Free Map - Flooded Tower

Here is a map that I did for a game a number of years ago.  It's a partially flooded tower in a swamp with an earthen embankment separating the swamp from the drier areas.  Two huge statues guard the gap in the embankment, and a seemingly safe cobblestone path leads to the tower.  There was a basement to the tower as well and a lot of frogs if I recall.  Really big frogs...

Zardoz!

This is why I love NBC's Community.  They did an actual reference to Zardoz.  Seriously, Zardoz.  They have taken obscure references to a new level.  I'm impressed. :-)

Free Map - GURPS Tower

Here is a map of a tower that I used for a GURPS adventure a long time ago.  It's got a groovy throne on the second floor that's just waiting to be occupied by a lich or something.  The pool in the sub-basement could hold all sorts of horrors, and that nest on the roof is awfully big...

Warduke Repainted

Here is an approximately 90% repaint of a pre-painted Warduke miniature from Wizards of the Coast.  I really liked the miniature, but wasn't too fond of the factory paint job, so I set about fixing it.  I started by repainting the rock that he is standing on, and once that was done, the rest of the miniature looked even worse, so I moved on to the skin, then the leather, and finally the metal.  I also added gravel to the base to give it a little pizazz.   In the end, I probably should have just re-primed it and started from scratch, but I think that it turned out alright.

Miniatures Monday - Red Dragon

A fierce red dragon rears up ready to incinerate those who would dare to seek its treasure.

Enhanced Magic Realm Character Cards

I was toying around the other day with the idea for a Magic Realm character sheet that might make it easier for new players to keep track of things.  I ended up putting together a sheet with boxes for identifying fatigued and wounded chits along with inventory boxes for active and inactive items.  With the existing player record sheet, this may take up too much room at the table to be of much use, but I was bored and had fun making it.

Here are links to the PDF sheets for the Amazon, Swordsman, White Knight, Black Knight, Berserker, and Dwarf.

Using Boardgames in your Roleplaying Games

The story of how the board for Avalon Hill's game Outdoor Survival was used in the early days of Dunegons & Dragons to run outdoor adventures has been well documented.  Looking at the board it makes perfect sense as it has most of the terrain that one might expect to encounter along with convenient markers that can be used for castles, villages, and encounters.  Overall I think that it's  good use of a nice game board from what I think was an otherwise dull game.  Supposedly Outdoor Survival was one of Avalon Hill's better selling games because it tended to be sold in gift shops at national parks.  In any case it's a lovely board, and it got me thinking of boards from other games that could be used in some manner for my roleplaying games. 

Board from Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival

First up is the board from the Odyssey 2 game Quest for the Rings.  While Quest for the Rings wasn't technically a boardgame, parts of it were played on a board, so I'm including it here.  This board while very attractive doesn't possess the same functionality of the Outdoor Survival board as it has no hexes, and the grid the overlays the board is fairly large, but the board itself could be used as a ready made GM's campaign map.  I mean, who wouldn't want to visit places like The mountains of Myrgard or The Dragon's Bog?

Quest for the Rings Board

Another of my favorites comes from another Avalon Hill game, Wizards Quest.  My dad and I used to play this when I was younger, and while it's really not much more than fantasy Risk, I've always been fond of the board.  This one has better region delineation than Quest for the Rings, but it's not as good as the nicely ordered hexes from Outdoor Survival.  Still, in a pinch it could be used in actual play to track character movements between cities or adventure sights.  In the end though, I think that this board is still better suited for use as a GM's campaign map for a small scale campaign.

Wizard's Quest Board

Moving back to hexes, I think that the map boards from Avalon Hill's Panzerblitz would be well suited for small scale outdoor adventures in areas covering a few dozen miles.  The Panzerblitz boards also have the advantage of being able to be positioned in a variety of ways, thus increasing variety.

Panzerblitz Boards

There are of course a ton of boards from other games that could be used as well, like Dragon Pass, and SPI's Sword and Sorcery.  Does anyone have any favorite boardgames that they have been inspired to somehow incorporated into their roleplaying games?

The Joy of Player Made Maps

Player mapping in RPGs seems to have become a lost art.  Many people would argue that player mapping slows things down and often isn't fun for the player who is "stuck" mapping.  I'm going to argue those points one way or the other, but when going through my files, I did come across what I think is a fairly entertaining set of player made maps.  Here we have two examples of maps made by my players during a dungeon crawl many years ago.  I particularly like the Tim Woodsman on the second picture.

And no, that isn't a typo above. ;-)

Free Map - Dungeon Level 3

Here is the incomplete map of the third level of the dungeon.  Someday I may go back and finish this one.  There was supposed to be a flooded level below this one as well, accessed via the small spiral staircase near the center of the map, but I never started on that.

Silver Bullet | Robot Chicken | Adult Swim

The ending made it all worthwhile. :-)

Free Map - Dungeon Level 2

Here is the second level of the dungeon that I posted the yesterday.  It's a bit bigger than Level 1 and has more water.  This level of course has an evil shrine of some sort, because evil shrines are in this season.  I wonder what's in the pool?  Probably nothing with tentacles and teeth...

Miniatures Monday

It's Miniatures Monday again and here we have yet another hulking savage from the northern wastes.  His weapons look a whole lot more like meat cleavers than swords, but somehow I'm guessing he's not planning to use them on a side of beef!

Free Map - Dungeon Level 1

I'm still going through my old RPG maps and slowly scanning them.  Here we have Level 1 of a dungeon that I based on a place where I used to work.  Of course there is a well.  There always has to be a well.  Stay tuned for Level 2!

Phat Lewt in the Magic Realm

Last night I was playing Magic Realm via Realmspeak, and wandering around the lands with what I call my Power Trio.  No, we're not talking about Rush, but that would be awesome.  My Power Trio consists of the Berserker, The White Knight, and the Dwarf.  These three can take on any of the big monsters in the game without much risk, although the four dragons who showed up once made things a little interesting.  All three are good fighters against big heavily armored monsters, and the dwarf, though he is slow, is excellent at finding treasures in the caves.

We were killing monsters collecting lots of treasure, but at first most of it was best suited for the magic using characters in the game.  Then we found the Crypt of the Knight and managed to loot it without being cursed.  I got the Bane Sword and the Tremendous Warhorse for the White Knight, making him even more awesome.  We then moved on to loot the Hoard which scored the Gold Helmet and the Silver Breastplate for the Berserker.  The Dwarf got a rock, but then hey, he is the dwarf. :-)

With the White Knight's heavy armor, the Berserker's high toughness and the Dwarf's combat ability and cave knowledge, these three can rack up some serious treasure when the work together.

The Fascination of the Magic Realm

Ahh, Avalon Hill's Magic Realm.  There are times that I wonder why I have such a great fascination with a game that I can barely play.  Now when I say barely play, that may not be entirely accurate.  If given enough time, I can set the board up.  I get movement and have a pretty decent grasp on combat.  Magic is kind of a mystery to me, but that's probably more because I don't generally play magic using characters, and horses still confuse me.  But even with these issues, the game still has kept a hold on my mind after 35 years.

As I've said in previous posts, I get my original copy for Christmas in 1979 as a gift from my aunt Cathy.  She knew that I was into stories about wizards like The Hobbit and she either saw this in the toy store or bought it through her book club.  Yes, they sold Avalon Hill games in toy stores and through book clubs back in those days.

I can still remember opening that box on Christmas Eve at my Grandparent's house and marveling at what was inside.  Those hexagonal map tiles were just awesome.  The had forests and cave and mountains.  It looked incredible.  

And the characters!  There were 16 of them and the character cards were awesome.  I remember the Druid and the White Knight being my favorites.  I wanted to play these characters.

Then there was the rulebook.  The blue first edition rule book.  Now I was 10, reasonably bright, and reading well above my grade level, but that book was a mystery to me.  Still, as obtuse as the rulebook was with with wargame-like structure and confusingly organized instructions, there were gems to be found.  There was a pool that a giant octopus lived in.  There was a vault filled with treasure and a crypt of a knight.  There were natives who you could hire to help you or kill for their treasure.  In short, there was magic in this game.

For years I would pull the game out of my closet and make my best attempt at setting it up, but mostly I would just stare lovingly at the pieces knowing that there had to be an awesome game in there somewhere.  And of course I was right.  It wasn't until I was in college that I actually got to play a real game of Magic Realm, and it was everything that I could have hoped for and more.  The depth of the game is incredible and the variety is seemingly endless.  The second edition rulebook helped a lot too.

These days, I can play it via Realmspeak, which certainly saves on the setup and record keeping time.  It's not as fun as playing with live people, but it has the advantage of being available all the time.  I've looked for other games to love over the years, but none of them have ever come close.  Most recently I picked up the Mage Knight boardgame, as it sounded like it might be a spiritual successor to Magic Realm, and while it was cool, it just isn't Magic Realm.

Honestly, whenever I try to explain to people how great Magic Realm is, I tell them that they just have to play it to understand.  If anyone is interested, here are my two previous posts about Magic Realm.

The Real Forgotten Realm

and

A Busy Day in the Caves of the Magic Realm

And if you'd like to read some really excellent posts that give a good overview of how the game is played, check out this blog: http://cmagoun.blogspot.com/