Free GM Resource: Spotify

I have to admit that as much as I've talked about adding music and sound effects to my game I haven't done it very much at all. I still keep collecting sounds, music, and programs to get the job done.

The bad part is that at this rate I'll never use the stuff I'm finding, but the good part is that I haven't locked into a particular way of getting these audio files integrated.

In my search I came across the Skyland Games blog and their suggestion to use Spotify to add music to your game. There are several music streaming services to choose from and I'm sure there are advantages & disadvantages to just about every combination of free or paid music streaming services.

What helps put Spotify over the top in this instance is the fact that Skyland Games has a specific post listing more links to Spotify songs than I care to count. They've broken up the links into six main categories:

• Adventure
• Combat
• Creepy
• Exposition
• Travel
• Town

If you have an extra computer, tablet, or smartphone and the appropriate speaker you should be able to use Spotify to "music up" your game. If you are looking to actually purchase music for your use, then at the very least this listing could be used to get a head-start on useful songs/artists to acquire.

Just FYI: If you lose the link to the list a little too easily in this post, just click on the graphic. It is a monsterized Spotify icon by Nadja Hallfahrt (and used under license).

Frugal GM Review: A Nightmare at Hill Manor

I've never played anything from the New World of Darkness from White Wolf, but back in the day I did have a few Werewolf books and I did try to play their CCG.

Now that I think of it I also read a few of their novels. I remember really liking them.

As part of a Halloween promotion I was able to download A Nightmare at Hill Manor from DriveThruRPG. It is still available as a free PDF.

This 66 page PDF contains just about everything you need for a one-off of this game. Grab a bunch of d10's, some pencils, and you should be set. I was really surprised at just how much information about the system itself was in this download. The first half of the book is nothing but explaining the basic game mechanics and the additional information needed for players to understand what their PCs could do. It seems to fall just short of being able to create "full" PCs, but there are pre-gens and enough guidance for some quick-start PC creation, so the full instructions  aren't needed.

The adventure is somewhat free-form, which means the GM really needs to read all of the material thoroughly. With a story-teller system you'd want to be intimate with the background anyway.

I have only two minor qualms about this download, and I think at least one of them is just my personal preference. The first is the setup of the PCs into the game. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with the way the PCs are introduced, it is just that there is a small write-up of each PC that goes with each character sheet, but since the PCs are supposed to know each other quite well it would make sense to have at least a one-page overview of the other PCs from each PC's perspective. I've seen this done at D&D tournaments and it gives the player some background they should know about each other instead of having to figure things out unnecessarily.

My personal qualm is more of a wish.....

This is a modern day adventure and there is supposed to be a fun and/or "spooky" introduction to this
"World of Darkness" for otherwise uninitiated PCs. I think with a little careful tweaking of the player handout materials for players this introduction to the game could come from a "straight" source. Get a group of willing players to start what appears to be a modern game and have them get introduced to the supernatural elements along with their players. If the introductory materials for this game didn't have "World of Darkness", skulls, and other clues scattered throughout this adventure could make for a much more interesting one-off that ends up leading to a new campaign.

Overall I really liked this download because it was a lot more than I had expected. If I had gotten this in late September or early October I would have considered running it as a holiday one-off for my group.

Map Parts & Pieces: Buildings

I know I'm a day behind on getting this post out, but I wasn't quite finished with what I was working on.....and there is more, but why bother?

I'm busy working on my small city supplement and it occurred to me that I'd like to maybe polish it up a bit when finished and try to make it into a small something for other GMs to use. The big problem is that my map was made by a program developed by a unknown individual. There is no attribution in the program, just some hotlinks to defunct URLs.

If I want to assemble this and make it available for a buck or two I really need to have permission to  use that map and I'm not going to be getting it any time soon. This means I have to redo my maps from scratch and draw out all of the buildings of the town.

I am far too lazy to do that level of work, which is why Photoshop comes into play. I've made a series of buildings that I scanned and cleaned up. These assorted buildings can be re-sized and placed quite easily.

Coloring them is a cinch as well. I just use a photo filter

I've also made a brush with these building shapes to make laying them down as simple as tweaking a couple of settings. I got the idea from some of the Cartographer's Guild Tutorials I posted around this time last year.

My files are Photoshop PSD files, which you can open in GIMP if you don't have Photoshop. This link contains two PSD files with the buildings shown above as well as the brush preset.

Feel free to use these files for your own private or free products as long as you follow the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License. A head's-up would be nice as well so maybe I could point some folks your way.

Overall it took me a lot longer to work out these buildings than I would have liked, but at least now I have them to use for future projects as I want.

Free GM Resource: Pyromancers

This week's Free GM Resource is a bit of a twofer.

Pyromancers has two online programs that Frugal GMs might find useful for their games. The first is a simple browser-based mapping utility called Dungeon Painter and the second is a rather cool "map" sharing utility called Forum Scene Viewer.

The Dungeon Painter creates online maps that can be exported as two different picture files (PNG and JPG) and can be exported as a PDF for printing and assembly as well. They also offer a B&W export option, but I haven't played with that any.

One of the cool things about this mapping program is that the resources aren't static. When you build a floor tile, for example, the patterns swirl about some as you expand your flooring so the resulting floor tile isn't an obviously repeating pattern. The program creates layers for your objects and you can manipulate the layers somewhat like you do in Photoshop.

Overall think of it as an online version of Dundjinni.


The second browser-based program from Pyromancers is basically a way to share a map online, or more specifically to share changes to a map that is already online. It sounds a bit confusing but basically you start with a map online already, like in a forum post. You add links to your tokens and the program creates a custom URL that directs others to your creation of map + tokens. People can make changes, like moving their PC token, and creates a new URL.

Basically it is making a static map interactive for online forum or play-by-post games.

Frugal GM Review: Adventures! Monster Cards

This last week (or so) I've heard a little chatter about this ultra-light RPG called Adventures!, from Gramel Publishing. The draw to the game is that each book is supposed to be only two pages. The main game has a two page GMG, a two page PHB, and a "bonus" character sheet.

This download is a bonus creature card for use in the game.

Now I've made monster cards before and I'm aware that it can be a pain, but I'm also keenly aware of how they usually get used. Right off I have to admit I like the idea of these cards much better than the execution.

First off, the download is rather large at 9.59 MB....zipped. The card sheet itself is large at 1.48 MB,
which is HUGE considering what that file is made of......basically eight simple cards with cut lines and a header. No color, no form fields, nothing that warrants such a large file.

Please bear with me a moment because the size of the file is important unless you simply keep one copy on-hand and print them off as needed. If you want to keep a small library of filled-in cards to pull from as needed you really want a form-fillable PDF file. Depending on the program you use for PDFs you might be able to type in notes or create a form yourself, but it is best to start with a more efficiently-sized file.

While I'm at size, these cards come in at 2.44 inches wide by 3.61 inches (61.98 x 91.69 mm) tall. Standard trading card size is 2.5 x 3.5 inches or (64 x 89 mm).  This is important because if you want a library of these cards you may choose to protect them using standard card sleeve protectors. Since these sleeves vary a bit in size, it might not be an issue, assuming you are great at cutting these cards out. The wavy border along the edges looks cool on paper, but can become problematic when you go to use these cards.

The more math-minded of you might have noticed that there is a big discrepancy between the size of the download (9.59 MB zipped vs. 1.48 MB PDF). This is because there is a second file that I'm not quite sure of. It is a 7.91 MB picture that doesn't make too much sense. At first I thought it might be a card back of some sort, but it is a solitary PNG, not a series of the same pictures laid out side by side in another PDF that is ready for printing the card backs. This picture is nearly 12 x 18 inches at a resolution of 177.8 DPI.

While extremely useful for me making a small header picture, I cannot fathom a ready as-is use for the file.

Overall monster cards can be a great way for a GM to run a combat encounter without having to make a lot of notes or refer back to the source books too often. Done right, a series of monster cards can be created easily for one session and reused in subsequent sessions.

Free Map(s) 005

With the recent posts regarding the Roleplaying City Map Generator allowing you to generate a city and this week's City Generator allowing you to make a map.....I decided my next project had to be a marriage of the two.

The cool thing with the map generator is that you can plug in some specifics from the city generator, like a certain number of gates, buildings, and wall dimensions.

After generating my city I plugged in the parameters into the map generator and cycled through a series of random maps until I found one I liked. Next I exported the map into 16 sections, giving me a HUGE map to play with. Stitching up the sections and extending the roads out of town left me with this to play with.  The larger map is 300 DPI and 24" square....which you can find here.

Now I realize that simply sharing this map isn't really worthwhile because if you got the City Map Generator you can get this far without any real effort.

Free GM Resource: City Generator

Last month I posted about a pretty cool city map generator that gave you a lot of options for building any sized city on the fly. The only real problem I saw with that program was that while a map is useful, it is only part of what a GM needs to build a city.

This City Generator, from CrystalBallSoft, is a simple & easy to use generator that has a number of options that really lets you tweak the city to your needs. The greatest part of this generator, the thing that puts it above just about every other generator I've ever seen, is that you can tweak the number & type of city wards. Combine this with building & profession generation and you've got a decently fleshed out city that doesn't take up a lot of space.

Frugal GM Review: Under Fogbreath Peak

Under Fogbreath Peak is a free one-page Labyrinth Lord adventure by Joe Johnston (Taskboy Games). I find it interesting that this is actually the third review of his DriveThruRPG products:
          Brave the Labyrinth #1
          The Manse on Murder Hill

When you factor in that I don't even play this system.....

I was drawn to each item for different reasons. The Zine because....well because it was a Zine. The adventure caught my eye initially because the cover reminded me of the old AD&D adventures. This particular adventure caught my eye because it was a simple one-page (landscape) adventure.