Category Archives: General

Contacting Me

Iclassic brass rotary dial telephone would love to hear from you!  If you have suggestions, comments, or questions about any of the stuff I post or am working on feel free to reach out to me.  If you do want to reach out, there are quite a number of ways to get a hold of me.

The most obvious is to comment on the post here on the site you want to discuss. I’ll respond here as well and we can have a public discussion on the topic that anyone that comes after can read and learn from.  This works best for discussions specific to the post in question.

If you want or need a non-public discussion, feel free to e-mail me at tom[at]expandingfrontier.com.  I check my e-mail regularly so you should get a fairly timely response although it definitely won’t be immediate.  If you are a Patreon supporter at the Senior Advisor level or higher, you will also have a private e-mail channel to contact me at.  Those e-mails will typically get a faster response, or at least a higher priority in responding to them.

If you are a Patreon supporter you can always contact through Patreon or on the Discord server as well.

Beyond that, I’m active on social media in a variety of places and you can find me in those venues by clicking on the social media icons in the sidebar.  Twitter (I’m @dagorym) is probably best as I typically have my Twitter feed up on a side screen during the day but my phone will ping me when I get direct messages at any of the other locations as well.

So don’t be afraid to contact me.  I want to interact with those reading the blog and supporting me on Patreon.

That said, I’ll probably be off-line from now until Tuesday (May 8, 2018) as my wife and I are headed out of town for our 24th anniversary and for at least part of the time will be places where there is no internet or cell service.  I’m going to try to get a post queued up to post tomorrow but beyond that I’ll be back next week.

Some Example Content

After I posted my announcements about this site on my various social media platforms, someone asked about content samples.  The plan to post some examples was already in the works as part of launching this site so here we go.

Let’s start with this one, the image I’m using as my cover image on the Patreon campaign.

Collage of various pieces created for the Assault Scout Technical manual showing the range of items produced from sketches to deck plans to write-ups to 3D models and printed 3D objects.

This showcases a few of the bits that went into making the Assault Scout Technical Manual (link downloads the PDF) that I released back in Nov 2017.  The deck plans on the right fade from my initial sketches through different iterations to the final labeled deck plan.  Then comes the cross section created to show the relative positions of the decks in the ship.  Next comes a page from the technical manual where that cross section image is featured.  The yellow ship is the full 3D model of the ship based on the deck plans and the final image is the 6″ printed version of that model (1/333 scale) fading from unpainted to painted (with a different color scheme that the digital image).

I had posted most of the images used in this collage on-line in the process of creating them.  Here’s a few links to some of the posts with full versions of the images:

  • The unpainted model  – The image at this link is actually the 4″ one unpainted but there are pictures of all of the various sizes I printed including the 12.6″ (10mm scale) version of the model
  • A Star Frontiers logo I made (that I’m trying to get permission to make a patch out of) that used the painted digital 3D model used to make that cross section image.
  • The painted physical 3D model – This is actually the 7.6″ (6mm scale) version and is sitting here on my desk next to me as I write this.
  • The cross section image – unlabeled in this case.
  • The unlabeled deck plans

In addition to the Assault Scout Technical Manual, I also created a Sathar Destroyer Technical Manual (link is to the PDF) back in 2014 to describe that ship.

Here are a couple of other large maps I made, recreating the big poster maps that came with the original Star Frontiers boxed sets.  Unfortunately I can’t to link to the full files since I was asked by WotC not to and they own the IP

Original Port Loren map digitally recreated
This is recreation of a fan map of the Port Loren starport redone in the same style as the original map.
Space station map from the Knight Hawks box set digitally recreated.

Here’s a “family portrait” of many of the 3D ship models I’ve created (this one predates the assault scout model).  All of these models were designed to be used as tabletop minis.  Several are based on the old Star Frontiers metal miniatures and are replicas of them.

Family portrait of a number of digital models I’ve created

Finally, I’m going to link to you my collection of Two Sheet Locations on DriveThruRPG.  These are small four page write-up (the first 4 are free) that provide a map, location description, and NPC for use in your games.  The are mini versions of the types of things that I’m hoping to produce with this project.  The only reason that project stalled was that I reentered grad school for my Masters of Library Science degree and just didn’t have the time to keep producing them.

I hope that gives you a feel for some of the things I’ve created in the past and what to expect in the future.  In addition, you should check out my posts (published under my dagorym handle) on the Arcane Game Lore blog (which is now offline and the posts are archived here on this blog) to see some the “behind the scenes” materials I’ve posted in the past.

Welcome to the Expanding Frontier

Welcome to the Expanding Frontier. This blog and site is dedicated to creating gaming resources focused on science fiction role-playing games.  I’ll be posting maps, locations, ships, vehicles, characters, and more that you can use in your games.  I’ll also be talking about the tools and processes I use to to create the materials.

I’ll primarily be focusing on creating adventures and all the bits and pieces that go along with that.  There will occasionally be other stand-alone or one-off projects as well.

A lot of the work I do is supported by may Patreon campaign.  Some of the posts that appear on the blog will be only available to Patreon supporters but most will be publicly available.  If you want to help support the work I do, just hit the “Become a Patron” button on the right and sign up.

This is very much a work in progress so don’t be surprised to see changes and updates to the site and the things I work on as time goes on.  If you have suggestions or requests, feel free to comment below.

 

Wrap-up – June RPG Blog Carnival – Favorite NPCs

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

I’m a bit late getting to this wrap-up article as I’ve been busy getting Issue 5 of the Frontier Explorer magazine ready to go.  It should be out next week.  But enough of that, back to the issue at hand.

This month’s Blog Carnival topic was favorite NPC’s whether you encountered them as a player or played them as a game master.  We had a dozen entries, including mine from the original post plus my final one that I forgot to link to in the comments.  Here are the links to all the submissions:

There were many reasons why the NPC’s listed were favorites.  However, the two main reasons that stood out seemed to be comic relief and player consternation, whether the NPCs were ones the writers interacted with as players or ran as GMs.  The NPC’s that stood out seemed to either inject humor into the campaign or cause an endless stream of problems for the characters.  Or both.

So read over the various NPCs and get all the details.  Maybe it will provide you with ideas for NPCs of your own in games you are running or may run in the future.  And be sure to check out the July RPG Blog Carnival  on Summer Gaming over at the Dice Monkey Blog.

Resources for Campaign Design

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

Today’s post was inspired by yesterday’s Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #577. I thought I’d share a couple of the great resources I’ve found recently.

Roleplaying Tips

The Roleplaying Tips Newsletter is put out by Johnn Four.  You get 2-3 emails a week with various ideas and links to resources primarily aimed at GMs and designers.  I’ve only been subscribed for a few months but the wealth of information received in that time has been amazing.  If you run or design games and you’re not already subscribed to his newsletter, stop reading this, jump over to the Roleplaying Tips website and subscribe.  There is also a blog you can follow.

Go.  I’ll wait.

Seriously, get over there and sign up.

All done?  Okay, let’s continue.  The topic of the specific newsletter that prompted this post was written by Perry W. Rogers and deals with building adventures by using the villain’s perspective.  I’m not going to rehash the entire article here, but the main points were:

  1. Create the villain and flesh him/her/it out in great detail
  2. Create the Master Plan
  3. Put the plan in motion
  4. Have the situation come to light
  5. Escalate and up the ante
  6. The pursuit of the villain by the characters
  7. The last gambit by the villain to try to get the Master Plan to work
  8. The villain’s escape plan (if any exists)

I think the style of campaign design was best summed up by the writers own words:  “I design the villain, and his plan. Then I stick the players in the middle, and see how it plays out.”

This style of game design resonated with with me quite strongly.  I think it is how, on a subconscious level, I’ve always approached the game design that I’ve done.  I typically set up a villain and what they are doing and write various contingencies (i.e. the master plan) for how things will play out based on possible player actions.  This article was great in that it provided a codified way to approach my style of game design.

Campaign Mastery

The Campaign Mastery website is another great resource for GM’s and game designers.  This site is actually where I learned about the Roleplaying Tips newsletter as Johnn Four is one of the authors there.  The entries here are often very long, many over 10000 words.  That said, the content is amazing in both it breadth and depth and I look forward to every entry.  The authors cover just about any topic related to designing campaigns and adventures and bringing your world to life.

One of the great things I like about this site is that you see the creation process “live” as it is going on in the authors’ campaigns.  They discuss things that they are currently working on and dive into their thought processes as they do the design.  Like the Roleplaying Tips newsletter, the amount of great material I’ve read just in the few short months I’ve been following the site is simply amazing.  And I haven’t even had a chance to dive into the archives of either site (which stretch back to 2008 and beyond).

Random Spacecraft Clutter

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

Just a random item table today.  It never hurts to have random everyday items lying around to add life to your setting.  Today’s list is things you might find laying around on-board a spacecraft, whether in an empty room, going through a closest, or just scattered in a corner.  Some might be useful, some might be plot related if the GM wants to make them so, and some might be there just for fun.

Roll 1d10

  1. Used power clip (d6x10% remaining)
  2. Crumpled candy bar wrappers
  3. Phillips screwdriver
  4. Coffee mug (plain or emblazoned with the ship’s/company’s logo)
  5. Extra patches for spacesuit punctures
  6. 1d4 small screws
  7. Spare circuit board for one of the ship’s components
  8. A recent issue of the Frontier Explorer
  9. Small data cube/chip/thumb drive
  10. d6 socks, no matches

Feel free to suggest other items you might find in the comments.  Suggestions will be incorporated into a future table.

Comments

jedion357 May 12, 2013 at 12:53 pm

How about a 3.048m pole?

BTW I loved the inclusion of the Frontier Explorer issue ;)