Free GM Resource: Tablesmith

OK folks, I have a wee bit of a confession to admit to here.....nothing serious, but I discovered today that I have been quite remiss in sharing one of my favorite "free" GM Resources.

My go-to random table generator has always been Tablesmith. This is the program I use as a basis of measurement for everything else. Tablesmith is a shareware program designed by Bruce Gulke (nice guy) and is $10 to register if you like the program. I registered what feels like a bazillion years ago and have been happily plugging away at it since.

If you have any familiarity with the program, or get some from downloading it, you'll notice my start-up screen is different. Back when I was making a LOT of tables for use with my 4th Edition HackMaster game I went and changes the start-up screen.

I found that making tables with Tablesmith was a breeze. The "language" is easy to use and file maintenance is easier than in most programs I've tried. Create folders for your tables, as in windows folders, and they show up as categories in the Tablesmith interface. The tables themselves are simple text files saves as .tab files and can be created/edited in any notebook program.

As much as I've used Tablesmith over the years I know I'm just scratching the surface.....and I'm OK with that. The only thing that might make me use a different program more would be if Bruce releases Tablesmith for Android and/or IOS. I'd love to be able to create tables on my desktop and import them to my portable devices.

Two New Frugal GM Downloads at DriveThruRPG

Today is a special day and I doubt I'll be online worth a damn (well at least not on Blogger), but I wanted to let you know that I've put up two new products over at DriveThruRPG.

Click to go to the product page

The first is what I'm calling an "Adventure Seed", which is just a fancy-schmancy word for "hook". It is written in the style of my earlier Tweak & Toss Encounter Sets and can essentially be another Encounter Set all on its own, but that would be up to you.

This Adventure Seed uses the treasure map I posted last week. You have been looking at my maps, no?

Click to go to the product page

The other product is an Encounter Set that works with that Adventure Seed, taking the players to their doom treasure. Of course the treasure isn't there, as in the Encounter Set. The treasure seeking will continue into another Encounter Set I'll put together next week.

Please, go ahead and check them out!

Frugal GM Review: Murderhobos

I was planning on reviewing a particular product when I discovered it isn't publicly available, so I didn't see the point. When I was searching DriveThruRPG for something new I almost just went ahead and grabbed an item off of my wishlist, but I wanted something new.....

....and that is when Murderhobos caught my eye. As some of you know I play HackMaster predominately (almost exclusively) and this isn't HackMaster, but it is peripherally related only to a few folks in a nonsensical way. One of HackMaster's game designers joking refers to PCs as "MurderHobos", which always made me laugh.

Free Map 036: Mountain Valley

The map I've been working on this week was an attempt to use some  bits and pieces of things I've been learning with other maps and try to piece it all together on a map pretty much from scratch.

This is the "actual" location from last week's treasure map.

I'm not enthusiastic about how it came out, but on the plus side with some additional tweaking I think the B&W version for the Tweak & Toss I'm working on came out a lot better.

Free GM Resource: MediaWiki

As long-time readers of this blog, well...both of you, might know, I've used several methods for keeping track of in-game information, and I've shared these methods with anyone who might be interested.

First I used a simple wiki that you could keep on a thumb drive: TiddlyWiki. It was just "OK" for my needs and I didn't really use it for long. Of course part of that might just be I didn't have an active campaign at the time and I couldn't be motivated to set my wiki up. For the longest time I was using Blogger, and for just a simple campaign journal it was perfect. With some difficulty I was able to use hot-links from one page to another, but on more than one occasion those links didn't work. The blog did a great job of making things prettier for "outsiders" to follow the game, but it didn't do as well as I wanted for campaign management.

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.