Lightheart Adventures is a couple's blog where they share a podcast, some maps, and some one-offs. There's a lot of good content here, including some tips & tutorials.
Now I'm just getting started in on checking out the site myself, so all I can give right now is the high-level pass of what I've seen available. I will admit I like what I've seen so far.........hence the share.
The main resource today is this cool website called Medievalists.net designed "to be the first place people go to when they want to learn about the Middle Ages. Our aim is to offer readers news, articles, videos and more about the medieval world and how that history is presented today."
A lofty goal for certain, but there is a LOT of articles for you to pour through, gobs even.......since I'm guessing that the majority of Fantasy RPG players/GMs have games that are "Medieval-ish" and being able to do a bit of research and introduce medieval elements can/might/should.....I know not how you & yours roll at the table....add a little something-something to the game.
Of course, YMMV, as with anything I put up as a resource.
Speaking of varying mileage, the twofer I want to highlight is a specific research paper from Medievalists.net that highlights one minor aspect that you might be able to have some fun with: Medieval Microcredit. From the abstract:
"How do credit markets function in societies where legal contract enforcement is weak? This paper uses a theoretical model to examine how the institution of personal pledging aided the development of credit markets in medieval England. It demonstrates how the practice of pledging improved repayment rates by lowering enforcement costs and mitigating the problems associated with adverse selection. By combining the model with historical evidence, it can be shown that pledging helped to enable illiterate peasants to gain access to capital markets."
Now I'm going to say that there is some interesting math that I'm not going to read into, much less do, 'cause it's not my thing, not at all. What I did get out of this paper though is not just how these microcredit transactions occurred, but how maybe the concept can be used to inspire an adventure or motivate a NPC. Maybe one of the players, or better yet a henchman or beloved NPC is asked to provide a pledge backing a microtransaction, or to lend money in the first place.....
Anyway, if this kind of thing piques your interest, check out the Medieval Microcredit article on Medievalists.net (previous links went to the homepage and direct to the paper).
I discovered this site from a Facebook complaint from Dyson Logos. Evidently he's been losing Patrons to this website, or something? I'm not delving too deep into it. I love Dyson's work and on some level Dyson himself.....not so much. We don't mesh well politically and he says stuff that rubs me the wrong way.
Well it would if I cared and payed much attention to his opinion, but I don't.....you know why? It doesn't matter! His opinion, my opinion....whatever...neither means jack squat when it comes to making maps and slinging dice while playing RPGs.
Now if folks are abandoning his Patreon for Dungeon Scrawl, that is a shame....and if anyone (evidently this is actually a thing) thinks that Dyson is "ripping off" Dungeon Scrawl they have a few screws loose. Seriously.
Even if, and this is a big, fat, lying "if", Dyson was "copying" the style of Dungeon Scrawl.......so what? One (today's Free GM Resource) is giving you tools to create your own maps and the other is giving away completed maps. Two very different, but related, things.
Now I occasionally like making maps, but a good, highly-detailed map.....like Dyson makes. Total PITA. The fact that he gives away so much of his work thanks to his Patreon makes me think if you want finished maps, you need to hit up Dyson's Dodecahedron and follow his Patreon. If you want tools to make your own decent Dyson-ish (but definitely not as detailed and arguably not artisanal and gluten-free) maps, check out Dungeon Scrawl and maybe their Patreon.
Ugh.
So basically I had a week where I was stuck inside and not because of quarantine. I did manage to start some terrain building projects and watch more YouTube than was probably healthy.....
I've recommended a bunch of YouTube channels over the last couple of years and you'd think I've seen it all.....but evidently I have not. I like seeing different creator's take on creating the same things.
DIY Project Crafts isn't a huge channel, but there are some great videos of crafting that just seem to hit projects I've seen a couple times now in a different direction than I've seen accomplished before. Having just finished Version 1 of some buildings that I know I have to redo to up my game (as it were)...well, to also fix some things I didn't like......I know that just figuring out how to do stuff in the first place is a long, drawn-out process. I cannot image in the amount of work it takes to get it on film!
There are a few good videos for you to enjoy, but this is the one that initially caught my eye......
....and bad enough that the local power company is cycling power through the neighborhoods so I may or may not be able to do much online.
Just a head's up I'm deliberately pushing off any real post until later this week when I don't have to worry about electricity or freezing to death (home construction here isn't up to the challenge). I think the fact that most folks around here don't even own real cold weather clothing is the only reason there hasn't been looting for resources......
This weekend while YouTube hopping (this isn't another YouTube channel) I was alerted to what looked like a freakin cool online Free GM Resource for running games online: Owlbear Rodeo.
This is not the perfect Virtual Table-Top, but I've been through a bunch of VTTs and I'm starting to form the opinion there is no "perfect" VTT, unless you want to code one yourself. Lately I've been in an online game over Zoom and I'm thinking my group could probably get a helluva lot of use out of Owlbear Rodeo.
Getting started is easy....really easy (emphasis is mine):
1. Start a game to generate a unique URL that can connect you and your players.
Each game is recycled after 24 hours so make sure you create a new game when you play your next session.
2. Invite players with your unique URL from step 1.
3. Share a map, roll dice or share audio with your players.
All data is saved automatically to your computer so next session simply use the same computer and all your maps and tokens will be ready to go.
That's it, no accounts, no paywalls, no ads, just a virtual tabletop.
For more tutorials visit the How To page
Now I think you should check out the site, poke around, and even become a Patron if you do that kind of thing, but since I found out about this site through a YouTube review, you can get some eyes-on with a single click:
Anyway, I'm assuming some of my 12 13 readers uses Photoshop, or maybe GIMP, and could use a few pointers here & there.
Today's Free GM Resource is a bit of a twofer from a "single" source: Stéphane "Wootha" Richard. Wootha is a French Freelance Concept Artist who also does some cool online tutorials. That's one part....the other is that recently Wootha put a metric (he is French) shit-ton of his work into the Public Domain.
The tutorials can be found on his page at Artstation.
The artwork can be found via his Adobe Spark page. For the most part it is a huge 90GB file dump and allegedly has a web folder view, but at my cursory glance I didn't see a whole lot. I didn't want to download a big file dump onto my laptop, so I'll have to look later.
What I did find useful though, was a quick Google Image Search of his work.
