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Greetings

Started by Fragmatic, September 29, 2009, 04:56:00 PM

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Fragmatic

Hello everybody,

I've taken the big step of moving from lurkerdom to actually registering, so I thought I'd say hi. I'm Fragmatic, 23, from Hungary. There aren't many Inquisitor players 'round these parts, so you probably won't see a lot more people from my country on this forum. This also means that I don't get any feedback from outside my gaming group, which makes the Conclave even more important for me.

I'm the GM and organizer of a small but enthusiastic gaming group, numbering somewhere between 5 and 10 people. Many of them have come from freeform roleplaying with no wargaming background, so I'm constantly trying to come up with new ways to make gameplay faster and more intuitive without dumbing down the rules. So far I have been doing this by making and using gaming aids, but any other ideas would be appreciated (apart from switching to another game system :P ). We play with heavily converted 28mm figures, for a variety of reasons.

In addition to Inq28, I also play Classic Battletech, Bureau 13 (an old X-files parody-like RPG) and airsoft, whenever I have the time. I used to play Wh40k as well, way back during the previous edition's time.

So, that's mostly it. I'll be seeing you on the forums.

Hail the God-Emperor!

Kaled

WELCOME TO THE CONCLAVE
:)

Quote from: Fragmatic on September 29, 2009, 04:56:00 PM
So far I have been doing this by making and using gaming aids
Interesting... what sort of gaming aids have you come up with?
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat

Fragmatic

Thanks for the welcome :)

I've whipped up lots of things, from what we call status tokens to rulers which indicate range modifiers so we don't have to look them up in the charts, etc. Right now I'm working on a GM screen. (You could say that I have way too much time on my hands, but actually, I don't. I just tend to wander off when Photoshop-land is just one double click away from work :P )

So, first things first: the tokens. Since there are usually at least 4 of us playing, with 3 characters each, someone often ended up forgetting their character's status (eg.: whether he was standing behind an obstacle or crouched in cover, which arm was bleeding, etc.). At first, we solved this by writing everything on the character sheet, but we just ended up writing a lot and making holes in the sheets with by always erasing and re-writing these 'variables'. That's where the tokens come in: cut 'em out, stick 'em on some cardboard, put the appropriate ones next to your character (or, in some cases, on the character sheet) and you're done. Obviously, you need more of some than others (eg.: several locations can be marked 'bleeding', but you cannot be crouched or taken out of action more than once).

You can download the tokens here:
http://lszy.web.elte.hu/Gaming/tokens.pdf
They may not be the finest pieces of art but they're useful - at least they have saved us a lot of trouble. Feel free to use them and please share your opinions. If you have any suggestions on how these could be improved, please tell me.

I'll share the rest as well if you find these useful.

precinctomega

Quoterulers which indicate range modifiers
That is genius!

R.

Kaled

Quote from: precinctomega on September 29, 2009, 08:58:52 PM
That is genius!
I agree.  I always liked the range bands but they aren't something you can remember and the constant need to look at the reference sheet is annoying.  The counters are pretty good too - might print myself a set sometime...
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat

Fragmatic

#5
Well, thanks :) I'm glad you like the ideas.

I've uploaded the aforementioned range rulers as well:
http://lszy.web.elte.hu/Gaming/range_ruler.pdf
They don't need too much explanation. I'll probably do another version later on, with separate bands on separate ruler strips (the current ones have all of the range bands). They should work even better like that since then all you'd have to do would be to pick up the right one.

Charax

the only gaming aids I've given serious thought to making are Wargear and Mission cards (I miss wargear cards...) but these look like they'd be very useful.
(No longer} The guy with his name at the bottom of the page

Simeon Blackstar

Fragmatic, I'm stealing that range ruler idea immediately.  I can tell you're going to be very popular around here!  ;D

Fragmatic

Quote from: Simeon Blackstar on September 30, 2009, 12:38:57 PM
Fragmatic, I'm stealing that range ruler idea immediately.  I can tell you're going to be very popular around here!  ;D

Excellent :D This place just keeps getting better and better :)

Feel free to steal any of these ideas, or better yet, contact me and join the 'development' :) As stated before, I'm already working on making a new version of the range rulers so if you have something that you'd want to add or change in these, don't hold back!

Quote from: Charax on September 30, 2009, 08:56:01 AM
the only gaming aids I've given serious thought to making are Wargear and Mission cards (I miss wargear cards...) but these look like they'd be very useful.

Wargear and Mission cards? Sounds interesting - what exactly would you include on these?

I'm thinking of using cards as well, mostly for individual game events, for lack of a better word. What I mean is that currently I'm writing a pleasantly paranoid cut-throat style campaign, with players cooperating but each of them having their own agenda and secrets. We haven't had any problems with acting out similar situations in RPGs with our veteran roleplayers, but some members of our Inquisitor group are new to this side of gaming and I want to avoid situations like "I search him just in case he has a digi weapon hidden in his upper right pocket". I'm planning on using small cards as hand-outs with information that the other players shouldn't know about (eg.: for a character who is haunted/going crazy/on the way to daemonic possession, you could write something along the lines of "As the dust settles, an eerie silence falls on your surroundings. Suddenly you hear a child's clear voice calling out your name. You look around but you cannot determine the source and the others don't seem to notice; maybe it was all in your head...") Also, being a GM and having players occasionally roll some dice for nothing and nod to you or just instructing them to "look puzzled" might help in establishing a nice atmosphere of paranoia and uncertainty for the rest of the group :)

BTW, this gaming aid thing has turned out to be more popular than I expected. Maybe we should move this discussion to a dedicated topic so more people could join in. I'm kinda new here and this is sort of a grey area so I'm not sure which section would be appropriate. Since this concerns gameplay mechanics, my first choice would be the Rules section. What do you guys think?

Thanks for all the positive feedback.

MarcoSkoll

I very much believe in random scribbling and dice rolling throughout the game, as well as handing players notes that can be anything from useful mission information to just telling them to roll 3D6 (the results of which may or may not have any importance whatsoever.)

I like the range ruler idea, but it seems wasteful to have the same range categories printed over and over. You could easily do it in the bands of 5 yards (but with notches for each individual yard), which would allow you to print a somewhat narrower ruler.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Fragmatic

You've got a point there; I'll keep that in mind for the next version of the rulers. Thanks for the input.

Gestalt

Welcome, Fragmatic. Cool name 8).
"All things have sprung from nothing and are borne forward to infinity."
                                   Blaise Pascal

Fragmatic

Well...thanks. :) Based on the earlier introductions, using your own name or your nickname in the intro seemed to be a matter of personal preference and 1) as a GM, I don't have a single, permanent character and 2) my original, RL name turned out to be a source of endless confusion at a recent international competition, so I've decided to dig up my nick from the good ol' FPS-playing days.

On another note, I've created a new topic (here: http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=255.0 ) for this gaming aid thing. Trust me, it's worth a look - there's some new stuff I'd like to have your opinions on.