Mischiev Report!

 Hello and happy Thursday. I've missed the window where I can take my afternoon nap and not feel like a bum so I'm making a cup of tea and writing a blog post. Also, just remembered I need to send an old coworker a text and see how he's doing. Lemme do that real quick then I'll get started on the rest of the post.

Ok, text sent and tea steeping let's see how much I can write before the timer goes off. Last night I playtested my game, Mischiev28. It went ok, but I had some concerns and wanted to test it again. This morning after work, I tested it again. This is going to be the Mischiev Report on how that went as far as I can remember it. 

The start of the game: The old abandoned overgrown factory. A Mischievous Man and Large Helmet find themselves rummaging around through rusted metal, crumbling stone, and twisting roots. What a surprise it is that there's anyone else here at all!

as per the rules, a roughly 2ftx2ft play area

For initiative I roll with each model's Locpick die. The rules state "determine initiative order" and so this is what I determined! Haha... Anyway, they roll at the same time and Large Helmet comes out ahead. I place him next to the Groundskeeper's Hovel. These rotting boards offer plenty of opportunity for stashing his crap- I mean, his incredible items! 

Meanwhile the Mischievous Man crawls out of this uh, this. What is this? He crawls out the top of it and stands on the edge platform. Hm. I measured just to be sure and they are both 10" apart as stated in the rules!

hello!

First turn of six, Large Helmet places hides a Wonderful item within a level six stash and locks it somewhat by rolling a 2. Only one dice was committed to this roll, and the act of rolling was seen to it's conclusion so that's the end of Large Helmet's turn (it says so in the rules!)

Meanwhile the Mischievous Man puts a Valuable item in a level 5 stash and hustles off of the ship, landing with a squelch in the mud and just barely avoiding stepping on a big nail. He puts a worthless item on the ground with a level 1 Stash die next to the nail, and since he can't move anymore and doesn't feel like locking this item up that ends his turn.

Second round, Large Helmet leaps the fence and scurries at least 5" away from it's last stash to place a new one in some gnarled roots. It stashes a worthless item in a level 1 Stash in full sight of the Mischievous Man. That means, if it wasn't just me playing this game alone then whoever was playing as the Mischievous Man would be allowed to know what kind of item Large Helmet stashed. It says so in the rules, at least. After that he moves his remaining 1" closer to a gnarled tree.

Mischievous Man makes a decision here to forego stashing. There has got to be something good here (I mean, I know there is because I'm playing the other character but...) and he heads towards it with his entire movement. He rolls his lockpick die and...

It's less than the lock die, so he gets to roll his tension die, which adds 3 to the lockpick roll allowing him to remove the lock from the Stash. Because he is trying to access the stash, the turn isn't over. "This is in the rules??" Well, this is what I intend the game to be played like, so there! 

I apparently rolled one of the mischievous man's stash die here... haha... oops...

here's the lock removed

He rolls a 1 and fails to obtain the stash. Rotten luck, that's his turn over now. 

Ope there's the tea, one second. 

Ok, tea secured. Where was I? Oh yeah, third round and it's Large Helmet's turn. She runs past the tree and places a Valuable item in a level 3 stash. Didn't expect me to keep switching the gender of Large Helmet, did you? Expect the unexpected. What you should also expect is that because Large Helmet also rolled one lock die, it gives this stash a level three lock and ends their turn. 

Mischievous Man rubs his hands together eagerly. This is getting exciting now, there has to be something good... He rummages around in the bushes a bit more-

And can't quite seem to figure out how to get through the dang stash. 

Round 4 and Large Helmet is all in on the stashing game. He runs up onto the platform of the... And places a level 5 stash containing a Valuable item in the door that's there that you can't see. He locks it tight with a roll of 5 and ends his turn. 

Cutting it close to the end, and with a pocket full of stashables Mischievous Man gives up on getting his fingers on Lrge Helmets stash. Instead, he places his own level 6 stash (no he did this the round before) containing a Valuable item and rushes towards the fencepost to place a level 4 stash containing a Wonderful item! With his remaining movement, he sets his sights on the Level 1 stash that Large helmet placed earlier.

Round five starts. Large Helmet makes it's moves towards the Mischievous Man's level 1 stash with a level 1 lock. It's probably unnecessary to even roll dice for this but

He gets through the lock and into the stash with ease and finds...

Something similar happens with the Mischievous Man as he closes the distance to the Level 1 stash. Let's see what he finds...

effortlessly finessed

What fortune! This is what the game is all about! Who could have seen this coming! I'm so stoked about this! I just added the snail to the game and even brought out some snail models to see how it would play!

So that's the end of round 5. Round six begins, and folks, it's the last round! Large Helmet has two items left to stash so, to start xe places a level 4 stash with a Nice item in it before moving North, dodging a swarm of gnats to place...

A level 2 stash also containing a Nice item.

Mischievous Man also catches on to the fact that he hasn't placed all his stashables and promptly throws down a Nice item which sinks into a level 3 stash in a mudhole. He turns to look over his shoulder and sees a big lock sticking out of a sewer grate and rushes over to it, at the last minute remembering the snail in his pocket which is worth 2 points once placed. He gently places it on the ground next to the sewer grating and pats it's shell a few times.

patpatpat

He tries the lock with his lockpick and it opens like it was never even closed in the first place. Then, with incredible ease (his roll matched the stash die) he opens the grating and finds...

A wonderful, uh, Valuable Hagstone! Which can't be used as an item at this point but is worth a cool 2 points.

That's the end of the game, so let's look at scores.

Helmet had 4 stashes left on the board and 1 lock. Each stash on the board is worth 1pt and the lock is also worth 1pt for a total of 5 points. The value of the items on the board are 2 Nice (1pt each), 1 valuable (2pts), and 1 Wonderful item (3pts) for a total of  12pts. The looted Deed is worth nothing at all... Not bad, Large Helmet! Now let's look at how the Mischievous Man did. 

With 5 stashes left on the board (the snail counts as a stash!) Mischievous Man has 5pts. The combined Value of his stash is 1 nice (1pt), 2 Valuable (2pts each), and 1 Wonderful item (3pts). Plus the snail counts as a Valuable item as well (2pts). Mischievous Man's total score is a whopping 16pts! Mischievous Man wins! 

The victor gains his prize

Well, that's the Mischiev Report. I have some thoughts on what's working and what's not, but I'm gonna save that for a future blog post. If you're interested in giving the game a go yourself, here's the latest rules doc. I'm slowly slowly laying this out as an actually cool looking and one paged version, but that'll be out at a later point. 

Thanks for reading all this, I hope your week has been going well and I hope you have a wonderful day!

This Dope always posts twice huh

 Bouncing off the last post...

I actually started this sometime last week. You see, there's a game jam going on. Haven't you heard? The One Page Game Jam is being hosted by my friends of the NonCombatTableTop community this year. Specificially it is being run by the great ierthling. There are lots of fantastic entries being made so far, and I recommend checking out the discord and looking through them sometime! Oh, I got off track a little sharing all those links.

I hadn't really hit on inspiration for a game so far this year. I made a lil supplement last year about bribing your friends to reroll your dice by flipping coins and then giving your friends the coins you flipped. Something about consensual trickery just appeals to me, Idunno. The May 15th deadline loomed.

Bribery 150

Running the Dope Off, I've been thinking a LOT about my little Mischievous Man sculpt. Maybe too much, bordering on obsessive. It is through this overthinking that I found inspiration for my game.

I present: MISCHIEV28! In it's current form at least. I still need to finish the layout.

this guy knows NOTHING about layout

The game is essentially about having a stash of items and hiding them around one of those incredibly detailed Mordheim boards that people make. It is also about breaking into people's stashes and stealing their items and discovering what kind of things they stashed. There's a level of deception and some simple rules for additional layers of security on stashed items. Every turn ends once a dice roll action has been seen through to completion. 

the only playtest I've done (tarot cards acting as terrain)

I think the thing that I had the most fun adding to the game (and that made it more than one page) was writing out tables for the items you can find in other people's stashes. You see, Mischievous Men know that they have items of certain values, but they don't know what the items they own are. Mischievous Men covet what others have to the point that they can assess with some ease the nature of stashed items. So, when you loot a stash you get to roll and find cool stuff to use or keep for points. I think it actually might be the greatest game I've made so far. 

I'm editing the document and writing this post while I put off more important tasks like cleaning the apartment. I'll probably make an effort to do this other tasks after I post this. If you want to read the current rules then CLICK HERE.

Otherwise, have a wonderful day and thank you for reading this post!

-twabbis

Digital Dopes for Mischievous Mopes

 Hello I figured I aught to make a post. The F(apl)ADO is still going strong with some awesome awesome awesome entries being submitted and works in progress being posted on the gram. Just truly wonderful stuff. It's very inspiring to see and lil daunting to realize that I'm being percieved (perceived?)! Ah the horrors of social media!

Aaaaanyway, I promised to offer up Mischievous Men files to 3D print a while back for anyone who couldn't secure a cast, so I spent yesterday making that possible (as much as I can). I used to do quite a bit of digital sculpting and modeling but it's been quite some time since then so this was a real stretch for the ol brain muscles.

allow me to take your measurements

First I blocked out my shapes and figured out the scale in Blender. I measured from my original sculpt with my tiny orange calipers and used Blender Units as guidelines so hopefully things print the proper size without too much fuss. 

these big squares are equal to 1cm

these lil squares are equal to 1mm each (last time I checked) 

I got a little hung up trying to figure out edge loops (for what reason, I don't know) and eventually realized there wasn't really a point to do that for a 3D print. I tried doing a bit of sculpting in blender and, well. I don't really like sculpting in blender. It's not what I'm used to, and the results are pretty upsetting as well.

ah, horrors

Luckily for me, I own a legit copy of Zbrush that I actually did pay money for a long time ago, so I switched over to that and got to refining. And uh, so then I ended up with this which looked pretty good to me. So I made a copy, sculpted a pair of mischievous little fists, did a quick little render, and shared it on insta.

I'm not opening zbrush again just to make a blog post

handsy

beloved cycles

So that's that. If you want these models yourself then CLICK HERE NOW CLICK HERE NOW NOW NOW and if you print them and paint them and decide you want to enter into the First (and Possibly Last) Annual Dessicated Dope Off then just make sure you get it done by June 28th and that you email your entry to me at dessicateddope@gmail.com!

Thanks for reading this, I hope you have a great day!

TOTALLY UNIQUE IDEA!! Orc heads

hello! wait hold on I have my blog post setup wrong, one second.

ok, oops. I had it on html for some reason (it wasn't that notable to mention but, anyway)

I'll start this post first off by saying, the title is a lie. My hobby buddy (I hope we're buddies) 5header posted a video to his youtube about his silly polymer clay orc heads a few days ago (nearly a week) and I've just grabbed this concept and been running off with it since. Now, I think my execution pales just a little to his (self flagellation) I do want to share the process of making one, because that's the whole point of having a blog! Why else would I make a blog post! I have nothing else to talk about!

Current orc heads I got -1 which I mailed to Tanner cuz I don't want it

So, getting started is as simple as getting started. Bulking out a sculpt with aluminum foil is one of the surest ways to start so let's start there. I don't usually do this but it is much smarter than what I do (not this). With these heads I've been copying Joe's approach of leaving a lil holding nub, so I crinkle up that part first. I make it about an inch long, smaller than that it's hard to grip and bigger is just a waste. The rest of the foil I leave pretty loose, and I gentyl ease it into the rough shape I want. I love orcs with snouts so I'm going to be making one of those.

Once you've compressed it pretty much all the way you want, or you're having difficult compressing it more, you can take a metal tool and really push the foil where you want it (or smooth out rough bits you can't smooth by hand).

cool, good enough. You've drawn the circle, now add all the details. Polymer clay goes on. Pick where the features are gonna be. A face in it's simplest form is eyes, nose, and a mouth. Add the cheekbones to really define the features. For orcs, I do vertical creases all down the top lip because thats how Paul Bonner does it and he's right! I usually add the ears after I've roughed the face in a bit. A trick fo rears when you're trying to sculpt them: An ear is basically C shaped with a y in the middle. Where the tail of the y goes down, there's a lil nub opposite it and behind that is the ear hole. I hope that makes sense. I don't always sculpt all those details (usually I don't, lazy) but I know a lot of people struggle with ear anatomy. It's a y inside the ear. Keep that in mind, dear reader!

this is you

See, ears. 

he went from being squinty to buggin out fr

Now, you can sculpt teeth and eyes with fresh clay and you don't have to use different colored clay for it. For the last four heads I've sculpted I had premade eyes and teeth ready to go for them. I have some mixed feelings about this. For long teeth, it's great, no notes. You can stick 'em into the clay and don't have to worry about them bending. chef kiss, mwah. Short teeth and eyes, I think you can use fresh clay and it works out perfectly fine. An issue I have with premade eyes is, if you don't have enough clay over the foil it's hard to get them as recessed into the sculpt as you want. I mean, as I want. Also, if you only sculpted big eyes but you want some tiny lil squinty eyes it's like, dang I guess I can't do that! I think once I use the last lil eyes I premade I'll just use unbaked clay for eyes going forward. I do also think it's very charming to use different colored clay for eyes and teeth, especially this fimo. 

Ok well that's that. 

Bye!

I feel like blogging again, hope it's not boring...

 I know I know, I just made a big post. 

I never made a post about my smashbash last year. I don't think I'm gonna get around to making on this year so I wanna share some process and the thoughts behind what I was doing last year.

I hope this post isn't boring!

I don't necessarily love grimdark stuff, which shouldn't be a surprise. There should be an element of ridiculousness to it, otherwise you're reveling in misery and I generally have not had a nice time doing that. I kind of wanted to make something edgy though. I'd been thinking about hand tools and stone age surgery for a bit and the two things kind of coalesced in my design. I'd drawn up some sort of cultish guys a while back that I referred to as Trepanants (people who do trepanation) which were hooded creeps holding big dainty hand drills. I wanted to explore what they could be a little more. I'd been thinking about Mek28 a bit too I think. I also took a bit of inspiration from Trigun. 

So we got these sketches, big guy with holes all in his head with a hand drill. As well, a companion on his back. The theme for the year was Battle Royal, and who would be more likely to win than a guy with barely any weapon? I think there's some weird themes in this, I think it kind of has some layers to it. It's a bit perverse, it's a bit suggestive and pretty dark. The big guy sculpt also has a fig leaf over his bits which you can't really see unless you look for it. Why you looking for it???

Sculpting it was an inelegant process. I made the drill out of tank bits and some pen parts. The bit is twisted wire. I tried to do more kitbashing on it with some hands I'd bought but they just weren't right. I sculpt the arms seperately from the body and built the body out of a base of aluminum foil and just layered on blobs of greenstuff/milliput. I mean, it's sculpting. I glued the arms on once I had the body sculpted how I wanted it. I tried using tamiya putty to fill gaps in the epoxy but that stuff just kind of sucks to work with, for me. I ended up using greenputty instead. 

plasticard base for the feet is really a choice

I was originally sculpting a holey head for the rider but I went with a Gardens of Hecate headsculpt instead

I really feel a lot of anxiety about picking color schemes for miniatures. I think I'm getting over that a bit, but last year I really felt inadequate about it. So, to cheat I looked at my inspiration folder and picked an Alien illustration by Arthur Suydam and just ripped the colors from that completely.  I promise the pose similarity was just serendipity! Though I did already have the image saved so maybe it stuck in my mind idk.

cheatin'

Well, anyway. Like I said, I'm probably not going to pressure myself this year to do a smashbash entry. I'm kind of bummed about it but I just don't think I have the spoons. I got pretty burnt out after building this guy last year and I'm really trying to take it easy with the hobby (even though I just started a competition) so I'm going to do just that. I can't wait to see what everyone does this year!

(By the way, I've conned my friend Julian into scanning their Mischievous Man cast so there will be an stl to 3D print sometime soon!)

I hope wherever you are you're doing well!

First (and possibly last) Annual Dope-Off!

Greetings! I'D like to see more Mischievous Men painted and YOU'D like to win stuff, so let's make a deal.

You- Paint/kitbash 1 (one) Mischievous Man. Either the original resin cast if you've got one or a wretched handmade/kitbashed approximation if you don't own one(or if you just prefer to make your own. I won't take it personally!)

Winners will be determined by a panel of Merry Fellows who've put brush to model and filled my heart with admiration by giving life to one of my sculpts!

Judges will pick 3 winners based on DOPENESS, WHIMSY, and of course MISCHIEF.

Entries should include 1-4 pictures of your finished piece showing off the majestic hobbywork you have done. Email entries to dessicateddope@gmail.com by June 28th. Include the name you prefer and Instagram handle (if you have one/ want to be found) in your entry email!

DOPEST A full set of metal Dopes sculpted by yours truly (including Shnails and Squigs?)

MISCHIEVIEST Just the Dopes!


WHIMSIEST Just the Shnails and Squigs?!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Q/A

"What if I don't have my own mischievous man?"

I will have a few casts available for the cost of shipping, but once I'm out that's it! You can, of course, sculpt one yourself to enter (or kitbash one!)

"Can I just buy the Dopes when they're available?"

Yeah, of course... Sure...

"I preordered the Dopes and don't want more of them. By the way, I hate you!"

Ok... but please paint a Mischievous Man.

"I don't want to paint this guy..."

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

"Do I have to follow you?"

No! And don't! But please DO use the hashtag #FirstAndPossiblyLastAnnualDessicatedDopeOff for wips and ESPECIALLY don't forget to email your entries to dessicateddope@gmail.com with the title "Dope-Off Contest Entry!!!!!1!!"

"Shipping is too expensive!"

I KNOW! IT'S AWFUL!!! Please sculpt one! I'm so so so so so sorry!