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     When it Comes to mapmaking, I'm leaning away from the traditional pen and paper maps, and moving further and further into the digital age. The following are examples of renders using Vue D'Esprit. Sure, I'll still make hex maps with using my trusty Pentel pens and hexpaper, and I'll also sketch out quick ideas with a pencil and paper, but the time spent creating a few good renders, especially overhead views, allows for maps of stunning realism and quality. Instantly viewers comprehend the geography and spacial layout of the areas the images represent.

The first example is a quick view of a highland castle, Caer Catfagen.

The second example is an ocan approach to a tropical island. 

The third example would be one,I use for a traditional RPG to describe an encounter on the road. Caer Catfagen is in the background here

The fourth example is a typical village, as seen from the eyes of the characters approaching it. I didn't add in all the grass and you can still see the grid on the ground in places. I could do an overhead view and produce a map of the entire village, it would take about two minutes.

The fifth image  is just a desert scene. These are quick test shots, so alot of detail is left out.

The sixth image is the wreckage of the Battlestar Cassieopea. It's a shot I'm putting together for my Battlestar Galactica  RPG game adventure. In the final shot There will be a little base camp down by the trees, and the players will be busy salvaging what they can from the behemoth while keeping an eye out for cyclon raiders.

The seventh shot is an early render of Caer Catfagen, when I was originally  doing up the terrain piece. There will be a village with it, and it will be high in the mountains in a dense pine forest.

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I recently upgraded to Vue D'Esprit 8

This is a professional 3d animation and rendering application that creates photorealistic scenes.Vue 8 is overwhelmingly impressive in it's scope and depth. It includes many, many new features. Being rather fond of tropical islands, I created a tropical isle and rendered it using a variety of settings. This flash gallery represents just a few hours work, and demonstrates some of the photorealistic effects. Vue is used these days to create landscapes and Sfx scenes for major motion pictures, including Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar, just to name a few. See for yourself, this is simply splendid! 

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Links:
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/

Seven is the magic number for new gaming goodness this year from the GameDaddy at Gamedevonline

Hi,and welcome to the New Year! Hope your New Year brings blessings, good fortunes, and a plentitude of good gaming! 2009 ended pretty good for me, and I'm optimistic about 2010. Didn't get much RPG gaming in in 2009. Did get a bunch of online gaming in though, as spending the bulk of my gaming budget on a new PC, software apps, a new PS3, PS3 games, and a dedicated high-speed Internet connection put a hurting on my tabletop gaming expenditures. Still managed to acquire the complete original Wilderlands Campaign setting and a bunch of minis for tabletop gaming though. Here's the list in no particular order. It all has to get accomplished in 2010 though! Oohra!  

7 Finish the Romans and Gauls - I really like using minis for my RPG games and 2009 saw the purchase of some two hundred 1/72 Roman miniatures and one hundred and fifty Gaul miniatures as well. I need to finish painting and setting them into stands. In addition I need to do up some really great Roman terrain pieces including aqueducts, some Roman Villas, some fortified terrain pieces (The Romans were really great at rapidly digging in and erecting low rampart walls in front of ditches wherever their legions encamped for more than a day or two). With this done, I'll be able to run a Roman era game with some style.  

6 Finish the Age of Reason Minis - In addition I have six regiments of unpainted 1/72 figs from the Revolutionary war period including Three regiments of Americans (Two Continental Regiments and a regiment of militia, as well as two British regiments of the foot, and a Regiment of Highlanders Maybe four hundred figures all told. Somewhere in there, there is almost a hundred additional horses to paint as well. I need to get this done early in the year.

5 Acquire some 1/72 Pirate Minis and more Cannons!. Definitely also in the picture for early 2010. Of course these need to be painted as well. I would acquire cannons for sailing ships, however believe it will be easier and less expensive to scratchbuild them. This will lend itself tremendously to Age of Reason Naval Games.

4 I want to run a Spycraft Sci-Fi Game set in the near future just after Mankind has begun exploring nearby star systems.I'm kind of put-off in using a franchised RPG setting like Star Wars, BSG, and Star Trek. They are so ridiculous these days with their IP property and use of their gaming materials requiring one to put disclaimers all over any advertising, and IP ownership statements all over the fan website. I find this taxing, and frankly can come up with a Noveau Sci-Fi setting quite fine without them. Look for this in the high summer.

3 Run a regular fantasy tabletop RPG campaign. Twice a month (Except June or July whenever I take my summer vacation). My game room. In the stix, with four to six regular players. Haven't decided the rules set but I'm leaning heavily at the moment towards D&D 3.5/OGL/d20. 

2 Complete my first MMORPG game and make it available online. Originally I envisioned it as a SCi-Fi Spacecraft shooter game (See earlier articles on Insterstellar 5723) but I'm leaning now towards doing a Fantasy MMORPG set on Earth during the mythical time of Atlantis. The good news here is the terrain and characters are mostly done. Just need some additional equipment, alot more magic, and a decent UI. What makes this different from other MMORPGs is the multiplayer action and story and progress arcs that draw the players into choosing to be a part of one of the six major factions in the game. I'm also working on developing some storylines that players can solo, instead of requiring them to be a part of a guild or team, and story arcs that are only available to teams that have been together for a fixed amount of time. This won't be a level based game, but a skills based game where a player chooses to train specific skills for their character.

1 Conventions. I usually attend Origins every year in Columbus. Last year I skipped Origins. My choice to do so was based on the fact that they had further curtailed benefits offered and upped the number of games required to be run for GMs who ran games for the duration of the show. In addition, I was only at GenCon for one day in 2009, only to look around a bit and drop off a friend who attended for the entire weekend. Generally going to even one convention for three of four days sets me back about $700 US  (Hotel, Transportation, Food and of course gaming purchases) even after being provided a game pass for duration of the show as well as a bit of SWAG and refreshements from the Convention Organizer. I'd like to think this money would be better spent directly supporting small game design companies ...by well buying their games... and in organizing a few local game days at smaller local meeting areas to introduce new players to roleplaying games. My work in 2010 will involve organizing at least one local game day for the benefit of prospective new players in Eastern Indiana and also in suburban Cincinnati. Other gamers interested in helping organize such a project feel free to contact me.    

This is a short article in response to Jeff Reints most excellent Dungeons & Dragons article What do Spell Levels Measure? available here.

In the early days of the game it was a commonly held Interpretation of the wizard's spell list that the spells contained within the list was only the beginning. GMs were encouraged to make up their own spells. Unfortunately, like everything else, there were no guidelines for this, and this quickly evolved into a power gaming match up where the players who played Wizards dreamed up new spells, and wrote up the spell descriptions, then introduced these new spells into the game. These spells were so unbalanced that they often broke the game, either by destroying the verisimilitude of the game world, or by providing the player who played the wizard a tremendous advantage. This wrongly helped create the impression that Wizards, especially  at high levels were overpowered.

Spell Progression Variant for Old School Games:

Spells don't automatically do more damage nor do they have a larger area/duration of effect at higher levels... They must first be researched once more, by the Wizard in question, before they produce the enhanced effects that the spell description provides.

Wizards can cast the spell at the newer high level without doing any research with the higher level effects as written, if they make a successful saving throw versus magic or save d20 vs INT. If they fail that saving throw, the spell misfires or backfires.

Spell Backfire Table (roll d20)

01 Backfire, spell does double enhanced damage to spellcaster.
02 Misfire, spell fails utterly.
03 Misfire, spell creates spectacular light show or illusory SFX, but does no damage/effect to target.
04 Misfire, spell creates 10'radius circle of darkness per level of caster centered on the target.
05 Backfire, spell creates 10' radius circle of darkness per caster level, centered on the spellcaster.
06 Misfire, spell does enhanced damage, centered on any random target within 25' of the original target.
07 Misfire, spell creates spectacular audio effects, but delivers no damage or effect upon target. i.e. spell delivers sonic boom, ambient musical effects, bells, chimes, harp sfx etc...
08 Backfire, If no other friendly targets are available in range, spellcaster becomes the unintended recipient of enhanced spell damage/effect.
09 Backfire, spellcaster takes full enhanced damage from spell.
10 Misfire, spell re-targets another creature/character within 20' of intended target.
11 Misfire, spell duration halved.
12 Misfire, spell duration doubled.
13 Misfire, spell only does 1hp of damage per level of the spellcaster.
14 Backfire, spell does different damage type... If fire spell , does ice damage, If magic missile, does non-lethal damage, etc. et. al.
15 Misfire, spell range halved.
16 Misfire, spell range doubled.
17 Misfire, spell strikes inanimate object within 25' of target. Spell does enhanced damage/effect.
18 Misfire, spell effects create an opposite effect... i.e magic missile heals target, healing spell damages target even more, etc.
19 Misfire, spell effects original target with enhanced damage, and also randomly strikes one additional target within 10' of original target, including possibly the original target (If no other targets are available) one round later.
20 Critical! Double Damage/Summoning effects! Original target takes double the enhanced damage.

If the spell is successfully cast, the spellcaster delivers the enhanced damage that the spell provides but only for that casting time. If the same spell is cast again later, the caster is still subject to spell misfires or backfires until such time as the spell is successfully re-researched!

Spell Research

In order to derive permanent benefits of the spell level increase for spells already contained within their spellbooks, Wizards must research the spell again, as if it were a new spell (After all, it is). To research the spell takes one week per spell level, and also costs 50gp per spell level. At the conclusion of the researching of the spell, the caster makes a roll of 1d20 vs. INT  (Player's Note: Roll lower than your intelligence, in order to grok and successfully copy this new spell into your spellbook).

If you succeed in your research roll, give your new spell a new name, copy the relevant details into your spellbook,  and roll d12 to determine the new requirements/effects of the spell.

Wizard's Spell Research Table (roll d12)

01 spell has new verbal or somatic component . Describe while casting.
02 spell has new material component that costs 50 Gp/Lvl. Describe.
03 spell delivers new light colors or luminary effects. Describe.
04 spell delivers new audio or sound effects. Describe.
05 spell delivers different damage type than original. Describe.
06 spell delivers double damage/effect. Describe.
07 spell delivers half damage/Effect. Describe.
08 One type of creature/monster is unaffected by your new spell. GM Determination, but you know it's going to happen!
09 spell actually turns out to be another common spell (Roll randomly from the list of available spells in PHB or Bx book. ignore and re-roll for spells your already know) to determine which new spell you just figured out!   
10 spell automatically selects original target plus the next closest target (friend or foe) and delivers 1/2 damage or duration of effect to each if they fail their Saving Throw.
11 No need to roll damage, enhanced spell automatically does maximum possible damage/effect if target fails the saving throw.
12 Roll 2x on this table.
 
footnote:

In Issue #242 of Dragon Magazine, an article was published, The Laws of Spell Design by Ted Zuvich. This article went a long way towards creating a viable method  for GM's to figure out what level the spell should be, and a reference to that article is included in this article for those of you that haven't seen it so you can arrange to get your eyes on The Laws of Spell Design to grok the gaming goodness contained therein.

verisimilitude: Credibility/Plausibility/Realism  of the fantasy world determined by the players who share a common understanding of how the laws of physics work, how the rules work, and by their shared experiences within that game world/model.

It's been just over a year since this website first opened so this unnofficially makes it the first anniversary of GameDevOnline, WoooooHoooo! Everyone these days in gaming are blogging about their games, and game development in general. They are publishing PDF's, and printing their own game variants, and what not. It is truly a golden rennaissance for RPG gaming everywhere, very much akin to the early days of gaming except it is all happening now online. Pretty much like I had envisioned it happening almost a decade ago! A few of us did this in the days of high adventure before Wordpress existed, when easy to use content management systems were not just a download away, and every web page was a hand-crafted statement of HTML art

Being ahead of the curve, please allow me to provide you younger bloggers with a few tips.

One, It's just a gaming blog.

If you plan on being around awhile, don't feel compelled to post every day... or even every week. This is almost a sure-fire recipe for blogging burnout. I'm speaking from experience here. Instead, focus on posting when you want to share and exchange gaming ideas, if you have a new idea you want to explore, or if something exciting is happening in your gaming world! You'll feel much better doing this in the long run, and your blog will last much longer.

Two, Yes you can earn some coin from it.

Just remember to setup your Apache or IIS server to serve up encrypted pages when you are exchanging information provided by a website visitor. It also helps tremendously to use some sort of capcha tool or authentication to verify visitor posts and comments.

Three, Build it and they will come!

No new content has been added to my original website in almost seven years. As a matter of fact, all the high resolution images were removed. The old website still gets almost a thousand unique visitors (not robots)a month!

Tour the ruins of the old gaming website...

Tamerthya featured many of the features of a modern website/blog including fantastic art, downloads, gaming convention coverage, and more. Much of which is still available to review if you know where to start looking.

Tamerthya gaming Website Link

Also be sure to regularly check our links pages here for links to other ancient gaming websites as I'll be adding updated links more or less regularly.