Some New Maps in Progress, Could Use Some Input

I am working on some special cavernous Tweak & Toss adventures specifically for publication and I thought I'd solicit some advice from my regular readers.

The publication is B&W and I have the rough dimensions for the art and what I'm trying to do is make everything as publication-ready as possible. This is not just they'll be more likely to use the work, but also because I want more practice trying to work within specific confines. When I'm doing stuff for Frugal GM publication on DTRPG, or for Patreon my only constraints is what my computer can handle.

Obviously I'm working in larger sizes & dpi, but I thought I'd throw up some examples here for input. I already have my preferences, which I'll state at the end, but here are some of the decisions I'm trying to run with. I'm going to put the large pictures after the break so it won't slow things down for folks who don't want to look and give input:

(Another) Free GM Resource: Death by Nexus (DCC 0 Lvl Funnel)

Since I already have something picked out for next week's Free GM Resource I really didn't want to wait yet another week to highlight this new free Dungeon Crawl Classics character funnel.

Death by Nexus sounds interesting....I've downloaded it, but aside from an extremely quick flip-through I haven't looked at it in the off chance I get to play in it someday.

The idea is intriguing though, and reminds me about the one 0 Lvl DCC Character Funnel I played in at Origins. If this adventure is half as fun as that one it is a winner!

I won't provide a direct download link, but here is the page where you can find it.

Free GM Resource: CX1 Extra (Gnomes) from New Big Dragon Games

Quick question.....have you checked out the "+12 Links of Helpfulness"? Now I'm not saying I'm always on the ball with the ancillary pages here on the Frugal GM blog, but smack-dab in the middle of the (probably too few) "worthwhile blogs" I have listed is Save vs. Dragon, the online presence of Richard J. LeBlanc, Jr.

Well, he does have a "real website" for his publishing, but I get more mileage out of his blog myself.

The thing is if you had been on top of the links, or bothered to "subscribe" to the blog, then you'd know that he's been working on some cool stuff. I like to see what he's got going on, but tend to wait until everything is fully cooked and assembled before really digging in.

This weekend Richard cooked off another supplement that is good to go.....a BX Accessory for Gnomes simply labeled CX1 Extra Gnomes. Now I'm not a big fan of Gnomes myself, but I did like what he's done with them and next time I run an appropriate game I'm allowing my players to use this race & sub-races.

Great job...can't wait for the full CX1! Now we only need more cowbell, er d30....but probably wise not to mix the product lines too much....

FGM035: The Horrors of Halfing Hollow is now Available!

Well, I finally got the new Tweak & Toss up. The problem from this morning wasn't on my end, but an issue with the DTRPG servers.

I'd been releasing these Tweak & Toss short "whatevers" as PWYW, but I decided this time that I''ll go ahead a slap a price on this. It has always been my belief that generally people value what they pay for and while I deliberately put a lot of content up for free/PWYW, I'm sitting at almost 97% of the Frugal GM content being free, and the actual number of downloads for this year beats all other years combined.

Basically I don't feel too guilty for pricing this double-sized Tweak &Toss out......but....for a week I have a special Frugal GM discount for 1/2 off. If you want to pick up The Horrors of Halfling Hollow for 99¢ sometime before DTRPG says the week is up use this link.

That link is good until sometime on September 19th. Afterwards you can use this "regular" link or click on either the lead-in graphic or the cover image to get to the listing on DTRPG.

My current Patrons get this Tweak & Toss for free.....

Problems Uploading the new Tweak &Toss Cover

Since I'm already a bit late on the latest Tweak &Toss I decided to double the size from 4 pages to 8....mostly because I didn't like the size of the one map.

Of course this meant that I "had" to make a second map and do some things I haven't done before, but I think it works.

It would be up on DTRPG right now, but for some reason it won't let me load the *^#%#!@ cover image. I messed up at first by trying to upload the wrong type of image (PNG instead of a JPG or GIF), but that should be so easily remedied.....

..at this point I don't know if it is a DTRPG issue or something on my end. I've already followed all of the one line of instructions and attempted to re-upload the correct format image (like 5 times). An email has been sent off and it'll get straightened out while I'm at work.

Until then all I can do it let you guys know what is going on and show you what I can't show the world at DTRPG:

Frugal GM Review: Middle Management (IT) Card Game

I'm going a bit off my normal beaten path with the review this week, and there is a big reason why...which I'll try to explain briefly.

My wife and I were part of an ever-increasing club of folks who have been scammed by Ken Whitman on Kickstarter. I've done my best to keep the negativity off of this blog, and will continue to do so, but if you want the sordid details you can read them over at Tenkar's Tavern (specifically here, here, and finally here.)

So after my wife spent $450 on an "experience" for both of us and I-don't-want-to-think-about-how-much on actually travelling to GenCon for said "experience", we were pretty much left high and dry by Mr. Whitman. We weren't the only ones and the guys over at Zombie Orpheus Entertainment stepped in, not to help out Ken Whitman in any way, but to do something for the fans that were screwed over. A couple of their actors were in the projects that Ken Whitman had bilked people money for. When news of the bilking and dare I say general fuckery, spread a few other folks pitched in as well.

One of the ways some publishers/exhibitors pitched is was to donate product as some sort of "door prize" for the last-minute ZOE after-party. I picked up a copy of Management Material, and even though it isn't really an RPG product I wanted to do a review as some measure of thanks. I'm sure some would think of I wanted to send a real thank you I'd automatically give it 5 stars.....

.....but I don't play that way.

Right off the bat, there are two different Management Material games, one is specifically focused on Information Technology (IT) and the other on General Office Management. These two games are completely compatible and you could easily just mix up the two sets to form a larger set.

I had the IT set of 110 cards. The cards are roughly divided 60/40 between Resource and Assignment cards, but there are actually four main types of cards, five if you want to get picky and count the one card used to mark which person's turn it is.

Right off the bat I loved reading the rules, which are pretty much up verbatim on the website links I have above. The game itself is simple enough that I think a simple paragraph or two would suffice, but the designers had the room on the sheet and had fun with it. The basic gist of the game is you are trying to avoid completing projects by having good excuses to cover why you can work on the project and why someone else much more capable should be doing the project instead. This mechanic is a simple point system were the projects and excuses have point values assigned to them.

Although it seems that the idea is to be avoiding work, in reality it is far from that. The excuses detail the crappy minutia of work details that the IT folks have to deal with all the time. Completing the big projects basically earns you some level of respect/recognition and it seems if you are too good at your job you get promoted to middle management, which is considered "losing" in this game.

The cards are pretty cool and funny....I've experienced some of the lesser annoyances on some of these IT cards. While I thought the game mechanics were a bit overly simplistic, the fun in the game is reading the cards themselves and laughing. I suspect there are also a few insider jokes in there as well. I think I caught at least one, but I don't have that big of an IT background.

This bit is the games strongest and weakest point. Management Material's strength is the source material and would probably work quite well with the right audience. My group would play this once and get a laugh or two out of it, but if instead of IT it was focused on retail (most of my group has worked at the same multi-department store, but all of us have worked retail for years), we'd probably play this a few times and enjoy ourselves much more. Hell, we'd probably work a drinking game into the scheme somehow (You can bump up the excuse by +1 if you've had to do this. Take a shot and tell us the story...)

Management Material is a bit on the simple side, but with the right group the game content would make it funny enough that the enjoyment comes from the memories the cards bring up for the players. The expand-ability of the game is good for larger groups and this can be a quick filler game that shouldn't take nearly as much time as many cards games seem to do. This definitely much better than the only other IT-based card game I've played....*shudders at the thought of even mentioning that blight on card games*

Frugal GM Work-In-Progress of the Most Recent Tweak & Toss

My latest Tweak & Toss should have been done a day or two ago, but some family drama coupled with a stupid hand injury has set me back at least a couple days.

Obviously I can type this so my hand isn't a complete wreck, but it does hurt. This injury was super stupid and 110% my fault.....how stupid, you might ask? Take your normal level of stupid, double-it, and add 10%. I'm not going to get into specifics because...well, reasons, but let's just say it hurts, the stitches come out in a couple of weeks, and if it hurts for the next two weeks I'll consider it the price to pay for the learning experience.

Anyway....I thought I should at least post the cover to the Tweak & Toss since that is the only page currently finished. I only need a couple of hours tops for the rest, so even if we double that and add 10% I hope to be finished by tomorrow.

I hope this is enough to get the gears churning on what "the Horrors" might be.....

Free GM Resource: The New York Public Library Map Warper

You might have seen a recent press release about the New York Public Library Open Access Maps, specifically the The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division (say all that 5 times real fast!)

The cool thing is this is a great Free GM Resource because it is a HUGE digital map collection that is being released under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication license.

So far every post I've seen on the subject is just a re-hash of the press release, which made me take a closer look.

I love using old maps for inspiration on making new ones and this Open Access collection is a simple sign-up away. Registration took less than a minute and then I had access to this great collection. Seriously, the registration was little more than my name, email and password twice. No muss and no fuss.

The access to the collection is done through the Map Warper and I didn't quite know what to make of it at first. It is pretty easy to search for historical maps and once you find a map there is an "export" tab that lets you download a high-resolution image. A lot of the options, at least on the 1st map I tried were for "warped" versions, which makes some sense because I was using the Map Warper after all. I was a bit surprised to download my 1st map and see it all skewed up. Fortunately you can also download an un-warped TIFF.

It ends up you can do more than just find and download maps. The whole point of the open access is to be able to assist the library by essentially overlaying these old maps over current ones to be able to tell the differences between the two. In order to do that you have to "warp" the map.

If you do end up using the map in something you create, the library does ask that you attribute the work as "From The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library." While technically you don't need to cite public domain work.....well at least legally, it is a good idea to do so, especially here since this helps the NYPL track how their stuff gets used and probably helps them in fundraising for the collection.

You can click on the lead-in graphic to reach the collection sign-up page, or use this link.