Zombie Apocalypse Facility Map

I discovered a pretty nice tutorial by Alex Hogrefe using both Sketchup and Photoshop. Since I have been using these two together to make geomorphs, I was pretty excited to try it out.

I looked around at office floor plans with the idea that I would build a Sketchup model from a jpeg, but decided to just make a facility of my own.

 My thoughts were that it would be some sort of secure facility with some lab offices, a loading dock, some warehouse space, and a freight elevator leading down to something sinister.

I left the interior empty and un-partitioned as much as possible so that the map could be adapted to the needs of the game master. Aside from the entrance, elevator, and receiving dock, the following are just my suggestions for the room contents.

(1) ENTRANCE
Reinforced Entry doors with impact glass panels. Walls are reinforced as well. Doors that lead to interior recede into walls on either side

(2) SECURITY CHECKPOINT/ CLEARANCE
Initial checkpoint once entry has been gained through exterior doors. Security officer sits behind bulletproof glass and can lower a metal barrier on the inside of the glass.

(6) SECURITY OFFICE A
Room serves as an armory and provides access to a hidden corridor that runs behind rooms 3-5. There is a concealed door in the wall of room 3 that allows security personnel to emerge behind anyone trying to force entry into more secure areas of the facility.

(7) SECURITY OFFICE B
Camera monitoring hub and main security office. Location allows quick access to receiving dock.

(13) UTILITY
Water, electrical, and generators

(14) SECURITY CHECKPOINT
Secure room controls access to rooms 15 and 16 ( I imagine these rooms full of metal shelving and racks used for storage, but they could easily be make-shift barracks).

(17) ELEVATOR ROOM
Room houses the freight elevator, which naturally leads to whatever the players are after.

(18/19) RECEIVING DOCK
Ramp leads to single bay for receiving supplies/ survivors/ captured undead, etc.

Intelligent Sword: Elciver

Grand Elciver the Annoying

Elciver

In keeping with the theme of temporary magic items, I once made a variation of an intelligent sword that was meant to annoy the player so much that it would not stay in their possession for long.

The sword was discovered entangled on some scrub brush growing out of the side of a steep cliff. The weapon called for help when the players drew near.

The sword's name was Elciver, and it had been forged as a training weapon for a young nobleman. Elciver was never intended for true combat, and is overly cautious and critical of its wielder as a result.

Elciver had in fact been discarded by its previous owner, thrown over the side of the cliff where it is discovered. Elciver does not attempt to control the player, but continually tries to dissuade the wielder from entering combat, and shrieks in horror whenever it is brought to bare against an opponent. C3P0 was the inspiration for Elciver's personality.

Elciver is able to elevate its wielders fighting prowess to that of a fighter of level 6. This would include access to combat related feats as well, so long as they involve the sword. Once the wielder reaches the equivalent of a sixth level fighter, Elciver essentially functions as a normal longsword with the exception that it becomes even more annoying, and tries ever harder to avoid combat.

Elciver is not actively trying to be discarded by its wielder, but rather believes that avoiding combat is the sensible choice in every situation. When attempting to be helpful, Elciver will often misspeak and reveal sensitive information the character is trying to conceal, or offend someone the character is trying to sway.

Possible Uses:

My first choice and intended purpose for Elciver was to serve as a temporary measure to aid a character that had lost the use of their sword arm. By tying their hand to Elciver's grip they would be able to fight effectively and slowly regain use of the arm.

Elciver works well to help boost a low level fighter at the cost of being aggravated by the game master at nearly every turn (through Elciver).

Elciver could also work well as a hook for a side adventure, or a solo quest for a lower level character. Perhaps it is trying to return to the possession of the noble family for which it was originally forged.

Despite being terribly annoying, Elciver can be helpful as well, and it is nice to have an NPC embedded in the party for those times when the players hit an unintended choke-point in your adventure.

Temporary Magic Items

I have long been a fan of temporary magic items. They are a great way to provide small rewards to the players during what can be a long time between leveling. They also work well as possible solutions to problems as long as other solutions are evident as there is a good chance players will not think to "weaponize" that bronze spoon of rapid stirring you so carefully crafted. On the flip-side, they cannot be so painfully obvious that they become a "railroad" to problem solving. Yeah, things like that playful flying key that buzzes around the players looking for attention whenever an unreachable keyhole is present you were so proud of.

The limited nature of these items helps to keep one character from becoming overpowered, but can also offset the sense of uselessness a player might feel if they continually miss in combat, or feel like a "one-trick pony" that can do little more than swing a sword at a monster.

It is not much fun when you are playing a fighter that can't hit the goblin standing directly in front of you while the wizard in the party entangles, immolates, or electrifies the remainder of the goblin horde en masse.

Temporary magic items can have all sorts of negative consequences for use that will not haunt the players forever, and serve to offer a strategic decision about their use. These negative consequences can often be used to the players' advantage by finding some unintended use for the object or weapon as well.

I have cooked up all sorts of temporary magic items over the years, ranging from the "rail-roady rod of rail-roadiness" to objects and weapons that I would consider, well, much better than that I suppose.

I have been working on an idea that is slowly becoming a mega-dungeon concept for a while now, and I am going to share some of my temporary magic items from it with you now.

These are three "magic weapons" with limited uses that the players may acquire (well, they will most likely acquire them, but they may not discover the combat simulator "mini-dungeon" that trains them on their proper use)

Taakese (Blaster Rifle) Crossbow

Taakese Crossbow
The Taak, essentially "orcs in space", have a wide variety of weapons designed to exploit the weaknesses of their most common foes.

At its core, the crossbow is simply a re-skinned wand of lightning bolts. It is found with 10+1d10 charges.

The weapon has two firing modes and a "lock out" switch which helps preserve the remaining charges and prevent accidental discharge.

The "single shot" mode is a lightning bolt spell from whatever system you like to use.

The "burst" fire mode uses two charges and is the equivalent of your favorite "chain lightning" spell. You can scale the "caster level" for these effects to match your game.

All of the Taakese weapons have a peculiar side effect. Once equipped or carried on a person they negate all magcial effects within 1d4 rounds. This side effect is nullified when the weapon is "locked out" in safety mode, or once the weapon has expended all charges. Similarly, damage inflicted by these weapons cannot be healed through magical means until 1d4 rounds have passed. 

Taakese (Blaster Pistol) Wand

Taakese Wand
The preferred sidarm of Taak officers, the "wand" fires homing shots that seldom miss their mark. 

This one is a simple re-skin of a wand of magic missiles. It is found with 4+1d6 charges remaining. The weapon features a lock out switch like the "crossbow" and fires one shot per round.

The "wand" has the same anti-magic side effects listed above, and the caster level for purpose of determining the spell-like effect can be scaled to fit the campaign.

Wyvern (Power sword) Jaw

Wyvern Jaw
This two handed "chain saw sword" is designed to hack through rock-like carapaces and dense armor plating of enemies.

The Jaw is found with 4+1d4 charges remaining. A charge is expended each round the weapon is in use. The Jaw does 2d10 damage and simply ignores any non-magical bonuses to defense or damage reduction provided by armor.

The Jaw can be used against structures as well, and does a straight 20 pts of damage per round, ignoring the damage reduction or hardness rating of most materials.

The Jaw is an unwieldy weapon, and requires a minimum strength value of 16 or greater in order to use effectivley.

The Jaw has a lock out switch, and has the same anti-magic side effects as the other weapons.

These weapons can be scaled down (reducing damage or available charges) or up by adjusting caster level or providing additional power sources (clips).

These items also encourage players to get creative in their application. Sure they work well against overpowered opponents, but what if the players tried to detonate a power source to work as an explosive or to create an anti-magic pulse. Crafty players may sneak a weapon onto an opponent with the safety off to cancel their magical defenses or negate spell casting. The Wyvern Jaw could be disassembled once it loses power to harvest the near-indestructible bladed chains.


I made these images by rendering them in Sketchup. I created all the component pieces and turned them into objects, and then simple assembled my weapons. I have not had much luck with high quality jpeg exports from Sketchup, so I bring the images into Photoshop to clean them up. The black and white image for each weapon was made by loading the image into Illustrator, and simply performing a "livetrace". I fiddled with the tolerances until I had an "inked" looking image that I was happy with.

Interview with Matt Kohr of Ctrl+Paint.com!

Ctrl+Paint.com

The One Page Dungeon Contest is only a hundred or so days out! (yeah, you have lots of time).While artistic value is only one of the many considerations of the judges, I have noticed that the number of really professional looking dungeons has grown each year.

If you have a great idea for a dungeon, but you struggle with drawing stick figures, then I may just have the answer to all your problems! (well, the stick figure related problems anyway).

I discovered Ctrl+Paint.com about a year ago or so, and I am excited to share this great resource with you.While the site is focused on digital art using Photoshop, the same principals and many of the techniques that are shown can be used with other software programs or with traditional art methods.

I took an entrepreneurship course last summer, and one of our assignments was to interview an entrepreneur that we respected. My thoughts immediately went to Matt Kohr of Ctrl.paint.com. Matt provides a ton of resources for both aspiring and working artists on his site. He has an extensive library of mostly free digital art tutorials ranging from composition to rendering. I was so impressed with his videos that I was moved to purchase some from the premium series. These videos are ten bucks each, and they are a really great value at that price. Matt also maintains a blog on his website full of useful and insightful information not generally covered in his videos.

There are lots of resources to be found on the web when it comes to digital art. Youtube is great resource for finding a solution to a design or art problem. If you want to take your craft further than quick fixes and slapping textures all over everything, then Ctrl+Paint is a great place to do it.

The quality of the videos is outstanding. Each video is a lesson with a clear objective. The lessons feel "backwards planned" from the objective, and leave you feeling both informed and capable.

The voice over work and audio quality is great too. Matt is a talented speaker and teaching seems to come naturally to him. Moreover he is just sounds like a really great guy. I have only corresponded with Matt via email a couple of times, but after spending so much time with his videos, he feels like an old friend.

As I mentioned earlier, I approached Matt via email about providing an interview about his business for my entrepreneurship class. The questions themselves were provided to me as part of the course assignment.If you are an entrepreneur yourself, or aspire to be (that should just about cover all of us), then I feel you will find Matt's responses insightful and informative.

BDGR: What is your business? What good, service or idea do you provide?

Matt Kohr from Scribblesinstitute.com article

Matt: My business is called Ctrl+Paint.com, and it's a website that teaches digital painting techniques to beginners. It's a large collection of free, streaming, videos supported by a small selection of $10 downloadable videos.  

BDGR: How long have you been in business?

Matt: This is Ctrl+Paint's third year.

BDGR: Is this the first business you have started? If no, what were the previous businesses?

Matt: Yes, though I have done contract illustration work which means I have been self employed before.  

BDGR: How many hours do you work in a typical week?

Matt: It's hard to quantify since I'm playing all of the different roles.  If I'm making new premium content, it's extremely time consuming.  Other weeks, though, I might only be managing the community, answering emails, and creating blog posts -- leading to a less intense schedule.   

BDGR: Discuss two of your greatest challenges. How did you overcome them?

Matt: The first major challenge was to figuring out the general visual style of the site.  This took a few months of design work and research.  The most important aspect of this challenge was to convey the right atmosphere with the colors and layout.  Many revisions later, with help and review from my peers, and it the visual style was complete.  

The second large challenge was figuring out the proper structure for the website.  Over the first two years I had three different major revisions, each transforming the flow of the videos.  Much of this iteration was possible due to a tight communication loop with my viewers.  Based on community feedback, version 3.0 manages to deliver a much more clear path through the learning content.  

BDGR: What factors have made you successful? Do you have a competitive advantage?

Matt: It's hard to know for sure, but I think being clear and concise has been my most successful advantage.  All of my competitors seem to deliver learning in long-form videos (multiple hours) or are low quality instruction (youtube).  Since my videos are short and information rich, they are much more inviting to watch.  Also, they're mostly free.  "Free" has been a great selling point for my content, and viewers seem to recommend it to their friends.  

BDGR: How much research did you do before you opened your business?

Matt: Just personal research.  I needed to know the competition, and to separate myself from them.  Since it's a pretty small niche, there wasn't all that much research that needed to be done. The technical part (building the site, hosting the videos) was a different matter, but that was not too challenging either.  

BDGR: Did you ever apply for a business loan? 

Matt: No.

BDGR: Do you have a mission statement? Are your employees aware of it?

Matt: I don't have a specific statement (and have no employees), but I have a general creed: Clear, concise, and (mostly) free.

BDGR: What do you know now that you wish you knew before you started?

Matt: That planning ahead would have been a good idea.  Much of my revision process on the website layout could have been avoided if I did a bit more planning before launch.  In my case the free videos are a lot like school curriculum, yet I made them in an arbitrary order.  A year later, this became a jumbled mess and I spent months re-working a problem which could have been easily avoided.  

BDGR: In your opinion what are at least two advantages to having your own business?

Matt: Insulation.  My customers are the ones that pay me, so there is no opportunity to be fired or downsized without warning.  Running the site gives me a very different outlook on financial stability, since I have an international audience the risk is distributed quite well.  Short term fluctuations happen, but it's reassuring to know the audience is so broad.

Secondly, I like the geographic freedom that an internet company affords me.  I just moved across the country, and many of my customers will never know the difference.  This is an extremely valuable asset, and often overlooked.  

BDGR: What is your form of ownership – sole proprietor, partnership, corporation or LLC?

Matt: Sole proprietor.  

BDGR:  If you had to do it over again, would you have started your own business?

Matt: Yes.  It's certainly scary sometimes, but it's rewarding every day.  There's nothing quite like being able to make every decision your business faces - and not having a boss to report to!

Many thanks to Matt for taking the time to answer these questions, and for allowing me to use the interview on the blog.

"Sleeping Queens" card game review

My brother came to visit over the holidays, and one of the gifts he gave my kids was the game Sleeping Queens by Gamewright.  We have played this game enough times that I feel I can give it an informed review.

It is stated that the game is for ages 8 and up, but my kids are 5 and 6 and they really love it.

As a kindergarten teacher, I really love it too.  The kids started working together with another adult on their team, but now they work really well together, and they usually beat me at it.

The object of the game is to be the first to collect a certain number of queens by “waking” them, or to a set number of points, as each queen card has a point value.

The concept of the game is fairly straightforward. There are a number of queen cards that are placed face down in the middle of the play area, much like the game memory. In fact, the game of memory really is a mini game within this game, and also great for kids. 

The remaining cards are all shuffled and dealt to players in hands of 5 cards.

These cards consist of standard numbered cards and “face” cards.

The number cards reflect standard playing cards with four cards each of the numbers 1-10, but again the game design is really great for kids as each card has a pictorial representation of the number ( four poodles, five crescent moons, etc.)

The number cards are used mostly for discarding, in hopes of scoring a face card, but the numbers come in to play in two interesting ways. First, any doubles may be discarded together, and any combination of cards that have a sum equal to another card may all be discarded in a “chain”.

Again, this simple mechanic provides addition practice for kids, and provides a real world application (playing a fun game) for math.

The numbers on the cards come into play again when the jester card is played, but more on that later.

The “face” cards are further divided into kings, attack cards, defense cards, and jesters.

When a king is drawn, he may be traded to “wake” a sleeping queen and take her into your play area.

When a Dragon is drawn, it may be used to “steal” a queen that has been awakened by another player and is in their play area.

When a sleeping potion is drawn, it may be used to put another player’s queen to sleep, and back into play.  Players need to take note of the location of the queens in the center of the game area, especially when playing for points.

A knight card can be played to block a dragon from stealing a queen, and a magic wand cancels the sleeping potion.

The jester card is risky. When the jester is played, the player immediately draws another card from the top of the deck. If this card is a face card, then the player may keep it or make another play. If it is a number card, then the player must start counting with their self in a clockwise direction around the table. The player that is counted as the number on the card may draw or “wake” a queen for free.

There are also two special rules concerning the queens. One of the queens allows the player to draw an additional queen, and two of the queens do not get along preventing one player from having both in their play area.

My initial reaction to the game was that I wanted to make it more complicated, I wanted more special rules as there are a wide variety of characters and themes that could be played off, but after playing with my kids again and again, I would say that it is just about right.

The artwork and overall design of the cards is great (as you can see from the pictures I took). It is accessible to kids, but nice to look at for older players as well.

I think that adults will tire of the game before too long, largely due to its innate simplicity. However, if you have kids, even children as young as mine, then I would wholeheartedly recommend buying this game. Not only does it provide “at bats” for addition practice and memory, but I also helps with general number sense, and recognizing the numbers with their quantities. Younger players can count the objects on the cards to help with addition.

It is also a lot of fun to play with kids, especially when they work as a team, and super easy to “cheat” your way into losing in the beginning and gradually increase the difficulty for the little gamers. For eleven bucks, this game is a really great deal.