Free Map053: I Cannot Get Enough Caverns!

It's been a while since I've put up a new free map. I've been doing some mapping, just saving up some maps for a special project which I still have a lot more work to do on.

I do love cavern maps and I'm still experimenting. One of the tools I love using can't really handle larger maps, so I'm playing around with some other techniques and trying to solidify the ones I do like.

Practice makes perfect......or in my case "good enough".

Free d30 Table: Combined Height & Weight for Dwarven PCs/NPCs

It's that time again where I put up another set of free d30 tables.

I've done up a whole slew of combined height & weight tables for a good 13 different RPG races. I've put them all up on my Patreon page for patrons and am slowly releasing them on DriveThruRPG.

This set is for Dwarves and consists of two PDFs, the 1st using English measurements (inches & pounds), and the 2nd Metric measurements (centimeters and kilograms).

 I hope you find them useful.....

Free GM Resource: Masterplan

I've been sitting on this Free GM Resource for a while because I hadn't actually downloaded it and checked it out for myself. I'm only sharing it now because a GM friend of mine uses it for one thing and found that it worked exceptionally well even in that limited capacity.

Masterplan is an "Adventure Design Studio" that is basically a scratch-built database for GMs to set-up and record their campaigns. If I wasn't attempting to do the same with a wiki, I'd be all over this.

After watching the five tutorial videos I can say that Masterplan seems a helluva lot easier to use than what I'm currently doing, and it seems to do a better job on every level but one to the alternatives I've used. I have a specific requirement that I might just need to re-evaluate in favor of switching over to Masterplan.

The program is written with D&D 4E in mind, but the author had to remove the game-specific libraries so I don't see how this couldn't be a great asset for any game.

Masterplan is a small (< 6 MB) download that you should check out. My GM buddy uses it just to create a working custom calendar and says it is worthwhile just for that.

Frugal GM Review: Fat Dragon Games Ravenfell Core Set

This week I decided to put together one of my paper terrain buildings I had received from the Fat Dragon Games Ravenfell Kickstarter. You can get this Ravenfell Core Set off of DriveThruRPG, so I felt good about putting one of the buildings together for review.

The first thing I did was select which building to print. The zip file I had contained folder for each building, but what I did was use the included instructions booklet to look at the finished buildings to make my selection. There are two instruction books, one for general paper building instructions, the "Beginner's Guide" and a specific set of instructions for the Ravenfell Core Set.

I ended up choosing Building 2, which should come out looking like the model on the right. Each building had its own folder and this building had 5 sub-folders (Floors, Level1, Level2, Roof, and Tower). Each sub-folder had a separate PDF for each page, which I didn't really like playing with. I have to assume there was a reason for it, but I had to go through and remember what options I chose for each and every page I printed. This was a good and bad thing.

The good thing was that I had options, and that is probably the biggest strength of the Ravenfell Core Set. I could have a natural grid represented by a visible nail pattern, in two sizes no less. I could have a dusty & stained floor or a perfectly clean one. The coolest options were for the outside though. Different facades & even a snow covering.

I'm Moving the Frugal GM Reviews to Saturdays

Normally I do a Frugal GM Review on Fridays, but with the new PT job (hoping to make it FT or at least add another PT position somewhere) and some (improving) issues at home.....it can be a bit of a stretch getting the review done in time since my "cushion" of posts/reviews has been used up....I know, my bad.

I'm considering pushing back the reviews until the weekend, probably just a day. Right now my weekend mornings are relatively free and getting just one more day can be quite useful, especially on reviews that simply take up a lot of time by their nature. I don;t want to be one of those guys that tries to do a review where they do little more than read over the chapter titles and call it good.....

....I hate those reviews...they don't do anybody any favors. I've seen far too many reviews where it was clear the reviewer didn't actually bother to read the material being reviewed, much less play it, and just went off of 3rd hand information.

If you guys want rumor and specialization I could right stuff up everyday......but it kind of goes against what I'm trying to do here.

As a special thank you for even reading this far I've reinstated a 1/2 off coupon code for The Horrors of Halfling Hollow, the short encounter "location" I put together recently. It'll be 99¢ until Halloween.

Do Gamers Still Have Named "Gaming Groups"?

As I'm going through Facebook today I got a few of those "Throwback Thursday" posts in my feed and I saw a gaming picture or two in there and they reminded me of something....

...I was wondering how many folks her have an actual gaming group. Not a group of people who game regularly, but an actual named gaming group....

Back in the days of HackMaster 4th Edition the HackMaster Association promoted the creation of formal gaming groups in order to track member participation and even PCs because this was something that was needed in the "highly" competitive convention tournament environment. I know that some conventions have been borne out of formalized gaming groups. Dragonflight in Seattle immediately comes to mind.

I was a member of several groups, but my two home groups were the "Boise Incident" Instigators and the Gem State Gazebo Hunters. I GM'd the 1st group and my wife the 2nd. She drew up the combined group's logo and I turned it into something we could use, like this travelling banner we'd take to conventions.

Just a thought.....have any of you guys put together something a bit more formal? I know I've seen group T-shirts and notepads at conventions.....

A Good-Looking (& Frugal) Gaming Kickstarter I'm Getting behind

OK, I know two weeks and two Kickstarter mentions might be a bit much....

I just looked at this Small Dungeon Maps project and immediately thought......cool.

It occurred to me that this is pretty much a completed project that the artist is just using Kickstarter as a sales/distribution channel instead of places like DTRPG. Since Drive-Thru and her sister sites take 30-40% off the top, "losing" 10% to Kickstarter becomes a more viable option for many folks starting out.

There are a couple of things I like about this Kickstarter though. 1st is the low buy-in. Say what you want, but about $2 USD for a 40 room dungeon is money well spent. The graphics have an interesting slightly cartoonish look I like and the perspective used.....I think this would look perfect on a VTT where every player is oriented to get the best view of the room.


I'm sold on that this could be a great project for use at my gaming table.

New Free Tables up at DTRPG

I've posted the next set of d30 combined height & weight tables over at DriveThruRPG.

These tables are for Elven PCs & NPCs, and like the 1st set for Humans, one table uses English measurements (FGM031fe) and the other Metric (FGM031fm).

Enjoy.......