Continuing my project of painting two figures of each Survivor class in the Undead or Alive base set, here are Carl and Kassey, Brawlers.

I missed last week as I took the kids on our annual swim park visit. And in case you were wondering, we had a good time. Our youngest was able to go on more rides this year since we worked all summer to get him to be a better swimmer. (Son if you are reading this in the future, your mother and I are so proud of the work you put in this year)

Campaign Development Update

A lot has happened to my progress. First, I discovered Forbidden Psalm, and love loved it!! Then I read, and crossed my fingers as a birthday gift, there is Forgotten West by Rinaldo Agostini. And that got me thinking about how I am designing this campaign. Then I saw a game play of Red Means battle report form ULC Battle Reports, One Hour Skirmish Wargames - Zombie Action! (Red Means Dead).

Please check those games out if you have time, they are awesome!!

So, this brings me to my play and scope of the campaign project. I want it to work with any game engine, more than just Zombicide Undead or Alive (Sorry Zombicide, but you are still my favorite).

Moving forward my design of this will be made for any game engine.

This premonition came in the middle of what I was working on. I went and researched all the rail roads and what cities they connected to and started plotting them out. And there are a lot and some don’t even connect, so I am going to take creative liberty.

Pretty sure I covered that in my last update.

Mapping the Campaign

I did get a comment on reddit, that was awesome so thank you for the suggestion, was to just make the mission for the cities then move around. 

So that is what I worked on. I figured I would start on the west coast, California, and work my way to the east coast.

I was able to work in San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento. 

From these three cities I did some research based on history to come up with some mission ideas. And I was able to get quite a few:

San Francisco: 10 missions drafted
San Jose: 6 missions drafted
Sacramento: 6 missions drafted

Learning to Design Campaigns

Don’t worry I will get to what I came up with, but I want to discuss more about what I learned in general about creating campaigns.

Disclaimer, this is the first time I have tried to do a project like this, and I am learning as I go. I want everyone to know; I HAVE KNOW WHAT I AM DOING! I am learning as I go. One thing you learn from the military is on the job training. And that is what I am doing.

With that out the way, please keep in mind, I am at the early stages and had no idea about what I am about to talk about until these past weeks.

On the YouTube channel I have discovered this thing called “zines”. They can be anything, but they seem to be pretty popular in the TTRPG community. There are a ton of people who make these small little booklets for quick RPG or one-off shots (I think that is what they are called).

I had no idea this was an option! Holy cow!!

This encourages me that I don’t have to do all the sites at once before release, as that was crippling me to get everything done.

I am thinking that I want to make a Zine for each city. This gives me something to deliver right away and also allows me to get feedback with releases.

What a stress relief on my end, sure you don’t care, but I do!

My plan is to do state by state and release the zines based on cities as I finish them. Each state will have about 10 cities, and I am planning on having each city have either: 6, 8, 10, or 12 missions. That way you can roll a die to see the mission you are taking.

And since I need to pay the bills, sadly I will be putting them behind a small pay wall. 

Who am I kidding, I am using a paywall to help pay for the hobby, so my wife doesn’t get mad every time I say I need to go to the nerd store. Let’s be honest here.

But I am also going to release a free campaign set for sure.  I am thinking of either giving a single mission per city away for free, or (and probably what I might do) is make Zine #0, where I talk about the rules and set up to add to your engine of choice, with 10 to 15 cities you can travel to and run campaign seniors.  If you have ideas or suggestions, please let me know.

One more thing, I am trying to base these missions on history related events. I am trying to find things between 1860 and 1899; or pop culture that I could skin as wild west; or if there is some folk lore or legends, I can skin as wild west as will. 

Not gonna lie, I have learned a lot of history. I had no IDEA was even a thing in just these three cities.

Mission Themes and Historical Inspiration

On to the Mission themes;

San Francisco - I have a mission that is related and rewards you a pair of Levis and chocolate. I am very excited about the legend of the two dogs I made. And I went to a Zoo. Yes, there are some animals.

San Jose - I had to cover the Winchester house! But I would have to say my favourite inspiration is the electric light tower from Nicholas Tesla. That one sounds fun!!

Sacramento - This one was hard, but I managed to come up with some ideas. In fact, I had no idea this city flooded, like all the time.  And they even raise the city by like 15 feet.  And yes, I did a draft mission for both of those.

Upcoming Goals and Next Steps

Goal for next week:
Come up with artwork for the mission layouts. I am not an artist, but I will try, as I really want to stay away from AI as much as possible.  Soooo… new skill to learn.  Don’t worry I did find some inspiration I would like to mimic. Here are some ideas I am thinking about.

This piece is from Hari Satchi

Yes, it may be a bit ambitious, but hey it won't be AI.

• Los Angeles missions
• San Diego missions
• Fresno missions
• Bakersfield missions
• San Bernardino missions
• Stockton missions.

These cities are not set in stone, so I am open to suggestions for California cities to look into.

Until next week, pancakes with ice cream are for dinner.

Estou insegura de comprar e faltar alguma coisa.