Assembling the Patreon Paperminis

29 September 2014 | Hisham | | Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
 

Here's a quick tutorial on what to do with the paperminis once you've downloaded them from the Hishgraphics Papermini Patreon page and printed them out.

My free paperminis earlier were a no-frills, plain flat affairs which had no base for them to stand on. Those paper minis, when assembled, required a base assembly. For the Patreon paperminis, I thought I'd include something extra: several options for bases.

Here are some thoughts on how you can assemble the minis.

The raw printout on white card

The above is a printout of the free downloadable PDF sample of skeletons and wraiths from my post at the Patreon page. It was printed onto white card stock.

Then it's knife o'clock

Then I sliced and diced it to extract the papermini elements. As can be seen above, each element folds back onto itself on top (towards the papermini's head) along a blue dashed line. But it also has base tabs on the bottom (towards its legs). When assembled, the base tabs fold out to form a square base.

 

Hishgraphics Paperminis Patreon

28 September 2014 | Hisham | | Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
 

I am happy to announce that the Hishgraphics Paperminis Patreon site has been live since Friday.

Since I've been creating Star Wars paperminis and putting them on this blog for free download by the gaming community, why not go the extra mile by offering general (and not licensed-dependent) paperminis via a Patreon campaign. There will eventually be paperminis of characters for games ranging from high fantasy to science fiction to pulp to horror!

You will be able to pledge for paperminis at different reward tiers from general mini designs to customized minis of your own characters for your games! 

Or you could click on the link above to ACTUALLY go to this page!

Again, many thanks to a lot of my friends for their encouragement in one way or another, especially Ivan Tam for pointing me toward Patreon in the first place, and Peter Schweighofer and Josh Roby for their diligent feedback of the Patreon page before it was launched.

Check out the Hishgraphics Paperminis Patreon campaign! There's even a free download of skeleton and wraith paperminis for you to test them out.

 

Mos Eisley Shoot-Out

23 September 2014 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

Peter Schweighofer, who was a writer and editor at West End Games back in the '90s and the editor-in-chief of their Star Wars Adventure Journal periodical, sent a couple of rare gaming memorabilia to me which I received earlier this month.

The first was the Mos Eisley Shoot-Out miniature game.

The stuff even came enclosed in an ENVELOPE!

The game is a simple boardgame that came with a paper foldout grid map of the streets of Mos Eisley and cutout miniatures of characters you could play in the environment. The rules were a simplified version of West End Games' Star Wars The Roleplaying Game combat rules. It was also marketing material that cleverly generates excitement for the RPG itself.  

Maps and figures!

I don't think I'll be clipping out the paper figures out of the document. And not just because I have other paper minis that I could use for the purpose. I'm uncertain, but the map looks to be a segment of Jennell Jaquays' amazing full-colour foldout map that came with the Tatooine Manhunt module, which I once ran early during the Strikeforce Enteague Star Wars D6 campaign.

Retroactively introducing Thrawn to the Galactic Empire

Finally, Peter also included a promo card of the splash page artwork illustrated by Doug Shuler that accompanied the short story Mist Encounter written by Timothy Zahn in Star Wars Adventure Journal #6. The photograph above places the card alongside its printed page counterpart in the book!

Peter is currently a freelance writer who produces excellent gaming sourcebooks like Pulp Egypt for the Any-System Key. Thanks for letting me have a piece of Star Wars RPG history, Peter!

 

74 Months

22 September 2014 | sila | | Family Pics
 

74 months of Yaya!

Let's make funny faces!

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

A Birthday Once More

21 September 2014 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Family Pics
 

It's Irfan's 12th birthday. We were supposed to set something up for him, like allowing him to invite his friends over. But because of low resources, we had to cancel. But Cikma and Ayah Cik The Younger came with a cake anyway, so we held a small gathering. I was not even in the right frame of mind to take photographs so we do not have photos of the cake.

The GOKL group did pass the gift they bought for Irfan, which was the boardgame Tsuro.

I did however take a picture of Irfan unboxing and playing Tsuro.

He didn't know whether to be Ryan Higa, Freddie Wong or Rod Roddenberry
I got kicked off the board by the boy's maneuver. Now it's just his mom and him

We love you Irfan. It's been a rough year what with - among others - the UPSR fiasco and the absolute unreliability of this country's education system at this point in time, but we will strive for a better year for you next year.

Also, many thanks to everyone who wished him a happy birthday over the many online channels available!

 

BareBones Fantasy: The First GM Session

20 September 2014 | Hisham | | Role Playing Games, RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays
 

Earlier this week, Irfan gamemastered his first RPG session with his friend at his friend's house.

He had took my printed out copy of BareBones Fantasy, created his own pregenerated characters (asking me a few questions along the way), drew a simple terrain map and filled it with opponents.

His friend Fikree, I was told, named his pregenned human spellcaster William Jester. Irfan's own GMPC is a dwarf named Hector Zorin, a warrior with a greataxe, a battleaxe, and a warhammer.

The Simple Scenario

Because I was not present to witness the game being played, I interviewed Irfan for details of what went down in the session.

William and Hector were scouting the woods near the town where they lived because travellers had been disappearing there.

Near a rocky hill surrounded by thick trees they spotted a cave entrance that was guarded by a lizardman.

The session notes and charsheets

Photo of the artifacts used in the event!

They decided to attack. (Initiative order resulted in lizardman first, Hector second and William last.) The lizardman stabbed Hector with his spear (causing 11 Damage). Hector swung his greataxe but missed. William used his spellcasting power to hurl a fireball at the lizardman (using the Offensive Strike spell inflicting 7 Damage on 10 Body Points. 3 BP left).

The lizardman lunged once again, but his spear failed to stab Hector once more. Hector's greataxe sliced the lizardman in two (with 10 Damage) ending the battle.

They decided to explore the cave passage and discovered a crossroad that continued forward and also branched left and right. The passage ahead had a large cache of gold, which was freshly mined, apparently by the lizardmen. There were no lizardmen seen except for two guards waiting at the left and right passages.

Hector and William attempted to sneak past them. (They rolled Scout skill for stealth, but they both failed.) Lizardmen noticed their approach, readied their spears and attacked. (Initiative order: Hector, William, then the two lizardmen.)

Hector had his battleaxe ready but failed to strike a blow on the attacking lizardman. William's fireball blasted second lizardman into fiery bits (with 12 damage, 2 more than needed to kill him).

The first lizardman then succeeded in piercing Hector's body (inflicting 11 Damage, leaving 18 BP left; Hector was a tank - I saw Irfan roll Strength 60, then augmented it by 10 because of his dwarf characteristics). Hector retaliated with his greataxe, but missed. William's fireball attack also missed!

The lizardman thought he would finally be able to kill Hector, but fortunately the dwarf deftly dodged the spear thrust. Then Hector used his warhammer to strike the lizardman's head and slaying him (for 18 damage).

William Jester said, "Can we claim the gold now?"

Hector replied, "Yes." And the session ended.

I asked Irfan what his plans were for the game. He said, after the lizardmen disappeared, travellers were still going missing, so William and Hector will have to investigate further. He hopes to continue the adventure in the future.

I was pleasantly surprised that he was able manage a game session with a solo player. I remember he was very reluctant when I asked him once. Obviously, he needs to work on his worldbuilding skills so I'll be trying to teach him how to do that. (Why are the lizardmen there? Are they really evil? Why hasn't anyone else discovered the cave and the gold within?)

 

Golden Sky Stories: Intro Game

19 September 2014 | Hisham | | GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games
 

Last night, Doug came over to run a game for Irfan and I before he had to move, and it would be more difficult to meet up at nights regularly.

We played Golden Sky Stories for the first time. Set in rural Japanese township (not unlike a films like Tonari No Totoro) Golden Sky Stories is a tabletop roleplaying game where players take the role of magical animals called henge who are able to change into human form.

It's a great game to be played with children because there's not a single iota of violence, or situations that put the player characters in dire peril. It's all to do with making friends with other henge or little children in a small township in a rural Japanese countryside.

In fact, if you can grasp the situations in Tonari no Totoro where characters experience wonder and express their likes and dislike in childlike ways. The characters are never in any physical danger and there are no villains.

Doug and Irfan and shoes!
 

Diceless System

Task resolution is not achieved by rolling dice, but with points that you use to activate your powers, or increase your characteristics to beat a target number or your opponent's characteristics. It's like GUMSHOE's resource management system without rolling any d6s.

Whatever you need to do can be defined by four characteristics: Henge, Animal, Adult and Child. You also have points in Dreams, Wonder, and Feelings. Dreams allow you to create and strengthen connections with other characters. You also spend Dreams to transform into your human form or partial human form. Wonder allows you to activate your magical powers. Feelings are the points you need to increase your characteristics to beat high target numbers.

Intro Scenario

We generated characters quickly. Irfan was Kamineko the grey sleepy cat who lazes all over the town of Hitotsuna. I played Kuro, the black rabbit who lives in the town school, who thinks he's a dog.

Kuro was digging up (or trying to dig up bones) in a field outside of town when he came across Kamineko who was trying to sleep on top of an old abandoned shrine. Kuro invited Kamineko to help him dig for bones, but the cat henge refused to help the manic, identity-challenged rabbit henge.

Suddenly Kuro discovered that there was another henge in the shrine. It was a fox who identified herself as Suzune. The shrine was hers!

After a conversation that led to Suzune to bash her head on the side of her shrine because of Kuro's insistance that he was a dog, it began to get dark. Kuro and Kamineko thought it was time to get back home and transformed into their half-human forms (by spending Dreams.) Then it started to rain!

Kuro transformed back into his rabbit form and hid in the shrine. But Suzune convinced them all to huddle together under a big tree.

I rabbited!
 

Kuro noticed something strange. There were no clouds in the sky and the full moon was bright. Kuro used her Please power to act cute, rub against Suzune's legs to get her to submit to his cuteness. Suzune began to weep. She said she was lonely and no one had come to her shrine for many, many years. Kuro promise that he and Kamineko would come every day to visit her so she wont be lonely.

Immediately the rain stopped. Suzune was happy, bade her new friends farewell, then waited for the next time Kamineko and Kuro would visit.

The End

After that, we created new Connections and Irfan spent Dreams to strengthen the non-player character Suzune's connection with him.

Irfan had some trouble adapting to the whimsical and childlike aspects of the game, probably because he was more used to firing blasters in Star Wars and using an axe in BareBones Fantasy, but in later talks he appeared to be able to grasp the concepts better. Perhaps he would be able to game better should we play it again.

Many thanks to Doug for running Golden Sky Stories for us!

 

EOTE: Family Obligations

15 September 2014 | Hisham | | Edged By The Empire, RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

Edged by the Empire

Episode 06 Family Obligations

Previously on Edged by the Empire...

Music by Kevin Kiner

Obligatory opening crawl!

Before the game began, no Obligations were triggered. As before, even if there was only one player, I considered all three main characters as player characters so three Force Dice were rolled, resulting in a Destiny Pool of 3 Light Side Points and 1 Dark Side Points. Irfan finally did some character advancements with the 60XPs he had been saving up, purchasing the Dead to Rights Talent and upgrading skills like Melee, Piloting (Space), Gunnery and Stealth.

The YT-1300 light freighter Lava Jaeger and her crew, Captain Hondo Pash, his kid sister Yuzy Pash, their armoured hired gunslinger Giin Lawquane and the astromech droids R2-8B8 and R5-K2 arrived at Naboo where Imperial Star Destroyer Obdurate was patrolling. Hondo informed them of their cargo of computer parts from Christophsis bound for Silverlake a port city on Naboo.

As they approach the lakeside city after a pair of Z-95 Headhunters fly past their freighter and ignoring them, the weapons lock klaxon blared. Giin - stationed at the top turret - said over the comlink, "What ith going on?" A missile was streaking toward them from the city outskirts. Hondo told him, "Hold on!"

Grinning at a missed missile

After spending one Preparation maneuver, Hondo's Piloting (Space) roll succeeds with a Triumph as net results show!

The Lava Jaeger jinked, the missile missed and Giin (with an extra Boost dice from of the Triumph) blasted the missile out of the Naboo skies.

 

EOTE: The Azurite City Requiem

14 September 2014 | Hisham | | GOKL Actual Play, Modesty Blazing, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

Modesty Blazing

Episode 05: The Azurite City Requiem

In this game I thought I could finish this arc of the campaign in the second session. I failed.

Previously on Modesty Blazing...

Hello and Goodbye

Destiny Pool, not the kiddie pool

Uh oh. How many Dark Side Points?

As explosions wrecked the peaceful evening at Azurite City, the team began to regroup.

The Duros spy Vendrik told them that he had received an encrypted communique via the public channels. It was a code phrase ordering him to leave the planet. The team started to object. They would need his help if things went bad. Vendrik said, "I can't get involved now when the Empire appear to be using underhanded tactics to take over the system. They really want this system. If they knew that the Rebel Alliance is involved with their opposition, they'll call for a Base Delta Zero orbital bombardment killing everyone and everything on the surface of Ghyel. I know because I've seen them do it before on another world."

They said their goodbyes. Nora Romanova would help escort the Duros spy offworld.

Their vehicles wrecked, Zeltron Darter Kel, Trianii Qillian Ryn, Trandoshan John Tray'Essek and the droid VAX-11/750 jogged back towards their headquarters at the Ghyel Ministry of History and Archaeology.

Dark Skies over Azurite

The skies were dark, but seemed darker for the dozens of Lambda-class shuttles being regurgitated by the Imperator-class Star Destroyer hanging above Azurite City. They could be seen flitting between city buildings and were landing at every other open space in the city.

Darter called their employer, the 14-year-old Ghyel prince Zalo Hai whom they had rescued from a three hundred year carbonite slumber in an abandoned remote outpost. Darter reported their findings of the death of Councilman Drazi, the alliance Councilman Zirrus had with an Imperial officer, the homing beacon tagged on a saboteur's airspeeder and apparent Imperial political destabilisation tactics.

"We have to acquire evidence to present to the Council," said Prince Zalo. Suddenly he burst out, "They're here! An Imperial shuttle has landed. Troops are coming. You have to go to-" And then he was cut off. The team considered heading for the Ministry to rescue Prince Zalo, but it would take too long for them to reach it without a speeder.