Frugal GM Review: The Last Prayer for the Dying

This week I'm dipping back into my DTRPG wishlist and pulling out an adventure that interested me last month when it first came onto the site. The Last Prayer of the Dying is the result of a roughly $1800 Kickstarter campaign. Figuring all the rewards were digital, that seems like a damned good haul on a KS campaign, but this isn't a post about Kickstarter.....but a bit of backstory. The important take-away is that this piece was originally written for D&D 5th Edition, but I'm going over the OSR version.

Free Map061: More Wilderness

After battling my webhost issues today.....issues that might not actually be gone until tomorrow....I started working on a new map.

I've had this idea for a Tweak & Toss for some time, but it was filed away for later use.....because I'd need to draw a map that is not really in my wheelhouse (i.e. I suck at drawing maps). Last week I saw a picture that was almost perfect for what I was thinking. I quickly looked up where the picture was taken and headed off to find the USGS map to use as my base.....

...yeah, the local area pretty much sucks. Evidently the location where this place is located is quite barren. Like out in a boring desert canyon barren. The spot I needed? Practically a dot on the map. Totally does not work for what I wanted it for.

Meh..no worries, I'll just see how I can tweak this map to make it more interesting. Don't know if I succeeded, but I'm not displeased....

All the maps are PDFs, with two versions available for my Patrons. Their maps are Arch B, which is only a little bit larger, but they have a version with and without contour lines, and neither of their maps have the Patreon "ad" in the corner.

As usual, click either graphic to go to the map page, or use this link.

Sorry for the Mess......in the Middle of Restoration.

Just a quick note to inform folks that I'm having to do a bit of blog/website maintenance. Quite a few of my graphics were being hosted on my private webspace and everything I had there is offline for some reason.

I'm migrating files over and updating the code....I've gotten to the main page and the Table of Contents. Most of the damage, as it were, was on the +12 Links of Helpfulness page. I'll have that fixed later today......

OK, now I have to undo the changes I made and fix the stuff I "fixed" earlier. I will have a new map up by the end of the day.

Free GM Resource: Awesome Hand-drawn OSR PC Sheets

While I liked the Free GM Resource I posted this morning, I can't help but to think I just "phoned it in" with that one. That is why I'm making a second Free GM Resource today.....even though it is more a player resource...screw it, I'm just going to run with it.

The Doomslakers OSR Character Sheets Pack 1 is a good collection of hand-drawn character sheets good for your old-school game. These were created by one of this GM's favorite artists, J.V. West. I've highlighted some of his OSR work before and as soon as I'm done with this post I'll have to add his website to the "+12 Links of Helpfulness".

Now the preview over at DTRPG only shows two sheets and normally I'd stamp "sample" or some such over the pics I'm going to show here, but if you want a smaller lower-resolution (i.e. crappy) version of these PC sheets instead of downloading the free real-deal available here.....then by all means, knock yourself out:

Free GM Resource: GM Hold Music

I don't know about you guys, but for me the 1st day of Daylight Savings Time doesn't bother me, but day 2 usually kicks my ass. Between having issues falling asleep and wanting to sleep in on what is essentially my "Sunday"......

Now I don't always play mood music when I run a game, but there is one particular sound file I try to keep handy, especially when I run a convention game. Going strong GMing a four-hour con isn't always possible and inevitably the group wants to take a 5-10' "breather" halfway through.

That is when I like to whip out this little gem and play it on my iPad: GM Hold Music by R. Dominelli. This MP3 is just over 5 minutes long and is usually entertaining enough that those players that don't get up to smoke or use the bathroom are entertained.

This is listed as "Volume 1". I've been searching for a Volume 2, but I have been unlucky so far. If I was funny enough I could see trying to make something myself, but I'm not that talented.....sorry guys.

Frugal GM Review: Classes of Ruin

This morning I thought I'd be brave and blindly purchase something off of the "Personalized Suggestions" list from DriveThruRPG, or at least something that wasn't one of my own items (DTRPG somehow thinks I want to purchase items I produced)!

This one particular item, Classes of Ruin, has been pretty steady on my list for a couple of months now. It is PWYW so I tossed a buck their way and picked it up for review.

Normally I wouldn't have picked this up because the product page is full of red flags for me. First is the fact that the only preview available is the picture of this Yeti. The only product description given is "A collection of Ruin character classs [sic] for use with Labyrinth Lord."

New PWYW Tweak & Toss: FGM040 The Dwarven Delve

I have the latest Tweak & Toss "adventure" up on DriveThruRPG.

This one is called The Dwarven Delve, and it features the free map (Map060) from last week. This Tweak & Toss is larger in (file) size than normal because I just didn't like the way the map looked at a standard print-size.

The general idea behind this adventure is that after a "disturbance", some traders have gone missing and the party is asked to locate them and bring them to the trading site. I'm deliberately being a bit more vague than normal....

To go to the appropriate DTRPG page, click on either graphic in this post, or use this link.

Free GM Resource: Labyrinths of Madness

Today is a gaming friend's birthday: DM Nick from the Roll For Initiative Podcast.

Now I know he plays AD&D (although I suspect it's more HackMaster 4th edition that AD&D...), but he also has a soft-spot for Call of Cthulhu....and as an aside, should I be disturbed that my spell-checker knows how to spell Cthulhu?....

Anyway, I decided to do a little hunting for today's Free GM Resource and I managed to discover Labyrinths of Madness. This is a free PDF download from Lulu, so you'll need to have or establish a Lulu account.

Labyrinths of Madness is a short (13 pages, 8 of content) supplement for using the Labyrinth Lords rules to run a CoC-type campaign. Now this is supplement assumes you aren't running your campaign in a medieval-ish setting, but I'm sure you could with only a couple of tweaks.

Now this isn't my particular play-style, but it occurred to me that even if you didn't want a CoCish campaign, but you liked a little more fast & loose role-play heavy game that the Damage, Injury, and Healing rules (page 6) would be a real boon....

.....anyway, happy birthday Nick!

Update July 18, 2019:
Evidently this has been removed from Lulu and a few minutes of searching hasn't revealed a new source. Probably doesn't help that this is for Labyrinth Lord and had "Labyrinth" in the title, not to mention that it shares a name with a AD&D adventure. If anyone can point me out to a new source for this........