Frugal GM Essential Gamemaster Gear: Chessex Battlemats

I heard a rumor yesterday that Chessex might be getting involved in a business deal that caused my wife to say, "Well I guess that means I won't be buying any more of their product." I only know one person who has more dice than my wife and that is Kevin Cook (yes, that Kevin Cook). She buys several sets, lots of new "singles" and often buckets of loose dice every convention she goes to.

While prefers Crystal Caste dice she buys a lot of Chessex dice so this is not an insignificant statement. Choosing to not buy dice at a con could literally mean we can afford to stay and extra night at the hotel.....

Before the self-imposed ban comes, or in case it comes, I wanted to get out there one of my big GM Essentials: Chessex Battlemats. Now I wish I could say I bring this with me to every con, but more often than not if I know Chessex was a vendor I'd leave this at home just so I had an excuse to pick up another one. I currently have about 6 of these battlemats in various sizes and configurations.

Now I do prefer the square ones, but the hexes aren't bad either. I know the single sided mats are going away (I only have two), but Chessex pretty much has whatever size and shape you need. The prices aren't bad at all when you compare them to the other types of battlemats on the market and if you can get to a Chessex booth at a con they usually have a pile of factory seconds. The seconds are usually a bit dirty and may have blemishes, but I've yet to see one that wouldn't clean up nice or had a blemish that was significant enough to be a factor.

I only have three bits of advice when it comes to using these mats. The 1st is to just get the biggest mat you can obtain because I've yet to see someone say "Gee I really wish I had gotten the smaller mat..." The larger ones might be a bit of a hassle to travel with, but in my experience they can handle some minor folding long enough to shove in a suitcase for a flight. The second bit of advice is to invest in some clear vinyl as an overlay. You can get this at most larger fabric stores that would also carry upholstery material. Some use an overlay all the time, but I like to use it occasionally during game prep and when running multiple tables at a tournament (when I'm the Head GM). You can basically lay the vinyl down on the mat and draw out your rooms so they are prepped ahead of time. The last bit of advice I have is to clean your mats immediately after use. Don't let your markers permanently stain the mat! Sure, the stuff from last week will mostly come off, but there will be some ghosting that gets annoying over time. I like to use some 70% Rubbing Alcohol and go over my mats a couple times to get them as clean as possible.

Frugal GM Review: Inkwell Ideas Monster Stand-Ins (GenCon Special)

First off, I want to apologize for not getting this review up yesterday on its regular schedule. I got back from my one-day excursion to GenCon on Thursday (included a side visit to the family farm) and yesterday I was busy with internet drama. I normally avoid that sort of thing, but when I see family and friends being taken advantage of....well, I'm not going to idly sit by.

Of course this is neither here nor there, so on to the review!

Now I've pretty much sworn off of using paper minis anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still like them and think they are a tremendous value. It is just that I have something like 4,032 metal and plastic minis collected over the years that need some attention. In some ways the paper minis were a "gateway drug" into the absurdity that became both the Mrs. and I buying into some Reaper Kickstarters.

Although we were there for only a day, we braved the lines for the swag bag (just an actual bag) and the coupon book. When I flipped through the coupon book I saw some sweet deals from the folks over at Inkwell Ideas. Honestly, I just wanted the "free" die....with purchase. Although I'm a dice snob when it comes to playing, I do pick up interesting dice here & there and the Mrs.......let's just say I couldn't call her Mrs. Frugal GM. She'd lose any cred if her massive dice collection was ever discovered. We might actually be at the point where I need to get an insurance rider to cover them....

...anyway I digress...again. I know I'm headed to the Inkwell Ideas booth and I'm picking something up. I really had three choices of stuff I was willing to get, but was instantly sold on the Con-Special for the Monster Stand Ins. For $15 I get 600 paper minis. Not bad.....2.5¢ per mini. Oh, but hold on a second........if I toss in another $5 I get a case, and some mini bases.

Some Adventures Seeds Inspired by the Family Farm

After a one-day trip to GenCon, primarily to see the Knights of the Dinner Table: Live Action Series*, Mrs. Frugal GM (She probably hates that) and I headed off to NE Iowa to visit the family farm. My mother and step-father have probably 800 or so acres complete with a cool creek, orchard, and lots of “nothing” (outside of farm chores).

Believe me, “nothing” can be a lot of fun, the lack of distractions can really let the mind wander and I was thinking of numerous adventure seeds based around the farm and the surrounding locale:

Frugal GM Essential Gamemaster Gear: Alea Tools

As part of a small series of posts I'm outlying what I consider some "essential" GM kit that I have found necessary to be able to run a game. I'm shying away from dice....for reasons...and I don't expect my opinions to be the end-all of the topic, but instead the beginning of a larger conversation.

I know I stated that I use generic tokens all the time, and I do, but I also use Alea Tools "markers" all the time and it pains me to see GMs not using this awesome product. These guys aren't top on the list of "+12 Links of Helpfulness" for nothing. How I've used these things has changed greatly over the years, but I keep them around for all my games and the few times I've forgotten them they have been missed.

Free GM Resource: Tunnels and Trolls Random Dungeon Generator

I know...two Dungeon Generators in a row for the Free GM Resource.

This Tunnels and Trolls Random Dungeon Generator seems rather simple on the surface and it makes a rather straight-forward procedurally-generated adventure, but it is a HUGE adventure.

I did what I thought would be a quick cut & paste of the generated web page adventure into Microsoft Word and it was 31,000 words long on 93 pages!

That was the default setting of 4 levels for a group of 4 1st level adventurers.

Now I don't play Tunnels and Trolls, but with something like this, which is geared for 4th, 5th, and 7th edition use......I might give it a go. A lot of work went into this for certain.

Frugal GM Essential Gamemaster Gear: Generic Tokens

As part of a small series of posts I'm outlying what I consider some "essential" GM kit that I have found necessary to be able to run a game. I'm shying away from dice....for reasons...and I don't expect my opinions to be the end-all of the topic, but instead the beginning of a larger conversation.

Like my post about the Noteboard, I bought a bunch of these little generic tokens specifically for "emergency GM use". They cost a couple cents each from Chessex and I'm certain I've gotten some from Koplow Games as well. I'm not linking to their respective websites because these tiny pawns aren't there. They come in a bunch of colors and I probably have a small handful of each color.

Unlike the Noteboard I pull these things out all the damned time. While I do have boxes and boxes of miniatures, these things are just to handy. I use them at my home table and at conventions. I've found that using these things for monster minis and "real" minis for the PCs adds a lot more to the game than I'd expect. If I need to I can write a number on the upright portions and it is easy to use a combination of color-coding and numbers to keep everything straight.

For me this is one of those simple things that just seems to work. I don't have to understand it, I just have to reap the benefits. There are almost always two-three of each color in my GM bag. I also keep some larger "regular" pawns to use as NPCs and even down-n-dirty PC figs if I need to.

The only place I've seen these from the likes of Chessex and Koplow are at their booth at conventions, but if you keep a look out you might find them elsewhere........definitely worth "splurging" on.

Free Frugal GM Product: d30 Potion Adverse Miscibility Table

Another month, another free d30 Table. Now I'm not saying that I plan on putting out a free d30 table every month, but I'm not saying I won't either.

Let's just say I'm non-committed at this point.

I was really hankering to make a d30 potion table for an upcoming project and, just as a bit of a precaution, looked through the d30 DM Companion and wouldn't you know it.....there was a table that was too damned close to what I wanted to do.

No use reinventing the wheel.....

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not above making my own version of something someone else has done, but if I'm not doing it "better" in some fashion....I don't see the point. Instead I just shifted efforts a bit to create the d30 Potion Adverse Miscibility Table.

I'm scheduled to be without internet access when this gets posted so the links should work. If they don't it will probably be on the front page under "Free Products" or you could find it on the Frugal GM publisher page.

Frugal GM Review: GM Mastery Book Three

The last couple weeks to maybe the last month I've been blessed with free content to review. While I cannot complain about free RPG product to review I have to state (again) my 1st 2 rules when it comes to reviews:
          #1. If you give me something appropriate to review I'll do so
          #2. I'll be honest in said review.

This last week I was offered something "cheap" to review. Now I completely get that "frugal" is synonymous with "cheap", but the primary definition of frugal is "sparing or economical with regard to money or food" and I'm in the economical camp when it comes to being a Frugal GM. I don't mind spending money on quality and I loathe free crap. Something cheap isn't necessarily bad and something expensive isn't necessarily good.

Please remember this, and my two rules, when offering things....

OK, now that is out of the way this week's Frugal GM Review is a "GM Mastery Book" from John Four over at Roleplaying Tips. He is trying to drive traffic to his website and build his email lists so he's giving this "Book Three" for the low, low price of your email.

Now I got this off of a Dropbox download link, but I did take and sign up again so I could make sure what I got was what you'd get. As is my usual course for a review I opened up the file, poked around a bit under the hood for an initial impression, and stashed it away to read (usually) a day later or so.

I have to admit my 1st impression of the GM Mastery book was somewhere between, "This is a hot mess" and "Do I have to read this?". Needless to say I wasn't impressed. The download is a whopping 8.29 MB in size and it isn't just a 141 page PDF as John Four told me it was (via email and on his website). No...this is six PDFs ranging in size from a measly 88 KB to a decent 5.56 MB. Three of the PDFs are tavern maps, with two of them being over-sized, one of the files is an over-sized cover and the last two....actually the 1st two in the zip file, are "the book". Chapters 1 and 2 are in one PDF and the third chapter, essentially the longest list you've ever seen, is in the other PDF. The largest file in this download is chapter 3.

For me the questions kicked in immediately. Why is this organized this way? Why does the cover list one author (John Four) and the title page list two? Do I really need to have the D&D 3rd Edition PHB? Wait a second....who the hell has the 3rd Edition anything? When was this thing put together? Why is there a 87 page list? Seriously...who makes an 87 page list?

After clicking through a lot of pages to see that this 87 page list contained 10,000 unique "Random Tavern/Inn Names" I skipped back to the 1st page of "charts and tables" in Chapter 3 and read the 1st entry. This list (?) was entitled "50 Example Themes and Hooks" and the 1st entry was:
"1. Tree House. The place is inside or on top of a large, ancient tree." Not bad....but wait, there's more! This entry has a second sentence: "Think Dragonlance or of various movies that have featured this theme."

Ugh......that felt like a sentence written just to fill space. I'm pretty sure he meant "Inn of the Last Home" in Solace, from the Dragonlance series. When pushing a list of "themes" telling the reader to (paraphrase) "think of themes" is pretty much missing the point.

After setting this download aside for a day and coming back to it I could go ahead and start reading the 1st two chapters. I was halfway through before the author actually describes the differences between a tavern, an inn, and a restaurant. The two short paragraphs regarding the "Origins, History, and Background" of these establishments is nearly at the end of the thing, on page 133. There is some good details and ideas in this "book", but you'll have to sift through a lot to get there. There are pages of content that could probably be summed up in a sentence or two.

Often with a PDF product things come down to, "Would I be willing to print this out?" These PDFs aren't secured or locked up, which is a plus, but I can't see me even wanting to print up a section of this. Not a fan of the name and page numbers on each page and there is a huge black/grey pattern border on the outer edge of each page. These elements are just straight-up ink wasters. I'm thinking there is some good bits and pieces in here, but it might be better to review the documents, take some notes, and work off of those.

With the reference to 3rd Edition D&D I'm pretty sure this download is quite old because the stuff I've seen from John more recently isn't so much like this. It's older content he is making free to help drive some traffic (like I mentioned earlier). There is some good stuff in here and he does have some great tips so you might get a lot more out of this download than I might have let on. I think with some layout changes and some heavy editing this could be re-released as a pretty decent sourcebook.