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.

Frugal GM Review: Fantasy Maps #3 from The Forge Studios

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I had added The Forge Studios to the +12 Links of Helpfulness page because I started funding their Patreon campaign.

Initially Maciej Zagórski had reached out to me regarding some of the free stuff he made that had been featured as a Free GM Resource. He wanted me to know that he was working on revamping his webpage where said freebies were stored. After some back & forth emails I learned about his Patreon and he sent me some PDF files for review. The most appropriate file for review was Fantasy Maps #3.

Some Pictures and Commentary About North Texas RPG Con

Is it just me, or does everyone have a bajillion things to do before a convention vacation and roughly half as much to do after a convention vacation?

Playing catch-up on regular life when you were pretty much away from the world is tons of fun. Regardless, as promised, here are some of my pictures from North Texas RPG Con, pictures of my "loot", and some general commentary. Since there are more pictures than normal, I'll start with them after the break....

North Texas RPG Days 3 & 4

My intention was to post small daily con reports the day after but that kind of infringed on actually doing stuff at the con.

Saturday had me manning the booth all day, with little to no visitors, and one evening game. Having a table in the side room was a mixed blessing. I didn't really expect to have a lot of sales anyway, so getting to chill and listen to some stories from the early days of TSR was quite the way to spend the day.

Taking a Second Look at a Free GM Resource: Donjon RPG Tools

I'm trying something new here when it comes to the Free GM Resources in that periodically, no more than a handful of times a year, I'm going to take a second look at a previously featured Free GM Resource.

A lot of times these freebies are one shots that eventually "disappear" from the interwebs, or they get updated. A couple weeks ago I was contacted by the creator of a featured resource (not this one, btw) and I was informed that they'd be making a massive update "soon".

Donjon RPG Tools were a huge collection of online random table generators that was originally featured on Christmas Eve of 2012. Since that was 3 1/2 years ago I'm thinking that post has been buried deep on the Table of Contents page. While there were a lot of tables back then, there are quite a few new ones available now and if, like me, you haven't been to the Donjon RPG Tools page in a while, well you are missing out.

North Texas RPG Con Report: Day 2

For the overwhelming majority of the conventions I've gone to, it was generally to "work", so getting in any gaming was a bit on the rare side. So far I've managed two games....two!