#RPGaDAY 2016, Day 1: Why do this thing?

by ThomasNo Comments

It’s the third year of #RPGaDAY, a thing where there’s a roleplaying game-based question a day that’s there for people who enjoy those games to share their thoughts and memories about the hobby. I did the first year on my Google+ account and last year I joined in the fun here at denaghdesign.com ((and revisiting my first year’s questions)). But I had a secret goal. I would have a good thirty minutes of writing time and use RPGaDAY to revitalize my blog. Also, the event would help to get me back into creative writing.

I had a total of two blog posts since then. ((I’d link to them, but you can just use the previous post button right there.))

Drat.

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Mad Max and X-Wing, Sitting In a Tree…

by Thomas2 Comments

Recently I was listening to Mynock Squadron, an X-Wing podcast, and am now in danger of spending way too much money on that game. I haven’t played Fantasy Flight Games’ X-Wing, but I have played Wings of War ((Now implemented as Wings of Glory. I’ve played both WoW and WoG. For this post, assume I’m referring to either game.)), the WW1/WW2 dogfighting game X-Wing was based on. ((Which is apropos, as the starship combat in Star Wars was based on dogfighting.)) X-Wing sounded cool to me, but I really only thought of the game as a Star Wars-themed WoW. Your guy is the plane, and the game is all about maneuvering and lining up that perfect shot. But listening to that podcast, I realized it was bigger than that: your ships could have different pilots with customizable loadouts. They were talking about trying out different pilots and kitting out ships with TLTs, HLCs, and other such jargon, and that got me thinking about the fun of Car Wars.

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Using InDesign’s Paragraph Shading and Rules to create ICONS NPC cards

by ThomasNo Comments

Over the weekend, I sat down with the family and we played ICONS from Steve Kenson’s Ad Infinitum Adventures. We rolled up some characters (and wound up having the girl create her hero using the point-buy system). Within a half hour, the Guardian and the Wanderer took to the streets of Starfall City and quickly got in over their heads.

That evening I had difficulty sleeping, so I spent a little bit of time creating index cards for the NPCs, trying to mock up something that fits the layout of ­the game. I managed to develop the card with boxes for stats and indents, primarily using paragraph shading in InDesign CC 2015.3.

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