The Future of Miniatures

Playing Around with SketchUp, this image is (C) Matt Darnell

New technology is spreading, at it will change humanity forever. Or at least us miniature gamers.

Surely you have heard of 3d printing technology... I firmly believe that with refinement and proliferation, this technology will replace the need for us to shell out our hard earned money to buy somebody else's idea of toys. It'll be like art, or books... you'll buy the examples you like, but you could always write your own if you want, or paint your own picture.

In the future, we'll be making our own miniatures.  Printing them will be as easy as printing a page.

I figured I'd get a head start on the 3d modelling software so I could start making the kind of models I always wanted. Today I took my first steps, learning how to use SketchUp 8 (which is free). The program is very easy to use, but difficult to master. The model I made above doesn't hold up to a 3d printer's needs, but it taught me a lot about the program itself.

Soon I hope to be moving on to models that can match a 3d printer's limitations. The sky's the limit, and I feel it calling.

Homecooked: House Rules for use with Stars Without Number

I've been busy the last couple days hammering out some custom starship rules for the RPG Stars Without Number, (c) Sine Nomine Productions

I love the simplicity of the basic rules, but I wanted the ships to be a bit more tough to kill, and a bit less flighty. Running away from every encounter seemed a bit wrong for a space-faring RPG, so I added some new components, changed some mechanics, and got my game design on!

I'm still testing out the balance of all the new systems, but I tried to temper the really good components with things like high cost or high power/mass requirements. I'd love some other people to run their opinions by me and let me know how it looks!

First off, if you haven't looked at Stars Without Number, you should! The basic rules are free, and the author has a myriad of free supplements to boot!

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/86467/Stars-Without-Number%3A-Free-Edition

Get the rules from the link above. If you want to look at my highly modified house-rules portion pertaining to starship components and starship combat, download my PDF file from the link below:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/29l0phql24g3/n/FP135_Stars_Without_Number_-8_pdf

Let me know what you think! I am particularly looking for opinions on the balance of the new components.

Shield Hit Markers for Starship Miniatures

I whipped these up today in the GIMP (an open-source version of Photoshop) to use in Noble Armada, but they could work equally well in any game or RPG where you want to see how many hits a ship sustained to its shields.

You may freely use/distribute these, it took almost no effort to create them so enjoy them! Print them on heavy cardstock or glue a printed page to cardboard, either way they make cheap and effective markers. I plan on having a game later, I'll post pictures of them in action when I am able.

click to view full-size

(NOTE: They are a bit large as-is, so I suggest adjusting the scale down to size them to taste when printing.)

New project: Stars Without Number

So I came across a gem of a RPG system during one of my surfs the other day: Stars Without Number (SWN). The best comparison I can come up with is that it is like a mix between old school D&D with Traveller. It is very rules-light, but it has great tools for a GM to generate worlds and stories. The ship combat doesn't seem too bad either, effectively being an extension of the regular combat system similar to Dungeons and Dragons.

Some of the setting features are fairly unique as well. For example, in SWN, the FTL drive is called a "Spike Drive" that "drills" into another plane of existence where space is compressed, similar to a hyperspace drive. It really conveys the sense that the Spike Drive uses brute force rather than a refined technique.

Other setting features are not so unique... In the game's setting, humanity constantly expanded through the stars, and as they skipped through other dimensions to travel faster than light, some became "touched" by Multi-Dimensional-Exposure-Sickness (or MES), gaining new psychic abilities. They used their new-found psychic abilities to form jump gates that used psychics to plot courses through space, faster and more effectively than possible with spike drives. After a time, a cataclysmic event known as the "Scream" caused a great amount of psychic backlash that killed most of the psychics. This also led to the collapse of the jump gate network, disrupting space travel and reverting the massive empire back into chaos. Sound familiar?

Old tropes aside, this game seems like the perfect basis for a space-faring adventure that doesn't get too bogged down by rules. The system generation system alone is worth looking into, as it gives you a great way to create an explorable universe.

I will be writing some stuff in the coming weeks, detailing the following:

Ship designs
Planet Summaries
Character Biographies
Adventure seeds

NSL Scout Vessel

Should be a fun project.

Zaraphiston - Abaddon's Foremost Sorcerer

Found another picture I hadn't uploaded yet. Here is the DV Lord/sorcerer model, which I have chosen to represent Zaraphiston, Abaddon's adviser and diviner of things that may come to pass. I was bummed that sorcerers don't get access to the Divination powers, but with Biomancy it's hard to complain. Telepathy works to an extent flavor-wise, controlling enemies as you would expect an evil chaos sorcerer to do.