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.

Free Map 009

I've already shared the basement levels of my adventure map, which is a little bit of putting the cart before the horse, but I liked those maps better than the above ground levels.

This map is the 1st floor of a private temple/residence of a High Priest of an evil god. The church's holy symbol is a closed, mailed fist and that symbol is used as the basis for this building.

The first floor is the temple portion which is used primarily by the
High Priest and his entourage. It is important to note that there was no attempt to make the well in this map placed accurately in relation to the stairwell. On this map I didn't see the point in wasting so much space.

The smaller version to the right has some numbered areas, but the larger version does not. I'm not a huge fan of this map if for no other reason I don't feel good about mapping out buildings in general.

Hopefully some of you might find this map useful......especially if you consider yourself as bad as doing buildings as I am.

Frugal GM Review: Plate Mail Games Background Loops

I've featured a couple different methods for putting sounds into your game and this last week I decided to go with a somewhat different track than I've played with before.

While I've been collecting sounds and music for some time I wanted something simple to use at the game table. Downloading an app and tweaking settings is more prep than I wanted. Nothing wrong with going that route if it works for you, but I often have enough going on that I don't want another "thing" to distract me.

Last week when I was browsing DriveThruRPG I came across this free Volcanic Cavern background loop from Plate Mail Games. Now I've been to the Plate Mail Games website before and wasn't particularly impressed, for a couple of reasons. They do have audio examples of their background loops, but some are a bit on the short side. I mentally filed them away as something to check in on later. When I got the full 10' Volcanic Cavern loop, well that was the "later".

Now I really don't think I'll get much use out of the Volcanic Cavern, much less a good portion of their current titles, but the sample did give me a good idea of what they offered. A quick purchase later and I had the Daytime Medieval City loop. At $1.50 I figured it would be worth checking out that night in-game.

All I did was transfer it to my iTunes collection and then my iPad. Coupled with a wireless bluetooth speaker I was able to toggle it on and off with a single press. Both loops are ten minutes long and if you set the player to loop you can have the background playing for as long as you like. The long length and varying noises doesn't give the soundtrack defining moments that make it seem like a file being looped.

I was quite impressed.

My only "extra" work for this was to play with my settings in iTunes to put all (both) background
loops into one album. As I add more tracks I'll add them to the one album just to make playing easier. Since I also use my iPad to look up PDF information I like how I can use one device to do multiple things. As long as the program I'm using doesn't compete for the speaker I can have the background loops going as I multi-task the device.

Plate Mail Games has a decent variety of background loop tracks and has just successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign for more sound effect tracks. I know I'll be picking up some more loops to use in my home game.

Free GM Resource: Handwriting Font Creator

A couple weeks ago I put up a free cuneiform-style font that I thought some folks might like. That was just me messing around a bit.

A couple of times I've used a custom font as a game prop. In addition to notes and letters in foreign fantasy languages, I've made a magical notation font so I can "write" spells out to form a spellbook of sorts.

Now, to make things easy I generally use English to type my stuff out and then use the custom font to simply change letters out. For example, if I was making a Russian-language game prop I wouldn't necessarily actually use Russian (Cyrillic) but instead have Cyrillic letters mapped out on the English alphabet. In this case I'm going more for a look rather than readability in the original language. Then, depending on the PC's language skill (and mechanics) I can simply change back some/all of the text back to English.

There are already a lot of custom fantasy fonts on the interwebs that you can download and use. This free online tool for creating your own font (from http://www.myscriptfont.com/) is real easy to use, but you need a scanner. There are only a few steps:

• Download & print the template sheet
• Fill it out with a good pen
• Scan the filled out template
• Upload the scanned file
• Download & install your new font

Creating your own fonts can go a long way in making it possible to put a personal touch on a lot of gaming projects. On hand-drawn maps, for example, you can dispense with having to label everything as you draw the map and instead scan it in and then use your font to type out the labels. Since you can manipulate the text, it is a lot easier than trying to incorporate it into the drawing.

Free Maps 007 & 008

This week I find myself still working on my tavern map. I'm having fun with it and don't mind taking my time. For some reason I keep getting interrupted, mostly by life and Call of Duty: Ghosts, but the interruptions are giving me breaks which inspire new thoughts on how to accomplish certain things more efficiently and effectively.

I really want to go back to some earlier maps and try these new ideas out....

Click for link to full-sized map

Speaking of earlier maps, this week I have two smaller maps to share. Both of these are part of the dungeon/tunnel complex of a small eeeeevil church. Last week's map was the 1st sub-level and this week's maps are the second sub-level and a smaller "sub level" of tunnel. That day's part of the multi-session tournament adventure actually ends descending into the depths below from this second section of semi-natural tunnel.

Technically this map lines up with last week's map, as far as the stairs and the well are concerned. The way I put this adventure together these pictures were tweaked and used to create stamps for use in my adventure template PDF. The end result is that the maps aren't at the same scale as printed. Luckily I did put graph squares in the maps so they should line up.

For some reason I still have my Photoshop (PSD) files for when I made these maps, which meant I might still have everything set-up on the original scale. I really don't want to try and fix the scaling manually because I know I'll get something off and it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Of course, when I went to go look at the PSD file I see I have little more than my original scan. I thought some might find it interesting because you can get a bot of

an insight on how I do my maps.

Almost all of my work is done with the computer. I usually draw my outline and all of the individual elements on drawing pads and then scan them at 600 dpi. I clean the scans up and then start adding elements from my resource files. I do not consider myself an artist in any way, shape, or form. My tolerance for drawing something out is quite low because I simply cannot make anything look like I want it to. Sure, I can envision something quite cool, but forcing my hands to produce something remotely accurate to what I'm thinking.....not really possible.

Fortunately I can attempt a reasonable facsimile by breaking down the task into smaller drawings and using the computer to stitch elements together. I end up with a simpler style that I think has a more pleasing aesthetic anyway. This is one of the reasons I'm a fan of Dyson Logos (seriously, I think you should Patreonize the guy). If I'm lucky I can come close (enough) to his style, which I like.

Click for link to full-sized map

I might put up the two maps for the eeeeeevil temple situated above these sub-levels, but I'm not very fond of that map-making effort. If I don't have my tavern map done yet I may just toss them up. Of course if I do get the tavern map made up, and it comes out better than expected I may have to keep it for a special project.