Wednesday, 7 December 2016

Realm Works - A Player's Guide To Configuring A Digital Spellbook or Player Hand Book

In this video I show how to use Realm Works as a player.

Setting the tool up as a digital spell book. Either as a book of every spell I can possibly come across or even just a personal spell book of the spells I know.

I also show how this can be used in the same way as a digital Player Hand Book taking full advantage of the links to better navigate the book.


Realm Works - A Player Tour

In this video I move to the other side of the DM screen and give a tour of Realm Works from a player perspective.

See how it can be used as a journal of what you have encountered so far in your game. Locations, people, items, story elements. 


Sunday, 4 December 2016

Hirst Arts - Started a modular village!



For a long time now I have being fighting an internal war.. I have alot of terrain, it's all modular and I can make alot of different environments out of it. It's also very functional. My buildings are all open top so that my players can interact inside. But ultimately, when I made a village, it didn't look like a village. It didn't have the right atmosphere.

This is what is looks like when I setup a village scene using my current design.



So while this didn't give the town look and feel it allowed for great game play. Buildings were represented, my players could interact with them. Deep down though I knew it was only a matter of time before work began on a real village. Something you would look at and go wow.

So I bought the following molds:

Half Timber Mold #225 - $29.00
Wood Shingle Roof Mold #240 - $29.00
Stucco Panel Mold #251 - $29.00

And work began. 

Now my terrain largely works on a 5x5 grid. So ultimately I wanted to ensure the buildings adhered to the same system. The smallest building would be on a 5x5 base and increment in units of 5 from there (10x5, 10x10, etc).

Following along with the tutorial provided over at the Hirst Arts website. '

The walls were made from the Stucco panel mold and glued to the back of some cereal box. The panels were undercoated with cream and then dry  brushed with white to bring out the detail.

I played around different layouts using the wood from the Half-Timber mold. 
 <Insert Pic Here>
I purchased some double-sided tape and used that to stick all the wood pieces to so that I could efficiently paint it. They were spray painted black and then dry brushed brown.

The timber was glued to the stucco panels. The sections that over-lapped the edge were snapped off.
More panels with wood work added. 
I made a base from 5x5 grids using the 'Floor Tiles Various Sizes Mold #201'. From there the wall sections we're glued into place. 
Front view with the walls up.

The roof was added.

And finally, the 'nearly' finished product now slots perfectly in alongside my other 5x5 tiles. Now I just need to make alot more buildings to create a full village!





Thursday, 1 December 2016

TokenTool - Creating Tokens For Your Game

In this video I show the use of a very simple application that speeds up the process of creating tokens for your games. Whether you are using them in a Virtual Table Top or printing them for use at a physical table. This free application speeds up the process of creating better looking tokens. It takes me about 3 minutes to complete the process of creating a new token and loading it into Roll20.


Magic Set Editor - Create Custom Card Handouts For You Players

In this video I give a quick run through Magic Set Editor. This is an awesome FREE piece of software that allows you to quickly create cards that can be used as hand-outs at your table. 

Saturday, 26 November 2016

Realm Works and Hero Lab - Managing Massive Encounters

We had a massive session last night that led me to thinking about the benefits that Realm Works and Hero Lab bring to the management of large combat encounters.

We ended up with 80+ enemies fighting 7 players and 11 NPCs.

I had a co-dm who played the commander of the enemies. He decided what they were doing and when they were doing it. He rolled all the dice. I determined the results of those dice and directed the encounter, managed the HP pools and initiative.

It was exhausting, not going to lie. We played for 6 hours and only did about 5 rounds all up.

In the video below I show how I prepared the encounter files in Realm Works and managed the bulk initiative and handling of HP pools for all the enemies.


Thursday, 24 November 2016

Black Friday Sale - Campaign Cartographer 3+


Hi Team, Just a heads up. There appears to be a Black Friday Sale happening over at Pro Fantasy. Voucher Code: BLACK@30% If you are at all interested in picking up Campaign Cartographer 3+ or some of their addons... well today is a great day to do so.

Happy Mapping!