Free GM Resource: Footprints Magazine

I consider this week's Free GM Resource to be a bit of a recycling affair, although technically I haven't specifically recommended Footprints Magazine. Footprints is the "Official E-Zine of Dragonsfoot" and I have recommended Dragonsfoot.org, although it was 2 1/2 years ago.....

....with the briefest of revisits a year ago last Christmas.

What can I say? Dragonsfoot is a great website worth going back to time and again. I'll admit I don't hang out there very often and tend to go back periodically when I'm looking for something. Last week I was looking for some free adventures and twice I succeeded in link-hopping my way back to Dragonsfoot.

While I'm specifically recommending Footprints I think you'll really want to poke around a bit to uncover many more awesome freebies. Even if you already knew about Dragonsfoot, like I did, when was the last time you visited?

Frugal GM Review: Inked Adventures Arcane Library

I had a specific review planned for today when I got a message from Billiam Babble about his new Inked Adventures tileset the Arcane Library.

Some of you might be able to remember back to last December when I reviewed his Inked Adventures Blocks set and I really wanted a line art version that was a bit more Frugal with the ink. Back then I screwed around with the files some and made my own before deciding I hated doing the coloring in by hand.

This time around the tiles come in two versions.....well technically four versions, but I'll get to that. The main variations are a full color set and the line art set. Even though I got a brand-spanking-new awesome color printer last week, I'm focusing this review on the line-art version because that the was primary reason I got this product.

March was a Great Month!

I've spent far too much time sick this last week and not working on stuff here (Monday's post was pre-written). I won't share the disgusting deets, but I will say everything ended up with a CT scan and a trip to the ER. Thankfully that sounds WAY more dramatic than it actually was.

I'm still a bit weak though and taking my time getting back into the swing of things. One thing I normally do at the beginning of the month is review the previous month's "sales" at DriveThruRPG.

I'm completely blown away by how well things went last month as I pretty much set new personal-best records for a couple of important milestones. The Frugal GM has 652 downloads last month. This might not sound like a lot, but when you consider that we only had 1201 downloads for all of 2014......

I was also able to "make" a little more than $26 through a combination of affiliate sales, regular sales, and PWYW items. This is more than I've ever managed to get in a single month, which is even greater when you consider that the percentage of totally-free downloads is topping out at 96% (actually 95.92%, but I think I can round up). This has helped let me purchase some items for review and get "stuff" I need for future projects.

This last month has been a busy one and I'm hoping that April will prove just as fruitful.

THANK YOU! It's these little boosts that make it all worthwhile.

Free GM Resource: Microlite78

OK, I'll be the first to comes right out and say this.....do we really need another version of 1st Edition AD&D? Normally I'd say "no" as we already have a plethora of retro-clones to choose from. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to put them here for others to possibly find useful, but I'm more excited about retro-clone supplements and not their core rules, which I'm generally not going to be using.

Of course I don't really think these games really fracture the overall RPG community any because....and I could be off-base here...I think most GMs end up running their own unique game table regardless. Even when I try to run as close to the "by the book" game as possible I inevitably end up tweaking some things for ease of use.

Because of these two biases/opinions/thoughts, I'm not too quick to get excited about another set of OSR rules and don't even always give them a once-over. I have at least one more ruleset in my "pending pile" so when I came across Microlite78 it didn't jump out at me. Now this isn't a review per se, but just some additional info on why you might want to pick this up and give it a look (I'm not the only one thinking these things am I?).

1st off, Microlite78 is a complete game and a 158 page download. Like the name implies it is a streamlined "lightened" version of 1st edition, well kind of. It isn't a clone of those rules, but more of a translation of sorts. It really struck me that Microlight 78 is probably going to be an "all or nothing" proposition for GMs and players. The "discussion" on stats is a skimpy paragraph and all the race "stuff" can fit in a single column of text easy. There isn't a lot of extraneous fluff, but it hasn't been pared down to bullet points either.

I think that Microlite78 is worth checking out...it isn't a retro-clone even though if you only skim it you might not get that. The links go to the author's blog, where there is a link to the forum, that has the download link. I know it sounds confusing, but unless I provided a direct download link (which I won't do on principle) it'd be too easy to get a bit lost as the final page is a bit visually confusing. You don't have to join the forum to get the PDF.

Frugal GM Review: Anyburg and the Lands Therabout

This week I picked up a cool little supplement that is currently a Silver Best Seller over at DriveThruRPG, and after reading it I can see why.

Anyburg and the Lands Thereabout: The complete guide to designing your own town or city for use in a fantasy role playing game (say that 5 times fast!) is actually a bit of a misnomer. Oh, it definitely does help in designing your own town or city, and it does actually give you a City of Anyburg, but it does a bit more.

This PDF is 50 pages where roughly 1/2 have is a great analysis and explanation of some historical data with the other half consisting of examples (real-world and fantasy) and some resources. The PDF is sized A4 for printing and is secured, but not needlessly so.

FGM027 20 Alchemical Concoctions for Your Campaign

While I've been busy on a new project I decided to take a bit of a break and come up with a selection of 20 Alchemical Concoctions for Your Campaign.

It's a bit more than just a list of stuff. I've actually done some real-world research to look up medicinal properties of certain plants and tweaked that information by adding in some fantastical ingredients. Since these are essentially the "poor man's potions" they have a shelf-life and some side-effects as well.

I should mention that you might have to do a little bit of work to use these, or at least more than popping off a cork and swallowing it right quick.

There is a simple d20 table (like it's hard to count off 20 items in order...) and I even added a drop table at the end. This OSR-generic supplement is available on DriveThruRPG and on my Patreon site as well.

Free GM Resource: Swords & Wizardry +Several Other Downloads from Frog God Games.

Last week while I was working on that NPC race for an upcoming adventure I decided I wanted to stat it out for a game system, but I wanted something that would be a bit on the "OSR Generic" side of things.

I ended up using Swords & Wizardry, which is available for absolutely free in a couple of places, but notably on the Frog God Games download page. It is up there with a couple of other items that you may or may not be interested in as well. I've already recommended A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, but there are four other downloads to check out. Two are coloring books and the other two are adventures.

One of the adventures is statted for Swords & Wizardry and available for Pathfinder as well. The other is a 5E adventure. I'm thinking that 1st adventure (The Tower of Bells) might be a good example on how to convert between the two systems.......

...if anyone has already used that as such a resource, please let me know.

Frugal GM Review: Crawl! (DCC RPG Zine)

This week I'm at the last of the of the Zines I've recently picked up off of DriveThruRPG. This one is Crawl!, a Zine dedicated to the DCC RPG and I purchased Issue V: Monsters!