Edit: Well, given there's already a vaguely positive reception to the idea, I've went ahead and set up the server! It's by no means a finished product yet, but it's at least a start!

Here's the link: https://discord.gg/FqArkERU2U

About a year ago, I was running a pretty active, small community board game server and it was a lot of fun until most of the regulars got busy with life.

After that, things happened and it fell by the wayside, but my time here with Tildes makes me really want to bring it back, I just wanted to gauge interest first. The idea is that anyone could set events, anyone can invite people, etc. Obviously, it wouldn't be an open server, but one in the same vein as Tildes, but in board game community form.

Specifically, things like hidden role games and other more complicated games really feel like they shine when there's a solid group of regulars that are able to teach newbies how to play.

(And selfishly, this would be a great way for me to learn new board games, as well)

GMs: do you have any gaps in the worldbuilding of your setting that you're looking for help filling? Post them here!

In case it wasn't already clear, I need help as well. My setting is a near-future hybrid of Shadowrun and Cyberpunk, in 5e. There are two major gaps. First, in my setting North America has fractured into a handful of nations - but the middle part split into a radioactive wasteland and a loose coalition of city states. What locations might be concealed in the wasteland? (A fallout vault-like society living in the NORAD mountains of Colorado?) Which city states would have survived and what would their character be?

I also need ideas for more megacorporate factions.

Here is the work in progress for the setting, if you're interested.

Help me and I promise I'll help you!

While there were conversations about this in the past, those were much more generalized.

Now, I personally don't have issues creating world maps, regional maps, or 'battle' maps, as it were, but when it comes to city maps... I'm consistently at a loss. That said, I don't want this to just be me begging and whining into the void about how I can't find something that I prefer to make city maps in, so here's what I've used and would recommend over the past 15 years or so:

• World Maps: Wonderdraft, Photoshop, Campaign Cartographer (probably about ten years ago, and I never finished a map with it)

Of these, I definitely recommend Wonderdraft the most. I think if you put in enough time and effort, Photoshop can turn out better (and most detailed), but if you're interested in a style that Wonderdraft has support (and assets) for, it's pretty much perfect. It's a one-time cost, has been getting consistent updates and support since it was in beta years ago, and the community assets are pretty much unending. The one caveat to Wonderdraft is that if you want to make an absolute behemoth of a map (like I'm apt to do), it will eat some serious resources and can begin to lag, due to how it handles each individual tree/mountain/path as a singular, editable asset.

Campaign Cartographer is an oldie that I tried about ten years ago, had some success with (mostly in how it designed continent outlines and things), but just didn't feel like it had enough malleability to create things the way I saw fit.

• Region/Continent Maps: Wonderdraft, Photoshop, Inkarnate

I think everything I said about world maps applies here, as well. I haven't used Inkarnate in the better part of a decade, but I know the free version was very limiting and there were some concerns about the company 'owning' anything you created in the program. That said, a brief look at it now makes it look like a more closed-off version of Wonderdraft, but with a subscription instead of a one-time purchase.

• Battle Maps: Dungeondraft, Photoshop, a plethora of generators that I can't even begin to remember dating back 10+ years

Before Dungeondraft, I pretty much hated making maps for combat. Early in my GMing 'career', I would just have a blank canvas on Roll20 and draw on details as it was needed, and eventually I just pivoted completely to theater of the mind for all of my combat. And then Dungeondraft rolled around, and it was pretty quick to export from there, incredibly quick to import to Foundry (with a module), and Just WorkedTM. Before that, I did occasionally try and make things in Photoshop, and would follow tutorials from time to time, but it was all just so time-consuming, and with a lot of asset hunting if you wanted consistent art style and detail to what you were doing. It was just so much.

Which, of course, brings me to...

• City Maps: Wonderdraft, Dungeondraft, City Designer 3, Photoshop, Watabou's Medieval City/District/Village generators, AI...?

Ah, the problems. So, I tried to make city maps in Wonderdraft, but it's very obvious that it was built for a larger scale, and there are a lot of 'hacks' (or workarounds, I guess?) you need to do to make it work, and it can be frustrating and very time-consuming, as there's nothing there to really automate the process at all. For example, Wonderdraft has this beautiful 'paint brush' for assets such as trees or mountains that will 'spatter' them across a set radius, with a set density, etc. This is very helpful for something random like forests, but essentially useless for placing buildings. Dungeondraft is a little better in this regard, but has the opposite issue: Everything is too 'small' and focuses on more grid-based, rigid design, given that it's built for, well, dungeons. And battle maps in general.

I purchased City Designer 3 (along with a big pack of Campaign Cartographer add-ons) as part of a Humble Bundle a while ago, and I kind of enjoyed it, but it really felt like the amount of effort required wasn't worth the end result, which - at best - would be using art assets designed to give the feel of the maps from D&D 5E. And even then, that limited the asset options because it didn't seem like there was a lot of additional third party support for the program (which is definitely showing age). That said, it's the only one I've used that seemed able to handle good building placement along roads, able to do it automatically. That said, Photoshop?

Probably the best time I had making city maps. I had to stylize them, but with enough ingenuity, good knowledge of automation (through recording Actions), and following some art style tutorials, you can make a "cheap" city map that's able to have a lot of variation. If you're interested in map design in Photoshop, I highly recommend the tutorials of Jonathan Roberts, who is very much my 'gold standard' for map creation. Unfortunately, he doesn't really update his site any more, and some of the tutorials show their age, but all of the content there is still great.

Then, we have generators. The ones linked above are the best ones I've found, though the city ones leave a lot to be desired as far as graphics and specific details go. But the village generator for small towns and the like? Beautiful. It's genuinely just a perfect little generator if you don't care all that much about the specifics of the map. So, for most towns and villages, it's fine. But what if it's a town built up against a mountain, that sprouted up around a mine? Well... that's not gonna work. What if it's a town that's split on two sides of a river, protecting passage? No such luck. A swamp town, or one in tree-tops? No, not really gonna work all that well.

And just last year, I was turned towards AI generation here on tildes, thanks to @atomicshoreline and his fairly extended description of how to set things up. But, I eventually gave up bothering him after my old video card kept having VRAM issues with only 8GB.

I have seen some very good city maps made in Inkarnate, but I don't know that I'm interested in something that has a yearly subscription, and I can imagine it being very frustrating long-term to invest in something that I've seen issues with in the past.

So, all of this is to say that I really enjoy making detailed content for my world, but I've always had issues with cities. There's just so much content that needs to be hand-placed in almost every program, and even an un-finished city has taken me well over a hundred hours in Dungeondraft, and that was with me still actively hating looking at it..

So, if anyone has other suggestions, I am quite literally always searching for new ways to make city maps, and I've tried just about every suggestion given to me at least once, often to the detriment of my bank account.

Oh, if someone can think of a better title to this post and wants to change it, please be my guest. I just wanted to contribute my knowledge and recommendations, rather than just throw a "give suggestions" post out into the ether, and wasn't sure how to phrase that.

Hey, I would love some recommendations for games that works well for just two players but would also work with more.
I’d like to get less screen time and think tabletop games would be great for that purpose.
Do you have any recommendations for games you’ve really enjoyed, thank you!

I just completed this puzzle (although it's missing 1 piece, which I wrote to them to see if they can replace because the alternative would be to buy a 2nd copy and shift through 4500 pieces to find the one I need). I want to hang it on my wall!

Edit: Found the missing piece!!!

Right now it's on my living room floor (pencil for scale) on 9 pieces of poster board that I taped together. But, I am not sure if this is the best surface to permanently attach it to. Does anyone have any recommendation on how to glue/seal this & mount it?

I also want to apply some kind of protective coat in addition to just gluing it together/to something to prevent damage, so if the method to do that is different from the method to mount it I'm also interested in that.

Hello tabletop peeps! I have completed a monster design for my first ever boss creature, and I wanted to get some quick feedback. This is all based on a previous post where I got ideas from y'all, here: https://tildes.net/~games.tabletop/1cjn/designing_my_first_dnd_boss_fight_with_a_giant_mimic_5x_lvl_5_characters

Players are a group of 5 lvl 5 characters, fairly magic heavy and lower hp overall.

The boss creature is a mimic that appears to be a large stone fountain with blood in it. If a PC touches it or stabs it, then they (or their weapon) will be grappled for the start of combat. At that point, the mimic will sprout 6 tentacles that each can travel up to 40ft from the main body and wield a weapon. All tentacles will operate on the same turn as the main body.

Healing Pool in the boss room

The boss room is a large room with a pool in it where blood is mixed with water that has flowed over a magic crystal to produce a healing solution. The idea is that the PCs will figure out that they can either heal themselves by dipping into the pool, prevent the boss from getting close to the pool, or that they can break the magic crystal to prevent the boss from healing. Several of the boss abilities reference this pool.

Mimic main body:

STR 16 (+3)
DEX 10 (+0)
CON 20 (+5)
INT 16 (+3)
WIS 12 (+1)
CHA 8 (-1)

HP 200
Main body loses 20hp if a tentacle dies

Armor Class: 13
Speed: 15 ft
Proficiency Bonus: 2
Damage Resistances: None
Immunities: Poison, Acid, Sleep, Charm

Abilities

Harden: Cannot take other actions, harden body to stone and increase AC to 18, as well as resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, cold, fire
Spew Blood: Begin charging up blood, PCs can see mouth direction. At the beginning of next turn, spew acidic blood in a 180 degree arc for 30 ft. Deals 3d6 acid damage, half damage on DEX 14 save. Mimic main body cannot do anything on its next turn as it recovers.
Chomp: +5 to hit. 1d12+3 piercing damage
Charge: If no arms are left, it will spew blood from the back and charge at a target. Increase speed to 45ft, and deal (+5 to hit) 4d6+3 bludgeoning damage to a target. Dex15 save for half damage.

Sword Tentacle (x3)

HP 20
Armor Class 13
Speed 30 ft
Damage Resistances: None
Damage Immunities: Poison, Acid

Abilities

Harden: Cannot take other actions, harden body to stone and increase AC to 18, as well as resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, cold, fire
Heal: If the healing pool is nearby, soak arm in the pool to heal it fully, and heal the main body for 15hp. Alternatively, resurrect a different defeated tentacle instead of healing self or the main body.
Slice: +5 to hit. 1d8+3 slashing damage

Shield Tentacle (x1)

HP 20
Armor Class 13
Speed 30 ft
Damage Resistances: None
Damage Immunities: Poison, Acid

Abilities

Harden: Cannot take other actions, harden body to stone and increase AC to 18, as well as resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, cold, fire
Heal: If the healing pool is nearby, soak arm in the pool to heal it fully, and heal the main body for 15hp. Alternatively, resurrect a different defeated tentacle instead of healing self or the main body.
Shield Bash: +5 to hit. 1d4 + 3 bludgeoning damage
Defend: As a reaction, give disadvantage to an attack when an ally 5ft away is attacked

Crossbow Tentacle (x1)

HP 20
Armor Class 13
Speed 30 ft
Damage Resistances: None
Damage Immunities: Poison, Acid

Abilities

Harden: Cannot take other actions, harden body to stone and increase AC to 18, as well as resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, cold, fire
Heal: If the healing pool is nearby, soak arm in the pool to heal it fully, and heal the main body for 15hp. Alternatively, resurrect a different defeated tentacle instead of healing self or the main body.
Heavy Crossbow shot: +2 to hit. 1d10 piercing damage

Handy Tentacle (x1)

HP 20
Armor Class 13
Speed 30 ft
Damage Resistances: None
Damage Immunities: Poison, Acid

Abilities

Harden: Cannot take other actions, harden body to stone and increase AC to 18, as well as resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, cold, fire. Cannot harden when grappling a PC.
Heal: If the healing pool is nearby, soak arm in the pool to heal it fully, and heal the main body for 15hp. Alternatively, resurrect a different defeated tentacle instead of healing self or the main body.
Grapple: +5 to hit. Grab a target, they can avoid it with a DC16 strength saving throw. If the target is successfully grappled, they can escape with a DC14 strength save at the start of their turn.
Squeeze: If a target is grappled, squeeze them for 1d6+3 bludgeoning damage.
Throw juice: If the healing pool is within range, scoop up a handful of purple juice and throw it at a skeleton to resurrect it.

Potential Adds

There are two skeletons in the room that can be resurrected by the Handy Tentacle with it's "throw juice" ability, should the fight is too easy for the PCs or they are hanging back too far. These adds are Boneknights from page 6 on this link: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-Mv5UKsPhrHkBqSf9vo1

Conclusion and Questions

Is this a fun boss? I aim to have the tentacles each fighting a different person, so I don't think I'll wipe the party out too quickly, but I know of the mystical "action economy" and I might be overdoing things.

Also, how do I rate the CR of such a creature? And how much gold should a party earn for such a fight? Thanks for helping out a new DM!

So I was wondering through a book store and I found the Greninja ex Battle Deck, which I thought looked really cool, and I've always wanted to own a Pokemon deck, even if I don't have anyone to play with.

I learnt the deck is meant for absolute beginners and that it doesn't stand a chance against meta decks, but I expected that (it's the same for Yu-Gi-Oh structure decks, you usually need to buy 3 and add a bunch of staples to get something slightly competitive).

Now since I can't play with anyone IRL, I hopped on Pokemon TCG Live, scanned the deck's QR code and built a better version of the deck using this video from LittleDarkFury. Except I replaced 2 Starmie and 1 Staryu with 1 Comfey, 1 Pyukumuku and 1 Lapras because I don't have anything else that synergizes, and I ran out of credits. (I can share the decklist if needed.)

Mostly because I dumped all my credits into building a Giratina Lost Zone deck because I felt cocky and then I realized I have no idea how to play it. That was a mistake.

My problem right now is that I feel really aimless, I have 2 decent decks but I can't really seem to get the hang out of them. I do understand their main win conditions (get Giratina VSTAR out, respectively get Greninja ex out) but besides that I don't really know how to play them. It does feel like I just need to get a bunch of games in, to see what decks other people play, and what situations I need to adapt to.

Locally there are no game shops I could go to, but I would have loved to play with someone IRL and have them guide me through everything. This means I'm stuck with online resources, but most of them are aimed at players that already know the game.

What do you think I should do? I'll keep playing games in hopes something will click with me, but until then, I'd appreciate some guidance (feel free to ask me anything in case I didn't give enough information).

I'm basically very new to complicated tabletop games but I've been in love with this game for well over a year now but it's really hard to find people that want to play it multiple times with me (physically) because the setup and learning process takes 30-45 minutes for the average new-ish player. I just learned (today) that there's also an online component to it. If anybody else loves this game I'd be down to start an online game with you and your friends if they'd like to.

Edit No.1: I don't currently have a way to access steam but I should soon (assuming the Microsoft Surface Pro 9 can run games). If so I will DM everyone on here :)

Edit No. 2: I had no idea that this post would get this many comments (5 at the time of this edit). I'm very glad that my niche nerdy interest resonates with people. Whenever I get my lil computer/tablet thingy I wanna make a group chat thingy (maybe discord, never used before) with y'all so we can set up some games together. Looking forward to our future games.

Hello tabletop community,

I am designing my first ever boss fight, meant to really challenge my players. I don't want to kill any of them off since we're all new and it feels weird to lose a character, but I also want it to feel threatening. I could use some advice about how to execute this situation:

Boss is a big mimic disguised as a blood fountain with 6 long tentacle arms, each of which will be it's own figure on the board that can be up to 3 tiles from the 3x3 mimic figure.

Four of the tentacles have weapons that can deal 2d6 damage and have 30hp AC11 (roughly making it in line with a Brown Bear for threat and HP). They can grapple (squeeze the target) instead for 1d8 damage per turn, escapable on DC13 strength.

Two of the tentacles have shield-like hard points that defend neighboring enemies by giving disadvantage on attack rolls against them. AC14 HP30. I couldn't find anything to base these on for an encounter designer app.

Main body has low movement (10ft), and has 200hp AC19, and loses 20hp per tentacle lost. It has a bite attack +6 to hit 2d8. It also floods blood through sections of the room, forcing player movement and dealing 2d8 poison damage. I based it on a Roper for difficulty and attacks.

I think this combination creature would provide a very interesting and movement focused fight, but I'm very new to DM'ing and I'm afraid of accidentally killing the players.

My questions are: (1) How do I avoid accidentally killing everyone? (2) Is this fight too hard for a newbie group of 5 new players? (3) Any other cool ideas I didn't think of?

Hello Tildes community,

I am soon going to DM my second ever mini-session for a small group of fairly new players. I'd like to send the group into a haunted tavern that has an unusually intelligent mimic in the basement that has been eating tourists that pass through, leaving behind undead creatures throughout the basement.

My primary goal with this is to help the players (most pretty new) understand how to conserve their magic instead of firing it all off in each battle, so I wanted to prevent them from long resting. I figure I could magically lock them inside when they arrive, and then let them learn that if they should rest, previously killed undead creatures (like Minotaur Skeleton or zombies) resurrect after about an hour.

I am looking for two pieces of advice. First, I'd like to know good creatures to put into the dungeon that would provide a challenge, but not be too devastating. I looked at Wraith, for example, but a Wraith could easily one-shot any of the casters in the group and instantly kill them, which isn't fun. What should I be using instead? Remember that each individual fight doesn't need to be too hard, I just want the group to start feeling the strain of resources getting exhausted.

Secondly, the primary DM (who I am running a single session for) has said I can level up the party to 6 during the dungeon. Does this essentially heal the whole party and refresh their spell slots, ala most RPG games? I'm a bit confused how this part would work, tbh.

Thanks for your help, and big thanks to everyone who answered my last question about a Kobold Brewery. It was a blast, and the party loved it, particularly some of the traps that y'all came up with. By the time the party escaped, the entire brewery was on fire, which was amazing.

Appreciate your help!

Buy 2 get 1 free right now in stores and online until the 11th. Anyone pick up anything from here? I got these with 2 free.

• Lost ruins of arnak
• Parks
• Sheriff of Nottingham
• Wingspan
• Horrified Greek Monster edition
• Quacks of Quedlinburg

Artificer school is rough. You have to learn so many ways to manipulate magic forces and try to shove it all into small items. Sometimes it doesn't work as well as hoped. Even if every student gives it their best effort, someone has to be the worst passing student in the class.

In my campaigns, I try to explore this concept by adding niche items or items of student project quality. Often times these items end up adding quite a bit of fun to the lower levels before access to "real" magic items is available.

I would love to throw this idea out to the world and maybe get a bigger collection of these items for all of the Tildes DMs to use in their campaigns if they fit in the setting.

What tools do you use to make maps for your table?

I've tried looking and I have found a few decent generators, but I'm really looking for a making tool I already have a general layout in my head of what the city/region/continent but I can't draw for shit, and I want to find a tool that makes this easy? Makes it look nice, makes it easy to add points of interest and features, etc.

What do you use?

Edit: for clarification, this is for city/region maps, not battlemaps.

Tildetablers,

What board games, card games and whatnot have you been playing this week? Don't be shy, share those sessions!

For me it was a single game of Western Legends with expansions. I've played this game, sans expansions, a couple of times and have never really been blown way, but the expansion certainly helped and I enjoyed it a whole lot more.

The game sets you as a character in the wild west. It's a bit of a sandbox game: there are a bunch of things you can do and you have freedom moving around and doing them. You can hustle cattle, play poker, buy upgrades, prospect for gold, fight, steal, &c. You basically earn points by doing each of these things and working your way up various tracks to earn legendary points which are victory points.

The expansions added a whole frontier area to explore and added story cards, which are basically thematic events that give you goals to claim. I feel like extra board and story cards really improved the experience and immersion and it was much more enjoyable this time around. We also played two characters each, which may also have helped, as this made it possible to explore different strategies at the same time.

I'm still not massively impressed with the game, but I don't think I'll disappointed if it's suggested now. If I were forced to rate it I'd probably give it a 1.8/π.

So, everyone, what have you played this week? What did you think? What are you hoping to play next?

There's a popular trend on Reddit at the moment that they're struggling to engage with. The idea is that someone will post the question

"Ask me anything about my world"

And this does two things. It gives them an opportunity to show off their setting, and more importantly it gives them a prompt. Someone may ask a question you don't have an answer to, so you're supposed to come up with one. Doing this enough will help you flesh out your world in ways you may not have considered on your own.

I think the reason this is failing on Reddit is because there are a dozen people jumping on the bandwagon and filling the RPG subs with spam, which is causing other members to lash out at them out of fatigue.

I think we here on Tildes could probably handle it a little better, and it would be better served as a single thread. Top level comments are for asking questions, and then anyone is welcome to reply to those with their answers. By sharing the same pool of questions this will allow us to compare and contrast our worlds with our friends here and maybe help spur on the creative juices.

Hey Tabletidlers,

Another week and another opportunity to share what you've been playing.

For me I was able to finally play the Zombie Apocalypse map for Age of Steam. This map sees you delivering goods (cubes) around a map of Michigan as usual, but whilst dealing with the map evolving due to a horde of zombies. The zombies move in a deterministic manner, so it's possible to plan ahead, but towns or cities the zombies reach are razed, which converts them to a colourless city and removes any cubes upon them. The zombies also add a cost to building track and add a cost to delivering cubes, unless you take the Military Caboose action, which replaces the normal Locamotive spot. Very enjoyable map and the random starting location for the seed zombies means it'll play very differently, I imagine, each game.

So, don't be shy, share what you've managed to get played this week.

Time to share your weekly board gaming.

For me it consisted of a game of Aquanauts at a monthly gathering I've only attended for the second time. The host of the group posted about his new group in a village hall in the middle of nowhere (UK) over on Reddit. Well the middle of nowhere turned out to be not far from where I live so I've been trying to make it when I can ever since.

Aquanauts was published by a UK publisher Inside the Box Games (best known for Sub Terra) but they went bust recently and another company stepped in and fulfilled the Kickstarter. The game is a basic worker placement, where you're sending your robotic submersibles (workers) out to collect or convert resources. What makes it interesting is that the worker spots are linked, and playing a spot linked to another that has a player worker on it scores you both a bonus resource. You can also build tiles on your player board to similarly receive or convert goods during the income phase. Other than that, you're trying to load up a submarine with the correct resources to score contract cards, and there's a degree of hedging your bets as the person who takes the final slot on the submarine gets to choose the order in which the players claim contracts. It's a fairly good game, fun enough on first play but largely unmemorable.

Tonight I got in a game of Carnegie. This is a great game that sees you building up your office with departments, staffing them and sending your workers on missions to build buildings across the map of the USA, linking cities. I royally screwed up my first turn and spent several rounds trying to recover which left me way behind on points. Great game with a lot to think about but which neither takes too long to teach or play.

What have you all been playing?

Hi everyone,

It's been another week and it's time again time to share what you've managed to table over the past week.

Personally I had a two player game of Barrage, the first time I've played the game in a year or two. I completely forgot just how stressful Barrage is.

I tried to screw my opponent over by adding a conduit to a basin that was his main energy source and he responded in kind by tapping mine. Thus the game became very centred on turn order and he kept beating my production and securing it each round. Whilst this happened I amssased a huge number of concrete mixers and excavators and thought I'd be able to pull his lead back by outbuilding him, but it never really happened and he ended up winning by a very comfortable margin. Great game, but very stressful to play.

We followed up with a couple of games of Santorini.

Also, participation has been a bit lacklustre the past couple of weeks. I'm wondering if this weekly thread is actually enjoyable or just annoying?

Sorry Tabletiddles, couple of days late with the thread as I've been busy on the bank holiday weekend here in UK.

What boardgames have you all been playing this week? Please share your experiences,.no matter what you've been playing.

As a reference, I found this thread from 2019. There are several good recommendations, but I'd like to see if there's something new since then.

When I'm homeworking, my wife and I like to play short board games during lunch time. We're very casual players, and have Hive with all extensions, Onitama, and Jaipur. We both like Jaipur because it's more light-hearted and easygoing (and maybe non abstract), but it takes some time and space to setup. Hive and Onitama are much quicker to setup and play, but require more focus than I have during lunch :)

We'll probably buy Hanabi or Patchwork next, to get something cooperative. I'd also like to try another easy deck building game, but I have no idea what to get.

So, what do you like to play during lunch?