Rodinia III - The Scourge of Larin Karr

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:10 pm

Hi,

I'm about to start the third campaign in my homebrew world, the World of Rodinia. Rodinia III is going to be run using MapTool and InitTool in place of DMGenie and Fractal Mapper. I'll be posting my usual campaign blog on my web page and will post observations about how the RPTools have fared and any issues I've had here.

To start with here's a few links:-

1. A Gazetteer to The World of Rodinia - my homebrew world.
2. A Gazetteer to The Island of Manabas - location of the Rodinia III campaign in the world.
3. Web pages specifically for the Rodinia III campaign.

Cheers
Blakey

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:52 am

http://www.rodinia.info/whatsnew.htm

Lots of updates as a result of the first session of the campaign! Follow the above link to read the session notes and see updated maps and descriptions and NPC rosters.

Post by **trevor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:01 am

That was a fun read, I particularly like the area map. Did you use the textured freehand tool for the roads and river ?

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:33 am

trevor wrote:That was a fun read, I particularly like the area map. Did you use the textured freehand tool for the roads and river ?

Yup!

What is a shame you can't see up close is the map of Endhome (the city). That was created entirely in MapTool at the tactical level (1 square = 5') and looks awesome. The players really loved the level of detail and the ability to zoom in and out. One remaked it was like Google Maps which I thought was a great compliment to MT.

The only downside I had to this map was that at 17Mb is size it takes an age (3 minutes I guess) to load up. So flicking from that city map to the map of the sewers or an inn is not something you do lightly as it takes so long to load the city map back up again. To that end it might prove less useful than I first imagined.

MapTool hasn't been tested fully yet as they've not explored anywhere that I had LBL going - it was used for the odd random encounter on the roads and for tavern maps and the like. Am looking forward to how they receive it when the full glory of vision is shown to them in the first dungeon they enter.

Init Tool wasn't used as they skipped the only possible encounter they might have had by not stopping for lunch in the wood where the orcs were hiding.

Post by **trevor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:46 am

Blakey wrote: The only downside I had to this map was that at 17Mb is size it takes an age (3 minutes I guess) to load up. So flicking from that city map to the map of the sewers or an inn is not something you do lightly as it takes so long to load the city map back up again.

Do you have the two maps in two different campaigns ? Or does it take three minutes to switch between maps in the same campaign ?

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 11:11 am

trevor wrote:Do you have the two maps in two different campaigns ? Or does it take three minutes to switch between maps in the same campaign ?

Sorry, wasn't clear on that one. The city map is in its own campaign. To facilitate easier loading of maps for editting purposes I stuck virtually every map into its own campaign now. That's not so helpful when you want to switch between maps and they are this big of course.

I think I'd like to take all the maps for Inns and other places in the city and add them to the City Map campaign file, but of course there is no way to do that yet....

Post by **trevor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 11:41 am

Blakey wrote: I think I'd like to take all the maps for Inns and other places in the city and add them to the City Map campaign file, but of course there is no way to do that yet....

yet

Also the new file format we've got planned will significantly improve load times

Post by **dorpond** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:50 pm

Is that Endhome map made in Maptool with stamps? If so, I would love to see how well it runs.

Perhaps you could post the campaign or host a session so Trevor and I can take a peek?

Fantastic stuff!

Post by **trevor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:07 pm

Wow, I missed that one. For reference, here is the direct link (I hope you don't mind blakey)

http://www.rodinia.info/Manabas/endhome.jpg

How long did it take to make it ? I'd love to connect to it sometime and explore.

Post by **trevor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:09 pm

For context, the image looks small, but it's significantly zoomed out.

Blakey, how close in does 1:1 scale go ?

voodoo · Post by **voodoo** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:26 pm

Blakey wrote:http://www.rodinia.info/whatsnew.htm

Lots of updates as a result of the first session of the campaign! Follow the above link to read the session notes and see updated maps and descriptions and NPC rosters.

Great campaign and an inspiration to us all.
One remark though. Grey print on white background is not the easiest color on the eye. I have to squint to read all your interesting stuff (and long lines don't make it any easier).
I think it would be a great idea to add pictures, portraits... nothing fixes players' memories like a portrait (otherwise, some of my player get mixed up once I give them three different names for NPCs...)

Great stuff otherwise

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:42 pm

Endhome map is done on standard MT scale (40 pixels to 1 square/5 foot). So it really is huge. The city is lacking detail in a lot of areas. There are hardly any trees in the city and all the buildings are just stamped down with no nice touches really.

I ave added LBL to the city walls and to all the buildings in the slums (this is a potential adventure location so worth it) and some of the other buildings.

All the significant buildings of note have been renamed meaning they are easily findable using the Token Tree.

This campaign file is already available for download from my web page:

http://www.rodinia.info/Downloads/

Let me know what you think. Oh, and if you feel like improving it, feel free!!!!!!!!

Blakey

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:49 pm

voodoo wrote: Great campaign and an inspiration to us all.
One remark though. Grey print on white background is not the easiest color on the eye. I have to squint to read all your interesting stuff (and long lines don't make it any easier).

Yeah, fair point. Fortunately the entire web page is styled off one style sheet so I can literally change the entire look and feel of it by changing a couple of numbers in one page. Deffo a bonus to writing your own pages by hand!

I might look into a bit of a revamp to the colour scheme. Watch this space. (well www.rodinia.info actually!).

voodoo wrote: I think it would be a great idea to add pictures, portraits... nothing fixes players' memories like a portrait (otherwise, some of my player get mixed up once I give them three different names for NPCs...)

Great stuff otherwise

I know what you mean about confusion of names. To put it into perspective each character has his own web page where you can see a picture (usually the mini he is using). This can be found here: http://www.rodinia.info/Rodinia3/characters.htm

And every NPC of significance I use in the campaign I put out a miniature for (even when there's no battlemap picture to put it on) so they come to associate figures with NPCs. That works really well (try it sometime).

So the players are generally good at remembering who each NPC is...

Cheers for reading!
Blakey

Post by **trevor** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:50 pm

That's awesome blakey !

I encourage people to download the campaign and see for yourself just how big this map is

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:53 pm

Thanks - it's taken a lot of work but I feel its still a work in progress really.

If (when) you improve file loading times and allow importing of other maps I'll be sticking my other Endhome maps (inns, sewer system, temples and so on) into the same file. For now they are staying separate!