GM Prep Tip: Being Prepared for Inspiration

I think I've eluded to this GM Prep Tip before, but I cannot find where I've come right out and stated this one little thing that has helped me immeasurably over the years.

It might sound dumb, but please bear with me.....

When you are out & about carry with you...at all times...a simple pen and paper. "Of course!", I can practically hear a lot of you saying this out-loud, but I want you to think about the more-than-likely many times you needed a pen to make a note, sign a credit card receipt, whatever...and didn't have one. In my experience a pen is much more common for people to have than an appropriate thing to record some notes in.

I've Made a Decision.....Definately a Cool New Product

Earlier this week I posted about two Kickstarters, the Reaper Bones III and the new TerraTiles (links to the actual Kickstarters, not my posts).

Like so many others, I'm watching this Reaper KS blow up, getting 3/4 of a million in 24 hours, but I think it has already leveled off some as it was close to that last night when I went to bed. By my quick counting and horrible mental math I'd say that at the current count the minis are coming in ate an average of $1.20 a piece, which is great is you actually want all those minis. There isn't a lot being offered I'm overly excited about.

Compare & contrast with the TerraTiles.

New "Mundane Magic" Items Over at DriveThruRPG

This weekend I was cleaning up some files on my computer and came across an article I had written for Knights of the Dinner Table #198 called "Mundane Magic". I love the idea that not every magical item has to be created by a wizard and not every item has to be super powerful.

I know I've read somewhere about giving some items a chance to become magical through surviving magical attacks and I recall a tournament adventure where an odd spell mishap turned one random item in the spellcaster's backpack magical, but I wanted to push it out a bit further.

Click for the DriveThruRPG Link

In the KoDT article the three items were a courting-candle that gave a bonus to resist-persuasion, a cheap helmet that granted an additional first-aid skill check, and an animal nose ring that indicated the direction home.

This time around I decided not to submit to KoDT and put it up myself. The three items are arguably a bit more useful this go-around in that they are a set of bracers, a weapon hilt, and a utility knife.

I've put this up on DriveThruRPG as a Pay What You Want Item with a suggested 50¢ price. My patrons over at Patreon got it last week as a download.

Free GM Resource: The System (a "new" RPG)

It is no secret my primary game is HackMaster, but what you don't know is that I generally run & play the game about as by-the-book as I can. I think this is a habit based on my previous position as a tournament manager (and frequent tournament GM).

Even though I generally have no need for another game system I do enjoy reading up on them for a couple of reasons. The 1st is just to see if it might be fun for a one-off or a change of pace (even though I never seem to run one of these). The 2nd reason is because I like to see how other designers handle certain RPG "problems". Every game has to figure out how to handle a simulation of events in a fast, "fair", and gamer-friendly way. Rounding out my reasons are I like looking at layout and I'm always on the lookout for a different way of doing things (even though I seldom deviate from the game rules...I'm kind of oxymoronic that way.)

Today's Free GM Resource is another RPG system simply called....wait for it....The System. Written by +Richard LeBlanc The System is a product of the mid-80's....and Richard's teenage mind.

Now I remember trying to write my own RPG in the mid-80's, and I didn't get much further than a few pages and even then they were just ideas hobbled from multiple systems. I think I latched on to the 4th edition of HackMaster because they were doing everything....and I mean everything from my so-called system, and they did it better.

I highly recommend picking up The System if for no other reason than to transport yourself back to the 80's. You will have to fiddle with it if you want to play (there are no monsters listed), but it is a good read (or at least I thought so).

I loved this dedication, "This book is dedicated to those brave new geeks who embraced RPGs in their earliest days, and gave the moral majority something to worry about."

Instead of linking straight to the download, I'm linking to the page where you can read about The System. The download is at the bottom of the page.

A Cool New Product or Missed Opportunity, Not Sure Which

After a really late night watching fireworks across all of Treasure Valley the Mrs. and I tried to sleep in today. I'm not a big sleeper-inner so when I got up relatively early I hopped online to work up a Free GM Resource post. I tend to try and work a week or two ahead, so I was on the prowl for something to share.

One of the rabbit holes I went down on the interweb was a link to what initially seemed a company called TerraTiles, but that is the name of this "product" by Rainn Studios. I have to put quotes around the word product because you can't actually go out and buy the TerraTiles. Evidently this is pretty much a Kickstarter-only item.

My Thoughts on the Upcoming Reaper Miniatures Kickstarter

I'm a little conflicted with the news about the upcoming Reaper Kickstarter in just a few days.

I love the Reaper Bones line....why wouldn't I? They are cheaper & lighter than "regular" minis and through the Kickstarter they are even cheaper.

It might be because I still have about 23,000 minis to paint, but I think it is much more than that. I think I'm about Kickstarted out on RPG items...."about" being the operative word here. If you like the Reaper Bones line and you'd be buying these minis anyway.....you should really go for it, assuming you'd be buying all those minis anyway.

Frugal GM Review: Winter Eternal

This last week I was asked to review Winter Eternal by Just Insert Imagination. I don't turn down free stuff to review......

1st thing, right off the bat.....I don't play Savage Worlds so I cannot look at Winter Eternal from the viewpoint of suitability for that game. Instead, I'm looking at it from the perspective of tweaking it as a setting for use in a different RPG game.

Frugal GM Review: The Stronghold #2

Normally I don't have a lot of items on my proverbial plate for review, but the last couple of weeks have been good to me, so I'm all for an extra review this week (in other words, I'll have a review tomorrow as well).

I was pleasantly surprised to get a copy of Issue #2 of The Stronghold in the mail this week.

After reading this issue, making some mental remarks, and then re-reading my review of Issue #1, I think Boric did a great job keeping some consistency between the issues.

I'm not a huge fan of the way things are statted out and again one article felt like it was written for my inner 13 year-old, but yet again overall it was a great issue. Several new creatures are presented that with a little work, probably no more than you'd have to do sourcing monsters from anywhere else, would fit right in to a fantasy RPG.

More than anything I love the general ideas presented in issue #2 and I'll be keeping it around to incorporate a little more spice into my games.

Keep it up!