[unofficial weekender] Dungeonalia Dungeon Deep Dive

[sundancer 43009xp 1]

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First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/introduce-yourselves-new-member-thread/

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil. This includes no philosophy, no home computer culture wars.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is the unofficial Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

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Question of the week:

• Dungeons for any other setting than SciFi. Is it a thing? Does it work?
• Dungeonalia – what’s your entry in the contest?
• Papercraft terrain – Lazy way of DIY or high skill building but on a different plane of existence?

And now back to the show.

[warzanKeymaster 31125xp 0]

Hey @sundancer

 

1 I had a play with creating a Nazi WW2 style dungeon one time 🙂 it was cool and had a Doom type feel to it 🙂

2 I’m gonna do the Dungeon Display and have a go at a wood working project lol

3 I have a lot of respect for papercraft terrain. Some of that stuff is incredible. My only issue with it is its fragility.

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

[sundancer 43009xp 0]

Pledge: not kill anybody in the upcoming Christmas time. Every year it feels like people are getting terribly stressed out and rude while shopping for their loved ones. Horrible. And with the world as it is currently people seem to be even more on edge.

Answers:

• Well it works Alien (The Nostromo is a cool dungeon/hulk) as for Space Hulk (see what I did there) but I really struggle to think of anything modern. Maybe WWI trenches could be made into a dungeon? Dungeons always feel more board gamy than miniature wargaming.
• I was thinking to do so but since rules say “do a new project” I am a bit “meh”. For one reason the project system is already slow as flock and adding a new project feels wrong if there is already a project “on hold” that would work. The other reason: starting a new project with old stuff that’s already started feels like cheating. Maybe my “Dungeon Bowl” needs to wait for Spring Clean
• Papercraft oh papercraft. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Way back when I started the hobby I had even less money than today (hard to imagine) so I made some paper terrain pieces. Some basic folded houses which looked ok and some more complex things. But it never was what I wanted. Cue music, enter @blinky465

Blinky, you’ve planted some fleas in my ear there. I really am thinking about on where to print the coloured paper stuff and where to get all the card board and foam core and what to build and where to store… and I hate you! XD

Seriously the amount of thought and engineering that went into the paper stuff from Crooked Staff Terrain is amazing. Just blows my mind.

With that said: I hear the washing machine calling for another round and the weekender is also still paused. There is not enough time. It just goes by way to fast!

[sundancer 43009xp 0]

Morning @warzan

1. But was that truly “historically accurate” or more something like from a horror movie? Which then could be argued to be fantasy. What about mazes in gardens? Like kings had way back when. Would that count “as a dungeon” since your just on one plane of elevation and walls hinder your progress? It’s certainly easier than if you just let your imagination run wild XD
2. Working on wood is very manly. As wood itself is. I’ve always wanted to be a lumberjack… *cues music*
3. give that video a look see. Since it’s paper craft on top of cardboard, foam core and corrugated cardboard I guess it’s as sturdy as Mantics modular terrain.

Weekender time

[pagan8thParticipant 10877xp 0]

I pledge to think about doing a Dungeonalia project… I’m just not sure it qualifies as a dungeon.

@sundancer Are you a ‘lumberjack who does not care?’

There are modern dungeons… certain establishments maintain dungeons for ‘recreational use’ and I’m sure you can find a leather clad to ‘dominate’ in such a location.

If you want a less… intimate dungeon… there were castles used in WW2 that would work for games like 0200 Hours… sewers are dungeon-ish…

It all depends how literal you take the word dungeon.

The reason I’m not sure my idea qualifies as a dungeon is because I was thinking of building a set piece for the start of my next campaign and that’s only a small area it’s it motorway service station with supernatural goings on.

How big does something have to be to qualify as a dungeon? And how dungeon-ish does it have to be?

As for papercraft. Not used any, but I’ve seen some impressive free samples on drivethru rpg… although I can’t remember the name of the company to provide a link…

[blinky465 17028xp 0]

I was a bit “meh” about paper terrain for a long while. I bought some Dave Greffem(?) fantasy buildings a few years ago and thought they would make for decent table-decoration, but they always felt a bit flimsy.

I love the Crooked Staff sort-of-3d dungeons though. I can’t wait to give them a go with some foamcore and make some modular sci-fi terrain. Towards the end of the video, there’s a really nice room layout and it got me thinking…..

One thing that always puts me off tabletop war-gaming is the idea of having a massive table (whether a sprawling dungeon or a massive battlefield) but all the action only ever takes place in a small area at a time. I much prefer skirmish type games for this very reason. But even then, the actual terrain/playing surface never really feels like it’s part of the game; it’s just incidental – something something blocking line of sight, or something something get your character to this point to claim the objective.

Seeing the Crooked Staff video (linked above) got me wondering about making a room-by-room dungeon crawler.
As @sundancer says, I too see dungeon crawlers as more “board-game-y” than “war-gamey”. But I think that’s why I prefer them. Board-game-with-rpg-elements is probably my preferred genre of tabletop game!

So now I’m thinking about making some papercraft sci-fi terrain, and coming up with some kind of room-by-room game (even if it’s a solo crawler). I made no secret of the face I’d love to bring my favourite video game to the tabletop (Laser Squad) but even that would require quite a large map/playing area. But what about something smaller? Something more room-by-room? With ai-controlled enemies? Something like my second-favourite-video-game, Head over Heels?

Those Crooked Staff sci-fi terrain pieces would be awesome for something like this!
Yes, it’d be more like a cool board-game-with-miniatures. But I think that’s my preferred format anyway 🙂
A few months ago, I thought Demon Ship (https://blacksitestudio.com/products/demonship-terrain-preorder?variant=43704629690609) was exactly the kind of game I’m talking about. But even the game designer himself admitted it wasn’t very good. And, after a successful Kickstarter, didn’t really put much effort into making it any better.

But I really like the idea of having some modular terrain and maybe a deck-based map so you really are exploring the dungeon as you play (rather than have it all laid out at the start). I’m not sure how it’d work, but I think it’d be a great project – maybe even a collab over December?

In the meantime, I think I’m going to make some rooms and corridors and walls ready, just in case…..

 

[sundancer 43009xp 0]

Good morning.

Demon ship was something that caught my eye because it was something different but it then somehow fall flat on its face for me. I think it was (once again) money and import fees.

Anyhow: seeing Warren on this weeks XLBS being really sad because of G’Wullu being bad at making 8mm Space Marines really hit me. It’s not fun seeing the happy part being sucked out of someone’s happy place. I really do feel for him. “Luckily” LI was way to expensive for me in the first place. Plus it’s lacking all the fun factions!

Still undecided on the Dungenalia thingymagic do-dats. Should I? Do I want to? Will I? I could just go and play more Skyrim as I have been now for some days XD

[hutch 5300xp 0]

Dungeons for any other setting than SciFi. Is it a thing? Does it work?

I guess it could do but it really depends on how ‘loose’ you term the phase dungeon.   I know, for me when it comes to board games, I refer to some as dungeon crawlers more by the mechanics than the fact they are actually in dungeons.   Things like Zombicide and Deep Madness I would refer to as Dungeon Crawlers despite the fact that neither are based in dungeons.  I would say the risk comes without having some basic parameters as to what is acceptable as a ‘Dungeon’ and what is not it really does leave the whole thing open to interpretation.   Is a house a dungeon?  well, it could be if you were held hostage there.   Is a ship a dungeon, I guess it could be if you were a slave being transported.  Either way, it will be interesting to see what people come up with and then how they turn or envisage their ideas as fitting into the theme of Dungeonalia.

Dungeonalia – what’s your entry in the contest?

Not sure if I am going to do anything or not yet.  It’s screaming hot here at the moment with temperatures in the 40s and it really drains you of energy to do anything.  Coupled with that this is a really busy time at work and having 3 kids soon to be on 6 weeks of school holidays is all adding up to not getting a lot done.  If I do it will have to be something that will fit in with something from one of my other projects.  I am not enthused by starting a new project as I don’t really want to have too many running at the same time.  I have already got a lot going on with my Gaslight and BlackSand projects that are a long way off from being finished.  I had thought I could do the sewers that I started in the Blacksand project, but that is out as it’s already in a project log and this all needs to be in a new project.  Oh, the joys of trying to load pictures up on the system.   Role on the Spring Clean Challenge so I can try to put some serious effort into finishing some of my projects that have been sitting dormant for too long already.

 

Papercraft terrain – Lazy way of DIY or high skill building but on a different plane of existence?

It is just another medium in my mind.  It’s all art to me and worthy of note for the skill and time required to do it.   Some people can make paper terrain look indistinguishable from plastic terrain.  Just look at all those paper and card building that model railway enthusiasts used to make.

On a side note, Head over Heels was an absolutely awesome game back in the day.   Great blast from the past seeing that.  Thankyou

 

[sundancer 43009xp 0]

@hutch I always forget that OTT isn’t just “Europe plus some US folk”I do remember the heat in the summer being reason #1 to not do any hobby. Paint drying on brushes, mentally exhausted and over all a sentiment of “not lifting a finger if I don’t need to”.

Also your progress so far is way above my output I’d say you have earned a rest.

Speaking of old video games: maybe there is a dungeon build in that. Ghosts and Goblins anybody? 🙂

[pagan8thParticipant 10877xp 0]

Ghosts and goblins… that is going back a few decades…

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

@sundancer – ooooh what a great idea. My initial thought was that the “easiest” type of game to turn into a modular room-by-room dungeon crawler would be one of those isometric walk-around-a-3d-“dungeon” type of games.

But an endless scroller type game would be a pretty good candidate too! Maybe just two or three tiles that you keep placing in front of the main character as they travel towards an end-of-level “screen”? Three tiles feels about right – by the time you reach the middle tile, you could clear the earlier tile (the one you’ve just left) and add it to the destination tile, to keep the “dungeon” ongoing, in a linear fashion.

We’ve got to be able to come up with some mechanics for an endless scroller Ghosts And Goblins type game!
(there’s no shortage of stls for the characters and the terrain). Maybe @warzan could come up with some cool card-based mechanic for game-play on top of a shuffled deck of cards that could be used for the tile/terrain placement?

Maybe instead of just running sideways and jumping vertically over gravestones, we could have x/z movement on a tile (so instead of scrolling x and jumping in the y axis, you could travel in the x and move “across” the tile in the z-axis instead of leaping?) Combat each time you come into contact with a monster, card-based treasure deck for collectables…..

It sounds like the kind of game I want to play already!

[danlee 22447xp 0]

This weeks pledge remains the same as last week. Wait until Friday’s Raging Heroes release so I can print it.

 

1. Dungeons for any other setting than SciFi. Is it a thing? Does it work? – Fantasy and sci fi are the obvious biggest settings. Historically you could do a medieval castle siege where the attackers have made it into the castle itself. Moderns could use a building’s utility tunnels.
2. Dungeonalia – what’s your entry in the contest? – Yesterday I did some shopping on the Hassle Free website. My plan is to do a diorama for a showdown between two warriors in a fantasy dungeon. I might also do some battle reports with my daughter playing some dungeon board games.
3. Papercraft terrain – Lazy way of DIY or high skill building but on a different plane of existence? – I haven’t done any myself. As with all things every different approach can have its place.

[guillotine 16041xp 0]

Questions:

1. Historicals and moderns for sure!

2. I haven’t fully decided. My current hobby interest is mainly painting so likely adventurers or monsters.

3. No experience personally on papercraft terrain. Most things I’ve build are for use at a club or otherwise often, so I’m usually thinking durability.

 

[jamescutts 6929xp 0]

1. I think dungeons as a concept works for any genre so long as you don’t take it too literally, could easily be applied to anything from a dark age village to a modern spec ops raid.
2. Still struggling to get my head around the name Dungeonalia but I’ve just recieved a Mantic Terrain Crate mysterybox full of random goodies, so that sounds like a perfect start, now how to combine a forklift, bookcase and church pulpit?
3. im always amazed by the papercraft terrain done by piers (and friends) for his 20mm endless project, all of which then makes it into the Battlegroup books, it looks amazing!

[guillotine 16041xp 0]

im always amazed by the papercraft terrain done by piers (and friends)

? It’s papercraft?! ?

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