Free GM Resource: Mini Terrain Domain YouTube Channel

This week's Free GM Resource is another YouTube channel, somewhat in the similar vein of the popular The DM's Craft. This channel is called Mini Terrain Domain and I'm digging the videos so far.

There isn't a large offering of videos yet, but it is apparent (at least to me) that some recent setup changes are leading to more videos. It seems that a new overhead camera rig was created to make filming easier and the majority of the videos have been produced since then.

I'm not nearly as big of a RPG crafter as I pretend to be. Sure, I have a ton of supplies and projects waiting in the wings, but some days I think I just collect supplies in preparation for some catastrophic event where I have nothing to do but game or prep for games. I'm not sure if that would be a dream or a nightmare.

At any rate, I enjoy watching the videos as they not only teach me how to make something in particular, but help get me to think of alternate ways of creating things....should the opportunity arise. While I do like watching the YouTube channel directly, because I get a bunch of suggestions, there is something I different to enjoy watching just the videos in the G+ feed. I think I like the clean aesthetic more than anything.

Looking forward to seeing more from MTD.

Frugal GM Review: The Gnomes of Levnec

I've been a little naughty this holiday season because I've bought so many things off of DriveThruRPG.....seriously, my downloads folder is a mess that I have to sort through just to find stuff to review (and file away appropriately for later use). There were tons of offers I just had to have, and at least one that didn't really interest me, but I ended up getting anyway.

One of my interweb buddies alerted me to an odd-ball promotion being offered by Zzarchov Kowolski regarding his The Gnomes of Levnec adventure: The $5.59 adventure was PWYW until 13 people had downloaded it for free. Now I don't know how many were downloaded as PWYW, or how long this promotion lasted, but I can tell you from experience that with PWYW I'd say only about 3-5%

OK, while I didn't really care to get an adventure I'd probably never run, what the heck....I had to take part in this....and I'm really glad I did.

There was very little I didn't like about this adventure and I think even those things were pretty insignificant. I'm not even sure "didn't like" is an appropriate term.

The first, and biggest, is that the PDF has a lot of dark, almost muddied, pages and each page has a huge black band. It is really obvious that this was designed as a professionally printed physical product that was sold as a PDF. I looks great on the screen, but I wouldn't want to print this at home.

Another thing that bugged me a bit is that this is a low-level adventure for the "Neoclassical Geek Revival and OSR Roleplaying Games". Now I don't know what this NGR game is and the first mention of this other system is on page 5 when a "stat" is listed as OSR & NGR. I didn't have a clue what NGR was until I read the back cover and then only the Neoclassical Geek Revival name. The level "range" is also on the bottom of the back cover.

Last is one of those really stupid things for me, but is telling (I think) of how the PDF was designed (i.e. What makes me think this was a simple PDF made from the production files.), is that there is a "special thanks" to a blog author for inspiration with a printed URL to the specific blog post. Why that isn't a hotlink in the PDF is beyond me. Another reason I think this was designed as a printed product is that the page count comes in at 20 pages. At least this PDF doesn't have any security and is not watermarked....always a huge plus with me.

I'm not going to go over the finer points of this PDF too much because it is a great read and I really don't want to venture into spoiler territory, which would be far too easy to do. This was one of those rare few adventures that were a sheer joy to read. I don't think I'd ever play this with my regular group because there are elements that scream "KILLER GM", but if it was a one-off type thing with somewhat disposable PCs....oh yes.....let me adorn my GM shield with some more skull stickers....it's been far too long.

There is a great table set for being lost in the woods that is brilliantly complex and simple all at the same time. Just this one idea alone made the PDF worthwhile to me.

The adventure itself is a little free-form and I think it would really work well as more of a setting area for some other adventure where the two were intertwined some. The area map is nothing really needing to be used (it works just fine though) and everything is loose enough to really integrate into something else if you wanted.

The Gnomes of Levnec is a great little adventure that is worth getting to read, get a new table idea, or possibly screw with your players some. I think it is totally worth it, even at almost $6....which is saying a lot for me.

Happy Chrismahanukwanzika Everybody! Here's a RPG Present for You!

I'm pretty stoked to be able to announce "my" Christmas present to you loyal 12 readers (and anyone else who happens by).

Somehow I managed to get involved with the creation...well more editing and creative input after-the-fact (if you ask me) of Matt Jackson's Lunch Box Heroes.

This all started out, at least on my side of things, as looking for a rules-light game I could play with minimal fuss. I'd come close a couple of times, but each step lead me a bit closer to finding exactly what I was looking for.

I'm thankful for Matt letting me get involved and even more so for being able to give this joint-gift from us to you. I know that usually those "it's from both of us" Christmas gifts can be a bit lame (unless the givers are married or some such, then it's not weird), but hopefully you'll enjoy this anyway.

Since it is a gift it is free...not as in Pay-What-You-Want, but free...free.  Enjoy.

Lunch Box Heroes on DriveThruRPG.

You might want to check out the rest of the Frugal GM "line" of stuff, or Matt's efforts with Chubby Monster Games.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I don't really expect many folks to be online checking this blog over the holidays, but if you do...well I have little more than fond wishes for you......for now. I'm working with someone on a Christmas present for all of you and when it is ready I'll put up a post letting you know all about it!

I get to spend Christmas Day with my wife and later with my gaming group, so I'm set. We'll watch the last Hobbit movie and then come over to the house for a nice turkey dinner.

I hope you all get to spend the day with your family & friends as well.

Free GM Resource: Pinterest

I don't know of too many GMs using Pinterest, probably because I've always thought of it as the domain of women's arts & crafts sharing, but recently I've discovered it can be used as a useful tool for the Frugal GM.

In the past when I saw something I liked that I might want to reference later.....maybe a product I want to buy, a map I might use, or even some game concept/idea I want to borrow....I'd have to go through a whole "thing" where I'd create a file to save a picture or PDF printoff or even the URL. Information would end up getting stored in one or more places and maybe I'd get back to it.

Now with Pinterest I have a quick shortcut on my browser tool bar that pretty much lets me store a graphic and link altogether easily and quickly. Lumping items together into a single "board" is easy to do and sharing the board is a snap. You can follow boards and use Pinterest to search for things as well.

Right off the top of my head I can think of several ways this would be useful for GMs, but I'll only highlight one (the biggest IMO):

Click for a bigger view.

Here is a board for Fantasy RPG Battlemaps. If this particular board interests me I can use it to get more information I'll probably enjoy. In this case I can "follow" the board, getting a social media link I can check in on easily, and I can "drill down" to look for more stuff. In this case I end up at another cool board and see some links for sites I'd never come across yet.

Today I found a "must have" accessory that, while not obviously designed for in-game use, is the perfect thing for me integrating my iPad at the table. With luck I'll have something put together by this weekend!

I also found this gem of a video. Although it is for a system I don't play, it was a good watch. Luckily I saved so much time from saving ideas on Pinterest that I could waste them watching this video.

Frugal GM Review: Inked Adventures Blocks

These last few weeks I've easily dwindled down any DriveThruRPG credit I had on purchasing a ton of new products. While not intended for review, I'm sure I'll review most of it eventually.

This week I decided to work on the new Inked Adventures Blocks set. I'm lucky in that the creator, Billiam Babble, and I have a friendly exchange of emails and he's pretty much offered me any his stuff I want for free. Well, I'm Frugal, not cheap, so I try to pay for things I want to use and play with. Things I get just for review (hint, hint), feel free to send my way.

Free Map 040: Some Underground Beaches

I started on what will prove to be a HUGE map that there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to finish in a short amount of time....and by short I mean a free day's worth of time.

It is big enough I'll probably have to do the map in sections because I don't my new computer has enough RAM to do the work...and it has plenty of RAM.

Anyway, last night I was working on something else altogether that required me to break out my colored pencils. That "coloring project" got boring way too quickly and I ended up drawing out the beginnings of a map. After a HUGE mistake that I couldn't exactly use a Ctrl-Z to undo, I figured I was done. I was hoping to be able to just scan it in, but I had to use Photoshop to un-screw the map up. Since I had to do that I figured I might as well add some fill.....

I won't pretend it is very good.....and no, I'm not fishing for complements.I think I should have started with my markers and then used the colored pencils, but maybe next time. I'm not sure about the addition of some underground beaches. I'm not sure what I was thinking but I kind of like the idea.

You can click on the lead-in graphic or use this link to get the map.

Free GM Resource: Aeons & Augaries Geomorphs

As much as I love making and using RPG maps, I kind of hate the amount of work that has to go into them, especially for a one-off. I also love me some random tables. I don't mind putting work into a map or a random table if I get to use them multiple times.

For this reason I really enjoy some good geomorphs, which I like to think of as the random tables of the map world. The only problem is usually the level of standardization you need to pull them off. I've had some ideas about creating some geomorphs, but like so many of my plans and projects, it hasn't gotten much past the brainstorming stage.

Aeons & Augaries is "just another RPG blog", but there are some great non-standard (but still standardized...bear with me) geomorphs. There haven't been any geomorph posts in over a year, but because it is a Blogger site you can always append the url with "/search/label/[insert label]". Of course you need to guess at the labels because if you already have a label list then you can just use that instead of screwing around with the URL.

I don't put a label list on my blog either, but if you go to the "Table of Contents" page and click on a label from one post you can then filter the TOC to only show posts with that label.....

.....and thus ends the Blogger lesson for today.

There are some great geomorph gems on Aeons & Augaries, but to find them you either have to dig through a lot of posts, do some creative searching, or just use this geomorph search link.

Even if you don't want to use these geomorphs, there are some great ideas for making your own.