The more immersive the game, movie or brand experience is, the more joy those who attend or celebrate it will have. This series of items was produced over a 2 year period for an excellent group of friends who play DND that would infrequently get together as they live across all parts of North America.
For those who have played Dungeons and Dragons (DND), the idea/appeal of having lore from in-game transition into the real world will need little-to-no explanation. Like some of the best parts of in-game lore, the More Beer brand started out as an offhand comment the DM made about types of beer a tavern served and a player quickly replying, “I’ll have some More Beer then please”. It’s grown to become a brand known widely throughout the land, to the point that in the most recent campaign the CEO, Lord Elton (John), was introduced to the characters and sent them on a quest to visit the town of Proskur in hopes that a new brewery might be built there, but for the rumours of a green dragon roaming the area.
The series of items shown below were made over 2 years to coincide with the rare occasions when a sizeable % of our game group was able to get together in person.
Dungeons and Dragons (DND) is a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) in which there is a mix of predefined story hooks and non-playable-characters that one person (a Game Manager) guide the actions of. The rest of the players can be thought of as central characters who collectively determine what happens in the game – with key decisions ending up being made by dice rolls. The result is often equal parts improvisational shared storytelling, puzzle/problem solving, and narrative world building that is unlike any other board game type you might have experienced.
The series of items shown here, are unique to one specific group of people playing the game, but include concepts and designs that any DND player might recognize. You could imagine More Beer to be a brand in an imaginary realm, not unlike Acme is to Wile Coyote, or Wonka Candy Bars, except only the writers and actors of the game are aware of its’ existence.
Laser Engraved Mugs (V1)
These mugs were designed with each character name within a common logo. As with most projects, coming up with the initial design took the largest % of overall time.
To have the design etch well onto glass with a 5W laser, I found the method of coating the glass with a cold galvanizing compound (zinc) spray paint before etching had very good results.
To translate the flat design onto a curved surface requires a rotary device like the Ortur YRR 2.0 Rotary Roller along with software such as Light Burn to convert the .svg file format into path/instructions that the laser can follow.
The zinc compound provides enough surface for the laser heat to actually etch the glass. There were time/power settings which would lead to the glass having an almost cracked effect, which would flake over time, but this approach which went 100mm/min left a surface that was smooth to the touch.
Laser Engraved Mugs (V2)
For the second iteration of mugs the goal was both to produce a more polished effect, literally, and allow others to pARTicipate in making them. So I combined efforts with Andrew Howard who cut the logo design, sans names, onto vinyl, and through a workshop provided the opportunity for anyone who wanted to make their own mug. They would use Armour Etch on the portions not covered by the vinyl, and then use a metallic wax compound like Rub ‘n Buff Silver Leaf to bring it back to a polished and shiny surface. Once you had gotten comfortable with the process, I’d say the overall time per glass was about the same. But, the downside to this approach in contrast to the laser, is the time that must be spent to ween out the portions of vinyl you want the compound to etch under.
From campaign to clothing
A logo/design that has been converted into SVG can easily be leveraged across multiple different mediums. My 4-colour screen print system, along with the setup to do UV-based screen exposures was able to pack up and travel to the US midwest so that during the same workshop-focused gathering, the More Beer design became a screen print option that both those young and only young at heart could create.
Session recaps: Comic panels and video
When not taking up the GM chair for this campaign and group I have often acted as lore keeper with this group. While that started out just writing session recap notes, after players designed their characters in Hero Forge, I found a pretty efficient workflow that would involve:
- HeroForge to pose characters and add facial expressions / equipment
- Leonardo.ai for background locations and NPCs for dialogue.
- Photoshop to photobash it all together and add speech bubbles.
This set encompasses one game session of between 3-4 hours:
In one case, it has also gone a step further and become a lightweight slideshow in video. This session covers the party being in a mirror/clone battle (red eyes vs normal) and included the first player death in the campaign.
Minis: Prepared by a maker as characters prepare to meet their maker?
Hero Forge offers a very a flexible way to create models, mock up paint designs for character, clothing and accessory, as well as generate .stl files to 3D print. For the last IRL get together of the group, after printing an oversized version of each character in the game and enlisted the help of a few friends to paint. As our group most often plays online (Roll20), there wasn’t an expected/natural opportunity to bring the characters onto the board, so at the last IRL gathering of the group to date, the GM wove in a small side story of children in a mysterious town (think Hallmark Movie meets horror story tropes), where small children were playing with small clay copies of the characters. To say that the players jaws hit the floor when they saw the physical versions of their characters does not begin to describe the surprise and joy it brought. Except to Pip and his player Mario who, well, go watch the video above and you’ll understand.
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