Frugal GM Review: Basic Psionics Handbook

I almost feel like I'm "phoning in" this review because I've liked everything from New Big Dragon Games Unlimited and so I picked up this supplement based on pure blind faith in the quality. I've never run psionics and never really planned on it.....

....of course that can always change.

Newest d30 Height & Weight Tables are up: Gnomes

As I'm working on my d30 table for November I still have nine more sets of combined height & weight d30 tables to release....after the ones I just put up on DTRPG. I'll be releasing them in bits & pieces over the next few weeks/months depending on the pace of other publisher's freebies.

This set of two tables are the combined height & weight charts for Gnomes. Aside from the Half-Elf charts I have in the pile, the rest of the ones to be released are for more obscure races.....

The two tables are FGM031ie d30 Gnome Height & Weight Table (English) and FGM031im d30 Gnome Height & Weight Table (Metric)

Throwback Thursday: Dragonflight 2003

I know Throwback Thursday is more of a Facebook thing, and not something I normally partake in, but this morning I have to do my 1st opening at the store I'm working at PT and I was feeling a little nostalgic.

Back in 2003 the Mrs. and I were set to attend the Dragonflight convention in Seattle. It was our 1st Anniversary and attending the con was actually a cheap way for us to also visit the city. We had some specific game plans that got a bit thwarted when the guy who was running KenzerCo game demos backed out.

Stupid me.....I stepped in to run the demos in addition to the games we already had scheduled.

Dragonflight was held at an old Jesuit university and had a few holdovers from the old days. Lodging was pretty cheap and in the university's dorms. They made us "prove" we were married before they'd let the wife and I share a room. Matching names on our driver's licenses could have meant we were brother & sister, and that wouldn't be enough to let us share a room!

We got to play in a couple of HackMaster games on Saturday with married PCs that managed to game off and on with each other for years. We had a great time and one of the other players gave me a copy of HackJournal #1, which is a treasured part of my collection.

The primary demo focus was on KenzerCo's "new" game Fairy Meat, which was a fun little fae miniature wargame. The best part, for me, was coming up with the terrain to play with. I had two table setups, but the most we ever got were a couple of players at one table. Still, it was a fun spin on a wargame.

The other game we demoed was Dwarven Dig. I'm pretty sure the game is still in print, not just from KenzerCo. The game was pretty decent, not sure if it was worth the price that KenzerCo had it at. IIRC the game was remade with much cheaper components....not up to KenzerCo's quality, but a lot lighter and easier on the wallet.

Dragonflight was a pretty cool con. Affordable, and all about gaming. There wasn't a bunch of non-gaming things, aside from the allure of Seattle, to draw folks away from getting their game on.

Monsters that GMs Don't Like to use at the Table

I was reading up on a game forum where a GM had what he thought was a dastardly plan for surprising the party with a monster. The plan was a decent one, and kind of amusing, but the discussion took a bit of a dark tone to me and went off in a bit of a "screw the players over" sort of fashion.

My mind immediately jumped to a "monster" that I pretty much refuse to use and it made me wonder if other GMs have monsters that are pretty much on a banned list for their campaigns/tables.

For me the one monster I rarely use is Green Slime. I hate Green Slime because it is barely one step removed from simply having a lightning bolt fry a PC from out of the blue. Think about it....Green Slime is pretty much a stupid ambush predator that (in many systems) drops down from above and instantly starts destroying any organic material it comes in contact with. If a PC is lucky maybe it'll just take out an arm before it gets lopped off.

Oh hell no.....not in my game.

Don't get me wrong, I have used Green Slime before, but I always give the PCs plenty of warning before hand. They get to see the Green Slime long before it has a chance to attack. To me, Green Slime is more of an obstacle encounter than a monster encounter. I've used this creature twice and it was only an issue for the PCs the 1st time and that was all on the players.....

In my HackMaster 4th Edition game I had an "evil" Dark Elf Necromancer. I ended up having to give the PC the misguided quirk because the player, a genuinely nice guy, had issues playing a Neutral Evil PC.....his own real-world personality kept creeping through. At one point in an adventure the group had found a spellbook stowed underneath the cook stove in the ruin's kitchen. There appeared to be a mass of Green Slime attempting to devour the spellbook, but it was being kept at bay by some mysterious force. Basically this was loot I wanted the Necromancer to get, but I wasn't just tossing it at him.

The PC grabs a stick and tries to get the Green Slime to attack the stick instead of going for the book. Now I had already figured that if the PC simply used the stick to push the spellbook away from the Green Slime that'd work, but the player couldn't figure out that action. At one point I put a phone book under my living room couch and handed the player a broomstick and asked him to show me what he was doing......

....eventually the player just got frustrated poking at the phonebook and just reached in and grabbed it.

In the next few second in-game the Necromancer was attacked by Green Slime and the Ranger managed to amputate the Necromancer's arm at the elbow and staunch the bleeding before there was a loss of life.

Even though this was a good session for me.....still not up to using Green Slime.

Are there any particular monsters you just refuse to use, and why?

New Book From New Big Dragon Games Unlimited: Basic Psionics Handbook

Richard J. LeBlanc, Jr. has released his newest project and while I realize I'm likely to never, ever, actually use the Basic Psionics Handbook, I had to pick it up for a review later.

I'll freely admit I've liked everything I've picked up from New Big Dragon Games Unlimited (seriously....everything), so "risking" $6 on the PDF is a pretty safe bet. I've always liked the layout and even though I'm not likely to play a psionicist, I wanted to read his take on it.

Back in the day.....when I 1st started "playing" AD&D with my uncle we didn't have a fricken clue what we were doing. I do remember rolling up a PC with psionics, but damned if I can remember if it was a legit PC, a specific psionic allowance (ie, GM fiat and not RAW), or even straight-up cheating....although I highly doubt that I was cheating for a psionicist....I'd have gone for a Paladin instead. Regardless though, that PC never saw any action and we never did quite figure out how psionics worked...did anyone?

My initial flip through looked good and I'm in the process of printing up and gluing my own book for later reading/review. The PDF of the Basic Psionics Handbook is a couple bucks off for a while, so if you have any intention of picking up the PDF, now is a good time to do so.

Free GM Resource: 20-Sided Rhymes

This week's Free GM Resource is quite the welcome departure from the norm here at Frugal GM.

Released almost two weeks ago on the Hipster, please! blog, 20 Sided Rhymes is an eclectic album of 20 "gaming" songs. I'm not a big music guy, so classification is hard to come by for me, but a lot of this album feels like nerdcore to me....

....doesn't really matter, because I enjoy it.

Technically this is a free album, but if you are so inclined there is a Paypal link to make a donation to Child's Play.

I'm impressed by this effort. Not only are there 20 cool songs to listen to, but there is also some good cover art for both the front and back cover. I was able to slide this into my collection easily......

New Free d30 Tables at DTRPG: Halfling Height & Weight

Another week, another table.....well at least while I have a backlog of d30 tables to share.....

This time around is the combined height & weight d30 tables for Halflings. As per the usual for this line there are two tables. FGM031he is the English measurements for the Americans who use the beloved d30 and FGM031hm is for those enlightened folks who have been blessed with an innate understanding of the Metric system.

I know that a kilogram is 2.2 pounds and a meter is 3.28 feet, but I just don't "get" the metric system well enough to use that on the fly....

Feel free to click on the appropriate graphic to get to the appropriate download.

English

Metric

 

Frugal GM Review: The Trip & Trap from Heroic Maps

Last week I picked up The Trip & Trap from Heroic Maps' Storeys line.

I've been wanting a good Inn/Tavern map I could use in my game and this particular map was perfect. There are three levels: basement, main floor, and 2nd floor quarters/rooms.

The download consists of three main groupings of files. The first is an A4 sized PDF of the gridded version of the maps. Then you get a full set each of the maps with and without the grid. These digital maps are 300 dpi which means you could conceivably get them printed out rather expensively at full-size from your local FedEx Kinkos.

You can also reduce them to 100 DPI and use in any of your assorted Virtual Table Top (VTT) systems.

Example of good overlap

I went the cheaper option and printed out the PDF at home. The A4 PDF is password protected/locked down, but since you only need to print the files it isn't really an issue. There are directions on the 1st page on how to properly size the printing to get 1" = 5' scale, which is coincidentally just how my printer wanted to print it natively on my Letter sized stock.

All three levels came out to 20 printed pages and for the most part cutting out the pieces was easy. There was just enough overlap to make piecing the parts together rather simple and aside from one screw-up on my part it all three maps came out great. Normally I print to cardstock, but this time I used regular paper because I was planning on laminating the maps when I was done gluing it down to poster board. The thinner paper vs. cardstock made the lamination work better to hold everything together. If you go the route I did I'd suggest using a light-tack gluestick so you can more easily position the overlapping papers.

Finished Main Level

I was really impressed with the end results. I liked how it seemed that the artists deliberately placed objects on/under the overlap to make aligning the pieces much easier. Using the grid helps a little bit, but printed objects covering the overlap help out a lot more. I also loved the addition of three "secret" rooms that could be swapped in & out of some dead space on the map. This lets me get just a bit more mileage out of the map.

The Trip & Trap is a good tavern map that I think a lot of GMs can easily use in their game. Assembly was easy and it doesn't take much to put together this game aid that you'll want to use often. I really think I'm getting my $4.50 worth on this download.