Large LEGO "worlds"

ffilz

I thought I should split off...

Hmm, I need to figure out where pictures are.

Here's my latest work in progress (which has now mostly stalled for several years... I did build and display an "elf" building this year):

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=559478

Oh, here is the most recent public display:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=6062857

There are some pictures in the folder of other people's creations, but there are a bunch of pictures of my display which is 15' wide, 5' deep (next time I will ask for at least 20' wide, 5' deep...).

On a very related note, I have also run Evil Stevie's Pirate Game, here's a game at Origins:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=98469

It's a war game by Steve Jackson (of Steve Jackson Games) that comes pretty close to an RPG. Here's the man himself playing in my game at another convention (he had fun, he mentioned that he rarely got to play, he was usually running the game):

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2334161

BTW, the mountain with the waterfall and tunnel was originally build for trains:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2334439

But trains and pirates can go together:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2334307

This picture shows how in the past my display has been linked to others, the dividing line is where the style of grass changes:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=5634431

This picture is actually from the first show where the mountain was converted from train to castle.

Feel free to browse around the folders and see other iterations.

Sadly I don't have all my pictures posted up, but searching around, here's my wharf scene in the context it was originally built for, a collaborative castle town in 2002 (so you can have an idea, my display didn't just happen over night, it's been built up over the course of almost 20 years (starting in 2000 if you include smaller elements like the ships with wolf head emblems on their custom made sails):

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=213222

Future plans:

Finish the Wolfpack castle
Expand the "elf" kingdoms
Expand the troll/orc/goblin kingdoms
Complete the interior detailing
Add a new "Asian" section (inspired by the Ninjago City and the old Ninja sets from 2000ish - it will be somewhat higher tech, and I'll have to backdate the Ninjago City to make it less modern).
Find a place to add the Dragon Knights faction
Find a place to add the Bulls faction
Maybe add a middle-eastern themed area

I have enough brick and stuff to probably eventually populate a 30' to 40' run... Going deeper than 5' is tricky because of reach issues.

DeReel

Impressive!
You could link the two threads.

yukamichi

Mein gott! That's some impressive stuff.

I love those "mountain" pieces, they ended up becoming one of my favorite things Lego ever created, and were a huge boon for me finally moving away from square/flat/symmetric/right-angle building based around only specialized "castle-wall" pieces. I'm a real sucker for mountain keeps whose walls just merge into the cliff face.

ffilz

To link to the original thread: http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/22107/next-minis-roll-call-let-us-know-who-you-are

ffilz

Yes, the mountain pieces are great for bulk building. Last year, I took advantage of the ability of clubs to make bulk orders to get a pile of rock pieces in the new colors. I am close to out of my rock pieces in the old colors, so in some future area, the mountains will change shade slightly.

There are folks who have built some impressive mountains with individual bricks, here's one example:

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://live.staticflickr.com/459/31971482736_f0dc17cdcd_b.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.flickr.com/photos/mark-of-falworth/31971482736&docid=NTWAF933RHQtoM&tbnid=7R5jyVwBR8KUFM:&vet=10ahUKEwi25u7t5sPiAhUGCnwKHZooB0UQMwh5KCYwJg..i&w=1024&h=647&safe=off&bih=722&biw=1536&q=brickfest large castle&ved=0ahUKEwi25u7t5sPiAhUGCnwKHZooB0UQMwh5KCYwJg&iact=mrc&uact=8

komradebob

Oh, that stuff is brilliant!

Can you tell me a bit about how people organize the group built projects?

ffilz

Oh, that stuff is brilliant!

Can you tell me a bit about how people organize the group built projects?

Here's at least one coordination thread for the BrickFest 2002 castle walled town:
https://news.lugnet.com/castle/?n=13282

And here's a planning page with the layout:
https://www.lugnet.com/events/brickfest/~150/layout/

I can't find all the planning threads for other displays, though here are a couple:
http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8328
http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8974

Oh, and here's the planning thread for 2012 which was the last display where my stuff really merged with others:
http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22248

During the 2006 planning, there was a program that let one map out your display in terms of 8x8 studs. For the 2012 display, I started representing my stuff in miniature where 1 stud represents an 8x8 area.

This is the standard we started using in 2006:
http://bmau.ro/landscaping/

Most folks no longer follow that standard, but I still like it.

Here are some other standards:
http://www.abellon.net/MILS/
http://cactusbrick.org/category/club-standards/

Many of these standards are sort of compatible since a plate height difference is not much of an issue and even a brick height difference works out ok. If the straight lines of elevation difference are distracting, you can easily break them up by putting a few plates (or bricks and slopes if the height difference is a brick) along the edges of the lower elevation modules.

ffilz

As to general comments on organization, often larger displays are coordinated to join along the base level flat terrain or a large body of water. I could easily work smaller contributions into my display since much of my display is in 8x16, 16x16, 16x32, or 32x32 units (8x8 is hard to do with the standard I use since LEGO never came out with 8x8 base plates, however, I have made some by cutting...). 8x24 and 16x24 base plates also exist and are useful.

These days, base plates are rare, so one might use the 8x8, 8x16, and 16x16 plates (which if butted up against a base plate are just a bit thicker so can look ok).

komradebob

I have a bit of a delicate question.

I have that friend I mentioned that likes this general idea of big world Lego stuff, but mentioned one of the concerns with shared building was getting his stuff back.

I'm assuming he meant a concern about specific hard to come by pieces getting accidently left with someone else's stuff.


Is this a concern for these builds? How is that dealt with?

I realize stuff like that can happen with the gaming minis I use too, but it seems like it could happen even more easily if bricks/parts are being shared back and forth.

ffilz

So with the collaborative builds, it's pretty clear where the boundaries are and there are almost no issues. I did lose some rock bits one time because they were out in the water and got cleaned up by another person and accidentally swept into their stuff. Supposedly they mailed them to me, unfortunately they relied on the address labels I had pasted on and not thought to update.

Outside of that, I have had an occasional piece go missing, or wound up with someone else's.

When running Evil Stevie's Pirate Game, we used only my stuff except for "islands" contributed by others. For the most part, these did not have anything that was intended to be removed. In one or two cases, we kept track of it, or when hidden treasure was discovered, we swapped out my treasure and returned the treasure that was in the creation to the creator.

If more mixing of parts may occur during play, some kind of accounting would be appropriate.

komradebob

Strangely, those methods are almost the same ones I thought of, because that's the way I'd approach something like that if I was using gaming minis.

From my friend's reaction, I thought for sure it was a bigger issue with Lego.

Assuming though that more mixing was happening, what accounting method would be simplest? Taking phone pics with the bricks and the borrower in question?

ffilz

I haven't worried about the more mixing issue, so I haven't thought of specific ways to handle it. With the ubiquity of smart phones these days, documenting your contributions with the smart phone camera seems like an easy way to handle it. It will also help in re-assembling things if some disassembly is part of the game (or accidental damage).

ffilz

Sorry if this is a bit of thread necromancy, if there are folks interested in talking this kind of stuff, I'd love to find a good venue. Maybe someday the conversation will result in a workable game idea.

komradebob

Let me know what you find out. I've joined a couple new forums, but have been feeling a bit bummed about the imminent death of SG, so haven't felt much like posting.

ffilz

I'm really not sure. The general RPG forums I follow are probably too noisy to be able to consistently find the discussion. That's what I've always liked about Story Games was a large enough community to have a hope of having conversations like this without such a large community that they get buried by the talk of D&D 5e or whatever...

I could do blog posts, but my blog posts have never gained much audience. I suppose a subreddit might work, I dunno.

komradebob

I joined both Gauntlet and Fictioneers.

ffilz

I looked at Gauntlet. The organization there and the UI are just too cluttered and confusing to me. Fictioneers looks better, not quite sure which subforum this discussion belongs in. If you have a thought, I'll kick this off over there (and dig up the other thread too).

ffilz

Oops - double post

komradebob

Start one in the Design forum there and see how it goes!

Hopeless_Wanderer

@ffilz Please don't choose Redit. I can't access it because of firewalls and such.

Paul_T

I’d encourage you not to overlook the Gauntlet for reasons of its UI. It seems odd at first, but it works really well and has some really cool features that are tremendously useful (for example, when someone quotes a post, you can click to “expand” it to see the full context without needing to scroll or search). I was thrown at first but now I’m really loving the capabilities it provides.

ffilz

Ok, I'll give Gauntlet a shot, which category there? Hmm, will I be able to re-post the first post from here with all its links?

I've posted most of my content from this thread on Fictioneers.

AsIf

Fictioneers looks better, not quite sure which subforum this discussion belongs in. If you have a thought, I'll kick this off over there (and dig up the other thread too).

I think the "Design" subforum on Fictioneers is the perfect place. And you've found it. :-)