Free GM Resource: Far Away Land Adventures, Dungeons, and "Stuff"

Right off I have to make a wee bit of a confession.....this week's Free GM Resource may be a bit premature, but it is one of those things that is only going to get better.

I've highlighted bits of Far Away Land before, pretty much in two reviews (the Quick Start Rules and the Pawns Pack), but I was also collecting the adventures to make into a book.

Yesterday I read a G+ post that was chock-full of good news. Far Universe, the website for Far Away Land, is going under a major overhaul and will be capable of hosting their own webstore. Usually this just means that you can find another place to buy their rule-books, but since they don't have to pay the 30%+ commission to sites like DriveThruRPG, they can sell these products at a cheaper rater and still probably make more on the deal. All too often the publisher doesn't share this windfall with the purchaser, so hearing about this win-win is significant to me.

The new site will also have its own freebie section. The adventures are already free, but being able to easily pick them up with the rules all in one go is pretty sweet. As I'm writing this there is only the one adventure up, but that will get remedied quickly.

I suggest you favorite Far Universe and check back in periodically. I know I will! In the meantime, you can get these free adventures from DriveThruRPG (A1 Isle of the Rat Wizard is on the Far Universe Site):

A2  Whoa! Here Come the Dead
A3  Crazy Maze Daze
A4  Journey Into the White
A5  The Winter Tournament
A6  Pawns and Knights
A7  Temple of Zoko
A8  Outpost Knoll
A9  Barkoon
A10 Love Actually... Sucks
D1  Dastardly Dungeon of Doom

Exchange Contact Info With Your Very Own Gaming Card

For some time, the overwhelming majority of my gaming was at conventions. While I had a great time playing with perfect strangers, sometimes it is much more fun to make friends and play with some of the same folks again another time.

In order to do that you need to have a way to keep in touch and some outside of the table interaction doesn't hurt either.

For a while I was using some custom business cards that had my contact info on one side and something like a coupon stating "good for one free drink at the bar after the game". Needless to say they were somewhat popular, but those drinks can really eat into your convention budget fast if you aren't careful.

I needed a new "gaming card" and I'm not too ashamed to admit I totally stole the idea for mine....

Now it is no secret that my main game is HackMaster and I've spent a lot of time volunteering for Kenzer & Company "back in the day". For quite some time at the summer cons the KenzerCo D-Team had these crudely made cards that mimicked the chance & community chest cards from Monopoly.

The most common card was the "Get out of Character Story Free" card, which was intended to help extract the D-Team from the inevitable parade of PCs stories they'd be forced to listen to. What a lot of people didn't know was there was a second card they made that was "Listen to my PC Story". Over time the cards kind of disappeared, or at best there would be a half-mangled full-page sheet crammed discovered in one of the convention boxes.

What I did was totally steal this idea for my own "gaming card", but I cleaned it up considerably. 1st I started with scans of a couple cards I found online of older Monopoly cards and I figured out the fonts used (or close-enough). Then I went through my ton of convention pictures and singled out pictures of my wife and I, as well as two of the KenzerCo D-Team. My finished cards are black and white, printed on the appropriately colored cardstock.

My wife gets the more popular canary Community Chest version and I grabbed the orange Chance card. Printing these up at Fedex-Kinkos was dirt cheap and a great way to single yourself...definitely better than using traditional business cards.

Now I have a Frugal GM "business card", but I'm still a huge fan of the gaming card.

Horrific Looking Map-in-Progress

I thought I'd share this map-in-progress, which may end up being part of a larger project or, just a one-off.

The biggest reason I thought I'd share this is simply because it is hideous at this stage. I try to do each element of the map in layers so I can tweak each bit individually. On this map I actually started with the outline of a city wall borrowed from another source and then made a rough sketch. The city walls, already having been an auto-generated electronic image, comes out nice and smooth compared to my scanned-in chicken scratches.

No matter, because that sketch is just a rough outline anyway for the next few layers of colored elements in Photoshop. The colors aren't nearly as important as the width and layout of the lines for the rivers and the roads. I want the roads to be more erratic and the rivers to have some "flow". At this point I still have to go in and play with the river widths some since they are too parallel. The colors are chosen more for contrast as I'm working on the screen. They get changed to more appropriate colors and will have textures added later.

Currently this map is an obscene 40" square.....I'm not sure what size the end result will be.

I just thought some folks would like to see how horrendous a map-in-progress can be.

Frugal GM Review: Dice Chest from Dog Might Games

At the Origins Game Fair last June I decided to be a bit "adventurous" and splurge for a new Dice Box, primarily for use with my home game. There were several vendors at Origins selling what I was looking for, ranging from relatively cheap (not inexpensive, but cheap) wooden boxes to some really high-priced top-end dice trays. My wife got a beautiful leather-lined tray exquisitely made with some gorgeous hardwood, but I didn't have that kind of cash and I wanted something more along the lines of a full-on box.

I ended up getting a good end-of-con deal on a dice chest from Dog Might Games. You might remember these guys from one of three gaming box Kickstarters (dice chests, deck boxes, and adventure cases). These guys sold just shy of $135,000 worth of product on those crowd-funding efforts.

What I picked up was a white ash box stained in dark walnut, with red felt, nickle pedestal legs and an aluminium helm logo. The regular retail for this chest is a whopping $64.90....$60 if I had bought it as part of the Kickstarter. After reviewing the Kickstarter campaign and video it is clear that Dog Might Games only used the platform for sales....there wasn't a single reference to needing funding to purchase supplies, new tools (plant), or anything that needed to be "funded".....I realize that a Kickstarter Rant isn't the purpose here....so I'll let this matter drop. I will though, review this item like I had purchased it for full price....

GM Prep Tip: Pre-Campaign Survey

I wish I can take credit for this, but like many of you, I seek out and learn from those around me and this tip came from a GM buddy of mine:

Poll your players to see what kind of campaign they want to play in.

This probably seems like both the most brilliant and yet the dumbest thing ever, because I bet most of you have done this yet half-assed it like I have.

I'm certain we've all asked a player or two a pointed question about what type of game to run, but the information collected was tainted or just generic. Asking in a group setting introduces bias and influence and even the act of asking a verbal question can muddle the waters.

My buddy took it s step further and created an actual survey for the players to fill out and then he worked up his campaign based on what the document responses were. What he got surprised him but he ended up being able to focus his efforts and put together quite the memorable campaign.

Actually, I know he's done this a few times and the resulting themes have been interesting:

• An Icelandic Saga campaign
• A campaign set on the eve of the fall of Constantinople
• A campaign of wizards proceeding through magic school (like in Harry Potter)

Here is a link to one of the questionnaires he has used. Undoubtedly you will have to tweak it to fit your needs.....

I think you'll find a little effort to effectively poll your group will pay HUGE dividends down the road....and don't forget to fill one out for yourself.

Frugal GM Contest: Monster Stand Ins

It has been a while since I've had any sort of contest here on the Frugal GM blog, so I think we are overdue.

In the past the contests have been a bit hit or miss and I think know I'm to blame because of the contest parameters I've set up.

This time around I'm going to make it simple....but I'm getting ahead of myself.

This contest prize will be the complete Monster Stand-In set I picked up at GenCon and reviewed here. I haven't cut out any of the monsters, but I have (obviously) removed the shrink-wrap on the cardboard and opened up the packages of stands. The whole set is in impeccable shape and I'll leave it to the winner to cut these things apart and use them as they will.

The rules will be quite simple:
1) Comment on this post that you'd like the Monster Stand-Ins
2) No spamming the comments
3) Wait until next Thursday's (August the 27th) post to see if you win.

I'll count up all the comments on Wednesday evening (about 10PM Eastern) and use a random die generator to figure out which comment wins. If I'm available I'll do it on the Tenkar's Tavern chat, so if you tune in you can to find out early.

That's it....no muss & no fuss. If you would like this, speak up in the comments of this post and you'll have as fair a shot as anyone else. I'll ship the prize to the winners.......


Late day edit:
Some folks might want to know which monsters are included...and here is a link to the list.

Frugal GM Essential Gear: Dice Box

Honestly, I thought I was done with the whole idea of "Essential Gear" for gaming, but it was pointed out to me that aside from dice, which I've repeatedly stated I'm not going to cover, there are several more things that I simply don't game without.

One of them is my dice box.

Like so many of you I do have dice bags, with the old standby being the much beloved Crown Royal bag. That was my first dice bag ever and I still have a small pile of them.....our local liquor stores keep them just for folks like me.

Free GM Resource: Awesome OSR PC Classes by James V West

Sorry guys, but this week's Free GM Resource is not some low-hanging fruit.....you're going to have to jump through some minor hoops for it (but it'll be worthwhile!)

Over the last week or so, the highly talented James V West has been releasing some awesome new "OSR" PC classes. He has also released an OSR PC Sheet as well and I don't think he has plans on slowing down anytime soon.

These new offerings aren't on his website, but you can check out his G+ feed and look for them yourself. I realize some of you might not do the G+ "thing", so I've checked and his feed is view-able without a G+ account.

Because I know people might be seeing this months or years after I've posted it, making reading through a long G+ feed impracticable, I'll post some linked previews for the four files he has up now. You'll be on your own for any others.....

First up is the OSR PC Sheet...

Then we have the Chainmail Chick

Next up it the Sinewy Barbarian

Followed up by the Star Wizard

Now all of these were created with Labyrinth Lord in mind, which means they should work decently well with just about any OSR game. You might need to make some minor tweaks to XP or some such, but nothing terrible.