Free GM Resource: Google Drive & Files

 

Like many of the Free GM Resources I put up here, I know that not everything will work for everyone, but if it's something I get some good mileage out of, I have to assume others will as well.

I personally do not care for Apple products, having dumped my iPhone & iPods when Apple just started making my life a tad more difficult than I had liked.....basically not letting me have control over my own devices, but that rant is old and on my personal blog years ago...

So I'm an Android fan and love Google making some things easier for me. Now I'm one of those guys who tends to have something like four or five copies of my data: one on my laptop, a backup drive, a secondary backup drive, and a tertiary drive kept well off-site (like 1,000 miles away offsite!). Now my gaming stuff will probably be on a thumbdrive or three, but.....

....of course whenever I seem to need something it isn't so handy. Maybe I'm at a con and my laptop is in my room, or the thumbdrives aren't USB C, so good luck looking at my stuff on my tablet....where is my adapter again?

I swear there is an inverse relationship to how backed up my data is to my ability to easily use & share it when I'm not at my desk at home.

This is where I'm thankful for, and recommending as a Free GM Resource Google Drive and Google Files. Since both have size limitations (I think my free Google Drive is *only* 17GB), but if I'm using that space to hold onto my PC sheets, or campaign notes, instead of PDF copies of the rules books....that online space goes a long, long way.

When I'm working on a project I want to share or access on-the-fly, especially if it's written or a spreadsheet (i.e. Google Docs or Google Sheets) using these two is great. I can make it shareable (to participate in or just view-only) and just send a link. So much better than emailing a copy and then having to deal with revisions/version control. I like being able to pop of my phone and quickly find the file I need and use/review.

It just works, and works well.

Free GM Resource: Villains and Vigilantes Supplementals

 

Last week I was at an undisclosed location where I may or may not have been interviewing for a new job closer to family.....

This week I figured I'd make up for it by pointing out a whole category of freebies from Fantasy Games Unlimited for their game Villains and Vigilantes.

If you haven't played Villains and Vigilantes before, it's a Superhero RPG that's on version 2.1 (which you have to get elsewhere, BUT it is on sale right now on DriveThruRPG ) This page of Free GM Resources is all about V&V, but I cannot seem to find a link to this page from the home page or the V&V page....go figure.

The freebies consist mostly maps and encounters, but there is at least one scenario and some NPC products. If you buy the game for (what is now) $7.50 and then grab the freebies.....you'll have a bit to play with at a decent overall cost.

Free GM Resource: Pixabay

 

One thing I'm always on the lookout for is some free art for use in future projects. Now I prefer to grab old illustrations from books that have long gone out of copywrite, but that can be a lot of work.

Today's Free GM Resource is Pixabay, which is a collection of free images and royalty-free images. Now there are a few sites with free art, but few seem to have all the features that Pixabay has: easy search with parameters, clear marking of licensing/usage rights, and the ability to tip the "creator" of the original piece.  

For Example:

Free GM Resource: B/X D&D Character Generator (with a Twofer Labyrinth Lord Generator)

 

My current flavor of RPG I've been playing is some good ol' fashioned B/X D&D.  Been with my current group for a couple of years.....I think. Between the COVID-19 quarantine and work, I'm not always sure it's 2021....well I know it's 2021, but was last "year" 2020, 2019, or something like 2017......well definitely not 2017 since I moved to Oklahoma in 2018.

Anyway I'm always on the lookout for not just stuff I can promote on the blog, but use in my personal life, like this handy-dandy B/X D&D Character Generator. It'll populate a new PC for you when you load the page, but toggle through the options across the top of the page and hit the rather small "Create Character" button and voilà.....one new B/X PC.

It's based off of a Labyrinth Lord generator (there's a link at the bottom). That LL generator has a PDF generator at the top, while this one doesn't have anything for printing.....if you use the B/X generator and print from the browser it, well it isn't the best, but if your reduce the size you can get everything to one page.

Free GM Resource: The "New" 2-Minute Tabletop Token Editor

 

This weekend I got an email from an old Patreon I had supported in the past.......I pretty much stopped Patreon when I lost my job a while ago (don't worry, I'm technically hired on to a new company, just waiting for the job to start any month now...) and I wasn't using the content I had received from the campaign as it was.

Anyway, I have always been, and still am, a big fan of 2-Minute Tabletop. Love the maps and the rest, not as much...but the tokens are pretty cool.

So fast-forward from the end of my Patreon involvement to the email and I'm alerted about the "new" 2-Minute Tabletop Token Editor. I did go ahead and check it out and thought, "I so have to share this on Frugal GM!". Of course it turns out I did...a couple years ago.

The editor was a little rough then and only had so many tokens to play with. Now though....lots of functionality and something like 15 categories of tokens to play with:

• Humanoid
• Beast
• Undead
• Monstrosity
• Fiend
• Construct
• Aberration
• Elemental
• Plant
• Dragon
• Fey
• Giant
• Celestial
• Spell
• Ooze

Some categories are light, but others are stuffed with token content, as you'd expect. I'm loving the "new" content and will definitely be using this myself. If you find this Free GM Resource useful, you can easily tip the creators.......and I suggest you do so if for no other reason that you'll be more likely to use the tokens (I believe most people value what they pay for so if you do "pay" something for these you'll be more likely to use them!).

Free GM Resource: Lightheart Adventures

This week I wanted to share a little love for another blog and promtoe them as a Free GM Resource.

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.
 

Free GM Resource: Medievalists.net

 

Today's Free GM Resource is kind of a twofer, but the second resource is a bit cerebral/nerdy and maybe waaaaaaaaaay too much for most GMs, but I liked it, so I'm pointing it out.

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).

Free GM Resource: Dungeon Scrawl

 

This week's Free GM Resource is a beta version of an online map-maker that I'm finding pretty cool: Dungeon Scrawl.

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. 

Dungeonscrawl.com was created last year. The website mentions that it was created on May 8th, but doesn't state the year. The Dungeon Scrawl Patreon was started in May 2020 and the domain name was registered in May 2020 as well.

Dyson Logos has been around for quite a while. Hell, my 1st blog post about him was dated in 2013 and his first entry on Dyson's Dodecahedron was March 2009. The latest version of Dyson's Dodecahedron (more than likely just his domain name registration) was created in October 2018. Last I checked, all those dates pre-date May 2020!

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.