Wilds - Step into the Light

Last turn the night watch spotted a strange light in the woods, pale green and apparently quite distant...

Firefall - Firefail

This is a hard review for me to write. I really dislike being completely negative about a video game experience, because there's a ton of work behind what I'm experiencing. Sadly, my recent time with Firefall has provided me very little to work with in the plus column.

Wilds - Night Light

With the trail lost, the group pauses to consider. With the sun low in the sky, the first order of business is a camp site. Continuing northwest-ish, they eventually find a small dell with a tiny spring-fed pool nearby. Leaving the others to prepare camp, Rawon, Mordikarr, and Raúguey head out to search for the trail, though the time they have left before the sun sets is growing short.

Tile of the Week #22

The latest Tile of the Week entry. Yeah, sometimes the GM is just a jerk. A twisty maze of little passages, or is it a maze of twisty passages? Definitely want fog of war on this one.

Tile of the Week #22 - Player

Tile of the Week #22 - GM

All Tile of the Week images are free for private use. You can download the images above using right-click / save as. Each tile is a 100px per five-foot square image, sized for compatibility with Dungeons in Blue geomorphs. The entire Tile of the Week Collection is also available as a pay what you want bundle, if you're feeling lazy.

The Wilds - Move Along!

The raid on the nest tower was a success, but Mordikarr and his animal buddies are nervous. The trail a group of thirteen plus four mules leaves is wide and obvious. Distance is the party's best ally. Unfortunately the terrain is challenging, and the trail, well, the trail has a mind of its own...

PBE Games and the DTRPG Christmas in July Sale

If you're a tabletop gamer, you probably know about the DriveThruRPG summer sale. Now that the first rush of server-destroying traffic is past, I figure it's time to mention that all PBE Games individual products are included in the sale. What's that include? Here's a brief recap:

• Dungeons in Blue geomorphs are classic-blue style dungeon tiles designed for use with virtual tabletops. There are hundreds of tiles in the various sets, and more on the way.
• Each One Page contains a twenty-entry table of fantasy RPG goodness: treasures, strange objects, odd locations, traps, or powers.
• The Uncommon Ground series provides textures for your fantasy cartography, image creation, or traditional game artwork. Each contains a single seamless, 2k by 2k resolution texture rendered in four different color schemes, and all are licensed for personal or commercial use.

Of course there's more: virtual tabletop maps, including the recently released Black Sage Mine and Traitor's Cavern; the Deadly Blows critical hits tables; the Tome of Names (V1, V2, and V3); and Items of Power (also V1, V2, and V3).

Note: during the sale, bundle deals aren't really deals. The mechanics of bundles make adjusting all the product pricing there time-intensive.

Wilds - Nest Robbers

The party checks out the tower ruin, hoping for a payoff, but some party members are less enthusiastic...

Tile of the Week #21 - Five Minutes!

The latest Tile of the Week entry. I didn't notice I was out of scheduled posts, so had to do something quick. This took about five minutes to sketch out, and another ten or so to treat for blueness. Enjoy!

Tile of the Week #21 - Player version

Tile of the Week #21 - GM version

All Tile of the Week images are free for private use. You can download the images above using right-click / save as. Each tile is a 100px per five-foot square image, sized for compatibility with Dungeons in Blue geomorphs. The entire Tile of the Week Collection is also available as a pay what you want bundle, if you're feeling lazy.

PBE Games Latest Releases

Just a quick update on all the latest releases from PBE Games, available through DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.

First up the Black Sage Mine, a single-level virtual tabletop map pack suitable for fantasy, western or modern campaigns. This is a black and white style map, and the kit includes VTT-sized image files, PDF format reference maps, plus two printable distressed versions of the map suitable for player handouts.

Black Sage Mine preview

Next up, two new Uncommon Ground textures: Alien Bark, a tree-bark like stone texture, and Paved, an asphalt-looking texture.

Alien Bark preview

Finally there are three new Dungeons in Blue map packs up, Set S, Set T, and Set U, along with the associated Triple Pack Seven bundle deal.

Set U preview

That brings things up to date, thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

The Wilds - Scat!

The party has discovered an old tower / fort ruin along the abandoned roadway, with weird mats of twigs and branches sticking off the roof. There are mixed feelings about checking it out, but Ingvild, Mordikarr, and Raúguey are gung-ho, so they investigate...

The Wilds - Once more into the Wilds

Time to continue the trek. The party was a bit divided on next steps, some wanting to head straight back to BPM via the spire, some wanting to explore further south, and some wanting to follow the road they found to the north. The northern vote won out, so... more hiking.

Tile of the Week #20

The latest Tile of the Week entry. Today's geomorph is a lakefront cave. Sun and sand in the underground anyone?

Tile of the week #20 - Player version

Tile of the week #20 - GM version

All Tile of the Week images are free for private use. You can download the images above using right-click / save as. Each tile is a 100px per five-foot square image, sized for compatibility with Dungeons in Blue geomorphs. The entire Tile of the Week Collection is also available as a pay what you want bundle, if you're feeling lazy.

Wilds - Redial, Rebuild, and Retrace

The party is still killing time at their base camp near Needle Spire, hoping things settle down back at Blackpool before they make another stab at the depths. Everyone had different directions in mind this turn, so lots going on.

Grim Dawn - First Impressions

Grim Dawn is a PC action-RPG created by Crate Entertainment, an indie studio staffed by veterans of Iron Lore, creators of Titan Quest. It's available via the Steam early access program, and is still in active development. I picked it up during the Steam summer sale, and I've put about eighteen hours into the game, mostly on a Soldier character.

Grim Dawn, a bad place for horses

PBE Games - Lots of Uncommon Ground (plus one)

Just a quick note here, to catch up on recent releases. Over the last two weeks I've added several more Uncommon Ground textures to the PBE Games lineup, including Rippled, Acid Etched, Exposed Face, Mud Rock, Crawlers, and Strata. I've also pulled together the various Dungeons in Blue connection tile packs into a discount bundle, the Connections Pack.

The next couple weeks should see another full set of Dungeons in Blue tiles released, plus a new black and white virtual tabletop map similar to Traitor's Cavern. Most of my stuff is fantasy-focused, but the Black Sage Mine could easily be dropped into a western or modern campaign. Coming Soon (TM).

Black Sage Mine - one-third scale preview

Wilds - What's Over There?

With the sun burning through the last of the clouds, the party decides to head back to camp to try and accomplish some improvements to their base. Along the way, they debate the various spire combinations and what they might mean. Maro theorizes the colors indicate destination climates, Raúguey thinks they're all just positional. Both note the lack of signs of civilization at the various destinations tried. Maro says, "Too bad we haven't found a city full of merchants near one of these things."

MechWarrior Online - A Newbie's First Impression

One of my gaming friends has been a long-time fan of the MechWarrior video games. He finally convinced me to give the latest incarnation MechWarrior Online (MWO), a spin a couple weeks ago. I've been resisting, because I was never a huge fan of giant stompy war robots (a.k.a. juicy targets), but I finally suspended my disbelief and joined up. Pacific Rim may or may not have had something to do with that.

Avoid laser to the face, if possible.

Tile of the Week #19

The newest Tile of the Week entry. This one is just a bit of spaghetti cave, with three levels, a well on the upper tier, and a pool of water on the lowest. Someone's placed a couple ladders in there to make transitions between various cave levels easier (or to draw someone into a trap...)

Tile 19 - Player

Tile 19 - GM

All Tile of the Week images are free for private use. You can download the images above using right-click / save as. Each tile is a 100px per five-foot square image, sized for compatibility with Dungeons in Blue geomorphs. The entire Tile of the Week Collection is also available as a pay what you want bundle, if you're feeling lazy.

Wilds - Drunk Dialing

Back at their more secure base camp near Needle Spire, the party waits out the heavy rains, then heads to the Spire to try out some new combinations of sphere, cube, and pyramid. They've pretty much decided to let things die down a bit back at Blackpool, hoping the necromancer and his buddies will lose interest.

Small Victories

Nothing to do with my usual gaming subject matter. I've been having on and off issues with my furnace / AC system. Occasionally the blower just doesn't start or cuts off, despite the fact that the thermostat says it should be running. I'd go in, pop the cover and it'd kick back on. It was so intermittent that I knew calling a tech out was useless, since it would work perfectly while they were here, then cut off 10 minutes after they left.

Coming home last night to an 85 degree house was the last straw. I decided to investigate. Cut the power at the main box and popped the cover off the main power switch. HA! The switch housing was cracked, because idiot installer had forced too-heavy gauge wire into the feed holes. A quick trip to Menard's for a new switch, and five minutes with a screwdriver later, all is back together. FLAWLESS VICTORY!

Sometimes I really miss working with actual, physical objects instead of digital data.