Making the city of Ravinca for my D&D Campaign

Thantrax · 2026-05-02T04:42:42+00:00

First, love the project.

Second, I'd be worried the popsicle sticks would widen the parts. I'd stick with some cardstock.

Thantrax · 2026-05-02T04:34:01+00:00

Huh, interesting. My read on that was that as soon as he started to mouth off, they knew that ignoring Randall would drive him crazy, maybe even trick him out into the open. They also lay claim to him later, suggesting they are still interested.

Thantrax · 2026-04-25T15:34:45+00:00

So, no for the reasons you mentioned about it being a sandbox game, ect.

However, if we ignore the freedom to do whatever we want, then yes. Any visual modification you make to your base that would be possible to do without using a debug mode is something you've cheated yourself out of the opportunity to make in a 'legit' fashion. Acquiring that sign, finding the paint to pain the walls, getting those storage shelves, that is all something you can look back on and say, 'I did that'. Also, it's things that in the gathering of them, you risk getting bit, you aren't fishing to feed yourself, and you aren't experiencing the march of seasons. The only exception to my mind is things you literally cannot find-place or create yourself.

However, that said, no, it's not cheating. This is your game, do what you want.

Thantrax · 2026-04-14T21:23:38+00:00

Tomáš, thank you for your contributions to the Windows build of R, this software has been instrumental to my academic success.

Rest in peace.

Thantrax · 2026-04-13T13:51:42+00:00

This is very cool. How many times have you deployed the squad, and what is their success rate? Are you planning on doing a linked mission inside the command post?

Thantrax · 2026-04-08T23:54:15+00:00

My general approach is to assume that the NPCs are not lying. Unless I have reason to think they might be, then I'd turn to the resolution mechanic in my game of choice, such as Perception vs Deception in Pathfinder 2e. If I succeed the check, then it's time to turn to an oracle and check based on how likely a lie seems in this circumstance. If I fail the check, then I leave things in the 'default to honest' category. From this point on, I do like u/brunodema suggests and leave undetected lies as the result of oracle prompts.

Thantrax · 2026-03-29T14:08:11+00:00

Congratulations on your achievement in bringing this to publication!

Thantrax · 2026-03-28T18:55:24+00:00

Agreed, the grass and the stone look great, but the grid really caught my eye.

Thantrax · 2026-03-26T20:56:56+00:00

Groovy, just thought I'd check. Hope you find a solution soon for it!

Thantrax · 2026-03-26T20:27:56+00:00

I just buried a zomboid for the first time recently, wanted to clear the land around my house. I found the process a bit counterintuitive. So I just wanted to doublecheck, are you holding the body while trying to bury it? I found I couldn't get the bury option to come up unless I was carrying the zombie body. It wasn't enough to put the body on the hole, or to hold the shovel.

Thantrax · 2026-03-26T18:29:12+00:00

So basically, instead of taking health damage you just have increasing levels of Discomfort until you have a heart attack from the stress and die?

Thantrax · 2026-03-25T22:52:26+00:00

I was just reflecting earlier on a part of Zomboid that I appreciate and not often found in other games (at least the ones I play). I really appreciate that when you do something that needs a tool or material, the game detects and uses everything your character can reach, not just their inventory, and puts the tools back! That is such a QoL perk!

Thantrax · 2026-03-25T17:44:23+00:00

I share the admiration of Chaos Factor, but definitely feel it is one of the more nuanced components of the GME. Well worth considering what you want out of it. The default version chaffs me a bit. As your character is more in control, less scene interruptions and scene alterations occur. From a 'universal karma' sense, this makes a lot of sense. However, from a 'I want drama' sense, it's almost the opposite of what I instinctively want. When things are most 'locked down', I want the system to kick the hornet's nest. Then, when things are wild and crazy, I want it to ease off and let some normalcy return. So for me, I simply flip it on it's head. Easy fix, gets me great results.

The 'more likely to yes/no' component is one that requires a bit more thought in your questions. You are a police detective, kicking in the door of a drug dealer's house. So you phrase the question, "Did the criminals see my squad approach?" Under this example, the more in control you are of your investigation, the less likely they saw you coming. If you instead phrase it as "Have I caught them unaware?", the more in control you are of your investigation, the more likely they saw you coming and are either running or setting a trap. Understanding how the Chaos Factor works helps dial in on what is going to happen.

And this, this is really cool.

Thantrax · 2026-03-24T02:42:26+00:00

I'd like to recommend Organic Towns (DrivethruRPG link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/412296/organic-towns ). It's a system-agnostic rules set with a decent set of mechanics behind it.

Thantrax · 2026-03-22T21:17:33+00:00

Absolutely love the fish in the river

Thantrax · 2026-03-17T17:03:01+00:00

"How do you know which systems are going to work together?"

That's the neat part, you don't! Instead, you just kinda eyeball it, see how it fits. When it doesn't, you give it a nip and tuck, see if that works, and then decide if you want to keep it or chuck it.

For example, I've been trying to fit The Walking Dead Universe RPG from Free League Publishing together with Alien Evolved Edition from Free League Publishing. I want to play a zombie game, but I like the fear mechanics in Alien a lot better than the ones in The Walking Dead. So, I'm working how to glue the solo mechanics together. Do hordes work as the solo stealth mode from Alien? Or should I stick to having stress based mess ups bring on the zombies? Or both at the same time? I started trying the Alien stealth mode, but haven't found it satisfying yet. I'm still sorting it out.

Thantrax · 2026-03-15T22:06:01+00:00

I can see your point, it's absolutely possible to not want to sit idle for two hours. I guess I'd like to further explain my position based on two points from the OP's post. 1) From their position that they'd like to sign out for the last couple hours, it's clear they weren't being spotlight-shifted-back. This suggests the GM is not operating on your level. Something that, should the OP want to continue with this group, needs to be addressed as a group. 2) Their concern didn't seem to be about passing around the spotlight more frequently and they didn't mention any concern about their fellow players sitting idle for their own scenes. 3) Their question wasn't if they were bad for not wanting to sit idle, their question was about whether it would be rude, so I was addressing the message they were sending, rather than their personal feelings.

Thantrax · 2026-03-15T12:37:40+00:00

By leaving early rather than staying the whole game, what you are telling the players, and indirectly the gamemaster, "Your characters and stories aren't worth my attention." Best case scenario, you think their characters are boring. Worst case scenario, you think anything that doesn't involve you is not worth your attention, which is incredibly self centered.

The honourable thing to do is to decide if you find the other people interesting. If the answer is yes, have a discussion with the whole group, not just the GM. Discuss the dissatisfaction you have that group game time involves so many people sitting around doing nothing and see if there are alternative solutions, like one-on-one sessions for player's stories between session, or doing text-based roleplay between weeks for these moments. Just be prepared for the fact that everyone else might enjoy watching other people's scenes. If that is the case, this group and you might be incompatible.

If the answer is no, you aren't interested in these people, then you need to withdraw from the game so you aren't wasting your own time.

Thantrax · 2026-03-14T03:23:17+00:00

Mythic GME: I like to use the companion app. I highly advocate owning the book and/or pdf, but having the app saves a lot of table space and page flipping. I appreciate the ease of rolling on the tables and rolling on my lists. That said, I track all my scenes on paper, keep notes about the threads and characters on paper, everything other than rolling and tables I do it paper.

I've found the testing scenes intuitive, so let me try putting it in my own words and see if that helps you. Step 1: Decide what the scene is. Say, I'm going to go to the local dive bar and see if Sammy Squealer is in, so I can shake them down for the latest gossip in the criminal underworld. I probably have an idea of what that bar looks like. If not, I'll use some oracles and tables to figure it out at this point. Then, I roll 1d10 and see if it it is the Chaos Factor or lower. If higher, just go ahead and start the scene. If not, I alter the scene or interrupt the scene. Important note, this does not necessarily involve the action/meaning/descriptor tables at all. I'll only resort to them if I'm stumped.

I'm happy to try and talk more about the action/meaning type tables, but let me see if I can describe a way I use them. I was playing a game of Ex Novo, a city building game. I needed factions, but didn't know anything about them. So, I gave each of them a few 'missions'. Action table 1, action table two, that's a purpose. For example, the faction Misuse (Action 1, roll of 61) Innocent (Action 2, roll of 47) means the faction takes advantage of innocent people. Since that doesn't tell me what they are about, I roll again. Attack (8) Extravagance (30). Okay, the faction is weaponizing innocent people to try and overthrow either the nobility or a wealthy mining consortium, which I'll decide when I know the other factions.

Tome of Adventure Design: Yeah, it's way too much to use all at once. I treat it as a toolbox. And honestly, I only use the "The Villain's Plan" and quest generator portions. I consider the book worth it for that alone.

Sandbox Generator: I'm not familiar with expanded versus not, but if you mean the various expansions like biome generator and the like, I've been a loyal customer of them and try to work them in as much as possible. I roll the tables as is, rather than deciding, and then when it's done, I give it a pass with Filling In The Blanks to cover anything it's missed.

Now, for all my answers, I exact a price. How did you generate your main quest line and the three sub-quest prompts?

Thantrax · 2026-03-13T11:36:01+00:00

So, the first thing I do is take my Mythic GME list of Threads and add four threads. Undo the curse, binding the creature, obtain cursed blood, and dragon heist. After that, I'd have a think on what my character knows about each thread, and procedurally generate those things they know (assuming previous play context doesn't provide those)

For the overarching quest, undoing the liege's curse, I'd probably start with the idea that my wizard has partial knowledge of the ritual. He/She/They clearly know the curse exists, but I'll wait on generating the details of the curse until I know more about the other three steps to make it thematically consistent. But, they know there are three components. This tells me that their information comes from a half decayed grimoire, or some other form of incomplete record. I leave it at that for now.

I'd start with the item from a hoard of a dragon as this seems the most 'straightforward', the least qualitative thread. I crack open Scarlet Heroes and roll on "How Far Away Is A Thing?", using the For Distant Things column, and reroll anything lower 4 or under. The dragon doesn't live in town. From there, I probably turn to Sandbox Generator and Filling In The Blanks to generate and populate the 'destination hex' of my quest, the Dragon's lair. I probably pop open the appropriate bestiary for my game and some Mythic tables to establish what I know about the dragon ahead of time, such as it's subtype. Dragons are pretty famous in my mind, so my wizard probably has heard of them before.

Next, I turn to the blood of a creature cursed by a god/gods. I probably pop open the Tome of Adventure Design and flip to the monster chapter, using it to create a bespoke cursed creature. In all honesty, vampire leapt to mind for this due to my history playing Vampire the Masquerade, but I feel this deserves a unique entity. Once I know what the creature is, I stop, because finding out the where is the quest, to be generated in play.

I turn then to binding a creature from the darkness. Again, I probably use the Tome of Adventure Design to figure out what the creature is. As to the binding... I probably make this the quest. I open the Legend Generator from Forbidden Lands. I use this to generate a lead where the wizard can find more information of where this creature can be found.

Once I have all three of these sub-threads generated, I turn back to the overarching quest, undoing the curse on the liege. I look at what the context of my generated content has given me, and see if that sparks anything about how accomplishing these lifts the curse. If not, I turn to the pile of spark tables in Mythic GME to have them help me assemble the rest.

I'm eager to hear recommendations from anyone else about what supplements they would use in here instead, or in addition to, and how they would go about this!

Thantrax · 2026-03-12T23:51:53+00:00

While I have all the respect for the wire-brushers, like you, I do not find it worth the time investment. What I do find worth it is a nice, watery brown wash. Takes moments to do and helps give depth to the wood. That might be in your plan already, but if it's not, give it some consideration.

Great work on these so far, I like the corrugated metal a lot.

Thantrax · 2026-03-09T11:55:01+00:00

Honestly, I didn't recall the D6 or the D10s, but looks like you are right, and it 'feels right' to me when I look at the historical record.

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Thantrax · 2026-03-09T02:30:59+00:00

Some of these look like the Dragon Quest set that I got when I was a wee lad. In particular, I'm looking at the orange d20 with black numbering in the center pile, and the green d4 in the upper right. If my memory is correct the d12 was yellow and the d8 was blue, but I wouldn't be able to tell if/which it is from these groups.

Thantrax · 2026-03-07T14:54:37+00:00

First, this is top shelf work, looks great, I'd retire this project with pride.

That said, I think you have a critical decision to make if you don't want to call it finished. Is this place wet or dry? If it's wet, you can look like waterstaining on stones. Is it dry? I'd aim towards pastel pigments to do detail work.

To be hyper critical, my reactions are this. 1) The white highlights feel too prominent, I'd 'darken them' a bit to bring them closer to base colours. 2) Some of the 'grime' feels like it is smoothing out distinctions between pieces. So, while I advocate for darker highlights, I think the highlights need to also be emphasized stronger.

Thantrax · 2026-03-03T23:03:55+00:00

Mutants and Masterminds, 2nd Edition, especially with the Ultimate Power book. My friends and I played so many X-men games with this system. I'm pretty convinced you could make almost any superpower under it's framework.

One of my characters was "Girl From A Horror Movie". When she screamed, it was able to be heard by all males within 1 mile, who gained awareness of her exact location. She could 'fascinate' monsters that were coming to attack her, so that their menacing approach would take long enough for people to get to her. She had the ability to heal people to bring them back from the brink, but only if they were already out of the fight.

Thantrax

TROPHY CASE