Frugal GM Review: The Ytroth Larvae of the Scarsea Cliffs

This week I was compelled to pull an item off of my "Personalized Suggestions" list over at DTRPG as this week's Frugal GM Review.

A quick peek at the product's page made me think that The Ytroth Larvae of the Scarsea Cliffs, would be similar to my Tweak & Toss adventure seeds. Two pages, not tied to a specific system, and only $1....close enough.

OK, I'll freely admit that I was drawn in by the cover image, shown left.

November's d30 Table is a Plant Generator

This month's free d30 table is a companion piece to last month's d30 table that generated natural potions & poisons.

The d30 Plant Generator isn't a sexy-sounding table at all, but if you want to throw some random plants at your players, this will help out.

I was inspired to create this table not only from a perceived need after making the last one, but also because I remember time when I've been surprised a bit by plants in different parts of the world. One of my neighbors has a Catalpa tree and the only other time I've ever seen one, well actually it was a whole grove, was while deer hunting some 2,000 miles (or so) from where I live now. I could envision sending the PCs to find the fruit of the Catalpa as an ingredient for something.....

Now instead of trying to fit in a real-world analog into your campaign's flora, just throw some d30s into the mix and come up with something "unique" to your game world....

Free GM Resource: Natural Crit's Homebrewery

Today's Free GM Resource is a pretty cool site that exists to help GMs create official-looking home-brew rule pages for D&D 5th Edition.

Homebrewery is a pretty cool site and just because it is designed for one edition it doesn't mean you couldn't use it as a tool to create pages for your own preferred system.

Homebrewery allows you to share the created pages, either as read-only, or even to allow multiple collaborators.

Frugal GM Review: The Cave Hideout

One of the reasons I like to do reviews, aside from adding content to the site, is to make the things I try to create better. Not only can I mine other creator's content for ideas big and small, but I can (hopefully) look at specific details and see what I think works and doesn't work. I think we are all naturally overly critical of our own works, but if you can develop a good critical eye when looking at other's work....maybe you can develop a sense of fairness towards your own things.

Or at least that is one of my goals. I'll try to share some of my "internal" monologue to show what I mean....

Today I saw a free map on DriveThruRPG that caught my eye. It is the only product/item currently available from Filippo onez Vanzo, the artist. Entitled "The Cave Hideout", the product page is quite bare and the full-sized preview doesn't work. I don't know what format the map is in, which could be an issue.

Now I tend to be a bit light on the download page description myself and I wonder if the problem with the full-sized preview is a publisher issue or a OBS issue. Looking at my last item...neither preview seems to work.

The map is in a PDF file format and 24.54" x 34.72" at 72 DPI.

What sized paper is this? Sounds close to A1, but that is 23.4" x 33.1"....I wonder if the map was created on A1 paper, scanned in, and then pushed out to add the title. Changing the DPI to 300 for printing makes it 5.89" x 8.33"....way too small for much in-game use.

The map is presented as an unsecured/locked-down PDF. Unfortunately the map isn't layered so there is no option to remove the numbers & letters.

Well I could open this up in Photoshop, remove what I don't want, and then import to Illustrator so I could get a vector map before bringing it back in to Photoshop and get the size that I want. That is going to be a fair amount of work and some of the details I want to remove are over details I'd rather keep.

The artwork on the map is pretty good. I love the artist's version of hatching and the room detail is good enough to accurately depict what is in each room without being "too much".

That hatching looks like it'd be a pain in the ass to do.....won't do that, but the trees...I think I can do that. That room detail is right out though as I don't have that level of skill drawing.

Overall a nice map, but I really wish that the identifying details (room letters & numbers) had been omitted, along with the grid. Getting this map in a larger printable size would have been much more useful. As-is I think it serves as a GM aide that would have to be re-drawn if being used at a gaming table. A lot of work would be required to turn it to something I could use with something player-facing.

Most of my maps that are like this one are secondary copies included in the Tweak & Toss-es. Keep on making the large-scale "clean" map 1st and then mark it up and re-size for the follow-on project. Try out that tree method soon and add some more elevation/motion lines to the tunnels and water bits of your map..if/when you go hand-drawn again.

Free GM Resource: Godbound A Game of Divine Heroes

Yes.....I know it is Wednesday and I missed a Free GM Resource on Monday. Still dealing with some personal drama with long-term ramifications, basically life getting in the way.

This week's Free GM Resource is a free version of Godbound, from Sine Nomine Publishing. My ears perk up a bit whenever I hear about these guys and yours should too. They give out free stuff like it was candy, and it's good candy....like full-sized Snickers or Hershey Bars...not like some candy corn or elephant peanuts.....

.....anyway, the RPG Godbound came out this summer and the free edition is interesting. Now I'm not going to review this game or anything (unfair to do without actually playing a few sessions), but I will have to say I'm impressed with the download:

• DRM/Security Free ....bookmarked PDFs
• 193 pages of full color main PDF
• 191 "lightweight" PDF
• Two PDF character sheets...with on being form-fillable!
• Epub Version
• Kindle Version

 Basically these guys didn't half-ass it when it came to offering a freebie version. The paid version is called the Godbound Deluxe Edition and comes with 50 extra pages. One thing I did find interesting is that there isn't an add for the Deluxe version, just one mention in a sidebar. Try the game for free and if you like it......

Frugal GM Review: Hexed Places Crescent Lake

For some odd reason I feel it important to disclose that I'm not a fan of hex crawls. I don't hate them or anything, just not my thing. Normally I wouldn't even want to look at a hex crawl product, but the publisher preview for Hexed Places: Crescent Lake made me think it might be ok to try this product out.

I figured it was a bit of a gamble, but what the heck....good to get out of my comfort zone once in a while.

Hexed Places: Crescent Lake is just one of a line of Hexed Places from PBE Games. This download consists of one 13 page PDF and two roughly 7 1/2" x 7" hex maps in 300 DPI PNG format. One map is for the players and the other the GM. Both maps are also in the PDF, but in smaller format with some space left for notes.

I have to admit I was a bit blown away during my initial flip-through. Sure there are only really 10 pages of actual content, the other three being the covers and a title page, but it is a good 10 pages. The PDF isn't secured/locked down, which might not be that big of a deal for most on a product like this, but it means I could easily open up the two pages of maps and make them b&w or greyscale if I wanted. Heck, the author actually used some of the fields in the PDF document properties. That isn't a big deal to 99% of the people who'd use this, but it is something I try to do with my stuff and I think this is the first time I've seen someone else do it.

What I really liked about this product was its simplicity. The information is laid out in an easy-to-read format and on some levels there really isn't a lot of it, but feels just right for me. Personally I want an low-level of good information that I can add to as-needed. A brief overview of the area, some rumors, and a few NPCs & locations suit me fine. The addition of area-specific wandering monsters is a nice touch.

While there are stats for the NPCs, monsters, & such, the information in Hexed Places: Crescent Lake is pretty much system neutral. This one small supplement could easily be used to populate a "new" area the party happens to stumble upon, like when the take a left down a road you expected them to go right on. Personally I'd keep this handy and use it to back-fill a hole in my campaign I wasn't expecting to fill. I'd not use the hex maps at the table, but tweak it to fit my own space as-needed.

I highly recommend picking up a few of these small area fills to use on the fly.....

Free GM Resource: Library of Congress Map Collections

I thought I'd share another map porn Free GM Resource that has a special meaning for me. The Library of Congress has well over 5 million maps in various collections, but only a fraction are available online. You can check the various online map collections in the Library of Congress here.

When I was a high school Freshman I got to go to Washington DC to compete in National History Day. Being the proper nerd that I was, when we had a day to tour the Capitol Mall I made a bee-line to the Library of Congress and pretty much got signed up for a library card. I had no clue when/if I'd ever be back to DC again, but dammit....I had my access card in case I did...and in nearly 30 years of travelling I never have....

Some good stuff here to check out.....

Frugal GM Review: White Box Omnibus

Yesterday I decided to jump on the Deal of the Day over at DriveThruRPG, picking up the White Box Omnibus for 1/2 off. It was after I picked it up I realized I don't have a copy of the White Box rules to begin with....

So for the time being I have some supplementary material for a game system I don't own. This fact is not being factored into this review.