no one was there, so they entered though the side door.

They kicked down the door(yes literally), and entered a kitchen which had been obviuposly ransacked before. It was long before they woke up and had to fight a gray ooze blending in with the kitchen table. After ransacking the kitchen some more, they opened the door to their right and entered that room. this was a dining room with a gold cutlery set and crystal goblet at the head of the table. As they were inspecting the room, a phantom figure(dressed like a butler) entered the room, and the whole party, besides ralph, were scared out of their wits and ran back to the kitchen. After gathering their composure, the rest of the party went back to the dining room and discovered the phantom just standing next to the head of the tale and nothing they did could get it to react to them.

So the party opened the door to a small bedroom and were attacked by a crab spider, which they subsequently killed. During the fight Ralph was poisoned by the spider. On killing the spider they all went into the bedroom, to look for loot. When they entered that room with the gold cutlery, the phantom in the dining hall smiled and dissapeared. they found a few coins of various denominations in the bedroom and then left to go back to the dining room and opened another door and went upstairs to one of the towers of the house. there they found a giant lizard which they killed. under the lizard they found a trap door with a key hole which they opened. When the trapdoor opened, noxious fumes were relaeased and everyone but Aldren fell asleep. Aldren was able to wake everyone up but ralph, who died from the spider poison. They then found a chest with some treasure under the trapdoor.

We ended there, and I told them that they went back to town and told the judge that they found no trace of falrik.

XP: 292 each

Making mistakes as a DM

It can be difficult to run a good game. Dungeon Mastering is a performance, and can be very stressful. You have a number of people depending on you to entertain them. That doesn't mean all the responsibiliy lies on the DM to ensure the players enjoy themselves, but only that the players depend on the DM. A player won't enjoy an RPG session if they don't put in some effort, yet none of the players will be able to  have a good time if the DM doesn't perform well. The DM could be termed the fulcrum of a session, if you will. Everything hinges on him/her. Thus, being a DM comes with a lot of responsibility, and not everyone is willing to take on the job. Every DM has their ups and downs; nobody is perfect and sometimes we screw up.

My game a few weeks ago is a perfect example of this. The party was traveling to a village where they had learned an evil cult was going to receive a shipment of weapons. On the journey I rolled several random encounters and they stopped at a few towns along the way until they reached their destination. It was at this point that I realized I had neglected to have an event occur at a specific location on the journey. I was so focused on making the travel itself interesting and actually feel like there was some distance between towns that I had forgotten about the adventure. I faced a dilemma, either I could improvise and move on in the adventure as if nothing had happened, or I could 'rewind' and erase half the journey so that the group could experience the event before they reached their destination. I decided to ask for the opinion of the group. I let them decide whether to continue or go back. they opted to rewind the journey.

Many DMs would not have done what I did, they would have continued as if they had not made a mistake and continued to roll the adventure onward. I think that it is ok to improvise past mistakes if they have minimal impact to the game, but where there is a major error on your part the players should be informed. I realize it breaks the flow and immersion of the game,  yet it is also important to be honest with your players. T Here needs to be mutual trust between the DM and the players. It is often necessary to get player opinions, and cater to their desires. There are multiple arguments that can be made for or against what I did in the above scenario, but I think it is important to admit your mistakes to the players and try to fix them as a group.

What mistakes have you made as  a DM, and how did you rectify the situation?

Building a Web Map, Part 2

Alright, I was finally able to get some basic markers and popups to work.  I wasn’t able to accomplish as much this week as I was hoping.  I ended up working extra hours this week because I was off school for spring break, so I couldn’t spend that time working on the map as I had planned.

Before placing any locations on the map, I organized the data I had preciously collected into one excel file. I split the locations into two broad categories, adventure locations and population locations. for adventures, I included data about type of adventure, ruin, dungeon, lair, mine, and graveyard; type of monsters present such as humanoid, or undead; the big boss of the adventure; and the source where the adventure can be found. For population centers I included different categories, type of population center, total population, faction loyalty, military capability, the current ruler, and main economic activities. For this category I included major humanoid locations that were the locations of a lair for an entire tribe.

Once I had all this data organized, I needed to create actual points in ArcMap to match to all the locations. To do this I used Thorfinn Tait’s updated map of Karameikos modified with forested hills as a reference. I was able to georeference this 8mph using the24mph expert map as a basis. however, this map doesn’t match up perfectly and I had to use more than two control points to get it to line up, even then it still doesn’t completely agree with the earlier 6mph map or the 24 mph map published in the expert set. The most notable differences occur in the route of the rivers and the shape of the peninsula by Specularum. There are also more hexes classified as mountainous as opposed to hilly, and some of the settlements are off by a smidge. These differences can be seen in the image below, the 8mph map is displayed at 50%transparency on top of the other maps with the created locations symbolized as red and purple circles. Once I had this reference map in place, I was able to create a new shapefile and add points features to it for each location. I used the 6mph map as a primary source, and where a location wasn’t marked on that map, I used the 8ph map.

With the point locations created, now I needed to join the data from my excel file to the shapefile. this proved troublesome. the join tool failed to operate when I attempted to join the two attribute tables with the excel table. I could have figured out the issue, which probably had something to do with the formatting of the excel table, but since I hadn’t created a great number of points I decided to just copy and paste the data from the excel file to the attribute table of the shapefile.

With my work in ArcMap completed, I moved on to moving the features I had created into the web map. This is where the most time was spent and I kept running into roadblocks. The main goal here was to convert the shapefile into a geoJSON format and then use that to create popups displaying the properties of each marker.  Converting to geoJSON seemed to be easy at first. There was a tool in ArcMap which allowed me to easily do this. however, the end result had to be modified. This is what the tool gave me for the adventure site of Koriszegy Keep:

{"type":"FeatureCollection","crs":{"type":"name","properties":{"name":"EPSG:3857"}},"features":[{"type":"Feature","id":0,"geometry":{"type":"Point","coordinates": 419432.17583047762,3141498.3623768883]},"properties":{"FID":0,"Id":0,"Name":"Koriszegy Keep","Type":"Ruins","Monsters":" Humanoids, Werewolves, Undead, Lowlife","Boss":" Rodemus Family","Module":"Modlvay Basic"}}]}

The issue here is the coordinates provided. In order for the point to be displayed properly the x and y values must be in decimal degrees; currently a northing and easting are displayed in meters, specific to the projection used (web Mercator). Also, the latitude and longitude values need to be swapped, so they appear as long(x), lat(y). Also, seen in the code above is the definition of the projection used (the section following crs), this can be deleted as the coordinates used in the future will be unprojected in decimal degrees. The resulting geoJSON feature looks like this:

{"type" : "FeatureCollection",  "features" : [{"type" : "Feature", "id" : 0, "geometry" : { "type" : "Point", "coordinates" : [3.76782, 27.1442 ]}, "properties" : {"FID" : 0,"Id" : 0,"Name" : "Koriszegy Keep", "Type" : "Ruins", "Monsters" : " Humanoids, Werewolves, Undead, Lowlife", "Boss" : " Rodemus Family", "Module" : "Modlvay Basic"} } ] }

When first trying to import this geoJSON into leaflet, nothing would happen. the feature was inserted as a variable within the body of the script at first, with the L.geoJson following the map initialization. I tried several different things to get it to work, some of which caused the map to not even initialize. I even attempted to use mapbox to display the data. I was able to upload the data, and display points, but o make popups work I had to rewrite the entire map code from scratch in the mapbox GL JS. This I failed to execute successfully, so I gave up on that. After a day of not being able to get anything done I was able to find some more examples and resources about geoJSON that I had not looked at before. I ended up placing the geoJSON variables in the header of the document in two separate scripts for each variable. It may not have been the most efficient way to write it, but it ended up working.  The last part I did was to have the markers be clickable and display the properties of each feature. This was done using the onEachFeature function combined with layer.bindPopup.

This post has grown larger than I expected, given the changes made to the map are relatively minor. In the next few weeks I will be adding more markers, different symbols based on feature type, a base map of my own devising, and possibly a routing option. If you have any comments about the process far, or have input about how the data should be displayed please leave a comment. 

Building a Web Map, Part 1

I have put up a link to the web map under the blog header. At the moment, it is just a base map different scale maps. All the maps used in the app so far are replica maps made by Thorfinn Tait. Establishing a Base Map In a previous post, I discussed how the basis for all the maps of Mystara can be referenced back to a paleogeographic map from the early 80s. With the goal of determining an accurate geographic location for all the maps and places of Mystara, the original paleo map had to be georeferenced. Most raster images must be georeferenced at some point, whether it be an old historical map, or satellite imagery. Georeferencing is a process in which a map is placed on a geographic grid based on some key control points. Generally, the more control points the better fit. In this case as the late Jurassic map most likely served as the basis for a tracing which was modified to the map of Mystara, it was important to use only two control points in order to scale and rotate the map to the right position. This same principle applied to the georeferencing of all the other Mystara maps also. the control points to establish the position of the late Jurassic map, and thus all other maps, were based on the latitude and longitude lines of the original map. as shown below it can be seen that this process resulted in some of the outer longitude lines not matching up perfectly with a digital dataset of longitude and latitude lines. A second georeferencing was done with more control points, resulting in a perfect match between the digital coordinates and the image, but this also resulted in a less perfect match between the world map of Mystara and the late Jurassic map, so the origianl scaled image shown below was used as a basis for all other maps.

The world map of Mystara was georeferenced using the basis of the late Jurassic map. Control points used were points along the coastlines that were common to both maps. this resulted in a less than perfect match, so both points had to be moved until a best fit was found; the end result showing a comparison between the two can be seen below.

In order to fix the larger scale maps to this model accurately it was necessary to use a continental map from the D&D Dungeon Masters Companion: Book Two, which shows outlines of exactly how the larger scale hexagonal maps fit into the world map. A personal scanned copy of this map which had been matched to the world map using GIMP, was then georeferenced to the same location as the map pictured above. Based on the continental map, the map presented in X1: Isle of Dread was georeferenced.

At this point, colored version of the same maps already discussed were georeferenced, along with the 6 mile per hex(mph) map that appeared in the D&D expert rulebook published in 1981.

Moving the Base map to the Web with a general base map is established, work can begin on the web application. The web map was built using leaflet and mapbox. After learning the basics of mapbox, each of the layers (the world map, continental map of Brun, 24mph known world map, and 6mph Karameikos map) established in ArcGIS was imported as a tile set into mapbox. While doing this, it was discovered that mapbox needed raster tile sets to be already established in the Web Mercator projection. If this was not done map box would either take a very long time to reproject the raster, or be unable to upload the raster entirely. Another issue that was encountered occurred when loading a raster formatted with a color map. when this raster was uploaded to mapbox the result was a greyscale image. To properly display color rasters in mapbox, all images must be in an 8-bit unsigned three color band format (three versions of the image in red, green, and blue). Thus, all the images were reprojected in the web Mercator projection and converted to a three-color band format. Once all four tile sets were uploaded they were added to a single style in map box, and opacity was adjusted for each image dependent on zoom level. below is a view of Mystara in the web Mercator format, and as expected, the poles are severely warped; outlines of current continents are shown for comparison. 

With the base map hosted on map box it was fairly easy to port that over to a leaflet application. This is the code so far. I put the map on a separate page on the blog which is linked underneath the header just as test to make sure it works. Next steps involve adding location markers and popups with data.