Free GM Resource: Guide to Mapping

The week's Free GM Resource is an interesting Guide to Mapping (or more specifically "A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping") from Expeditious Retreat Press.

This free guide is 37 pages, with 29 pages of pertinent content. What I liked about this resource is that it covers the "high level stuff" that I think most GMs would overlook when designing their game world. This guide ISN'T about how to map, but more about these "big picture" factors that should/would influence the world as a whole.

You can download the guide by clicking on the lead-in graphic or by using this link at DTRPG.

Good Deal on Six PWYW Paper Terrain Sets from Fat Dragon Games *LIMITED TIME OFFER*

Recently (I think starting last week), Fat Dragon Games put six of their paper terrain sets on sale as Pay What You Want. Now I already owned most of these sets, but I know a great deal when I see one.

I'm a HUGE fan of Fat Dragon Games, largely because their product offerings are just straight-up good deals. Their models come together nicely and you only need a few tools to get started.

If you were looking to try paper modeling, you need to head over to DriveThruRPG and purchase these sets while you can:
     *E-Z DUNGEONS: Deluxe Edition
     *E-Z DUNGEONS: Mechanical Traps
     *E-Z DUNGEONS: Caverns of Chaos
     *E-Z DUNGEONS: Expansion Set 2
     *E-Z DUNGEONS: Expansion Set 8
     *Halls of the Mountain King

The sale is listed as "this week only", but I'm not sure when this week started.







P.S. Fat Dragon Games has some "big announcement" set for tomorrow, July 5th. More than likely an announcement for their next Kickstarter project, which is also a good deal (if you have access to a 3d printer).

Free GM Resource: Lukes Aps YouTube Channel

This week's Free GM Resource (yes, I am aware I skipped last week) is another cool YouTube channel for building/painting tabletop terrain and minis.

Lukes Aps has been around for a little over a year now. The "Aps", of Lukes Aps, stands for "Affordable Painting Service", so I'm going to assume that Luke is better at painting minis than I am....

....honestly I haven't viewed any of his miniature painting videos. I'm into this channel for the terrain tips. Last night I actually watched a 14 minute video about Army Painter Review And How To Fix The Problems People Are Having. I don't have any Army Painter paints, but the "fix" pretty much applies to any paint.....and now I need to pick up something for my paints.

Seriously though......there are some good terrain videos that I think are well worth the time expenditure.

Free GM Resource: Goblinist RPG Tools

This week's Free GM Resource is almost a twofer. Goblinist RPG Tools has one "finished" tool that is the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Random Encounter Generator (I dare you to try to say that 5 times really fast) and another work-in-progress Procedural Fantasy Map Generator. Both are web-based tools.

The encounter generator has a lot of options for the type of encounter area and, more importantly, how deadly you want to make things for your party.

If you use this tool, you might want to refrain from heavy use of the "Deadly" option, or you might need to find new players......

Free GM Resource: OpenForge Project on Thingiverse (3d Printer Files)

This week's Free GM Resource is a collection of cool 3d printing models from Thingaverse.....specifically from the OpenForge collection by Devon Jones. (this particular link goes to Devon Jones' designer page, so there are non-OpenForge projects in the mix as well.....)

But holy crap is there a ton of free/cool models to ogle. With over 250 designs, and more coming, there is a lot of models you could download and print out. Now I already have a good amount of purchased 3d models and probably don't need all of these, but I plan on adding these to my growing collection.

If you don't have a 3d printer, the OpenForge collection (this link is just the OpenForge stuff) might be what pushes you over the edge...so be forewarned. Devon also has a Patreon site you might want to check out & support.

Free GM Resource: Paper Horror Houses (and a link to some other cool paper models)

This week's Free GM Resource is geared towards those that run more "modern" campaigns and/or horror games. Dirge Magazine has a small collection of Paper Horror Houses You Can Download, Print and Build for Free.

There are four houses in the collection, as well as a link to a paper artist that has a bunch of free models as well. I think that several of these other linked models would be on interest to Fantasy RPG GM's out there, so consider this Free GM Resource a bit of a twofer.

Frugal GM Review: The Willowmere Vagabonds

A couple of months ago I was asked to review The Willowmere Vagabonds from The Merciless Merchants. This adventure goes for $7 on DriveThruRPG and is currently on sale for $5.95. Designed for 4-7 PCs of 2nd through 4th level, The Willowmere Vagabonds is written for the For Gold & Glory ruleset, but will work fine for any OSR game.

On my initial flip through a couple of things came up for me and on the more thorough read-through a couple more. Nothing was game-breaking or do-not-bother-to-pick-this-adventure-up, but some were things I'd not expect from an item at either the full or sale price point. The adventure is 62 pages long and is secured with a password, but this isn't an issue for this type of product.

Free Map #70: A Rural Countryside

This morning I buckled down and got to work on an overland map for my next adventure. I didn't expect it to take freakin 7+ hours, but there was a tiny detail....most people wouldn't even bother.....that I needed to figure out....again.

Basically something important to nobody but me was something I had to re-learn (and document this time) and it took some time. Of course I'll have to admit I did experiment with some other bits and bobs while I was at it.

If some of my previous maps were any indication, I could have gone with the huge over-sized map, which is my preference, but while I was figuring stuff out I figured why not screw around with some other methods and tweaks.

My Patron's map is also letter sized, but theirs is layered so they can add/subtract features to suit their needs. Their map doesn't have the Patreon "Ad" either.

Like usual, you can click on either graphic in this post to go to the download page, or you can use this link.

PS. For those of your lucky enough to attend North Texas RPG....have a great weekend!