Free Map #67: The Slog

This week's free map is a bit of a Frankenstein in that I used a couple very disparate maps (type, scale, and location) to create this one map I had an idea for.

I'm also working a bit backwards with the ideas behind a Tweak & Toss adventure influencing the map I wanted to make. Now I might have an idea for the adventure first and look for a good location for the map, but hobbling different parts together usually makes for an unpleasant time creating the map.

This wasn't too painful.

The free maps are tablet sized again, with and without contours. Because of the elevations involved, I don't think folks will get a lot of use out of the contour version. My patrons get these two tabloid sized maps and two Arch D (24" x 36") maps as well, all of which do not have the "check out my Patreon" ad. I should mention they get the map as a High Quality PDF print as well.

Like usual, click on either graphic in this post or use this link to go to the map.

Free GM Resources: A Twofer From Goodman Games and Blue Boxer Rebellion

Today I'm highlighting two smaller Free GM Resources instead of just one thing. The selection here is really to bring to your attention to a couple of good gaming "stuff".

First off we have a free 13 page adventure called The Museum At the End of Time which is written for the upcoming Mutant Crawl Classics (MCC) game currently up on Kickstarter. I got to play an early playtest of MCC last year and I liked it quite a bit. The link to the free adventure, as well as a rulebook preview, is on the Kickstarter page.

The second freebie is another cool dungeon map from Doug Anderson over at Blue Boxer Rebellion. I love his isometric-ish maps (even though I've had some critical reviews here and here) and have long thought that his rpg game DungeonTeller would be an excellent 1st foray into RPGs for younger players.

The map is at a different scale than he normally makes, but it is a must-have if you've picked up his other maps.

Frugal GM Review: Heroic Maps' The Deepwood Catacombs

I know I've reviewed a few other Heroic Maps' offerings before, but I don't think (at least a quick search didn't find) I've reviewed one of their larger battlemaps.

The Deepwood Catacombs is one of those maps that I wanted because it is a nice small area just perfect for a planned side adventure or an impromptu dungeon delve to throw at the players when they go off in a direction you didn't expect.

Free Map #66: Twisty River

Yesterday I posted I was trying to use some new techniques for making maps and today I made a new map for an up-coming Tweak & Toss.

That Tweak & Toss will probably be delayed a bit so I can make a few more maps and get the whole work-flow down as a new habit. It looks like these new techniques might allow me to make much larger (print-size) maps. My working size for this map was an unbelievable 36" by 48". Normally my computer would buckle under the strain of such a large map.

The maps are PDFs......I don't try to do anything "fancy" with the PDF maps. I don't bother to fill out the properties tabs or make any of it a hotlink to this blog or my Patreon site. The free maps are just standard, tabloid (11" x 17") PDFs. My Patrons get high quality PDFs at both Tabloid and Arch D (24" x 36") sizes. The Patron maps are also missing the Patreon "ad".

To get to the free map, click on either graphic in this post, or use this link.

Working on Some New Map Making Methodologies

I've been so far behind some projects as of late that I'm past the point of getting too worked up about them. Instead of working on a future map I spent all of today trying to figure out some new software that might make some of my map efforts a lot better.

The process I was using was a bit laborious and certain parts of my maps I wasn't happy with. This new software is not only overkill, but one of those things you practically need a year's worth of college coursework to understand. At best I'd only be scratching the surface of what this thing can do and I think it took me four or five hours just to figure out how to consistently get the data I put into the program back out in a format I could use.

The bad news is that I can't rely on this software to do my entire map. The good news is that the two most difficult & largest time-suck parts of my map can be done in a fraction of the time it has been taking before, with much better results.

This is the map I made today, which is the same area as Free Map060:

This is a relatively "quick" map which I'm not happy with at all. The good thing is though that this map's layers were easy to create and instead of taking up a lot of time getting the base layers I can spend more time tweaking and finessing what I have here while still adding the missing elements like I had been doing all along.

When I'm working on very large scale maps, being able to skip hours and hours of layer cleanup with my old methodology will be a huge boon. I should be able to create a large map and then zoom in to a smaller section much more easily.

Free GM Resource: Hipkiss' Scanned Old Maps

I've always been a sucker for old artwork, especially old maps. There is a bit of artistry in old maps that you just don't see in modern ones. If I have the time I love to use old city maps as the basis for my RPG city maps, tracing the roads & rivers before adding my own elements.

This week's Free GM Resource is a cartophile's private collection of scanned maps called Hipkiss' Scanned Old Maps. The maps should all be public domain maps and I'm sure a lot of them may prove worthless for the average GM, but when you do find a good map it is like striking gold.

Personally I love finding an old map that presents some useful information in an unusual way. There is just something about the artistry involved that I find inspiring. Hopefully you'll find something inspiring as well.

Frugal GM Review: A Collection of Presentations Cartographical in Nature

Special Note: This week's review is on something that isn't quite available yet on DriveThruRPG, but through Patreon. For some reason I am unable to actually buy anything out of my One Bookshelf (OBS) wishlist, so I'm having to review this a bit prematurely.

Anybody who has been reading the Frugal GM blog for a while knows that I'm a big fan of Matt Jackson's work, so odds are anything from Chubby Monster Games is bound to be seen in a positive light.

A Collection of Presentations Cartographical in Nature is the first in an upcoming series of an annotated map collection from +Matt Jackson of Chubby Monster Games. This 14 page PDF consists of five maps from 2015. The copy I have isn't bookmarked and it isn't watermarked/protected. Normally I'd harp on not taking advantage of what I consider essential PDF features like bookmarking and document properties, but with only five maps in the set and the fact that this is an early release.....what could easily be a one-star ding isn't too big of a deal because it is fairly obvious that this PDF is intended for printing, not flipping through on a computer.

Now Matt could have easily already laid out the document for booklet printing, something I often do with my PDFs, but instead he created a full Letter-sized page layout so end-users could print the maps out onto a full pages if desired. Each map is presented on the odd-number pages and is preceded by a page containing a mini-map and some background notes about the map in one column and a full column of lines so the GM can jot down their own notes. I really like this layout as it puts everything for one map on facing pages.

The whole document is in black & white, which is easy on the eyes and the toner. Since the maps were originally created at different times, the fonts used on the maps themselves (usually just the name of the map) vary, but the font used everywhere else is consistent, which is expected...well, at least expected by me. You'be be surprised how many small documents try to introduce a bunch of fancy fonts. Matt literally went with a "funky map" font which he attributed on his title page, but I think the font works as it isn't too much. Matt also created an alternate cover for this file, but I prefer the original.

Overall I really like this map collection and I'm looking forward to collecting them as a series. If you don't want to wait for them to pop up on DriveThruRPG you should really check out Matt's Patreon campaign. Well worth the price of admission, so to speak. You'll get

Free GM Resource: Tenkar's Tavern Membership

I feel a bit guilty and/or lazy for posting this week's Free GM Resource because it is rather low-hanging fruit. Still....if this is new information by one of my twelve readers, then it would have been worth it.

Tenkar's Tavern is basically having a membership drive. Erik Tenkar has enough of an audience that he has decided to actually make membership cards and use his influence to nab some good deals for members.

What kind of good deals?

Even though this whole affair is less than a week old we've seen free product available at cons, a significant discount on some other product, and even $5 off of a convention weekend badge. Figuring that Tenkar's Tavern Membership is free, I'd consider this a pretty significant resource.

We also have our own invite-only G+ community and really this is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of what looks like a promising endeavor. Click on the lead-in graphic to find Erik's instructions for joining, or use this link.