Rab's Geekly Digest

A large part of my interest in the medieval fantasy that can be found in the games I mostly play (WFB, Dragon Rampant, my Averaigne Basic Fantasy/D&D campaign, Knights' Quest and various other dungeon-crawling games) is the combination of folkloric and chivalric legends. In some ways I'm quite Victorian in my enthusiasm for chivalry and its modern incarnations of gentlemanly conduct, while recognising the sometimes restrictive gendering aspects that don't sit well with some. I'm also a big fan of the works of painters such as Burne-Jones and other pre-Raphaelites, with their medievalism. When the two combine, I'm a happy man - and I've discovered a new artist that hits the spot that I wanted to share.

Katharine Cameron, a member of the Glasgow Art School in the late 1890s, worked as a book illustrator (among other things) and for me captures that slightly naive, watercolour/stained glass effect (I'm sure there's a proper artistic term for that). What caught my eye were these illustrations she did for Mary MacGregor's 1907 Stories of King Arthur's Knights that formed part of the Told to the Children series.

Following on from this post...

It turns out that Frank is not just a modelling inspiration for yours truly, but also an open-handedly generous and helpful chap. Within a few daylight hours of me emailing him to ask how much silicon he'd needed for his mammoth project, I'd had two detailed replies and plenty of good advice.

First, it turns out he needed FIFTEEN kilos of silicon just to make the moulds (Side note - mold is the American spelling, mould the British - both are used for the black gunk that grows in damp corners AND the cavity to pour plaster or resin into. Fun fact!). Fifteen! A quick scan of ebay suggested that this would come to about £250. Gulp! Add in Frank's estimate that the resin needed to fill those moulds the requisite number of times (just over 25kg), and that's another £300. Or more. And that's assuming I don't make any mistakes, which is unlikely since it would be my first casting project, and without the cost of making the original masters.


Sigh...

Around about this point in the year (October half term for us teachers), I start thinking about what gaming projects and ambitions I want to set for myself for next year. For painting miniatures, I've got three priorities: more progress on my Chaos project, finish the World's Edge Wyverns bloodbowl team, and crack on with all the space orks I bought over the last month (more on them over the next couple of months as well). BUT, that's not the only part of this hobby that I enjoy, I also like to write and refine rules or scenarios (I'm excited about contributing to Whiskey Priest's dark ages mythology skirmish... thing for example), and increasingly to build terrain.

So, there I was, idly browsing t'internet and pondering future projects, when Frank happened.

Last time we left our heroes deep under the Dragon's Tail mountains, battling their way through the assorted goblinoid gangs and stranger beasts that had made their homes in...

... THE CAVERNS OF CALAMITYYYYY

A long time might have passed in the real world since Sir Reginald was nearly slain by an orc during the retaking of his home, but "in-game" it has merely been a day and a half's hard ride. Unwilling to spend the time circumnavigating the southernmost spur of the Dragon's Tail mountain range, our Heroes elect to take the old mining route under the mountain, directly through...

.... THE CAVERNS OF CALAMITYYYYYYYY

Last time we left our heroes (Sirs CJ and EM) advancing up the stairwell from the store-rooms to the castle proper in the company of the rescued Sir Reginald and three of his retainers. They were expecting trouble, especially given Sir Reginald's tale of the monstrous orc champion with the blue face on his shield, and none of them were in peak condition. [Although we did discover that Sir CJ had been at a bit of a disadvantage as the d8 he kept repurchasing and then promptly losing again had 1-4 twice, rather than 1-8. Oops! So we buffed him back to a d10 in compensation before continuing]


The passageway was dark, but flickering firelight (and plentiful orcish racket) were clear up ahead as our party made their way cautiously forward...

Last time, we left our two heroes (Sirs CJ and EM) bloodied but unbowed after a run in with a troll and his smaller but equally vicious kin in their search for their missing friend, Sir Reginald.

Our soundtrack this time, thanks to a recommendation from fellow  dungeon-crawler Gaz, was some tasty dungeon-synth from Lord Lovidicus

No.

Sir Reginald had been missed at the Midsummer banquet at the King's high court. In fact, his fellow knights realised, no-one had seen him since they had all ridden home after the Christmas court. Concerned that something amiss might have befallen Reginald, Sir CJ and Sir EM decide to investigate, riding to his small but strong castle which they both knew so well from years of friendship. The entrance was barred and no-one answered their call, neither Reginald nor his servants - something was definitely wrong! The two knights pretended to ride away in case anyone or anything was watching, carefully made their way to the postern gate, drew their swords and prepared to adventure on behalf of their friend...

It's here! After months of playing around with formatting, honing the aesthetic and, far more importantly, turning what is now a good couple of years of playtesting into a game that is ready for a wider audience, I'm finally pleased enough with Knights' Quest to release it for a formal playtest.

Since about Christmas I've been tinkering pedantically with phrasing and the like, changing a sentence here, or a word there - lots of time spent for little actual change. What I realised I needed to do was to get it out there and played with by other people, get feedback and make any necessary changes based on that, and get on with illustrating the darn thing.

So, why should you playtest Knights' Quest? What's my "elevator pitch"? Glad you asked...

Knights' Quest is an exciting adventure game for two or more players, set firmly in the world of medieval romances or high medieval fantasy with a strong medieval aesthetic. One player - the Minstrel - runs the adventure, while the other(s) - the Quester(s) - strive to complete the quest which is played out using miniatures, gridded terrain and polydice. Although players with a nostalgia for the adventure boardgames of the 1980s and 90s will find much that resonates with those happy memories, Knights' Quest also has at its core an innovative dice system which models the effects of fatigue and injury, as well as the gaining of experience leading on to character progression between games. Simple enough to be played with your children, challenging enough to be enjoyed by experienced gamers, Knights' Quest really can be for anyone!

If that sounds like it is the game for you (and, frankly, how could it not be?!) then I need your help. I would like to have an initial set of a dozen playtesters who would be willing to:

• play at least two games of Knights' Quest between now and the 31st May 2015
• fill in a simple feedback form and send it back to me
• share any fun you've had playing on your blogs or forums you are members of (linking back to this blog in any posts), but letting me know privately of any problems you've had so I can make the rules clearer and/or better
• not share the files around

The king's enchanter, Marlin, was distraught. He had returned to his chambers in the white tower (safely distant from the great hall so that the unusual aromas from his experiments didn't spoil guests' appetites!) to find them ransacked. Sorting through the mess, he had found that four of his most unusual and powerful potions had been stolen! The only clue was a set of footprints that headed down towards some unused store-rooms under the castle. Bare footprints that weren't quite human...

Check out the newly painted black board we're playing on - it made the tiles 'pop' for us while playing. Ten minutes well spent!

After nearly a week of half term I'd become human enough again to want to game with my boys. Even better, the request came from them! What large, lizardlike flying creature could be responsible for the recent spate of agricultural arson and princess-napping? Time to send in the knights...

Each boy took a knight and a retainer with crossbow, and I ran a wizard with three spells (Bless, Distract and Fireball) as the fifth party member. This was to give them the chance to get in a terrible tangle, to check that the order of Actions was correct, and to further test the Magic rules.

It wasn't long before the party of heroes encountered some goblinoids of various sizes that were in thrall to the dragon, and the Fireball proved its worth...


The dice by the crossbowman shows he needs to reload.

Not wanting to be left out, the two knights shouldered their way past their fellows and soon sliced and diced the remaining baddies into less combat effective sized chunks. This was to prove characteristic, by the way; their dice rolling was verging on statistically impossible!

After a quick check that everyone was okay, the party surveyed the room they were in. Two pillars held up the roof, making it difficult to keep an eye on the comrades of the slaughtered monsters as they rushed to take their revenge...


This was what I was interested in from a game mechanics perspective - a bit of tactical thinking required. As it turns out, the two little 'uns (Gawd bless 'em) had the idea of line of sight, fields of fire and the like immediately - more high rolling soon left the orcs as little more than arrow-filled and charred corpses, with the survivors minced by the two tanks. Did I mention their dice rolling? Sheesh!

The two knights had been racking up Hero Points (HP) from their slaying and had so far avoided even the lightest injury. The closest they'd come to harm was during one fight when EM had drawn a round but only thanks to a fortuitous Blessing boost to his score.

Would the dragon fare any better and burn up this crew who were metaphorically on fire?


An early blast of flame from the beast left Sir CJ a little scorched, but the rest of his band weren't far behind. Despite the dragon's Huge size and Toughness, there's little a monster can do against a minimum roll of 17 over eight consecutive dice rolls. Sad times for the big fellow...


... but medals and promotions all round for the heroes who had done the storybook double - slain the dragon and rescued the princess. Only the wizard was weakened by his exertions; the two knights had plenty of HP to spend. Both replaced their destroyed shields, Sir CJ acquired the Charge skill and Sir EM got two: Grapple and Parry. They were both delighted with their advances, with EM telling me he hoped there would be a bridge in our next game so he could Grapple his foes and throw them off the bridge into the water. Godd idea, kiddo!

Note to self - send more monsters!

Rab

Like it says in the title, here are a couple of pages from the Knights' Quest rulebook. I have endeavoured to strike the right balance between a strong medieval, illuminated manuscript theme, and modern readability. Do let me know if you think I've got it right!



Obviously page references for later in the rules aren't finalised yet and will depend on how I finalise arrangement of example diagrams for Combat and Shooting, and the image has been resized to be slightly shorter and wider than it really is, giving it a squatter feel than it really has, but you get the idea.

The page size is 189mm by 246mm (crown quarto) and the font is P22 Morris Troy, a digital version of that used by William Morris when printing some of his beautiful faux-medieval books like the Kelmscott Chaucer during the 1890s. The illuminations are digitally hand drawn using a Ugee M708 graphics tablet, and the rougher font used in the title is a slightly tweaked version of Worn Manuscript Rough.

Feedback always welcome,

Rab

...that has such miniatures in't?" as my old mate Bill Shakespeare would have said if he'd had time to be a gamer as well as a literary genius.

Actually, before I start, happy new year to one and all, may it be filled with good health for you, your family and friends.

And back to the geeking. It's been a couple of weeks since I posted, and a couple of months since I painted. Staff changes at work have led to me having more direct demands on my time, as well as in supporting inexperienced colleagues who are trying valiantly to fill the shoes of an excellent colleague who has gone on to pastures new. But I have not been geek-free, my friends, oh no! I have been making very satisfying progress with Knights' Quest, particularly with regard to tweaking wording and illustrating/laying out the rules. I got a fab graphics tablet for Christmas and have been learning its ways. More on that in a future post because, apart from card art, it's so close to being finished I can practically smell it!


Having failed to get my act together for the Oldhammer Legacy Warband challenge, even with an extended deadline (the shame!), I've signed up for the Resurrection Challenge over on LAF to expiate my guilt and will be completing the arena for 54mm gladiator gaming that I started waaaaay back in 2013, as well as a couple of pairs of gladiators.



Anything else? Well, there are plenty of bits I'd like to sort out.

I want to finish my giant:


I want to finish a few more orcs to use both as dungeon fillers and a little warband for Erny's Warband rules for a sort of Realms of Chaos path to greatness but for greenskins. They can also then bolster the ranks of my Bad Guys mob - chaos warriors, beastmen, orcs, goblins, skeletons, couple of sorcerers - for small games to bring my boys into the welcoming arms of Younghammer.

I'm going to declutter a bit as well and have already started making a pile of unwise purchases that will soon be available to having new homes.

I reckon that's achievable - one priority project, one pledge, and some things I would get immediate use from.

I plan to check back on this in a year to see how I get on.

TTFN,
Rab

A great write up of Knights' Quest from the blog of veteran blogger and prolific painter, Hetaroi, can be found here.

I'm starting to realise why designers and artists can (and should!) command a living from their skills. I really want Knights' Quest to both be completely my own creation (feedback always welcome, but I think you know what I mean), and to look good with a consistent design ethic. "I have a vision" and all that. Reconciling these two desires is proving a lot more time consuming than I thought. A lot more!

So, to keep me in the right direction I've been scavenging ideas from pinterest, increasingly esoteric Google image searches, and even looking at things in books! An almost subversively niche activity it would seem from the looks I get when I suggest reading for pleasure to some of my students. Anyway, here's the current bedside table pile. I've not (yet!) bought any reference books to help me in this project, but I do have a bestiary on my Christmas list...


The Osmiroid title on the top is proving the most useful today, containing loads of great advice and techniques for illuminating letters.

What are you reading?

Rab

The great thing about sharing my nearly-ready "art" with you lot is that I get really useful and rapid feedback, both here and on the FB page I've set up for Knights' Quest, and so here are a couple of what I hope you will think are improvements. Firstly, I've taken DonsSword's advice and replaced the pentagon with a hexagon - good call! A definite improvement in old-school cool. Second, JB (he of the missing ass) suggested that more contrast was needed between the parchment and the border, so I've tried one with simply a wider border, and one with a black bleed fill to the edge of the card.

Which do you prefer?

Card A:


Card B:


Pop your preference in the comment section below, if you'd be so kind.

Rab

A whole week since posting? Madness! Well, that's working in a school for you...

Still, I got a chance to finish a version of the Character Cards for Knight's Quest that I'm please with. Character name at the top and Combat Track down the right hand edge both remain the same. I've removed the descriptive text to allow a larger character image, removed the Maximum label above the top dice circle, changed the coin image surrounding the character value to a hand sketched version, and put the movement value into a pentagon (I like the shape!) so that I could remove the "Move" label and still differentiate it from the combat track. I have had an idea about representing it with a spoked wheel, with the number of shaded spoke sections representing the move allowance, but that might be (a) difficult, and (b) not immediately obvious to read. It's scaled to print out at the same size as CCG cards (Magic: The Gathering and so forth) and I snapped up a set of 100 card protectors for £1.20 delivered to give it the full prototype treatment.

First of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to give such positive and constructive feedback on my last post about art. A combination of stylistic commentary, practical "which button to press" guidance, and a little while fiddling around with the graphics tablet I've borrowed from work means I have an updated coloured version, now with 50% less colour. Less is more and all that...

From my own experience, and from reading around places like BoardGame Geek, one of the charges levelled against less highly-regarded games is that they don't implement their theme consistently. Whether it's modern slang in a game about the Ancient Greeks, or art nouveau illustrations in a game set in the Napoleonic era, these things break the immersion and therefore reduce the enjoyability of the whole gaming experience.

Blueholme looks like a great set of rules, btw, have a look at their G+ pages

Not much hobby output from myself at the moment - a combination of heavy workload and putting my time into whipping Knights' Quest into shape - so I'm handing over this post to promoting the sort of thing I'd be doing if I could sculpt; a slightly fantastical C14th England, complete with the sort of monsters found in the margins of medieval manuscripts. Sound familiar? Yup, it has exactly the vibe I'm going for in Knights' Quest and I can see these figures being perfect for it, as well as for the skirmish game that Michael Lovejoy (the sculptor - I think he's half of the team behind Oathsworn Miniatures) is working on.

Some of the greens: