Free GM Resource: Journey Calculator

This week's Free GM Resource is an interesting Journey Calculator from the folks over at Arc Dream Publishing. While obviously created with The One Ring Roleplaying Game from Cubicle 7, this calculator can easily be adapted for other games.

It is an online-only tool, but the footnotes seem to indicate that this page can be accessed easily enough with mobile devices.

I've always liked this purpose-built tools that help with the small aspect of games that easily get overlooked. Sure, most systems will tell you how far you can hike or ride, but not always with terrain in mind......

Frugal GM Review: One Page Dungeon Compendium 2015 Edition PDF

This week I've decided to pick up a PDF copy of the One Page Dungeon Compendium, 2015 Edition.

DriveThruRPG has all of the One Page Dungeon compendiums going back to 2013, and the best deal...assuming you don't already have them, is probably the printed copy bundle of 2013-2016 for $40.

I picked up 2015's Compendium thinking it was the latest, but there is a 2016 available.....it just didn't show up in my "search". Ninety-five one page dungeons in a 40 MB, $3 PDF...sounds like a winner to me. The PDF is not secured or watermarked, which is fairly important because some of the dungeons take up every bit of space they can on the page.

August's d30 Table is Available Now on DTRPG

This month's free d30 table is now available for download from DTRPG.

This particular d30 table is a rather simple set of critical hit charts, separated into minor and major critical hits with 30 entries each. It is not intended to replace a more robust critical hit system that some RPGs use, but it can add a little bit of flavor to simpler systems.

I could also see this being used as a called-shot chart as well.

My Patrons have had access to this particular d30 table since June. Like usual, if you want to go to the download site for this d30 product click on either graphic in this post, or use this link.

Free GM Resource: A Hârn Twofer From Columbia Games Inc.

Obviously I dig maps, and I think a lot of you guys do too.

Last week I was introduced to a pretty cool online map for Hârn, that works pretty much like Google Maps. Now I've played one game of Hârn, and IIRC it was a bit too "crunchy" for my tastes.

The thing I loved about Hârn though was the maps and the world-building "stuff". There is so much great info regarding this game world that you could easily import into any fantasy RPG.

This week's Free GM Resource is a bit of a twofer regarding the island of Hârn, which is about 3x the size of Great Britain. The first resource if the aforementioned online map, and the second is a free PDF version of the regional map from DTRPG.

I don't think Hârn gets much love outside its core base of fans, but there is so much information for this setting that you can use & abuse for your own game.

Frugal GM Review: Acheson Creations

With GenCon happening next week I wanted to review something you could find at the convention. [edit] Well, you can normally find them at Origins......[/edit]

Acheson Creations is one of the entries on the +12 Links of Helpfulness page, under RPG Terrain. I've blogged about them three years ago, but never really did a review.

Personally I like the small resin bits and bobs from Acheson Creations over the large pieces, but that is more because I get a lot more mileage out of them and they are quite reasonably priced at 50¢ to $1. Over the last couple of years I have amassed a decent sized collection and I've been real lazy about getting them painted up.....until now.

Free GM Resource: The Medieval Bestiary

This week's Free GM Resource is a collection of creatures from The Medieval Bestiary.

While the list of beasts isn't extremely large, and there seem to be a lot of mundane creatures on said list, The Medieval Bestiary is still quite useful because there are a lot of links and files to historical resources. Basically this is a great site to start some research on creatures/beasts from the era.

Even some of the more mundane creatures have some surprising "aspects" as believed during that bygone time. A nice way to add some unexpected color to your game.

Frugal GM Review: A Twofer from Paratime Design

I'm not quite done with the terrain pieces I wanted to review this week (I bit off a lot more than I can chew on that one), so I started with my normal fall-back of suggested purchases on DriveThruRPG.

This week's review item caught my eye because, well because it seemed oxymoronic to me since it was a "freebie" map that costs $1. The map was from Paratime Design, so I felt comfortable giving it a little leeway up-front, which lead me to this twofer.

Evidently there are some Friday Freebie maps you can download off of Paratime Design's website. These maps aren't wimpy maps either. The freebie map version of this $1 map comes in roughly at 17" x 23" with a screen resolution of 72 dpi. There are two versions, light background and a dark background. Really not shabby at all, definitely worth the price of free.

Of course this begs the question, "Why would I want to pay $1 for a 'free' map?"

First off, the map is a higher resolution, being offered on a US Letter page (21.6 by 27.9 cm) and 300 dpi. No security, but also no PDF property tagging either (which I really don't care about when it comes to maps, just noting because this is something I look for). The great thing about this map, the thing that distinguishes this product from the freebie maps, is that the PDF format (I know that "PDF Format" is redundant) is taken advantage of by allowing a large number of display options. There are 9 listed viewing options, but only 8 actually "do" anything. In addition to selecting the light or dark background you can choose to display (or not) room numbers or secret doors.

While you could easily get by with the freebie map, tweaking the higher-resolution map will get you a lot more mileage. Odds are you'll have to select the viewing options you want and then print the map off to another PDF which you could then open in your chosen digital editing software. Since the PDF isn't secured, this is a viable option.

If the PDF was locked-down, this map would probably not even rate 3 stars because you'd be locked into using the PDF on-screen only, unless you printed a physical copy. This would realistically write-off the file for use with a VTT as you'd probably be better off with just the freebie version. I know I harp on PDF security a lot with my reviews, but this product from Paratime Design is a great example of doing things right, and I know from experience that as a publisher on DriveThruRPG you have to go just a little bit out of your way to make sure that PDF products do not get auto-locked-down by OneBookShelf.

It is great to see publishers using PDFs to their best effect, and this $1 "Friday Freebie" map is an excellent example. If you need a dungeon, especially if you need a VTT dungeon, then these maps from Paratime Design should be right up your alley.

Free GM Resource: A Treasure-Trove of Stuff Over at D&D Adventures

I must apologize for the unexpected week-long absence, but that sickness I mentioned in my last post ended up turning into a rather severe viral infection that knocked me on my ass and should have resulted in a trip to the ER. Unfortunately I live alone and wasn't in the best of conditions to take proper care of myself.

I'm still recovering, trying to build my strength back-up and I have a personalized understanding on how something like a flu outbreak could wipe out millions.

Anyway......

This week's Free GM Resource is simply a treasure-trove of "stuff" collected by the folks over at D&D Adventures. Holy crap, is there a lot of links to look at. I'm sure there might be some bits and bobs I've covered in the past, but with a link library like this that would just be inevitable.

This list of resources is HUGE!