Mapping the Redbrand Hideout Area 1 and 2 part 1

I thought my first Article would have been a review but the only thing I can review at the moment would be the 5E starter set adventure and its been how many months since its release and I'm pretty sure there are tons of reviews and play reports piled up all over the internet. However what I haven't seen are 3d mapping tips so I'll be posting a series of short part by part posts on making my own.

I've been inspired by terrain building videos and channels on yYouTubechannels mainly The GM's Craft, The DMinfo and this particular video by Epicfantasy

So lets begin. Chose Area 1 since its one of the likely entrances my players would enter first aside from area 8; but area 8 requires more work since its more of a natural cavern than a ruin type.

First get some tools; card board is easier to work with but this time i chose Styrofoam packaging mainly because it was easier to get(got it free at the office right before our IT guy nearly threw them out after opening new monitors.).

Like every map making video step 1 is draw your grid or planned grid. Area 1 is about 8 squares wide by 6 squares long; however its odd shape lets you chop it off into 2 3x6 pieces and a single 2x4 piece. And area 2 is a simple 3x4 room with a 1 tile extension for the entryway.

forgot to take a picture of the 2x4

Seen above are the various segments and the final layout of areas 1 and 2  I couldn't take a photo of making the stairway mezzanine and upper level of the entryway mainly because I'm not sure how well it would look once painted mainly because it was my first time making stairs and upper levels.

I wanted to paint these immediately but i realized i had a few things missing from my modeling and painting kits mainly because this was a spur of the moment decision seeing as I just had a holiday(thanks pope!).

My first problem was priming. I  did have a matte black spray paint but im unsure of how spray paint interacts with polystyrene and I'm afraid there's a chance the paint might melt it off, I could have tested it on a scrap piece but looking out side the weather suddenly turned cloudy and from my experiences in painting war-gaming miniatures cloudy days are bad for priming. And aside from my ancient GW Chaos Black pot I probably don't have enough plain black acrylic paint to cover most of the pieces.

Second problem was since I've been painting mostly Dwarfs, Spacemarines and Soviets(dust and bolt action) I dont have a collection of gray paints to paint the stone tiles and walls of the dungeons so even if I did manage to prime them I'd have ended up with several black pieces of styro.

However I now have 4 interchangeable and likely reusable tile pieces which is nice.

Ill be back by sunday for part 1.5 and 2 of this series; stay tuned or as the japanese say it つづく!

The Wandering Begins

An old photo of my everexpanding RPG collection

Hi, I'm you're friendly wandering Dungeon Master Gino, I'm starting this blog due to being inspired by a couple of fellow Filipino Table Top gamers such as Astigisms! and Philgamer. This blog is mainly to express my own experiences, thoughts, opinions and some of my own DM tips and tricks.

 Who Am I? Brace yourselves because this is going to be long.

I'm a relatively a "young" DM in comparison to other DM's as I only started my table top experience sometime around my 2nd year of college which is approximately around 5 years more or less ago. I was one of those kids that learned of D&D and TTRPG in general due to pop culture references and viewd D&D as a thing of wonder one of those things that no one of my generation(that I knew of) ever played; that also means I missed playing the game from its inception(I wasnt even born yet for 1st edition) and what they call the golden age of RPGs during the 70's to early 90's.

The farthest I can remember on hearing about dungeons and dragons for the first time was with an episode of Dexter's Laboratory and that was way back in 1996/7 and i was like 6 or 7 years old. That was when I first wanted to find out what they were playing; sadly I never found out where to buy or play D&D then which led me to a life of computer games. Being part of the playstation generation I filled my hunger for RPG's with the classic JRPG's like the Final Fantasy Series, Breath of Fire and my Top 1 JRPG ever Suikoden II, I was satisfied playing these games until a friend and his older brother needed to test out Neverwinter Nights on our old windows 98 pc since they'res was broken and BAM! my first " D&D experience".

With Neverwinter I was hooked to the choice based roleplaying it gave me; no longer was i playing within a script I now had full control of my character and had to come to grips with my ingame decisions. NWN1 hooked me into more western RPG's (aside from Diablo) and its expansive choice system and so I searched for more games like it such as, Temple of Elemental Evil, NWN's sequel NWN2, Star Wars KotoR(sadly it was too late for me to experience Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 and Icewind Dale), even to MMORPG's starting with Ragnarok.

Many years later the un-fillable void which i tried to fill with video games became reachable with D&D 4E with Keep on the Shadowfell. At that time I knew I wouldn't find a DM nearby and so I took it upon myself to take the crown. I called forth my buddies and thus began my first foray into Table Top RPG's

In the short span of 5 or so years I deeply immersed myself into reading and experiencing various tabletop RPG's  as if I was making up for the past  years I never got to. Ive read, and ran various games starting with D&D4E, then Pathfinder to D&D3.5 even A Song of Ice and Fire RPG to non Fantasy games like Warhammer 40k Death Watch and Only War to FFG's new Starwars Edge of the Empire and the next thing to run/play on my list is Monte Cook's Numernera.

Thats it for my long winded mini RPG biography.

Aside from that I'm also an Illustrator(check out my galleries at pheartheham.deviantart.com or drawcrowd.com/ginocobarrubias) and avid gamer.

Oh and Honestly I have no idea what to post for my next articles and I'm very open to suggestions :D for now I'll probably do a review of D&D 5E or a Session Log for my Roll20 group.

Quick shout ot to Tagsessions!, Post52Dust formerly known as Makati Underground(not the R18 related thing), and now recently Raymz Games and Variable Play