Frugal GM Review: Fantasy Cutouts Hovel

I finally went and assembled this rather interesting little home....or hovel, from Fantasy Cutouts.

It is a cute & quirky little building that came in a 14 page PDF....7 pages of which were ads.  I don't mind some ads in a free PDF, but when half of the thing is nothing but ads it is a little much.  It isn't a big deal unless you don't delete the ads before having the file printed on nice cardstock at a print shop.

I didn't do that....this time, but I have accidentally done it before.

This paper model is not for the new paper modeler.  The instructions are a bit on the sparse side, consisting just of some pictures of how the parts go together.  I wish that the part numbers had been printed on the parts themselves, possibly in areas where they get glued together?  There were a lot of little parts to this model and I'm glad I had the foresight to mark the pieces up before cutting them out.

This roughly 6" model has a number of parts spread out over five pages.  It seemed quite excessive at first.  The reason there are so many parts is because the walls of this hovel are quite thick, consisting of more than just a front and back glued together.  There are cutouts for windows and two small doors which can swing open.  The fireplace on one end sticks out a bit into the living space and there is a small woodpile that gets glued on to the outside.

I really enjoyed this extra "body" to the model, but I found it a bit difficult to work with.  One window is quite tiny, maybe 1/4" square.  I just had to glue it into the window frame.  On the one hand it was a cool effect, having this tiny widow in the middle of a thick wall....with an actual window frame, but it was a PITA to get everything to fit right.

There were so many parts that had to be lined up just right.  Getting the cuts and fold perfect was impossible for me.  While I thought I was doing a decent job, the finished model had a lot of gaps and bits of blue and white I did not want showing.  I wished that they had not used a light blue color to denote areas where the building pieces were glued together.  I also wish they had basically colored outside the lines so if parts didn't line up perfect the model's color would cover up some of the errors. A light beige or even a darker "wood" brown would have hidden some minor imperfections in craftsmanship.

Overall I liked this model even though it was a bit "fiddly".  I sure wouldn't want to be assembling a string of them, but I could see printing up a couple and maybe mounting the pieces to foamcore instead of building it out completely.  I think if I used two thicknesses of foamcore, I could put the window in between them.  This could shave a lot of time off of assembly and give me a sturdier model.  Of course if I did that then I'd need to Photoshop out the light blue bits.

The added depth of the windowsills and the swinging doors were an excellent touch and even though I had problems with assembly, I would recommend this model for a more experienced builder.  This free model from Fantasy Cutouts really is one of the nicer homes I've had the pleasure of putting together.  I think with a few minor tweaks I could see this being an even better model.

Free GM Resource: The Fantasy Trip

If you were familiar with the old The Fantasy Trip game from the old Metagaming Concepts company, I don't want to mislead you into thinking that this week's Free GM Resource is that game.

Instead it comes from a tribute site called TheFantasyTrip.org which seems to be run by Dario Corallo, who is an artist for Dark City Games.  I could be wrong about that, but at any rate I wanted to make you aware of Dario's most excellent paper miniatures.

On the website are some great paper minis of orcs, kobolds, adventurers, and a small array of other humanoids.  The art is good and I like how he arranged them so each figure has a back.

Orc Beserker by Dario Corallo

A lot of paper minis have a full-color "back" to them, but I prefer a simple shadow.  As a GM I could simply use the shadow side to depict figures the party is aware of but haven't identified.  The way I figure it, when the artist uses the shortcut of not providing a fully rendered backside of a paper miniature, that means he has more time to work on another figure!

I've seen much more highly detailed artwork on paper minis just as I've seen even more "cartoony" artwork.  These figures seem to strike a great balance between the two and should be a welcome addition to any GM who likes to use paper minis.

I know I'm on a bit of a paper mini kick right now, but these are a real good resource for the Frugal GM.

Another Frugal GM Contest

Now that I have a proper, cost-effective miniature storage system in place for the eleventy-three thousand miniatures I expect to get from the Reaper Miniature Kickstarter Campaign (both the Mrs. and I splurged on the Vampire level), I'm looking to off-load some of my older paper miniatures.

Paper miniatures can be pretty awesome.  I still enjoy making paper minis with Hero Machine for my new PCs, but I don't use the paper minis as much anymore.  Back when a lot of my games were out of the house, especially at conventions I had to fly to, paper minis were the perfect solution for me.  I've used several types over the years, starting with some pre-printed Cardboard Heroes from Steve Jackson Games.  If it wasn't for all these lightweight Bones miniatures coming in, I'd probably re-purchase the whole set now that I can get PDF copies.

Included in my collection are vertical minis and flat token-type minis as well.  I have a number of miniature bases, some from Steve Jackson Games and some from Koplow.  The SJG mini bases are about the best plastic bases I've ever used, but they have been out of print forever it seems.  If you get a chance to purchase some, I'd jump on it.  In a pinch, a great substitute are mini binder clips.  Once you grab the bottom of the mini you can take off the clip's arms.  I have an assortment of those I'll try to toss in as well.

Ok, down to the details.  Up for grabs is a collection of various paper miniatures and some miniature bases.  The miniatures themselves consist of vertical minis and flat tokens.  There are printed sheets of miniatures still waiting to be cut out and some token packs I've never even opened, or opened just to take a look at the contents.  Just the paper "stuff" weighed in over 2 pounds.

The rules will be simple.  All you need to do is follow this blog.  This mini-contest (pardon the pun) will run for 1 full week and end on March 1st.  I'll just roll randomly using my Maptools die roller function /r 1dx, where x is the number of followers, and then just count down the list of folks to determine who has first crack at the minis.  I realize that some may not want them, so I'll just "dice off" again until we locate a winner.  This is intended to be a quick & easy contest.

I'll take care of shipping within the US and pay for the 1st $10 of shipping outside the US, should that end up being the case.

If there are any questions, please feel free to ask.

Free GM Resource: USGS National Map Viewer

This week's Free GM Resource is not what I was hoping to find.  Instead, it is far better...well at least for me.  Hopefully you'll agree.

I was trying to track down a lead I had on getting topographic patterns for making my own maps.  I'm not exactly sure what that particular resource was going to look like, but I stumbled upon the United States Geographical Survey National Map Viewer.

Wow, is this thing awesome!  It is basically a specialized web browser that lets you look around at US maps.  When you find a view you like you can "order" a map.  There are several different options to choose from, but if you order the PDF map you'll get a download link emailed to you.  Then the real fun begins.

Once you get the map you can start playing with it.  The map is layered and you can just start going through and checking off which layers you don't want.  If you remove everything but the water and the topographical lines you will have a rich canvas with which to start your own map.

Take this map below:

There is no scale on this map.  Is it 50 miles....500?  The "real" map has a contour interval of 5' and this map is probably less than 10 square kilometers, but this map can be whatever I want.  It could be a major river gorge separating two warring kingdoms.  I could put a major fort or two in some flat or well-protected areas.

There are a ton of possibilities.

Now Imagine if I wanted to draw this out.  How long do you think it would have taken?  This map took me less than 10' to look up, order, and manipulate.  I'd say that was a Frugal use of my time.

Frugal GM Review: Mystic Mountain's Town Square Clock Tower

While I'm not a great paper modeler, I get by.  One of the free models I downloaded from Drive Thru RPG was this Town Square Clock Tower from Mystic Mountain Productions.

The first thing I noticed about this model was that simple fact that it was actually two models in one file.  One was the clock tower and the other was a simple monument.  The second monument option was a helluva cool bonus, and the choice for my build.  Both models are basically an obelisk with small base and plaque.  The whole thing sits on a nice pedestal and comes with a set of four stone benches.

Frugal GM Review: Avalon Models Fantasy House

When I downloaded a bunch of free files off of Drive Thru RPG there were several paper models in with the rest of the files.

I've put together a few models in the past and I'm....."OK" with assembling paper models.  Paper models can be quite challenging, but the effort is usually worth the reward.

There are a lot of great paper model manufacturers out there, and I've recommended some in the past.

Unfortunately Avalon Models (Avalon Games), as represented by their free sample Fantasy House, is not one of them.  I hope that this is just a bad example and not an accurate representation of their models.

Free GM Resource: Player Locators

As a GM you can spend all of your free time putting together the best system/campaign/adventure you want, but if you don't have anybody to run it for it is all for naught.

This week'd Free GM Resource is a pair of websites dedicated to helping gamers connect.

The first is RPG Game Find, which is a simple listing of gamers looking to play.  You put in your region, a zip code and a proximity search and (hopefully) you get a listing.  A thirty-mile search around my zip code got me 6 listings within the last 4 months looking for gamers for all flavors of D&D, Pathfinder, and even HackMaster.

The second link is NearbyGamers, which works a bit backwards from RPG Game Find.  Instead of putting in your location, you put in your game and custom Google map shows up with all the gamers who have that game listed as one they play or are looking to play.  You then have to zero in on your desired geographical location to find folks.

Both sites allow you to send initial contacts to prospective players and allow you to put a little more information in (when you register) that make it easier to hang out your gaming shingle.

If you need to fill a seat or are looking to fill one yourself you might want to check these sites out.

Frugal GM Review: Inked Adventures Hand Drawn Geomorph Tiles

I'm making a small departure from my normal reviews today for a couple of reasons, primarily because I like this publisher and because the took an idea I was working on and in many ways made it better.  I figure the money spent on this item at Drive Thru RPG is worth the time it saved me.

I'll admit I'm a fan of Inked Adventure's offerings and own most of their stuff.  The skillful combination of hand-drawn art and gridded, modular rooms really appeals to me.

Inked Adventure's Hand Drawn Geomorph Tiles continues in this same vein.

Free GM Resource: Fantastic Maps

This week's Free GM Resource is a bit of a re-hash of an earlier free resource, but with a large dash of awesome.

Last November I linked to some Cartographer's Guild Tutorials.  Many of those tutorials were done by Jonathan Roberts, who (I think) hails from Scotland.

His website, Fantastic Maps, is quite plain and at first glance looks like it might just be some quick advertising for his work.  If you check out his tutorials and free maps sections you can find some great Free GM Resources.

Jonathan has taken many of those tutorials you might have looked at earlier and beefed them up quite a bit with some video.  If you use Photoshop or GIMP just watching the videos can help increase your skill levels.

Of initial interest to me was a rather large collection of very cool free dungeon tiles.  These tiles are quite a bit better than your average set of free (or I'd dare say paid) dungeon tiles.  They are sized at 100 dpi for use with Virtual Table Tops and instead of giving completed rooms he has broken everything down into discrete elements that you can use to make whatever you need.  These dungeon tile pieces would work well in Photoshop, GIMP, or Dundjinni.

While I highly recommend poking around the site and soaking in all you can, if you need a larger map for a special session you should check out Johnathan's maps on Drive Thru RPG.  I've used them before and in my biased opinion they were some of the best "professional" maps I've ever used.  Well worth the price.