OOC / Questions? Pt.2

Message
Author
User avatar
Argennian
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 4885
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 7:12 am
Location: Bay Area, NorCal

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#261 Post by Argennian »

Apols for the ongoing delay here, gang. Been working long hours coming back to it this week and these fires in the North Bay have been more of a distraction than I anticipated. They are completely out of control and the air is actually becoming dangerous to breathe without a mask or respirator...
Yosef Travathas: High Elf Fighter4/Magic-User3 (rredmond's Pacesetter Games "Legacy of the Unknown" OSRIC Playtest)
Brok Sterling: Human Assassin3 (ToniXX's Incursion into Newiron OSRIC Playtest)
Tanik Tremwoodak: Dwarf Cleric3 (Dave's 1e Skype Game)

DM: home-brew OSRIC "A New Hope to the West" campaign

Fireball... good!!

"What's it gonna take?"
"Everything."
tkrexx as Emm the Avenging Druid wrote:I shall burn you, and I shall sink your petty warship with fire and lightning, and the ocean shall swallow it and all aboard, and no one will remember any of you!

User avatar
onlyme
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 6838
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 12:42 pm
Location: Middle of Carolinas

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#262 Post by onlyme »

RL always comes first.
Dandelion - female half-orc beautyqueen in training (The Lone City in the Wildlands) OSRIC
Halfpint - female halfling badgirl wannabe (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL
Mark'd - charismatic human fighter (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL


User avatar
tkrexx
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 3879
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:35 am
Location: Bohol, Philippines

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#263 Post by tkrexx »

Glad your ride went well... JEALOUS! Steer clear of those infernos regardless of everything else.

Rxx

User avatar
Argennian
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 4885
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 7:12 am
Location: Bay Area, NorCal

Maps & Mapping

#264 Post by Argennian »

Figured this would come up here sooner or later. Again. I still don't have a scanner to upload maps & images but also know I've threatened to do so for awhile, and on more than a couple occasions. Something else with RL always comes up that demands those extra funds, right? Correspondingly, I've consistently had getting one move to the back burner...

I know I've been relying on you guys as players to do the mapping as you progressed. I've always strived to give as much detail as I can by way of footages, compass directions with rights & lefts, angles/shapes and such in my descriptors, so you could more easily draw & sketch things up as you progressed. That's the way I/we did it when I learned and began playing with my first group. No battlemat, no figures. Just a pencil, graph paper & dice. Pelor's Light, I loved it! We'd typically only had one player at the table mapping at a time (me, of course), but it was something I enjoyed doing and found I needed for visualization. Some of the older players never even looked at the maps when we played, other than to commend my work and attention to detail. I was amazed they could play so well without a map, let alone taking any kind of detailed game notes.

Initially, I felt I always needed a map. I can say I was new (coming back to the game from my teens decades later) and perhaps had too analytically-obsessive a mindset to think outside the lines and boxes on the graph paper, but not quite sure that's it, or all of it. When I questioned one of the elder guys about why the DM wouldn't give you the map to a dungeon till the party had cleared it, he said that's because it's not his job to do so, citing that if we were really our characters in that dungeon, we would have to commit to memory where we went and explored and be the ones responsible for knowing where we were going in relation to where we'd been. A fancy way of explaining "mapping" versus having a map provided, so as not to become easily turned around or lost, right? Perhaps...

But then time progressed and I began playing with another group. They were battlemat and figure heavy and couldn't play without them. They were the exact opposite of the original guys I'd started gaming with. Yeah, it was fun hanging out drinking, smoking and eating badly whilst rolling the bones with these guys but the game was different. It took on more of a one-dimensional feel. Of course, my obsession for detail eventually kicked in and I got used to it. This was my only chance to game on a regular basis and pbp gaming was not yet a prevalent or viable alternative...

Then one day someone forgot the figures and the DM misplaced or lent out the battlemat. Everyone stood around like deer in the headlights saying, "well, now we can't game..." I said, "Huh? Yeah we can. Use your imagination." Still got the dazed and confused visages. Then I said, "Okay, then use a piece of graph paper to map and a coin or token or some such to mark your PC's position in the marching order on the game table, or in relation to the others..." Well, with 6 players with multiple PCs and a score of NPCs vs many times just as big or a bigger group of baddies, things got confusing. I admit things like keeping track of who was where and accessible and where spells go off & who gets caught in their AOE was the biggest issues. That style of play almost demanded the use of figs and battlemats, or perhaps became the norm because of their use. Of course, it was really more like a board game at that rate, and with characters rolling individual initiatives, each round took between 30 minutes to an hour to resolve...


Above and beyond all that, here we are. My personal gaming history aside, I'm not going to argue that mapping is a more realistic correlation to how it was done in the "old school", nor that it proffers a much better proposed sense of realism in how a player's character would see & remember things. Fair to say that if I had a scanner that worked from the start? Yeah, I would've likely been posting maps and pictures/images this entire time. But I didn't and still don't.

So in the interest of addressing and confronting the issue, I wanted to discuss and get your thoughts. Has anyone been mapping here? Ever? Confusion about the geography PCs hds already covered/traversed seemed a potential clue it hasn't been happening, or been ongoing if undertaken previously.

Anyways, I'm once again trying to figure out how to get a scanner. One of the copier/printer/scanner combos is likely my best bet as I need a copier & printer for work. Never used the online map-making programs and am admittedly loath to have to try and spend more free time I don't have trying to learn how to use them and keep them updated for every single round...


Thoughts??
Last edited by Argennian on Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Edited due to alignment shift
Yosef Travathas: High Elf Fighter4/Magic-User3 (rredmond's Pacesetter Games "Legacy of the Unknown" OSRIC Playtest)
Brok Sterling: Human Assassin3 (ToniXX's Incursion into Newiron OSRIC Playtest)
Tanik Tremwoodak: Dwarf Cleric3 (Dave's 1e Skype Game)

DM: home-brew OSRIC "A New Hope to the West" campaign

Fireball... good!!

"What's it gonna take?"
"Everything."
tkrexx as Emm the Avenging Druid wrote:I shall burn you, and I shall sink your petty warship with fire and lightning, and the ocean shall swallow it and all aboard, and no one will remember any of you!

User avatar
onlyme
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 6838
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 12:42 pm
Location: Middle of Carolinas

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#265 Post by onlyme »

Not at all...
Dandelion - female half-orc beautyqueen in training (The Lone City in the Wildlands) OSRIC
Halfpint - female halfling badgirl wannabe (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL
Mark'd - charismatic human fighter (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL


User avatar
Alethan
POWAH!
POWAH!
Posts: 14356
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2010 6:50 pm
Location: Midwest
Contact:

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#266 Post by Alethan »

I tried keeping some maps of things, like the underwater caves Bog swam in. But I find mapping above ground to be much more difficult because of the lack of boundaries. Just something I've always struggled with.

Bottom line, though, if providing maps causes you this much consternation, Mitch, then don't do it. We'll blunder through it. Or we'll figure it out. No worries.
Dragon foot. Bamboo pole. Little mouse. Tiny boy.

User avatar
onlyme
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 6838
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 12:42 pm
Location: Middle of Carolinas

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#267 Post by onlyme »

You can always just take a pic of it instead of using a scanner. It would work as well 95 percent of the time
Dandelion - female half-orc beautyqueen in training (The Lone City in the Wildlands) OSRIC
Halfpint - female halfling badgirl wannabe (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL
Mark'd - charismatic human fighter (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL


User avatar
Nuke66
Ranger Lord
Ranger Lord
Posts: 2801
Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 1:40 am

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#268 Post by Nuke66 »

Most of the time, the verbal descriptions are enough. However, lots of being in a confined space with the possibility of AoE magic, just thinking a map would be helpful.

User avatar
tkrexx
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 3879
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:35 am
Location: Bohol, Philippines

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#269 Post by tkrexx »

You can always just take a pic of it instead of using a scanner. It would work as well 95 percent of the time
+1

As an artist who has consistently had to replace scanner/printers due to irresponsible children continually frying the tool of my trade (Or rather, my favorite hobby), cameras in this day and age are nearly as good as said scanners. A little tweaking with a visual program and I'm digi-painting again. Like Mitch, I'm a pencil and graph kind of guy, so any tweaking needs beyond cropping should be minor.

User avatar
SocraticLawyer
Ranger Lord
Ranger Lord
Posts: 2269
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2012 7:48 pm

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#270 Post by SocraticLawyer »

Alethan wrote:I tried keeping some maps of things, like the underwater caves Bog swam in. But I find mapping above ground to be much more difficult because of the lack of boundaries. Just something I've always struggled with.

Bottom line, though, if providing maps causes you this much consternation, Mitch, then don't do it. We'll blunder through it. Or we'll figure it out. No worries.
+1. I haven't been mapping, mostly due to lack of time/resources. But we can manage, maps or no. :)
How do we know you're not a donkey-brained man?

User avatar
Argennian
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 4885
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 7:12 am
Location: Bay Area, NorCal

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#271 Post by Argennian »

Thanks, guys. Appreciate everyone's input. And understanding. Apologies for being combative and venting on you guys like that. Know I had a bad day at work but it's really other personal stuff going on that has me on edge. Embarrassingly and worriedly, sometimes over it...

Anyways, I'll try the picture thing and see how it works. Unfortunately, these maps are fully complete with everything, including colors, notes & things players aren't supposed to see. I have zero skill with any photoshop programs or how to edit pictures so thinking the best bet will be for me to just draw new ones and update them as you guys progress.
Yosef Travathas: High Elf Fighter4/Magic-User3 (rredmond's Pacesetter Games "Legacy of the Unknown" OSRIC Playtest)
Brok Sterling: Human Assassin3 (ToniXX's Incursion into Newiron OSRIC Playtest)
Tanik Tremwoodak: Dwarf Cleric3 (Dave's 1e Skype Game)

DM: home-brew OSRIC "A New Hope to the West" campaign

Fireball... good!!

"What's it gonna take?"
"Everything."
tkrexx as Emm the Avenging Druid wrote:I shall burn you, and I shall sink your petty warship with fire and lightning, and the ocean shall swallow it and all aboard, and no one will remember any of you!

User avatar
tkrexx
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 3879
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:35 am
Location: Bohol, Philippines

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#272 Post by tkrexx »

Anyone hear from Mitch? Hope he's ok, and hope everybody has a good Christmas.

User avatar
Alethan
POWAH!
POWAH!
Posts: 14356
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2010 6:50 pm
Location: Midwest
Contact:

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#273 Post by Alethan »

Don't think I've seen anything from him since October on the Mod pages.

Regardless, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
Dragon foot. Bamboo pole. Little mouse. Tiny boy.

User avatar
tkrexx
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 3879
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:35 am
Location: Bohol, Philippines

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#274 Post by tkrexx »

Thanks Alethan. Happy Holidays.

User avatar
rredmond
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 8461
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:46 pm
Location: South Jersey

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#275 Post by rredmond »

tkrexx wrote:Anyone hear from Mitch? Hope he's ok, and hope everybody has a good Christmas.
I've pinged him... I'll post here if I hear anything.
--Ron--
This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff so you can become more powerful in order to kill bigger things and take even better stuff.
Alethan: I'm good with NOT pressing our luck this time.
mjulius: That's how I know I'm home.
Pulpatoon: The whole point of PbP is to take the scheduling pressure off the game. We're just chatty because we're so eager!
Scott308: ...everyone should be reminded of just how wonderful the people they play games with here can be in real life.
Leitz: Quality and quantity wise, I think US is the best I've seen.
Paladin: I can promise terror, glory, and riches...or a quick and brutal death.
Inferno: Come on! That's was Vicar's Head, a completely different doomed village!
Rex: I can move to the wait list to let someone else into the game.

User avatar
tkrexx
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 3879
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:35 am
Location: Bohol, Philippines

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#276 Post by tkrexx »

Thanks, Ron.

User avatar
rredmond
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 8461
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:46 pm
Location: South Jersey

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#277 Post by rredmond »

I heard from Mitch. He had a crazy busy end of the year - we can all relate, especially as the end of the year is also beset by bunches of holidays. :)
So he's okay, but life has been too frantic for him to check in.
Happy holidays all!
This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff so you can become more powerful in order to kill bigger things and take even better stuff.
Alethan: I'm good with NOT pressing our luck this time.
mjulius: That's how I know I'm home.
Pulpatoon: The whole point of PbP is to take the scheduling pressure off the game. We're just chatty because we're so eager!
Scott308: ...everyone should be reminded of just how wonderful the people they play games with here can be in real life.
Leitz: Quality and quantity wise, I think US is the best I've seen.
Paladin: I can promise terror, glory, and riches...or a quick and brutal death.
Inferno: Come on! That's was Vicar's Head, a completely different doomed village!
Rex: I can move to the wait list to let someone else into the game.

User avatar
SocraticLawyer
Ranger Lord
Ranger Lord
Posts: 2269
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2012 7:48 pm

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#278 Post by SocraticLawyer »

W00t! :D Thanks Ron!
How do we know you're not a donkey-brained man?

User avatar
tkrexx
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 3879
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:35 am
Location: Bohol, Philippines

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#279 Post by tkrexx »

Thanks again, Ron.

User avatar
rredmond
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 8461
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:46 pm
Location: South Jersey

Re: OOC / Questions? Pt.2

#280 Post by rredmond »

Anytime guys. Have a great New Years!
This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff so you can become more powerful in order to kill bigger things and take even better stuff.
Alethan: I'm good with NOT pressing our luck this time.
mjulius: That's how I know I'm home.
Pulpatoon: The whole point of PbP is to take the scheduling pressure off the game. We're just chatty because we're so eager!
Scott308: ...everyone should be reminded of just how wonderful the people they play games with here can be in real life.
Leitz: Quality and quantity wise, I think US is the best I've seen.
Paladin: I can promise terror, glory, and riches...or a quick and brutal death.
Inferno: Come on! That's was Vicar's Head, a completely different doomed village!
Rex: I can move to the wait list to let someone else into the game.

Post Reply

Return to “A New Hope to the West”