Author Archives: Highland_Piper

Gearing up again

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So I have the new computer and I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things.  One thing I’ve been doing is creating cards for GURPS.  I’ve been remaking the GURPS Combat Cards and I’m making some Monster Cards.

I’ve got a bit more work to do and I’m hoping to learn the MSE software to allow anyone to create their own cards with these!  If they work out I will be making these cards for personal use.

  • Combat Cards
  • Power Cards
  • Spell Cards
  • Treasure Cards
  • Monster Cards
  • Location Cards
  • Event Cards

I want my Mega Dungeon to add all things GURPS mixed with a Board Game style element.  The designs are made by myself using Adobe Illustrator.

 

No Posting due to dead computer

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So my main computer is dead and I’m using my netbook which I purchased for school two years ago.  The netbook is just not built for graphical work so everything has been put on hold these last few months until I can afford a new desktop computer.

I do have one good piece of news.  CC3 – The Cartographer’s Annual 2012 – January ’12 is a dungeon diorama!  Now it seems to be for a standard D&D square template but I should be able to come up with a new template that will create a hex floor and a modular wall section that can be mounted unto 1mm thick mat board (all mat board is approximately 1mm thick).  This idea is inspired by Ciabs and you can view his pieces at Cardboard Warriors Forum.  However I want to keep in the spirit of using CC3 so once I get a new computer I will work on making templates.

2010 & 2011 Cartographer’s Annual

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I just purchased the 2010 & 2011 Cartographer’s Annual from Profantasy Software.  I’m most looking forward to 2010 March issue which is Dungeon Geomorphs and 2011 February and June issues which also deals with dungeons.   The 2011 August issue is vertical geomorphs which I will be exploring first to give a sense of depth to this crazy Megadungeon.

I hope to post more pictures soon.

Revised Sewer Tiles

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Here is the revised Sewer battle Tiles for Level One of the Mega Dungeon.  The walk ways are 3′ and the water channel is 6′

 

 

 

 

 

I’m still working on the CC3 Effects but I like what I have so far.  The brick pattern from the first sewer test was just not doing it for me.  I’ve had to add and move the Sheet effects around.  Here is what I have on them so far, each with one or more effects.

  • Floor Sunken
  • Floor Depressed
  • Floors
  • Water
  • Deep Water
  • Floor Raised
  • Walls
  • Shadows

I’m debating on whether or not to have lighting effects.  There will be narrow water channels of 3′ with no walk ways as well.

A few simple Geomorphs

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So I’m feeling a bit better and quickly created these three Geomorphs.  I wanted to see if it mattered visually placing a 3′ corridor to a 6′ corridor without some kind of transition, or if a corridor going to a dead end at the edge of the geomorph looked odd.  Well in some places they may look a bit odd, but creating a cave in would solve that problems fairly quickly.

The Grub Tavern
The Grub Tavern

Not all Geomorphs have to be a random assortment of rooms and corridors.  I give you “The Grub Tavern” a place that is safe to drink and rest up while exploring the never ending passages of the under world.  It features a large common area, 12 rooms for rent (from the stairs not shown on Geomorph) good food and ale.

Cross Roads

Random Geomorph 1

Once I get a good assortment of Geomorphs made I will place them in a pdf for use.  What size should each tile print at?  3″, 4″ or 6″ tiles?  I have not decided yet.

I’m also exploring the random and themed Geomorph.  I’m not going to go too much into explaining why all this is here, that just takes the fun out of Mega Dungeons, but I would like some organisation to them other than just the random mess that you see in old school mega dungeons.  Don’t get me wrong I plan on using random mess as well.  Hey if it is not broke why fix it.

Sick but still at work

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I’ve got a horrid ear infection so that is the reason for no update other than this picture

It needs work.  Probably going to have to make the sewer canal six feet instead of nine feet that way you don’t need two additional tiles for a little corner.  I’m not entirely happy with the over all look just yet.

So if you have not guessed yet level one is going to be a sewer.

World Works Games: Roll Arena

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This blog is not only about GURPS Mega Dungeons but other products that can be used with GURPS.  One of those has just been released today.  World Works Games: Roll Arena is a fun little game aid that is system generic and has a lot of possibilities for use with GURPS.

I’ve had the time to build my own Roll Arena and it comes with two dice drawers and one card drawer.  The cards come with numbers 1-8 (each number has a symbol on them) these match with one of the arena inserts allowing for random results with your dice roll.  They also come with four symbols; a Sword, Skull, Dove, and Shield.  Although not the most perfect symbols for use with GURPS I have used them to replace the free GURPS 4e Combat Cards by using the sword for all attacks ( i.e.: Move & Attack, All-Out Attack), the skull for afflicted conditions (i.e.: Surprised, HP = 0 or less, Stun), the dove for passive actions (i.e.: Evaluate, Ready, Aim, Do Nothing) and the shield for defensive actions (Dodge, Parry, All-out Defence).  The numbered cards 1-8 could be used for random events or you could just use them for spells or combat manoeuvres that your characters use a lot.  The thing is these pdf’s take advantage of Adobe’s form option so you are able to put your own text on the cards!  If the product does well there will be additional card styles offered in the future.  Lets hope so!

This will make it easier for new players to crunch through the combat and their abilities.  Plus it seems to work really well with younger players.

I’m going to use photoshop on that random hit location to add a spot for eyes, neck, skull, and groin.  It is a neat way to allow a random hit location!  So for $6.50 USD (not including the cost of ink and cardstock) this is a nice way of adding some extra flavour to your games!

I understand that props are not for everyone but I tend to like to use them in my games.

Planning my Mega Dungeon Part 1

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So where to start?

Well lets start out with what you need for maps to play any version of GURPS.  GURPS uses a Hexagonal Grid with one hex = 3 feet.  This is much different then the standard D&D of 1 square = 5 feet (or 10 feet in some maps).

Well I started by using a square map with a hexagonal grid.

Now this looks nice and works really well except for one problem.  You can only rotate it 180 degrees.  If you rotate it 90 degrees the hexagon grid becomes vertical not horizontal so this means you have to make two versions of this tile, one with a vertical hexagon and the other with a horizontal hexagon in order to be able to rotate it.  This is not exactly what I had in mind.

After several discussions on the World Works Games forums I decided that it was possible using a hexagonal tile.  The advantages to this is you can freely rotate them and they will always match up with the next tile!

This allows me to create battle tiles for use with miniatures and have them line up with the other tiles.  I made the tiles as large as I could to fit on either US letter or A4 paper.  Some of the things I notice is that when you have corridors meeting diagonally across the edge of the tile it needs to be slightly smaller than if it meets head on.  The image above is a perfect example.  The north/south corridor meets the edge head on and is 6 feet wide.  The east/west corridor will be slightly off if matched with another tile that goes head on so it needs to be adjusted.  I’ve discussed with on the Steve Jackson Games forums and figured out that for a 6′ corridor I need to reduce the size to 5′-6″ if it runs diagonally to the tile edge in Campaign Cartographer.  Case solved.

However what about large scale maps?  It is fine to make a whole bunch of random battle tiles but even your standard square grid tiles require several battle tiles to make a descent layout.  So after several discussions with people (including Kuroshima) I came up with this design.  The hex tile above will be the main geomorph tile.  It contains 13 full size battle maps and 6 half tile battle maps.  Now I can draw geomorphs on this tile and if needed easily transfer them to a full size battle tile for use with miniatures.  There will be two connecting points per side.  So one tile that looked like this can be duplicated and rotated to create this maze of corridors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far I’m happy with the results. I will continue to keep everyone updated on my progress as I come up with a way to easily create large scale dungeons for GURPS games.