Frugal GM's End of the Year DriveThruRPG Review

I've just crunched the numbers and it seems like a decent year for the Frugal GM over at DriveThruRPG. A little over 1,000 downloads of the things I've made and overall (not just this year, but since the start in 2012) 92% of the downloads have been for free items.

Now that other 8%.....well for this year that means I've "made" $64. Obviously I don't do this for the money. That money was pretty much spent on buying more RPG products through the site.

I have some more ideas for products for next year and I plan on keeping many for free and everything else under $1.99. I had two goals when I started putting stuff up on DriveThruRPG:

1) Have lots of free stuff.
2) Everything not free should be inexpensive.

That's about as simple as it gets. I know my numbers are actually a bit skewed, for a couple of reasons, and probably should at least be in the 94-95% range. The iPad character sheet I made ended up being three versions instead of one so people could end up with the smallest file needed and generally get sold as a $2 bundle, but I report that out as three sales instead of one. I also found out that another company had downloaded and been giving away one of my free files on their own website for 10 months of last year. That's been taken care of, so hopefully things will be more accurate next year.

I do have one small favor to ask....

If you've downloaded some of these items and found them useful, please leave me a review or even just some feedback. I read every review and it gets a bit disheartening to find that out of 1600+ downloads I have but five (5!) reviews....and only three of them are from "regular" folks.

Free GM Resource: Ye Olde Map Maker

This is probably the last Frugal GM post of the year and this isn't an obvious selection for a "Free" GM Resource.

Ye Olde Map Maker is an inexpensive app for iOS and Android, but it also has a free-to-use desktop/web version. This program lets you create rather simple maps for use now or later. You can easily edit your maps, save them, or even share them.

The sharing of your maps is the cool part because if you can share your maps with others...........

...................

......that means you can use other people's maps as well! Hopefully you realized this before you read it.

In many ways this is a mobile version of the MIA program Dungeon Crafter. Sure, it doesn't have as many tiles to play with, but the ability to share maps more than makes up for it. I've noticed they've been rolling out updates so the program is getting better over time.

They even have a Ye Olde Map Maker forum, but you have to register to get access (and I haven't done that....yet. Hoping it uses the same access as my program registration.)

I've just started playing around with the Ye Olde Map Maker and while I doubt it'll be my go-to program, the fact that I could start a map at home and then use my iPad when I'm out & about to work on it later sounds great.

Free GM Resource: Kroten Campaign Setting from Lenard Lakofka & Dragonsfoot

Well it is that time of year again and I have to ask, did you get your GM a Christmas Present yet?

Of course it isn't too late to go down to the FLGS (Favorite Local Gaming Store) and get some dice or maybe even a new supplement. It really just depends on how your group does things.

My group exchanges gifts, but we're all friends outside of the table and our gifts aren't usually gaming related.

This year it looks like the folks over at Dragonsfoot have given us all a great big old present with the release of not just one supplement, but four related supplements!

Seriously, to quote one of my favorite holiday songs, "Hey everybody Holy Crap it's Christmas!" A big...HUGE...thanks goes out to  Lenard Lakofka for the release of the Kroten series of supplements:

• L5A: The Kroten Campaign Guide 
• L5B: The Kroten Adventures 
• L5C: The Kroten Campaign Companion
• L5 Map Pack 

Kroten is set in the World of Greyhawk, but like anything else can easily be relocated. There is literally several hundred pages of content here to devour and it will take a while to go through it all. If you haven't given your GM a special gift, you could always download these files, print them off, and give the gift of a cool campaign setting in print and PDF.

Who knows? You may end up with a cool new sandbox to play in next year.....

On a more personal note, I'd like to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas. If you don't celebrate this particular holiday...well I don't wish you anything less because of it. Please take some time to enjoy your friends and gaming now and all throughout 2014.

Frugal GM Review: Dyson's Dodecahedron 8

Yesterday Dyson Logos came out with Issue #8 of his "infrequently" published Zine Dyson's Dodecahedron. This particular issue is largely the adventure Trouble at Imp Brücke, set up for use with the Labyrinth Lord system.

Before I go any further in this review I have a couple of author's biases that I must divulge. First is that I have never actually played Labyrinth Lord. My system of choice is HackMaster (the current edition) and I make no apologies for this. I know a lot of people are really digging the multitude of OSR games out there and Labyrinth Lord gets a lot of love from these folks.

My second bias is that I have a bit of a GM Crush on Dyson Logos. I mean seriously, how could any "Old School" GM not love his map work? I'd pick up....heck I did pick up...all of the Dyson's Dodecahedron based just on the mapwork. The fact that he gives the maps out free and these Zines are "pay what you want".....awesomesauce.

As I started going through this Zine I really didn't know what to expect. I was hoping for a bunch of maps, but beyond that not much. My initial flip through to get an overview showed only two maps. One was an expected dungeon map, but the other was a cool little overland map the likes of which I hadn't seen in a while. There were only a couple of other pieces of art, both of which added to the Zine. I hate when it looks like art has been added just to pad out the content. There is a single page at the end of random tables.....something I always enjoy, and then three more pages of open gaming license "stuff".

I get really confused when I see so much license in a product because I know that all of the things listed weren't referenced in this product, as required by the OGL. If anything it looks like a continuation list of all the different products that have been published over the years, but I just don't know.

The last thing I noticed, well actually it is the first thing, but the last thing I checked on, is the size of the Zine. It looked fine on my iPad, but the dimensions seemed a bit "off". I assumed that this was just because it was an A4 sheet and I'm used to the inferior letter size of 8.5" x 11". I was a bit surprised when I found that the Zine's dimensions were actually half of a letter page. This was a bit of a mixed blessing in and of itself because it made me want to print it out as a half-page booklet. When I realized the size of the page I also realized that the maps were also half-sized, as far as 300 DPI graphics went.

My second pass was an actual read-through and the adventure was also a bit of a mixed blessing. It seemed on par with the other Labyrinth Lord adventures I've seen, but at the same time it just felt wrong to me. If you look at the extracted map above, it is reasonably close to a square mile, between 2 and 3 square kilometers for our metric friends. In that small space there are a lot of higher-end monsters. I wouldn't necessarily say they were apex predators, but I really couldn't see all of these monsters co-existing with a small human settlement within their feeding territory. A decent bit of this is explained away in the prelude to the adventure, but that only accounted for a small portion of this "imbalance" that mentally poked at me as I read this adventure.

Of course I think that with a lot of OSR games you just have to roll with it and even within the confines of a fantasy setting things don't have to make sense. I'm perfectly willing to just chalk this up to a difference in GM styles, especially since I knew going in if I wanted to use this adventure I'd be having to change things up some. At that point I'm taken back to just the maps.....both of which were awesome. Since I know that Dyson makes these maps available for free on his website, I kind of wish that the Zine had direct links to hi-res versions of the maps so I could download them easily for my own use.

Overall not a bad Zine. On the surface it really seems a bit of an overkill to buy this issue for a couple of half-sized hi-res maps I could otherwise find for free online, but Dyson's Dodecahedron is more than just a couple of maps. Even if you "need" to re-write the whole adventure to make it more appropriate to your game system, you realistically don't need to re-write the whole adventure. Just a couple of tweaks to the monsters and treasure, maybe minor tweak here or there to the story and you're good to go. I'm thinking it wouldn't take even 30 minutes to get Trouble at Imp Brücke ready for play at my table, which would save me a ton of time in game prep.

Free Map(s) 12-14

Instead of one free map, this week I am putting up a trio of free maps.

Why?

Because they are all rather simple variations of a single theme: ambushes.

Last week's free map as a twofer encounter map, with the second encounter being a potential setup for the next encounter. That next encounter could either come across as a wandering monster encounter or it could be an ambush, all depending on how the party performed previously.

Further along in the natural cave/tunnel complex there is a large chamber with various stalagmites and outcropping columns. A large band of monsters is on patrol through the area and would normally encounter the party at a reasonable range....possibly being surprised. If this group was alerted to the PC's presence they'd hide behind the various nooks & crannies to ambush the party.

This map is also good just to plop down in front of your players for absolutely no reason at all....except to keep them on their toes.

This map is a real simple trail map for when the party comes out of the caves. While I clearly remember this encounter, the setup was quite a bit on the simple side. There are realistically only 3 options for the party, and all are designated with arrows.

I like this map because it is extremely simple. The idea wasn't to plot everything out but instead just make a simple recording of options that could help the GM run the encounter on the fly. This map was never intended to be shown to the players, hence the rather simple layout.

Think of it as a slightly dressed-up flowchart.

I had just a little too much fun with this map. It was another doubling of encounters, this time an ambush and a trap. As you can see with the scale, it is a long map. The X's designated adversary locations. The party is travelling uphill and can see where the tree-line ends. Since the trees are growing smaller and are otherwise sparse they can also see the mound of dirt on the side of the road. As the party approaches, teams of crossbowmen pop-up and start peppering the party.

I try to teach my players the general rule when facing an ambush is to MOVE! If the party rushes forward they will probably fall into the pit (hence some clue with the visible mound of earth). If the party wades into the scrub to face off with the crossbowmen they'll probably prevail, but the last two in line will rush over to the mounds of sticks and light the signal fires.....

Free GM Resource: Papermau

This week's free GM Resource is another blog. I know....whoopitidoo, but please bear with me. Papermau is a blog about "Free Original and Exclusive Paper Models and the Best, Rare, and Unusual Free Papercrafts of all the World!"

While this is quite the tall order, I think Papermau nails it.

There are a ton of paper models plastered all over this blog. Roughly 1.27 bazillion of them are appropriate for RPG use. Sure, some might need to be re-scaled, but that is easily done when printing them out.

There are so many models to look at I decided to go ahead and post this a day early so you don't spend too much of your workday screwing around looking at all the goodies. Of course you can still choose to do so, but if you get busted hogging all of your company's bandwidth on paper model downloads....it isn't my fault.

Have fun!

Frugal GM Review: Into the Wilderness Map 0

This is a pretty cool preview map of Crooked Staff's Into the Wilderness line of maps. While it is intended to be an accurate overview of the Into the Wilderness line, it falls a bit flat.

Don't get me wrong, it is a good map, just not as good as the rest of the Into the Wilderness line.

This download consists of two files: a 10 page PDF and a 1000 pixel square jpeg. You essentially get this map in two ways. You can use the 150dpi jpg file for your virtual table-top programs or you can print the PDF out to use as a battlemat. If you go the battlemat route you'll need to print out six pages. A seventh page shows the other pages stitched together and has room to write some notes.

Four tiles together

The coolest thing about this map is that the large tile is seamless, so you can extend the map out as far
as you want. The map does a fairly good job of not looking too repetitious.

The worst thing about this map is a bit of a toss up. On one hand it isn't an accurate representation of the rest of the line because the other maps have options when it comes to the grid lines. On the other hand the JPG is only 150 dpi. The other maps in this line have a variety of grid options (square, hex, or none).

If you want to cut apart the individual PDF pages in Photoshop or the like you can get a 300 dpi map. Something like this I would love to have as part of my pre-made map arsenal, printed up on cardstock, or even vinyl, and laminated (or just protected with a clear vinyl cover sheet). I think I'd get a ton of mileage out of this at my table.

I also wish that there were some extra pages, even just minor strips, that could help transition this map

seamlessly with the other in the line. I one one other of the Into the Wilderness maps and while it is also high-quality, they don't fit together without extra work.  This is a minor quibble though and not really enough to downgrade the review.

Crooked Staff does have a Into the Wilderness Bundle with all 7 maps for $5.49. Totally worth it!

Map 011 With Example of Use (Two Encounters)

This week's free map is something I made up as a bit of a surprise in the middle of a tournament adventure. All of us, players and GMs alike, are creatures of habit. If you are able to see the habits that you and/or your players have formed, then you get to have a little fun at their expense.

Now I don't mean "Killer GM" fun, just a minor tweak or two to catch the players offside a bit.

You know.....like if you players always choose to take right turns when starting out a dungeon, you can work with that.

I know as a player that when the GM throws down a map, things just got "real". To this end I like to sometimes bring out map and/or prop pieces for no reason at all. Sure it can "waste" a little bit of table time, but when you put the players on alert when they aren't expecting it and then something doesn't happen..., well that is a teaching moment.

Normally in a tournament your encounters are somewhat spaced a bit. Throw down a map and the players are expecting to complete some challenge (combat, social, or trap) and move on. With this map I combined two encounters to help throw off the players just a wee bit.

On this map the players are travelling from right to left in an underground tunnel. The tunnel opens up and the players can make out a couple of things: a small pool of water with a post and rope leading into the water, a small tunnel at the back, and an awful stench near the entrance to the tunnel.

As the party checks things out they get attacked, which is the combat encounter. I used Stirges so the party would be engaged/grappled and not try to flee into the next encounter. When the battle was done the party has two options: try the water route or go along the side tunnel. The distance between the two pools was such that and average swimmer could just make it.

The stench? That is an olfactory marker for the inhabitant further along the cave system to know not to take the path. In the path are four Shriekers which cause such a ruckus that everyone knows there is someone at that spot. Setting off the Shriekers turns the next encounter from a combat where everyone can be surprised to an ambush that can really put the party at a disadvantage.

The players were only shown the right side of the map and they assumed that the encounter was pretty much done after defeating the Stirges......

Free GM Resource: Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque

This week's Free GM Resource is a series, well a trio for now, of GM sourcebooks that seems like a huge yearly zine.

Called Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque (say that 5 times fast), this annual compendium of "gothic fantasy" from Jack Shear comes from his blog of the same name.

These three sourcebooks are intended to be used in a custom game setting outlined in the first book, but they are filled with all kind of goodies you can use in any FRPG. Monsters, poisons, spells....you name it.

The first zine/sourcebook is 164 pages, the second is 118 and the third runs 112 pages. That is a ton of content. It took me quite a while just to skim the first volume and I want to go back and read it before moving on to the second, much less the third.

I'm not big on running a gothic campaign and there is pretty much no way I'd run this special setting, but there are lots of bits I will be using, like the "Random Weird Organization Generator" in the first volume. I'm going to put my players up against The Unutterable Cult Of Opheliacs and see how they fare.

Frugal GM Review: Dreamworlds Hex Tile Maps

This review is for the free Hex Tile Maps: Village and Roads Pack from Dreamworlds.

It is a representative example of their Hex Tile Maps line that costs between $1.99 and $6.99 (but most sets are $1.99).

This particular set consists of 20 hexagonal tiles, 5 pages of 4 tiles each. The tiles are about four inches across. The pages are A4 sized, so you'll have to re-size them when printing. Since I was going to have to re-size them anyway, I decided to reduce them in size about 50% and print them 6 to a sheet on 4" x 6" photo paper at the local store.

I was able to get a lot of these tiles made up for cheap this way. I spent less than $1.30 on a total of 60 printed tiles, which seemed pretty good to me. After mounting the pictures to some mat board I had I began the somewhat tedious process of cutting them out. Next time I think I'll mount them on a backing that is easier to cut out.

If printing them "full-size" I think I'd maybe go with some magnetic sheeting or something already suitably thick.

Realistically there are "only" 16 tiles in this set since one full page of tiles is blank. Of course, this isn't so much a stand-alone product, but a free addition to another set. The general idea is that these tiles are "random" and you can pretty much just put them together any which way to make a small village map. Most tiles of this nature are square, but Dreamworlds went with a hex shape.

The big difference between using squares and hexes are, of course, the addition of two more sides.

While this seems like a cool idea, in practice I think it detracts from the ability to easily create a random village. Most tiles have two or three roads that would connect to another tile. Two tiles have four roads connecting to other tiles.  With six-sided tiles this means that only 1/3 to 1/2 of the sides have to match up to other tiles. When laying out the tiles this meant I was spending more time trying to place tiles like a puzzle than I was simply putting them down.

Even though it seemed a bit "fiddly" to work with, I did enjoy the end result. A couple more tiles that had dead ends or more road connections would have been cool, but for the whopping $1.30 and supplies I already had......not complaining one bit. I might get one of the other sets and give it the same treatment.

Overall I thought this was an interesting new take on random map tiles and a pretty cool way to come
up with a quick village map. A few more tiles would really help round out this set. The 75 tile set that this is an expansion of is the most expensive of the set, but it is also the largest by far.











PS. My cat liked them as well!

Katie goes on a rampage.

Free Map 010

This week's free map is the second level of the eeeeeeevil temple from last week. The second floor is the private residence of the Head Priest and his personal guards.

There isn't a lot to this map.........

Like last week, the example given has numbered areas that aren't on the bigger version.

Hmmmm.....figures I've just noticed now that there is an error with the map. I'll leave it to you to notice it or not.....

Free GM Resource: Sketchup & Mr. Hook's GENERICA Project

Today's Free GM Resource is a bit of a twofer, depending on your point of view.

First up is the popular, free, 3D rendering program. Yes, there is a paid Pro version, but the basic version is still free for non-commercial use. You can get SketchUp for downloading here.

For a few folks, SketchUp might be the ultimate in mapping. Even I have to admit that being able to render a map in 3D is wicked cool. I've seen some game products done in SketchUp in a style that makes it look like it was drafted by hand and given an artist's once-over.

Me....I'm a bit too lazy to play with SketchUp, at least for now. I have enough problems mapping in 2D, much less in 3D. Given my predilection for using the computer to stitch together assorted map parts you'd think this would be the perfect thing for me.

I can, however totally get behind SketchUp if I get to download some wonderful renderings that other people have already created, which is really my main point in today's post. Mr. Hook, a graphic designer/illustrator from Nebraska, put together an awesome sampling of 3D RPG renderings. He calls it his GENERICA Project and I think the results are amazing. I'm only going to share one picture of his work, the quintessential tavern:

Seriously, don't you want to start off your adventure in a place like this? Since it is 3D you can move about the space virtually and change things however you want. Too many tables? Easily fixed. Needs a larger fireplace....done.

Even if you don't want to make your own models, I think you'll get a ton of mileage out of SketchUp and Mr. Hook's GENERICA Project files.