Ye Olde Inn

by **torilen** » March 3rd, 2013, 10:21 am

well, everyone has been known to be wrong once in a while.
Still - I don't think I deserved the "area from now on call hill" and "area not to be called valley anymore".
That was harsh, man. :lol:

Either way - we all agree that the raise hill is great, and you should make one for each of us. We'll pay
shipping and handling,

anywho, I appreciate the comments and input from all of you, I respect the opinions of everyone here. With that said... Torilen, I like your idea of the hill being a valley, and now that you mention it, I can totally see that being a cool option. I, myself, however saw it as a raised hill. It is true that river is pretty funky looking. You know sometimes that artist that made theses paintings takes some "strange" choices... I do like these boards for the most part but the over abundance of giant lizards and dragons can be hard to overlook (especially if they are not incorporated in your scenario). But then again, it is all about imagination and playing pretend is it not? so be it valley, hill, meteor crater, or volcano... its all up to what we see for ourselves. |_P

by **shy-design** » March 4th, 2013, 11:58 am

here are some more pictures as requested... I wanted to also note that I wanted a raised hill to create not only some variety in the board but to also make it a good vantage point for enemies/heroes that have ranged attacks... I allow those who can, use ranged attacks from the spaces that touch the edge of the hill. When my group plays quests on this map, I have noticed that my friend who plays the Ranger (equipped with the longbow) usually makes a break for one of these spots early on so he can cover the rest of the group from the higher ground without getting in the way.

by **shy-design** » March 4th, 2013, 12:11 pm

I downloaded and printed off the blank quest maps for each of these boards from this site http://www.oocities.org/dragonstrikecentral/dstools.html

from there I just let my imagination run free and made up my own quests mixed in with some house rules for each of the boards... the valley for instance has difficult terrain (the thick wooded areas, the river, the grass plain with that weird snake thing, the pool with the monster swimming around in it) I actually just treated these areas like "traps" only revealing what happens once someone stepped into these places for the first time. There was one quest where the Heroes were sent to this map but were given a map of the land by a Ranger... it was just a blank quest map... that way they heroes could make notes of their own as they discovered the different areas and dangers of the terrain.

here is a pic of an quest where the heroes had to recover some mushrooms for the town's baker. (she's secretly a witch named Holga, the butt fugly Hag... but they don't know that yet so shhhhhhhh. :twisted:

)

by **torilen** » March 4th, 2013, 2:56 pm

Ah...now see, from that blank quest map, the hill area does actually look like a hill.

Speaking of raised hill area - how did you make that hill, anyhow? What material did you use? Did you use a mold for it,
or do it by hand? Details please.

by **shy-design** » March 4th, 2013, 3:07 pm

torilen wrote:Ah...now see, from that blank quest map, the hill area does actually look like a hill.

Speaking of raised hill area - how did you make that hill, anyhow? What material did you use? Did you use a mold for it,
or do it by hand? Details please.

well I started by tracing the area that represented the hill on the board. From there I cut a piece of MDF board to fill the trace. I then glued down two 1/2 inch pieces of styrene (wall insulation that I bought from a hardware store). From there I carved out the cliff sides and 1x1 in squares on top with and exacto knife.. .and some modeling was done with the heat wire tool as well. (it cuts the styrene like butter). i added some sand and small rock accents for texture where it was needed and then I painted it. Hope that helps... the pictures on the first page of the thread show steps of this process.

by **shy-design** » March 4th, 2013, 3:21 pm

tomorrow I will begin to reveal how I transformed the town board into something that would change the way that my friends and I play HQ forever

by **Sjeng** » March 4th, 2013, 3:24 pm

shy-design wrote:tomorrow I will begin to reveal how I transformed the town board into something that would change the way that my friends and I play HQ forever

cool, I'm looking forward to it! This might be something for the blog

do you write on it too, or shall I post for you?