Free Map 035: A Map Hand Out to Somewhere

This week's free map is a player-handout, which is a bit of a departure from my norm. One of my new weekly attempts has been creating some short Encounter Sets which I put up on DriveThruRPG. Since I've just started this the whole concept is still taking form and I've got two under my belt. An idea I've been working on could better be told as at least two Encounter Sets, so that's what I'm doing. The first will be something occurring on the way to the second, but I wanted to "set the hook" with some sort of lead-in.

Frugal GM Review: The Towers of the Weretoads

Last week, thanks to a G+ post, a free OSR adventure was brought to my attention.

Evidently Michael Raston had finished his six page labor of love and released it for the world to see. The Towers of the Weretoads is not statted for any particular system or PC level and is easily adapted. I can see running this for a mid-level (5-10) group of HackMaster PCs, but only because of the sheer number of enemies that can be found within. Of course that all depends on the party's resources. I could see this level range swing wildly.

New Frugal GM Product: Who's Watching the Weir?

I've been coming up with some ideas for inexpensive products that I think will go over well, and some I just want to do. Between my current working from home, the normal blog updates, and (very important) my home game, these new items are a bit slow in coming out.

A couple weeks ago I created what I call a "Tweak & Toss" encounter set based on a nebulous challenges from Matt Jackson. If there is one thing I've come to enjoy from this site is that it has allowed me to connect with some great folks in the RPG community.

Free GM Resource: Meatshields

Richard and Meatshield Courtesy
of Looking For Group

I keep a small file of free resources on my computer so I can share these tidbits on a weekly basis. This weekend while I was listening to the most excellent podcast Roll For Initiative, which is still going strong two years after I posted it as an excellent Free GM Resource, the mentioned one of the few links I had saved to share. I'd rather just use that resource now and acknowledge the RFI guys than wait a few weeks and try to pretend I'd never heard about it on the podcast.

Meatshields (from the folks who brought you Barrowmaze) is a cool little online utility for quickly....and I mean quickly generating a list of possible NPC hirelings. There are only two generator options: size of locale and paying for a town crier. Don't bother fleshing out NPCs just to have the party decide to not hire them. Instead use Meatshields to list what is available and do the work, if needed, after the party decides who to hire.

Free Map(s) 034: Yet Another River Section

This week's free map(s) are a little late, I know....but I didn't want to detract from the quality maps that Matt was putting up as part of his Maps for Heroes campaign.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Last week I went up into the mountains to visit a fellow Toastmaster and the majority of our drive was alongside a couple of mountain rivers. The granite outcroppings were rather stunning and I had some game-related ideas that I'm in the process of putting together as another Tweak & Toss encounter set.

Frugal GM Review: Maps For Heroes Fundraiser Campaign

This week I'm not reviewing any straight-up product per se, but a fundraising effort that I brought to my reader's attention a little over a month ago. In that "head's-up" post I challenged folks to pony up $8 for a series of RPG maps from eight contributors, figuring a buck a map for a good cause was well worthwhile.

As near as I can tell a couple of folks took me up on that challenge and then some. I think that two folks, myself included, "only" donated $8. By my math the minimum donation level (direct through the site that is) was $8, which I think it pretty awesome.

Free GM Resource: Fantasy Map Tiles from FantasiFjas

Today's Free GM Resource is one of those, "get some know, stay tuned for more" type online destinations.  The resource itself is a series of gaming tiles from the Norwegian blog  FantasiFjas by Les Inkwell.

I stumbled upon FantasiFjas through a random G+ post and was glad I did. The tiles aren't "perfect" as in you can use them in a completely random fashion, but making them "perfect" would a) take a LOT more work, and b) take away a lot of the charm of these tiles.

You really should take a look at FantasiFjas and get some of these tiles for your own use. While I could go more into these tiles, the artist himself made a little comic about his work just for his increasingly English-reading fanbase. I've only borrowed two panels of the comic. so you might want to read the rest of it here (or click the panels below).

Frugal GM Review: The Manor, Issues #1 & #5

The Manor is a quarterly zine put together by Tim Shorts, currently under the GM Games banner. Somewhere I had gotten a copy of issue #5 and filed it away forgotten. With DriveThruRPG's Xmas in July sale going on for just under four more days I thought I'd pick up issue #1 for review.

Honestly, when reading through issue #1 I was pretty "meh" and didn't want to review it. When I went to file it away I discovered the #5 issue and decided to look at both for a review. I'm glad I came back to it, because #1 was far better than my initial impression led me to believe (I guess we all have off days).