Free GM Resource: Tiny Buildings from Crooked Staff Terrain

 

A lot of times when I toss out a Free GM Resource it's just something I've found that I thought my 12 13 regular readers might like. A fair bit of time it is something I think I'd like as well. Rarely, is it something I'm really excited about....

...and today is one of those times.

For a long while now I've been kicking around the idea of making miniature (compared to the scale of common gaming minis!) buildings/terrain. I really like the idea behind Hexton Hills and bought into their Kickstarter, but that is really small scale good for countryside. I wanted something bigger that I could see actually using at the game table, something I could customize and use at the game table in conjunction with a battle map....it doesn't have to be something workable for miniature battles, but maybe a sweet-spot between straight up maps and larger in-scale (to character figures) dioramas.

Thing is, the best I could come up with, based on my skill levels, were basically meeple-ish buildings. Just chunks of wood plopped down to represent stuff. Nothing cool or fancy.

When I saw this video from Crooked Staff Terrain on Youtube....

This is exactly what I was envisioning, but something like 10,000% better. Ideas are pretty damned worthless unless you can execute, so you can imagine how great it was for me to see Crooked Staff show me what I wanted, not what I could manage by myself.....well now I can manage by myself. I've already downloaded their template and had the print shop run off some nice laser prints on cardstock.

I need to do some figuring out still, but what I want to do is mount these onto hexagons to make small villages that I could use at the game table. I'm thinking that what I want to do is look up some old village maps and recreate these onto the hexes such that I could mix and match to make different villages. I don't know if I'll mount them to foam core or (and this is more likely) hardboard. Of course cutting accurate hexes could be an issue......could be.

You'll want to go get the free/PWYW PDF over at DriveThruRPG at this link.

Free GM Resource: Free Mini Adventures from Claw Carver

 

Today I got my Swords and Wizardry Limited Edition Collector's Pack (which I never remember buying, but glad I did!) and I wanted to see if I could find some freebies for S&W.....

...and found the Lost in Time blog, specifically the "Other Stuff" page.

Alan, AKA Claw Carver, has written a fair bit that he's made available for free use, mostly mini adventures. One of his adventures even won an award in the 2012 One Page Dungeon Contest (BOOM!!! Twofer for you!)

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.