Archive Page 8
December 2nd, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Characters #8 and #9 of my Savage World takes on the Serenity crew. It’s a two-fer, the brother and sister on the lam, the tongue-tied doctor and tetchy savant.
(These are free of charge (M*tant En*my please don’t sue) and using the Fan version of the Savage Worlds license. You will need the Savage Worlds rule book to use the characters (and hey, they have an awesome new deluxe edition out new this summer!))
Simon Tam
River Tam
November 22nd, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Character #7 of my Savage World takes on the Serenity crew. A beautiful Companion and faithful crew member.
(These are free of charge (M*tant En*my please don’t sue) and using the Fan version of the Savage Worlds license. You will need the Savage Worlds rule book to use the characters (and hey, they have an awesome new deluxe edition out new this summer!))
Here she is: Inara Serra
November 15th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Character #6 of my Savage World takes on the Serenity crew. The girl with the smile but a mean way with machines.
(These are free of charge (M*tant En*my please don’t sue) and using the Fan version of the Savage Worlds license. You will need the Savage Worlds rule book to use the characters (and hey, they have an awesome new deluxe edition out new this summer!))
Here’s Kaylee: Kaylee Frye
November 1st, 2011 by Jim Davenport
While cleaning up the vaults here at Dragonlaird Gaming I came across a tavern that I’d documented with completed Dungeons & Dragons 3x stats, plot hooks, and more. Why not share it with my fans?
Download for Free
Cheers!
Jim
November 1st, 2011 by Jim Davenport
An embarrassingly long time ago, one of my fans asked me to chime in on the topic of how to introduce new people to gaming. Two weekends ago I had the opportunity to run the first game for my nephews with my brother (an accomplished gamer) along for the ride. So how did I set it up to try to encourage a good time?
1. Don’t raise the bar too high: We can all remember a magical gaming session when we were learning and everything was just amazing. Too much pressure. Just have fun with it.
2. Set them up for Success: Create player characters who have strong capabilities or allow them to start character generation with enough experience that they’re good at what they can do and they don’t easily run out of options in combat.
3. Use Your Second String Monsters: Don’t expect newbies to bring an “A” game to your table. Err on the side of weaker, more numerous monsters that they can mow through without a high chance of getting killed themselves. Don’t make it a complete cake walk, but you want them to feel successful.
4. Game What They Know: Not many kids these days have read Lord of the Rings. Sure they may have seen the movie versions but the point is that their literary references aren’t the same as when we were starting out. Find out what genres they do enjoy, what movies they think were great adventures. For my nephews, they were most enthused about a pirates game akin to Pirates of the Caribbean. I picked up a one-sheet adventure from Pinnacle’s Savage Worlds website and went from there.
5. Use Your Bag of Tricks: Every GM has areas of their game that they do very well in and other areas that aren’t quite as strong. I like to make hand-drawn maps, use evocative music at the gaming table, paint miniatures, and bring extra effort to the description of things. So I drew out the haunted island and painted up pirates and skeleton figurines the week before the game. (Both got compliments from the boys). Queuing up the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean on my laptop was a no-brainer. Finally, I spent time with the one-sheet adventure that I ran (Dead Men Tell No Tales) to add some extra details.
6. Keep Things Rules Lite: Even the most eager newbie can get rules-overload. Focus on the basics: combat resolution (How do I kill things?), skill resolution (How do I do things?), characteristics (What kind of person am I?), and equipment/weapons/riches (What do I have?).
7. Use a Simpler Game: I’m a convert to Savage Worlds for about the past three years. It really is Fast, Fun, and Furious as a game. I felt it was a decent system to start with. If you use an overly complex system, players can get overwhelmed before they get to have fun.
That’s about it. Not everyone who plays will stick with it, but even if you just have fun for one night, hey, that’s a night of fun, right?
October 26th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Character #5 of my Savage World takes on the Serenity crew. The man with the book and the past of secrets.
(These are free of charge (M*tant En*my please don’t sue) and using the Fan version of the Savage Worlds license. You will need the Savage Worlds rule book to use the characters (and hey, they have an awesome new deluxe edition out new this summer!))
Here’s Book: Shepherd Book
October 12th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Character #4 of my Savage World takes on the Serenity crew. Say hello to the leaf on the wind!
(These are free of charge (M*tant En*my please don’t sue) and using the Fan version of the Savage Worlds license. You will need the Savage Worlds rule book to use the characters (and hey, they have an awesome new deluxe edition out new this summer!))
Here’s Wash: Hoban Washburne
September 27th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Character #3 of my Savage World takes on the Serenity crew. Say hello to the Hero of Canton!
(These are free of charge (M*tant En*my please don’t sue) and using the Fan version of the Savage Worlds license. You will need the Savage Worlds rule book to use the characters (and hey, they have an awesome new deluxe edition out new this summer!))
Here’s Jayne! Jayne Cobb
September 13th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Here’s the next Savaged Serenity Character, our favorite first mate: Zoe Washburne.
(These are free of charge (M*tant En*my please don’t sue) and using the Fan version of the Savage Worlds license. You will need the Savage Worlds rule book to use the characters (and hey, they have an awesome new deluxe edition out new this summer!))
So here’s Zoe: Zoe Washburne.
September 5th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
After purchasing Christopher Davidson’s “Let’s Paint! Vol. 01 – Lucius Panderwagon” a couple years ago at Origins, I finally sat down to give the two DVD set a good viewing. I thought it was good enough to review and share with my Dragonlaird Gaming friends.
Overall, I liked the DVDs a lot. Christopher has an easy tone and his off-hand references to Bob Ross seem perfectly in character. He covers a lot of important techniques in the course of painting Reaper Miniatures awkwardly-named Lucius Panderwagon figurine: dry-brushing, painting eyes, blending highlights, painting metallic objects without metallic paints, rich basing, painting wood, painting clothes with many, many layered highlights. It answered a lot of questions I had on how certain techniques were achieved. I would certainly say that the photo of the finished miniature used for the DVD cover does the actual results no justice, but photographing miniatures is notoriously difficult.
The entire lesson is 4.5 hours long as he does layered highlights on the robes, the flesh, the sash, the sword. The beard and staff were dry-brushed. His presentation is pretty good although there were some technical oops when the DVD seemed to skip a couple times. Ideally, it would have been nice see how he was handling the brush and paint more explicitly, although there are limits with a single auto-focus camera capturing the action. The techniques certainly come across with repetition. You definitely have to keep your paints watered or his ten+ highlight layers will blob up the details of the miniature.
While I have no plans of becoming a master painter such as Christopher, I do see some techniques I can adopt to “up my game” somewhat without taking 4 hours for a miniature. If you’re serious about improving your miniatures painting techniques, I would highly recommend this as a good place to start.
AG Productions – to get the DVDs.
The Lucius Panderwagon Miniature at Reaper
Final Review Rating: 4.5 Stars (out of 5)