Free GM Resource: RPG Dice Roller v2.3

It's been a month since I've posted last...for reasons, but I'm prepared to come back to regular Free GM Resource postings and I'd like to start doing some maps, tables, and reviews, but for now....

Here we have a cool, offline computer (Windows) die roller from one "Zsolt Nagy"....a pseudonym if I've ever seen one. The RPG Dice Roller is a pretty straight-forward roller. It has the basic die types a click away, along with a "custom" die. You can roll multiple dice and apply modifiers as well.

The only problem I've had with this program is if I just hammer the "roll" button like a test monkey on crack  it will lock up for a moment without giving me the interim rolls. Seriously though, you have to be a bit of an idiot to make this happen and even then it doesn't crash the program.

I like the idea of having a stand-alone die roller program so I can make secret rolls on the sly if needed.

Remembering Steve "Stevil" Johannson

Samuel Luke Fildes -The Empty Chair

As my 12 13 regular readers know, HackMaster is my RPG game of choice. I used to volunteer for the publisher, Kenzer & Company, in several different positions and I considered everyone at KenzerCo friends, even though we've been a bit estranged over the last few years (for reasons equally important and stupid, but neither here nor there.)

Years ago a tradition was started at KenzerCo and honored over the years as a part of the Knights of the Dinner Table and at "Official" Tournament games of HackMaster where an empty chair was designated to represent a gamer who has passed away. I even bought a special folding chair just for this purpose back when I was organizing a lot of tournaments. I cannot find my copy of the accompanying poem, which has been printed and re-printed time & time again in KoDT (the link on the KenzerCo page is 404'd).

This last weekend we lost Steve Johannson, part of the D-Team at KenzerCo. I don't know the details and I suspect I don't want to know, but I regret my part in letting that relationship sour.....regardless of the reason. We worked on an adventure together, one that I had hoped would be the first of many, but it was not meant to be.

I got to play HackMaster with Stevil.....I always thought the character of Stevil Van Hostile was based off of Steve's epic rants (The one about how "mint" adventure modules were an affront to common decency will always stick with me) and I often referred to him as Stevil, but not so much to his face, but it was my endearing nickname, not meant to be mean.

The thing is, pretty much like everyone at KenzerCo (and I'm sure most everyone at every game company) Steve was a regular guy, a good guy. As long as you didn't let him drink too much, or imbibe too much myself, it was fun just to hang out with him. As far as gaming goes...I remember him rolling up a 1st level Mage with a pole-arm so when his spell points ran out he could spend the rest of the night on the spell "Cast Spear". He ran some of us through a side trek outside of the Village of Hommlet and awarded us some treasure of used underwear just so the nekkid barbarian could have some clothes.....There was also that one time he decided he didn't want to roll up a "real" character and instead made a torchbearer. Really hammed up the part at the table. There was that party we crashed the one year where they had real shitty bologna & white-bread "sammiches" that he couldn't seem to get enough of...

Stevil chewing out BA

I'm sure if I think about it I could come up with a few more funny Stevil tales, but all they do is remind me how much he'll be missed. My heart goes out to his family, both biological and at KenzerCo. I cannot imagine the grief they must be in now and how his absence will affect them on so many levels. I can join the legion of KenzerCo fans who will want to post "The Empty Chair", but to have to actually live with that empty chair.......

Please keep a good thought for Steve's family, I'm sure they could use it.

New d30 Table is Up/Out: FGM045a Random Business (Building) Generator.

The last couple of weeks I've been overseas on a business trip and while I was gone I had some down time where I was stuck in my hotel due to a fricken typhoon......and it's name was LingLing!

I can't make this stuff up!

What I was able to make up though was the beginning of a series of planned d30 tables for making a business for a fantasy RPG community: FGM045a Random Business (Building) Generator.

Usually I go big to small and figure out how many businesses/shops/whatever are in a given locale and work from there.

What I didn't have, and took a far more math than I ever expected, was something for taking an unknown business......as in, "The party has walked up to the nearest storefront.", and figured out what it is or could be.  Figuring up the percentages and making everything work with two d30 rolls was the ugly fun part.

I'm happy with the way the tables worked out, but I'm cognizant that this is of limited use to most, which is why I have at least one follow-on d30 table-set planned to help round things out.

If you're one of my regular 13 readers, please feel free to pick one up (just put $0 in the Pay What You Want box).

Free GM Resource: Historic Cities (Map Collection)

I know I like to use this general graphic for maps I've been working on, but for this week's Free GM Resource I wanted to make a tweak and use it for this collection of maps I came across recently.

Historic Cities is a map collection of roughly 448 (if my count if right) historical maps. Some of the maps are a bit difficult to navigate in that when you initially try to view the map you get a picture of just a single building.

You basically have to make a couple of clicks and look at the "hi-rez" version of the maps to get a good look.

Anyway, I love the look of old maps and if I had one iota of artistic talent I'd make maps in that style myself. I'm already thinking of a way I could pull it off, but that's just adding one more thing for me to attempt to add to my list of things to work on......

Free GM Resource: Two-Minute Tabletop's Token Editor

This week's Free GM Resource is one of those things I could've sworn I had already shared, but a quick search yielded nothing for me.

Two-Minute Tabletop's Token Editor is a cool little tool that will undoubtedly be expounded upon, but as-is works for making/marking up fourty different digital character or NPC Tokens. Currently there are also twenty seamonsters and fifty-two "Greenskins". They're good as paper minis and would work great as Virtual Table-Top (VTT) Tokens.

The creator has promised some future updates and since there were originally just a subset of original tokens available, I'd say that he's been keeping up on that promise.

Anyway, check out Two-Minute Tabletop's Token Editor and take it for a spin.

Finally Scored at Half Priced Books

Just before this trip that I'm on I had a visit up to the family farm back in Iowa. While there I mentioned a specific book that my mother would be interested in and that led me to stopping by a Half-Priced Books in Oklahoma City on my way back.

I have friends in Texas and between them and listening to the now-defunct Roll For Initiative podcast, I was always hoping that HFB would be the gaming treasure trove I've heard miraculous tales of in the past. Things like 1st printing Fiend Folios for $10 and the like.

Alas....I haven't found much to brag about myself....until this unexpected side trip. The store had already sold the book my mother wanted, but I decided to look at the rest of the "rare book" section because I have been building up my own "Appendix N" library and many of the old pulpy books were really only available in old dime-store paperbacks. This store had nothing I wanted, or so I thought.

As you can probably guess by the lead-in graphic, this Half Priced Books had a fair number of the old TSR Endless Quest Books. They had maybe 15 books and wanted $150 for the lot, which was a bit more than I can afford because of this trip, but I was able to pick up most of the 1st 10 books for under $50 and these books are mint...doesn't even look like they've been opened. I'm now kind of looking for crappy copies so I can play with them. I picked up books 1-6, 11, 13, & 15 and will have to add the others to my list of stuff to look out for.

Regular Posts Will be Shifted This Week....

This week's Free GM Resource will either be late or simply skipped due to a completely avoidable work trip.......well, kind of. I'm off to an undisclosed location for an unspecified period of time and I've been told we'll have internet, but it might be iffy. Definitely no high-speed gaming, but email and blogging should be doable. If not, I'll have to visit an internet cafe because where I'm off to has those kind of things.

I am taking most of my gaming files with me and I'm really hoping that some of my downtime will let me catch up on organizing my files (fun!) and start working on some items I hope to have for publication in 2020!

I'm not forgetting about you 13 regular readers.....I just had a last-minute opportunity to squeeze in a visit to the family farm (last seen in 2016) before this business trip and I had to take it.

Free GM Resource: Rybonator YouTube Channel

It's been a while since I've been looking through build channels on YouTube, so I was surprised to see Rybonator pop up in my "recommended" videos.

Against what I thought was my better judgement I went ahead and watched a couple of videos. I type "better judgement" because the first video recommended to me was about casting your own dice.

Right off I'm not a fan of copying dice, which is essentially what Rybonator is doing, although he is making cool variations. Now that might make me sound some like ethical-type goody-two-shoes (which I am on some level), but really I'm just a bit of a dice snob and I roll how/what I roll.

What I did like though, was the narration style and I got too much of a laugh out of one early line of dialogue, and I went ahead and kept tuned in for a while.


There are some interesting build videos, but I also know that some people would love the idea of making their own dice and just because I'm not into it......