hammer570

Q30A: Not sure this is what you had in mind with "gathering/event", but.... Expert Infantryman Badge training and testing for a brigade. I didn't plan the entire thing of course, only 1 out of the 30 skill tests. But I personally trained and evaluated somewhere around 800-1000 people taking part in the test. Other than that, some company level training for ~100 folks from time to time, and the typical platoon training for around 25.

Suuuuuuper cool! Great job from innovative idea to wonderful execution. Many thumbs up.

Q19A Dread - <10 hours Vampire the Masquerade - <3 hours (have only gotten through "preludes" for a couple of my players, haven't done the first session with all players yet) Aye, Dark Overlord! - <3 hours Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen - <3 hours DnD 5e - >100 hours Q20A Dread - awesome rpg that's a lot of fun. Kinda roleplaying light, as there's not a TON of character exposition or growth throughout the game, but it's certainly a factor. Super fun collaborative horror/thriller/suspense storytelling game though. Vampire the Masquerade - Best writing I've seen for a plot setting and the people/organizations in that setting, bar none. Action decision (dice) system is pretty simple and fun. Overall, just an awesome setting with lots of cool stuff going on, and this game focuses extremely heavily on roleplaying, which is an awesome switch for me coming from a primarily dungeon-crawl sort of DnD game. Aye Dark Overlord! / Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen - both are fun tabletop one-off "RPGs". They're more collaborative storytelling than RPGs, really, but there's a bit of both. Fun party games, not something you run a campaign for. Once Upon a Time and Gloom are similar storytelling games that sort of have roles, but not so much. Dungeons and Dragons 5e - Love just about everything about 5e. I have very little experience with older editions, but from what I can tell, this is the most streamlined ruleset yet. There's a way to fit just about anything you can imagine trying into the rules and adjudicate fairly, but a lot can just be made up on the fly as well. One of the best things about 5e is the plethora of additional materials available, from tokens, to spellbook cards, to official and third party release adventures or settings. Just good fun all around.

D&D..... So everything tabletop except wargaming.... I'm a forum moron so I don't know how to remove the nested quotes (give me some credit, backspace and delete don't do it), so the last bit is really all I'm aimed at. If you can't do it in person, use skype or roll20! I've DMed an in person game for going on a year, but we've probably only had 10 or so sessions total as we only get to meet once a month on average. However, I started playing in a few via skype in the last month or two and have already had several sessions, playing once or twice a week! There's definitely a certain magic to playing in person with all the snacks, battle mats and minis, but it can be just as much fun (more perhaps, if you count being able to play more often!) playing online.

Q16A: My Alice project :( To be honest, a lot of it is just simple procrastination, but also the inadequacy feeling.

Haaaaaaa. So many. We'll just do ones that come to mind.... A glass armor set from Morrowind. Ughhhhhhhhhh I loved that armor set (and game) so much. Did you get yours legit or steal it from the vault in Vivec like I did? edit spelling

Q.A15 It's a bit of mix for me. For most minis that I want to either come out above average, or I want to work on a particular skill, I sketch (terribly roughly) the mini and color with marker/colored pencil (or simply label each section with a color) to give myself an idea of what it should look like. Then I try to plan out a palette for each major color group. So for example, I'd have one for flesh, one for armor, cloak, etc. and each palette looks like "Highest High, Mid High, Lowest High, Highest Base, Base, Low Base, Highest Low, Mid Low, Lowest Low" or perhaps a lot simpler if that group doesn't need such a wide range. Truth be told, though, I often have better results when I throw out everything I've planned and wing it.

Yeah so far my few figures have taken over 6-7 each but I usually start around 4 or 5 pm not 10 pm. I wasn't trying to come off as pretentious or anything. I apologize. I think this was meant to encourage you, not admonish you! Keep doing what you're doing, have fun, and try to heed Mad Jack's advice. It's done when it's done (this applies to the miniature as a whole, and each "chapter" of the job.). Don't try to go all perfectionist on a certain point, just paint until you're happy with it. Sometimes you'll reach a point where the more you try to improve something (eyes, for example), the more you end up mucking it up. Just have fun!

Most recently, it was probably Reapercon last year. Next time will be Reapercon this year. Before that, it was probably during a duty weekend in the Navy. This! Whenever I had duty in the barracks, I'd con friends into coming to the duty desk and playing board games with me.

derp! Said Vegas when I meant LA (I blame one of the reddit threads I was reading for mixing me up). Fixed it now!

Hey all! I'm starting a Vampire: The Masquerade game in the next week or so and was wondering if anyone had any tips! I have no experience with the game (just picked it up on Humble Bundle last week) but have run a homebrew DnD 5e for the last 9 months or so, as well as playing in a few 5e games. Looking for suggestions for intriguing, engaging plot settings or general tips. I'm limiting my PCs to Camarilla factions for the time being, might open up to Anarchs later, but probably not Sabbat for a good long while, if ever. Thinking LA circa 1990-2000, but I'm not remotely familiar with the city, so that might have to change. It's a little cliche, but it's probably what pops into 4/5 people's heads when you say modern urban vampire. Probably going to draw inspiration for a lot of settings from Angel, as well as gang flicks/shows (casinos, underground fights, private poker games, etc., with the requisite surplus of drugs, scantily clad women, and guns). The PCs are all (or mostly) from different factions, so I like the idea of them forming a de facto coterie, although each PC will have their own motivations and tasks passed down from their own elders. While they are all serving the Camarilla, there will still be power struggles between clans, and each PC might be looking for opportunities to disparage or sully the other clans' reputations while they're working together to complete a task assigned by the Prince. So basically, I have certain goals for the overall intrigue of the campaign, but no specifics for NPCs, settings, or plot hooks. If you've run or played in a V:TM story, what did you like, what did you not like, what worked well, etc. etc. Thanks! Rob edit: derp, said Vegas when I meant LA (I blame one of the reddit threads I was reading for mixing me up). Fixed it now

I have this as well and love it. It doesn't have the rubber ergo grips that some have, but it's simple, versatile (i can't imagine it NOT holding any bits, as the chuck (right term?) is reversible for small or big gauge. Comes with a few dozen bits as well. Would highly recommend.

Have to echo Firefly of course. Next would be Buffy and Angel. Some seasons are less great than others, but everything is worth it. Not great binges though as they're kinda long. Lost Girl and Bitten are some recent faves, more binge-able. Canadian modern fantasy is so much better than anything in the US :o Lots of awesome intriguing ideas to steal for your TTRPG campaigns in those two. Dynamic, convincing villains, secret societies, political intrigue, all sorts of fun stuff. For anime, Psycho-pass is a must. Guess that's more than one show huh... OH! And DEFINITELY Stranger Things, the new netflix original. Sooooo good.

Question 6-7 Just got the Vampire: The Masquerade $15 tier (basically every book ever released for it) from HumbleBundle. Looking to run that soon. But I run a 5e and play in 2 other 5e games.

Nice work! Better photos would certainly help, but I suppose it can be excused.... this time Out of curiosity, have you already glued/pinned the beast together? I find it's a LOT easier to drill, pin one part of the joint and dryfit, then paint these sorts unassembled and then put them together at the end. Makes it a little difficult to envision light sources accurately and stay consistent across pieces, but it's sooooo worth not having the headache of trying to blindly apply paint in a nook at an odd angle. Looking forward to more progress!

For temporary living situations.... Probably the FOB "Barracks" at NTC, Fort Irwin, CA for a month. Open tent with a hundred or so other sweaty bodies on cots, crap chow and no showers. Afghanistan was nicer haha. As for more permanent living situations, I haven't really had too poor luck. Just an upstairs neighbor that liked to vacuum and what I can only guess was riverdance at odd hours (2300-0300ish).

Awesome job! As always, your "tabletop" amazes me. They're great all around, but I especially love the labels! Might have to steal that idea...

Awesome! Really love the cloak.

Looking great! Not sure if it's the lighting (no matter how great the photo, it always seems to differ quite a bit from how it looks in person), but I think the skin looks great in the second picture! It might be lighter overall than you intended, but the balance from shadow-> majority color -> highlight is great in my opinion. Very cool, can't wait to see how she turns out!

/picks jaw up off floor Your shading/highlighting/blending are gorgeous! Superb job, she looks amazing!

Thanks y'all! Definitely a big confidence booster, so I'll keep at it! Any suggestions for colors on the dragon's mountaintop? I think a black craggy forlorn peak would fit the dragon's theme best, but for some reason I have sandstone in my mind.

Here's my first (real) efforts with basing. Did some cobblestone with the Anhurian Spearmen a while back, but these were my first semi-ambitious basing endeavors. The ogre is pretty much done, but the dragon's base needs some paint and sand/rock. C&C most welcome! ETA: Forgot to add sculpting details! Ogre: Cork base under the ogre with a layer of procreate over it to elevate him and give the appearance of a small knoll. The log started with a #2 pencil, then built up with procreate. Grasses and plants were some model train terrain style stuff bought from Michael's. Dragon: Several layers of cork served as filler/skeleton for the mountaintop, followed by layers and layers of procreate. I clipped off a fair amount of the broccoli base on the rear legs to fit into the base I sculpted, but a good portion is still there. I think it blended fairly well. Primed with RMS white primer and then threw on some brown liner. Even with vaseline and, later on in the process, latex gloves, it's amazing how many fingerprints stuck around on this :-/ Luckily, a lot of them look like appropriate texture! Edit2: Finally went back and filled the junction gaps on the dragon's tail while I was at this! It didn't bother me much before, but I'm glad I did it. It looks a lot better now! Just needs some paint.

White is super difficult. I've used this tutorial to moderate success: http://powellminipainting.blogspot.com/p/painting-white.html Looks great though!

I think the idea of the question was meant in the sense that you have no choice about being studied. You've already been abducted and will be studied for a year. The only question is do you accept the boon offered at the conclusion of your time there. As for me... I don't think endless life is all it's cracked up to be. However, if they can assure I have reasonably good health the rest of my time here, why not?

First story that popped into my head! As for actually answering the question, I kinda feel that anything worth having is worth working hard for. Soooooo. Nothing I guess?