Another "Work In Progress" Map: Continuing the Process

OK, it has been a couple week since I last stepped through a "work in progress" (or WIP) map. The big learning event in that post ended up being a surprise to me because it was kindly pointed out (despite my allegations to the contrary) that I could use some of my available tools to streamline the process considerably.

In that post we pretty much just went from scanning the crudely drawn in map to getting a good working computer file.

This time around though I'm working on a new map, so I've already taken things to this point. It might be important to note that on this map I'm doing things differently in that instead of starting out with a complete drawn out map I have instead elected to draw a bunch of elements that I'm planning on stitching together in Photoshop. GIMP would work just as well, but the commands and toolbars will vary.

Most of the work so far

So I have this digital file that is still rough and I put it through some quick auto-tracing in Adobe Illustrator. There are alternatives to AI, Inkscape immediately comes to mind, but I use the tools I have available.

Frugal GM Review: Moleskin Maps Volume Five

One of the map-makers I keep online tabs on is +matt jackson, who just came out with his fifth volume of Moleskin Maps. I have some of his earlier maps, and have even reviewed his Village of Cowfold.

This 28 page PDF was a PWYW (Pay What You Want) product but I just checked it and saw Matt had changed it to $3.99. I'm not sure how many people were downloading it for nothing, but I bet it was a lot.

Too bad, because this collection of 13 maps, and the rest of the download, is quite worthwhile. First off, each map comes with a lead-in page that is.....if I might be so bold...damned useful. There is a section to record the area name, background, key locations, GM Notes, and even spots for wandering encounters and treasure.

Free Map 021: Another Attempt at the Cave Complex

As "promised" last week, I went back to that map and tried to create more of a 3D effect. After a couple tries I didn't like how things were progressing and ended up scrapping an hour or two or work. I got to watch/listen to some "classic" movies, and I learned what doesn't work, so the time wasn't a total loss.

After those initial missteps I just ended up going back to my work-in-progress files to where I had every level on it's own layer and simply created the same drop-shadow to each layer. The effect was pretty good, in my opinion, right up until the point where I did the stippling. With the stippling the effect is a bit subdued except where the layers overlap.

I ended up having to roll things back, essentially starting over yet again. I added some "tunnels" on each level, leading to lower levels. I kept the same shape, although the size changes sometimes, for the entrances and exits. Hopefully it is easy to tell how these two connect.

After re-doing the stippling I went ahead and added a floor texture. Nothing fancy.....

Like usual, clicking on the lead-in graphic gets you the hi-res download (or use this link). You can view/download the low-res on the right.

Free GM Resource: Save Vs. Dragon

This week's Free GM Resource is another something I thought I had pointed out before. I was a little embarrassed because I was going to revisit this resource because, in my mind, I had completely overlooked a ton of things.

Fortunately I was a bit off in my earlier assumptions. What I have done was review two products from New Big Dragon Games Unlimited (affiliate link).
          *Sandbox Resources: Hex Map Pack
          *D30 Sandbox Companion

Now, if you go over to their blog, there is a plethora (as in multitude or simply gobs) of free GM resources. What initially caught my eye was the d30 Feature of the Week. Granted, it is a bit of a misnomer, but still.....a lot of good tables there.

While you are stocking up on files, don't forget to check out the "Free Downloads" tab.

Now after you gorge yourself on free goodies you should seriously consider doing one of two things:
          Support New Big Dragon Games Unlimited
          Participate in NBDGU's Community Geomorph Project

Aside from good karma, you get to support future free products...at least one! Now if you'll excuse me I have a lot of new tables and adventures to pour over....as soon as I finish adding Save Vs. Dragon to my +12 Links of Helpfulness.


I want to give any of my readers a bit of a head's up that there are more free resources on this blog than what I've already linked to. I didn't do much more than point out some low-hanging fruit. Something tells me I've only scratched the surface.....

New Frugal GM Product: Stippling Dots and Cross-Hatching for Maps

I didn't realize I hadn't posted about a new product I've put up over at DriveThruRPG.

I've been trying to put up a free map a week online, which is a bit of a stretch for me, so I've been using some aides in helping me do so. Truth be told, I'd most likely still use these aides even if I had all the time in the world to work on these maps. My hand cramps up with trying to do the tedious work of stippling or hatching the map, so I basically made a map file that is nothing but stippling dots (and in this case some cross-hatching).

I have put up an early attempt for free one week, but I had since gone in and cleaned up not only my work, but my work processes. I like the results I'm getting and thought that this might make something worthwhile for other map makers.

Originally I had something along the line of 20 different stippling layers, broken down into four "intensities" of 5 different dot sizes. One dot size was just too similar to one of the others and over time I realized that I was only using one "intensity" within each dot size. Once I separated these three files out I went ahead and bundled them with two sizes of cross-hatching I had made up as well. I don't use the cross-hatching nearly as much myself, but I just like the stippling effect to much I guess.

One thing I've started doing that isn't mention on the product page is that I over lap the stippling layers just a bit, which helps to keep definable border lines from appearing on your finished map. These lines tend to disappear when blurred some, but overlapping does a lot on its own.

I hope those that download it get some great use out of it.

Frugal GM Review: D30 Sandbox Companion

Thanks to a few folks buying up some of my offerings at DriveThruRPG I had enough in my publisher account to pony up the whopping $6 for the D30 Sandbox Companion from New Big Dragon Games Unlimited(affiliate links provided). I've been waiting for a while to get my hands on this title and I'm glad the wait is now over.

I'm going to skip ahead to a TLDR overview: Everything good you've heard about this supplement is correct and you should get yourself a copy ASAP. Get yourself a d30 if you don't already have one*.

Granted I'm a sucker for tables and this tome of 56 pages is mostly tables, but I'm quite impressed. In general it isn't all that difficult to put down some random tables, but putting together good random tables is an art-form all onto itself. Couple some great, dare I say awesome, GM aides with great tables and you have yourself a winner. I'd love to be able to say, "I can do that", which technically might be correct, but I doubt I'd be able to pull off anything nearly as good.

On my initial read-through I noticed that the general layout and even font selection really made it easy to read and follow along. Unfortunately this only went so far because some of the tables are just downright confusing. Silly me, I skipped over the intro pages to get right to the tables and game aides. Pages 3 to 5 are solely dedicated to explaining just how to get the most out of this book. There are tables that are essentially two tables in one and a few other aides that really need some introduction. Some tables/aides have additional instructions unique for that item right on the page.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

While the random tables drew me in, it is the game aids that really sold me on the D30 Sandbox Companion. Some great aides for mapping out an area, town, and making it easy to track/flesh out NPCs. My favorite is the Off Course Determination on page 14. I think it just made me remember something about course deviation regarding mils from my early Air Force land navigation training (don't try to make sense of this). I found it easy to use and just made sense to me.

Now with regard to the tables.....awesome tables. What I noticed were tables that really filled in some holes as far as common GM needs and those tables that I might have had different versions of elsewhere.....well I'm going with these d30 tables.

To date I've only found one typo....nothing major at that. Even if it was upped to one typo per page I'd be willing to gloss it over for the simple fact that the folks at New Big Dragon Games Unlimited bothered to bookmark this product. THANK YOU!!! One of my biggest pet peeves is when a PDF isn't bookmarked. I'm also glad that NBDGU didn't password-protect the PDF to the point of absurdity. More than once I've come across a PDF that couldn't be used to its fullest effect because it was overly protected. The only "real" issue I have with this PDF is that the majority of the pages are landscape oriented while some are portrait. This made it fun to play with on my tablet, but wouldn't be an issue otherwise.

Since I've already given the TLDR overview all I can say is that I thought this was a good purchase and it makes me want to check out the rest of the New Big Dragon Games Unlimited line. I wasn't sure I'd be happy spending $6 on some new (to me) producer's product, but I think I'm going to get more than 6x the usage out of this one item than I'd have gotten out of a smaller $1 table book from someone else (I've seen those $1 tables.....no thanks).




*You don't have a d30?! I'm not sure if we can be friends anymore. Just kidding, but seriously though....get a d30 (and this book).

Free Map 020: A Complex Cave System

I'm still busy making cave maps.

If you don't like cave maps....sorry? Part of the reason for these maps is to play around (have some fun) while learning new skills and strengthening those I might already have.

Like last week when I did a mental shift on how to approach a natural maze, this week I wanted to try my hand changing things up with a multi-layered cave map. In previous attempts I'd just draw everything out and scan it it. It was pretty painless once I figured out (thanks again Matt) how to use Adobe Illustrator to cut it down to a quick task.

This time I started with a series of individual caves/odds shapes and worked with them as individual pieces or layers. The map I'm presented here is not finished, but I'll get into that later. Since I didn't have an idea on how I wanted the pieces to fit I needed a way to show which levels were underneath each other without drawing the little dashed lines like I'd do when drawing it all out at once.

I toyed with the idea of assembling the layers, selecting the appropriate walls, and then just using a white paintbrush to essentially remove small bits of wall. I tested that quickly and did not like the end result. A couple weeks ago a different Matt started sharing some maps where he colored in the lower levels. To be fair he may have been doing this for years, but I only noticed a bit ago. Since I was going more than two levels deep this isn't an option, but it got me thinking of "simply" using a lighter grey color to designate wall sections underneath a layer above it. Since I didn't have any individual wall section two deep, I thought it was worth a go.

I liked the results, but it was a bit of a PITA. The steps themselves were simple, but I end up having so many layers on this map that it was hard to keep track of things. I was reducing the file and saving my progress in steps to put together another how-to post, possible later this week.

This map isn't finished in the sense that I have a few things I want to play around with still and I deliberately have not connected the various levels.....yet. In my mind's eye each level is anything but level and if I dare to try a 3D or side view I'll be able to show this off. As-is though, the map is almost good-to-go, you just need to put in connections between the different sections.

I've got a couple hours easy into this, believe it or not, and I'm sure I'll have a few more before I think it is finished.

To get the hi-res (300dpi png) map, click on the header graphic or feel free to use this link.

Free GM Resource: Masks

In many ways I'm a lazy GM. There are a lot of things I love to do as a GM and I tend to spend more of my time working on those things and not so much on the stuff I don't like to do.

One thing I generally don't like to do is come up with NPCs. Often I'll just have a list of generated names written down and I'll come up with my NPC's persona and background on the fly, taking down notes as I go. This keeps me from having to do too much work ahead of time. If the PCs never visit the bakery, my time creating the Baker is just a waste.

Now this week Free GM Resource isn't a complete product, but a 17 page preview of a GM aide put together by the folks over at Engine Publishing. I'm linking to the page that contains the free preview download and not the download itself because....actually should I have to explain common courtesy?

I like the fact that this product gets it's main idea from an early Dragon article, one that I'd highly recommend if you wanted to write up a bunch of NPCs ahead of time. This product doesn't follow that Dragon article exactly, but it does seem to hold true to the main gist of the article, which was to make simple (and short) NPCs.

There are a (relatively) small number of NPCs given as examples and a hint of the real strength of this product which is the indexes. If you need a particular type of NPC you can quickly filter out the NPCs you don't want and easily look through those that meet your specification. I like this idea.

It is obvious that this is designed as a print product first and a PDF copy is secondary. For only 17 pages this file is over 11 MB in size. I'd like to see a PDF optimized version, preferably with some specific PDF tweaks made. The online store says it is bookmarked and linked, but to what extent....I don't know.

Overall though the strength in this free product is two-fold. 1st is the obvious preview to see if you might be interested in buy the whole aide. The second is a selection of some free NPCs. At $17 for a PDF it is out of my comfort zone, but the ideas it generates in regards to creating and organizing my own NPC bank.....

.....now to dig up my Dragon Magazine archive.