Writing For Stargazer’s World

Recently I started writing for a roll playing site called  “Stargazer’s World“. The site covers everything related to roll playing games it can get it’s hands on and I have had fun int he last few weeks writing for them.

So far I have written the following posts for them.

• The Importance of Dice
• DMs Should Join Other Games
• Castlemolds Review

Writing is something I enjoy doing and hope to improve with over time. What better way for me to do that then with a topic I am really have an interest in.

Patrick Stewart on Twitter, iPhone, and the Internet

This is just an awesome video my friend Alex shared with me. You can really tell that that Patrick Stewart is a real ‘Less Is More” man.

The video was posted on Gizmodo

Hirst Arts Castlemolds For Dungeons & Dragons

I am always looking out for new ways to enhance my weekly Dungeons & Dragons game. Things that might help immerse the player and keep everyone excited. One thing people can do is buy miniature environments that player characters can use  to explore. The most popular of these are made by a company called Dwarven Forge.

My Fiancé Testing Out The First Castelmolds

The Dwarven Forge sets are very well made and are pretty much the cream of the crop when it comes to miniature environments. They are a bit spendy and if you can afford them, then by all means knock yourself out. But I have been looking around the Internet for something in-between a battle mat and a Dwarven Forge set.

Personally I hate Dungeon Tiles. So they where not an option in my mind. I would rather just use graph paper if it came down to it.

What I have found is a product called Castlemolds from Hirst Arts.

When I found the Castlemolds sets on-line I showed them to my fiancé who immediately thought they where a good idea. As excited as I was to have found them, she is the one who really pushed me to order a few.

Dried Molds

Casted Molds

As the name implies Castlemolds are molds. They are made from silicone and according to their website they will last for years and hundreds of casts. I suggest reading the “How it works” page on the Hirst Arts website to get a sense of how much work and money is going to be required for building a miniature set. When you factor in the cost of the molds, Plaster of Paris, Paint, and time the whole project can become quite spendy and time consuming rather quickly. But in the end I find it still costs less then going out and getting a Dwarven Forge mini set. Your mileage may very

Painted Molds

As soon as our first order of Castlemolds came in the mail my fiancé when right to work on creating the first set of molds, then another, then another, and so on and so forth. At one point she became quite the little multitasker, popping out hardened molds one moment and painting dried molds the next.

It took about three or four weeks of this before we had enough floors and walls made that we could use them for a full encounter. My fiancé even went as far as to glue felt under each of the completed Castelmolds peaces. She really did an amazing job with them. For the most part now she does the painting and I do the mold casting.

First Game With Castlemolds

Before long we were ordering more molds and expand the look and the feel of the Dungeons we can create. There are still times when I will use my battle mat and wet erase markers to lay out an area of battle. But as much as I can I try to use the Castlemolds sets.

All I Need To Know About Life I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons

Recently I was reading a Wizards of the Cost Twitter post (@Wizards_DnD) and followed a link to a video presentation given by Chad Henderson. It was called “All I Need To Know About Life I learned From Dungeons & Dragons”. I thought it was a pretty good post and I wanted to share it.

How To Organize Your D&D Miniatures

My Table of D&D Minis

I had a need to organize my D&D minis. I was finding that just to  locate a particular one for D&D night had become a chore. I was always sifting through a box or bag of them just to find one in particular. Not to mention storing minis in a box or bag is not the best thing for them.  Parts get bent or broken if your not careful. So I have come up with a way to organize your Minis. For the most part your only going to need 3 things.

1. Sterilite Draws (You can find them most retail stores)
2. A Label Maker
3. Apple’s iPhoto (mac only) or Google’s Picasa (Mac or Windows) Software

STEP 1: LABEL THE DRAWERS

The first thing I did was to label my drawers. I printed labels from my label maker saying “Drawer 1″, “Drawer 2″, “Drawer 3″, and so on and stuck them to the front of each drawer. The drawers I am using I picked up from Wal-Mart and they are called “Sterilite“. Just little plastic drawer storage units big enough to hold my minis.

STEP 2: LOOK UP EACH MINI ONLINE

I layed out all my D&D minis on the kitchen table. I then proceeded to look up each one online. I would use a site like Alter Reality Games to search for each mini individually. When the search would come back I would be presented with an image of the mini and some text including the mini’s name and the set it came from.

iPhoto D&D Mini Collection

STEP 3: PUT THE INFO INTO IPHOTO

Save the mini’s picture to iPhoto (or Picasa).

SIDE NOTE: You can create a brand new iPhoto library so as not to add a bunch of pictures of minis to your personal photos by holding down the option key and launching iPhoto. The program will ask you if you want to create a new library or open an existing one. I created a new library and saved it in my computer’s D&D directory.

Next I created an album for each drawer. So I have one album named “Drawer 1″, “Drawer 2″ and so on. As I copied pictures of minis into iPhoto’s album named “drawer 1″  I would select the image and paste in text related to the mini that I found from the website.

In both the iPhoto and Picasa programs you have the option to enter text information about the image. Here is where I enter the mini’s name and the set it came from. (See the image on the right)

D&D Mini Drawer

STEP 4: PLACE THE MINI IN THE DRAWER

After all the all the information about the mini was entered into iPhoto I then put the mini in the corresponding drawer. Repeat steps 2 through 4 till your whole mini collection has been cataloged in iPhoto.

So now If your looking for a green dragon all you have to is type in “Green Dragon” In your search field and iphoto or Picasa and it will tell you what draw the mini is located in.

SOME HISTORY

I have almost been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a year now. For less time then that I have started collected D&D minis. My collection has grown quickly and I needed a way to store then. Rather then reinvent the wheel I turned to Google for help. I figured I was not the only one with this question and someone else must have come up with a solution that I could use.

Well sure enough I found a hand full for websites selling products for miniature storage. But I was not finding a lot of end user experience. Since I was not satisfied with what I found on a few Google searches I turned to Twitter and asked the following question of some DM’s I Follow.

@theodudek, @SlyFlourish, @newbiedm I need a way to store my growing #DnD miniatures collection. Do you guys have any suggestions?

NewbieDM sent me the following response:

@Nicap (thats me)  I buy these plastic drawer storagethings at Wal-Mart. keep them there, sorted by undead, PC’s, creatures, etc…

Right off the bat that sounded like a good idea to me. I went to the store and picked up a couple of these plastic drawer storage things and tossed my minis in them and life was good. Life was good till my collection of minis grew to the point that finding ones needed for a particular game was becoming a chore.

After some time thinking about the problem I am up with the solution above that has been working out for me very well. I hope you all find it useful.

5 Dungeon Masters

Wizards of the Coast recently posted three videos about 5 Dungeon Masters located either in Seattle or New York. The following videos are from that page. I like to post videos about Dungeons & Dragons because I think it helps people who have not played the game get a better idea of what all the fuss is about. So enjoy!

How To Make Game Notes For Dungeons & Dragons

Recently I have been reading a lot of blogs related to Dungeons & Dragons. More recently I have been interested in posts related to Dungeon Masters of the game finding ways to save time. For those of you not formilare with D&D, it can take a lot of time to prep for a game as a Dungeon Master. I have come across lots of great ideas on the Internet. Many of them I want to work into my current game or the next game I start DMing for. But for this post I want to talk about game notes and how they help me and my group save time.

Game Notes are basically a summery of what happened at the last game. I e-mail the game notes out to give all my players a chance to read over the notes and be ready for the next time we all sit down and play. Because everyone reads the notes we don’t waist a lot of time anymore reviewing what happened at last weeks game.

My current Dungeons and Dragons game consists of 5 Player Characters and Myself as the Dungeon Master. The vast majority of everyone at my game is new to D&D. Recently I have asked someone to be the scribe of the game. Someone who will take bullet point notes of what happens during each game so I can have something that will jog my memory for later when I am writing my game notes. In my current group that task falls to the same person each time but there is not reason why that task can’t switch from person to person at each game.

When writing game notes to be e-mailed out I try very hard never to let the notes go over one page in length. Just focus on the important stuff of the last game. Things that might be issues or plot points for future games. I also include information on where the next game will be held, time, and what kind of food will be available. I also only write using plain text. I am somewhat old school when it comes to e-mail. I don’t believe e-mail was designed for html letters to be sent with fancy fonts and colors. I just write mine in plain text and I worked hard to make sure I found a formatting that works for me.

Below is an example of game notes pretty much take from one of my past games.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME:

[-] DAZED AND CONFUSED.:
Our Adventures from TEAM POWER AWESOME TEAM went to sleep in a cosy
little inn just inside of the Kingdom of Toss, but they awoke to find
them selves shackled to a wall of a room under ground with bite marks
all over their bodies. If things couldn’t be worse each member of our
elite band of adventures had contracted Filth fever. With the help of
TOTAL TEAM POWER member Salandra, everyone was able to escape from
their shackles.

[-] LET ME OUT OF HERE!:
The next issue for our group of brave souls was to just get out of the
room they had become imprisoned in. The room had two exiting doors.
Both where locked with no obvious way out. Snort tried opening the
first door by pulling down on a near by touch lever but only found
himself to be come electrocuted while doing so. Scorcha (with the aid
of her familiar, Ember) was able to hold the touch down with out
becoming electrocuted. The door open and Snort got shot with a cross
bow bolt to the chest. Ember also retrieved a key to the second door
allowing Irana to locate all of TEAM UNOBTAINIUM POWER AWESOME TEAM
POWER’s belongings. Including her much beloved books as some other new
items such as a bag of holding.

[-] WHO IS BEHIND ALL OF THIS?:
TOTAL TEAM POWER AWESOME discovers the Rat King sitting alone in one
of the under ground chambers with the lamp of Ordu before him. Through
questioning they learn that the Rat King is one of the sons of King
Duran. Hammer Duran. IT is learned that Hammer has been chasing his
evil brother Samuel all over the lands trying to capture the lamp of
Ordu before he could. By the end of the story Hammer Duran sets Ordu
free from his imprisoned life with in the lamp. As a result Ordu
quickly ages and turns into dust. Irana collects the dust and puts it
in her bag of holding.

Our party members from TRIPPLE ACTION FORCE TEAM, along with the help
of hammer mallet are working on a plan to warn the King of Toss of the
impending danger to him and his kingdom. Hammer’s evil brother Samuel
and Samuel’s death knight are making there way ever close to the
kingdom.

NOTES ON THE GAME SO FAR
[-]King Duran of the kingdom of Toss
[-][-]Prince Samuel Duran (aka Father Mallet)
[-][-]Prince Hammer Duran
Adolescent bickering ended up with both princes being banished from
Toss until they can straiten up.
[-] Death knight is the re-animated corps of Sir Timbulton.

GAME INFO
[-} Location: Yoshi and Hannah's
[-] Time: Saturday the 9th at 2pm.
[-] Food: No clue. I will e-mail something when I have an idea. Suggestions?
[-] Contribute: Since I don’t know what we are going to eat feel free
to bring anything you enjoy. Drinks, snacks, food.

Steve Jobs Quote

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would i want to do what i am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something… almost everything – all external expectations,all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose.

Steve Jobs, college dropout and CEO of Apple Computer, Stanford University Commencement, 2005

Dungeons & Dragons Introduction Video

Yesterday I was looking at the Wizards of the Cost website and discover a new link “New To D&D Videos“. They have a great YouTube video on that page called “Introduction to D&D”. It is one of the better videos for people who are just learning about Dungeons & Dragons. So if your new to D&D, have never played, or just want to understand why i keep writing about it on my site here, Take a minute and watch this video. Hopefully it will answer some questions.

To Be Continued…

The iPod Dice Tower

I have no clue what the HELL came over me or what possessed me to do this. I feel like I had a real ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind‘ moment. You know the scene where Richard Dreyfuss is eating diner with his family, and he uncontrollably starts sculpting the Devils Tower from his mashed potatoes? That’s how I felt! I just saw these two Apple iPod Touch boxes lying around and I uncontrollably starting building a dice tower out of them with a rubber band, an exact-o knife, and some super glue. It took me about 45 minutes.

I have had dice towers on my mind. They seem like a good idea and a sure fire way to increase the randomness of ones dice roll.

After building the iPod Dice Tower and showing it to my weekly Dungeons and Dragons group, the response was not what I hoped for. Everyone seemed very impressed for the first round of game play, but after that everyone switched back to just rolling their dice on the game table.

Here is how you can make an iPod Touch Box Dice Tower

1.) You need to iPod Touch boxes. Not just a top and a bottom but two complete boxes. You will also need an exact-o knife (modeling knife) and Super Glue

2.) You can see how the top iPod Touch box holds the bottom iPod Touch box insides it’s self. The bottom of the box has a layer of foam attached to it which makes for a soft landing for your dice.

3.) Next we are going to be prepping the hard plastic case that held the iPod Touch still in the it’s box.

4.) Being very careful with the knife your going to want to cut the top 3rd of the plastic case off. This will be used as one of the “Shelfs” that the dice will bounce off inside your iPod dice tower.

5.) Here you can see how I have attached the 2 cut off sections of the plastic case and super glued them inside the bottoms of 2 the iPod Touch boxes. One close tot he top and one close to the bottom.

6.) Carefully using the exact-o knife I cut out a square on the top of the box. I also cut and exit hole on the bottom of the same box. Here I am using a rubber band to hold the to bottom boxes together and placed them inside the top of the foam filled iPod Box

7.) Using super glue I attached the last 3rd of the plastic case to the top of the new iPod Dice tower. The whole in the plastic case just happens to the right size for a standard set of gaming dice.

To Be Continued…