1/23/2015

Frugal GM Review: Schema- Halls Beneath the Hills

Frugal GM Review: Schema- Halls Beneath the Hills
It is a rare day when I come across a RPG product I simply do not like, and today is one of those rare days.

Schema: Halls Beneath the Hills is a product I purchased based off of the free low-res PDF version. The low rez was a bit fuzzy, but good for planning layout. Heck, that is what it's advertised for.

The same graphics are used to advertise the "hi-rez" version which is touted as "presented to 100% scale for use with standard 1" base miniatures" Now right off the bat I have to call BS. The graphic files are presented as B&W .gif files that are 72DPI. Now they are large files, but when you re-size them.....and you have to re-size them.....they don't come out to scale when re-sized to 300 DPI. What should be eight inches of hallway (2400 pixels, which is 300*8 for those following at home) instead comes out at 1500 pixels.

The publisher advertises "NO piddly 3D assembly", but instead replaces this with piddly printing instructions. Seriously, if you have to provide a graphic and instructions on how to print your product to scale....when it is already advertised as "presented to 100% scale" when it clearly isn't.....well that is just downright false advertising.

I only opened up a couple of the .gifs and the very first one I couldn't even open in anything but a web browser. The files I did open ended up being Index color .gifs, which makes no sense as these are black & white files. Granted the size difference between an Index Color and Greyscale .gif is minimal...but still.
To-scale print out of a corridor
What are we even doing in this corridor?

I also noticed there was a specific mention of a commercial license available if you wanted to use these files in your product, and there were even some instruction as to how, but if you really wanted to do so you might need to get more information, "For further information and terms of license, see the Game Developer License in the Extras folder." Of course there is no Game Developer License in the Extras Folder.

There is a small one-off adventure and a whole RPG in the extras folder, which is nice....I guess. There is no mention of these goodies in the product description and when you factor in this RPG PDF takes up 62% of the download file it really feels like it was included to beef-up the download size, which is again...false advertising.

"Wow, must be a lot of cool floorplans if the zip file is 43.72 MB!Nope!

All this could be forgiven if the "hi-rez" graphics were better. Alas, I was disappointed in them as well. I can see why there wasn't a preview, which is a shame because it still looks better on-screen than printed out. There is a noticeable difference between the low and hi resolutions, but it just isn't enough.

Comparison between low-rez and high, to scale

Frugal GM 1 Star Review: Schema- Halls Beneath the Hills
$2.98 is too much for a product I won't be using. I'm not even going to keep this on my hard drive. I realize that is a tremendously cruel thing to type in a review, but I pretty much feel like I was tricked on this one.

There is potential though, and I'll be more than happy to re-visit this publisher if some changes are made.


1/19/2015

Free GM Resource: An Absurd Amount of Cool Fonts

Free GM Resource: An Absurd Amount of Cool Fonts
I've featured fonts quite a few times here at the Frugal GM blog. Everything to a font I made up to a cool collection here or there.....heck, I even featured a resource for creating your own font.

A buddy of mine unwittingly lead me to this HUGE collection of fricken cool fonts. There has to be over 300 fonts represented.

I'm sure not every font is a gem, and it is hard to go through them because the main page is a simple list of fonts, but a little poking around is bound to be rewarded with some great fonts to use in your game.

1/17/2015

Just a Head's Up

Just a Head's Up
Just a head's up that the Frugal GM blog may have a day or two of "downtime" as I transition the web hosting. A year ago I bought web hosting for some Frugal GM projects, but there was an issue trying to use Blogger with the domain and web hosting.

Basically I was buying services I couldn't quite use the way I wanted, which really isn't surprising. If I had bothered to look into it I'd not have bought the hosting. I just jumped on an opportunity for a cheap-assed year of hosting.

I'll just have to chalk it off as a good $12 lesson. Probably a bit on the cheap side as far as RPG-based lessons go.

There might not be any problems, but just in case....well, you've been warned.

January 22nd Edit:
Well the FrugalGM site is finally back on track after being down for 2 1/2 days. Not a good time as my tech support gave me the complete run-around. I was given at least 3 different BS excuses that ranged from "You ISP must just be blocking that IP" to "You don't have 'www' listed in your A records".

You might notice that I've pulled some links off of this site....and now you know why. Service was great when tech support was US based....not so much when out-sourced to India.

1/16/2015

Garweeze Wurld Moon & Weather Generator

Garweeze Wurld Moon & Weather Generator
This week I've been a little selfish in that instead of working on a map which I could share I've decided to work on the Excel sheet I use to track the different moon positions for the three moons in my campaign.

I use Garweeze Wurld as my campaign world because, quite frankly, I like the amount of detail that has been published....and probably just as important, what hasn't been published.  Garweeze Wurld was the game world of Jolly Blackburn and the default setting for Kenzer & Company's 4th Edition of HackMaster.

Years ago Jolly published in Knights of the Dinner Table a guide to calculating the different moon's position for any date. I made this Excel sheet and used it for years before being told it was "wrong". Evidently the directions printed in KoDT were off, but screw it....I've already done the calculations....multiple times. The thing is that a worksheet that calculates just the moon's positions is of limited usefulness.  Using some of the information from the 4th Edition GameMaster's Guide I made up some figures for calculating the albedos of the moons, factoring in their size and making a hip-shot guesstimation for how much light they send back.

Frugal GM Review: 47 Tips and Tricks to Become a Better Game Master or Storyteller

Frugal GM Review: 47 Tips and Tricks to Become a Better Game Master or Storyteller.
I just picked up this small PDF of 47 Tips & Tricks to Become a Better Game Master or Storyteller from Blackstone Entertainment, Inc.

The premise seems good....who doesn't want some tips & tricks to be a better GM? The price is a whopping $1, definitely in my budget. Let's not forget how important to me that a PDF not be overly secured....this one has no security.

My first question when getting this file, which is only compounded even more when I look at the rest of this publisher's offerings, is, "What is the deal with 47?" All 12 of BlackStone Entertainment's offerings are about "47 things". I don't get it, and the publisher's website isn't about the publisher at all, just some RPG I've never heard of...and seems to be a work in progress.

At any rate, I read through the 29 page PDF and while I liked the general advice, it was a difficult read. This PDF is not something you want to print out....ever. Every page is black text on a way-too-dark grey background. The background on the cover is the same on every page. The font selection and layout is funky enough to detract from the reading, with too many widows & orphans. The original text was written using MS Word and while 3.56 MB isn't that large of a file, for what you're getting it is relative huge, presumably from the background graphics that don't add anything to the product. The layout itself isn't even consistent point by point. Some of the tips are indented, other are not. The use of paragraphs in general is spotty throughout the document.

Frugal GM 3 Star Review: 47 Tips and Tricks to Become a Better Game Master or Storyteller.
This was not a pleasant read for me. Many of the points could be simply deleted and replaced with the 1st sentence explaining the point. For example, "Develop, copy, or wing your vocal skills." doesn't seem like a tip to me while "Find a way to alter the tone, depth, and pace of your voice as you run your games." is a useful tip.

There is some good information in this product, but pulling it out is a less than stellar experience.

1/15/2015

Inked Adventures Contest Winners

Inked Adventures Contest Winners
OK...I've selected the two winners from the recent contest and have reached out to them. Surprisingly, both winners...and my alternates in case either one isn't interested, came off of the members list.

That's the way the random dice rolled....this time.

I'll wait to announce the actual names until the winners have responded.

1/12/2015

Free GM Resource: Encounter Magazine

Free GM Resource: Encounter Magazine
Today's Free GM Resource is a bit of a mixed bag.

Encounter is a pretty good fanzine for the "classic D&D game" with some good production values and interesting articles. I'm not a huge fan of the three-column layout, but to each his own.

The zine is free, which is obvious good, but there are only four issues to be had. Since this was a quarterly attempt, I'm glad it went to a full year's production.

There really isn't much more to this week's resource other than to go to the website and download your copies today!

1/09/2015

Frugal GM Review: The Smoking Pillar of Lan Yu

Frugal GM Review: The Smoking Pillar of Lan Yu
Now I tend to pick and choose what I review here to the extent that I don't generally pick up things that don't pique my interest immediately. The Smoking Pillar of Lan Yu, from Sine Nomine Publishing, didn't seem all that interesting to me at a glance and I'm not quite sure why I picked it up.

Boy I'm sure glad I did though!