Resource Spotlight: The One-Page Dungeon Contest

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online. 

Resource Spotlight: The One Page Dungeon Contest

It is no great secret that I love One Page Dungeons. They require a tightness of design and creativity to make. The creation of my one-page dungeon, Gastropodia, was one of the most complicated adventure design processes I have ever undergone, at least cognitively.

One Page Dungeon Contest Logo

A One Page Dungeon can be grabbed, studied, and played in just a few minutes with little fuss. I have already given a pretty detailed account about how to use one. The real trick is knowing where to find them. That is where the One Page Dungeon Contest comes immediately to mind.

The One Page Dungeon Contest has been an annual event since 2009 that often attracts over a hundred entries annually. All of the entries are shared, many of them are linked, many are, and all entries are required to be released under a creative commons license. When exceptional entries are being evaluated, the contest judges often post a blog entry featuring the dungeon and one thing they love about it.

If you are interested in creating one - whether for the contest or not, their submission guide, templates, and sample dungeons are great material.

"I Hate This Dungeon" by Aaron Frost CC-BY-SA 2020

Each year a book containing all entries is released through DriveThruRPG for sale (and all entrants get copies as well.) I own two copies of the One Page Dungeon Compendium, ones for 2019 and 2020. They are worth the $5 to have to support the contest and get all of the dungeons in one place.

Well worth exploring if you want to put a game together in a hurry.

Resource Spotlight: Free Music Archive

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

Resource Spotlight: Free Music Archive

"Piper" by OpenClipart-vectors
From Pixabay 

I like to have music on in the background while I play TTRPGs. For the most part, my tool of choice for that is Spotify. I keep Spotify playlists for each campaign to catch its mood (here's my current one). If I want to share music, however, for example, If I were streaming my game, Spotify puts you at Risk of stepping on copyright.

The Free Music Archive is a collection of free and royalty free music you can download and use in your creations: some with and some without music. Most of it is under Creative Commons, and it is advisable to check whether a piece requires attribution.

Note: I personally have run afoul of a predatory company that has persuaded several of the contributors to monetize their work. These companies will put false strikes on content uploaded to platforms like YouTube in hopes of intimidating you into paying a fee. This is a small percentage of the content, and should be reported.

If you are looking for sound effects, Orange Free Sounds is a similar service for sound effects.

Resource Spotlight: Makehuman

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

Resource Spotlight: Makehuman

Makehuman is a 3D modelling program that is designed to let you build and pose models of human characters. It allows you to make very detailed character portraits using an interface fairly reminiscent of a character builder in a video game like Skyrim or Saints Row. 

Character's created in Makehuman can be exported to 3D image editors like Blender and MeshLab, where they can be modified and upgraded, followed by final touches in a tool like GIMP.

I am still new to 3D image creation, and so far have worked only in Makehuman, but even as a stand-alone tool, it can be pretty impressive. The images here are of Róinseach, one of my characters in the World of Weirth playtest campaign using Low Fantasy Gaming.

These images show off what Róinseach does best... Running and screaming.

Mustering false bravado.

And contemplatimg her life choices with a deep sense of regret.

These models represent 2 1/2 hours of tinkering with the software. I suspect that I can put together future models much more swiftly. Resources for Makehuman such as weapons, clothing, and tools are relatively limited in their selection, based on a community database.

Without Blender, assets from libraries of 3D objects like TurboSquid cannot be added to the models, and so if it is the only 3D program you are using, it is fairly limited. I will be teaching myself Blender in the future in order to give a more complete review . As it is, it is a very intuitive program worth tinkering in.

Resource Spotlight: Dyson's Dodecahedron

 Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

Resource Spotlight: Dyson's Dodecahedron

"The Strange Ruins of Karst Ford"
By Dyson Logos.

I would be remiss in doing a month of resource spotlights if I did not also cover The Commercial Map Archive at Dyson's Dodecahedron. In fact, the whole blog is awesome and deserves more than one feature article... so I will do a few more in coming months!

The Commercial Map Archive is a collection of Dyson's maps. He has opened them for use, modified or un-, so long as he is attributed as Dyson Logos and you don't use his maps for unsavory purposes.

"Tower of the Marmoset Savant" by Dyson Logos

Resource Spotlight: Image Libraries

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

Image Libraries

One set of tools that has been incredibly useful to me as I have been creating my incredibly light pamphlet adventures... and this blog, has been knowing where to find images that it is free and legal to use. I wanted to share a few of my favourite resources here:

Pixabay

Pixabay has more dragons than you can
shake a vorpal sword at, like
this one from OpenClipart-vectors 

Pixabay is a massive library of free, royalty-free stock images. It's terms are incredibly simple: don't sell unaltered images, don't just reupload images to other libraries, don't use the images to portray identifiable people in them in an offensive way, don't use images of branded products to create misleading association or claims about that product. Otherwise, it is use as you like for commercial or non-commercial use. No attribution required (But I try to when I can). No fees (But some contributors have tip jars).

Pixabay is huge. And it is a perfect resource if you are producing material with zero budget like I am. Its only downside is ir can take forever to sort through unless your search engine skills are top notch.

It doesn't lack for NSFW images, however, do be prepared for artistic (But not always tasteful) nudity,  especially if you search for "fantasy."

I would also be wary of the fact that pixabay often includes images of trademark characters. I have difficulty exactly working out how the legal complexities of using those images would be. I tend to avoid them on principle.

Unsplash

Photo by Naman Porwal on Unsplash

Unsplash uses a  very similarlicense to Pixabay homemade exclusively features photographic work. While photographic work is not to my personal taste when creating or buying role-playing games, I can't deny there are some truly amazing images there. Many of which I use as models when I paint with Photoshop or GIMP. 

Photos of things such as sculptures, Miniatures, and other media such as paintings means that there is quite a bit of content you can use on unsplash if you are willing to take the time to search for it.

Free Vector

Similar to Pixabay in scope, Free Vector is mostly vector images that are free for use for private, non-commercial application... so a great resource for your home game. It also includes some creative commons offerings you can use in accordance with the license.

Resource Spotlight: GIMP

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

GIMP

Wilber, Mascot for GIMP
Cc-BY-SA Jakub Steiner

Whether you are making maps, creating handouts or drawing character portraits, one of the best tools at your disposal is a good photo editing program. Adobe Photoshop has dominated the market since the late 1990s, and having good Photoshop skills has been desirable on a resume for a long time. However, Photoshop is expensive. When I was working with it in the late 90s, a copy would run you about $500. The lighter weight Photoshop Elements Just under $200. 

Today Photoshop is available as a part of the Adobe Creative Suite on a subscription basis, which can get costly in a hurry. For someone who is only planning on using it for a hobby basis, Photoshop may be too steep and investment. Thankfully, there is a free alternative that can do pretty much anything Adobe Photoshop can do, and that is GIMP. 

GNU Image Manipulation Program is a donation supported GNU license photo editing program that was first made available for LINUX, and more recently made the jump to iOS and Windows. It is free to download here.

Just like Photoshop, there's a learning curve to using gimp. The latest versions of gimp using interface very similar to the Adobe Photoshop 4.5 that I learned to use Photoshop in, which I found fairly intuitive. In fact, I find it as a slightly better interface than the current versions of Photoshop out there. But, your mileage may vary

Fortunately, GIMP offers quite a few tutorials, and a decent manual detailing the tools the tools and methods for using the software. I have considered doing some tabletop role-playing specific tutorials for things like adding map details or colouring character portraits here, if my readers show interest.

My map for Love Nest of the Barbarix was painted using GIMP. I started with a skull image from Pixabay, and used it as a model or painting the skull, then designed the banner map in Dungeon Scrawl, before editing it in GIMP and adding it to the image.

Resource Spotlight: Character Portraits Tools pt.1

Time to boost the signal! This September I am planning on doing a roundup of some favourite resources for Table Top Role Playing Games. Most of which are free and online.

Hero Machine

I enjoy drawing my characters. I have a great deal of fun trying to come up with poses and activities that help convey who they are. However, I am well aware of the fact that not everyone as the saying patience or confidence to reach level of drawing skill that they are comfortable sharing. The next resource I am featuring is a tool that helps players creative character portrait when they aren't comfortable drawing one.

Hero Machine is made by UGO.com and takes the concept of a paper doll and turns it up to eleven with the power of Flash. It is a browser-based application that lets you design fantasy, science fiction, and comic book hero characters.

With a little patience you can get a pretty solid character portrait made several be pretty close to what you're looking for.

It can take a while to master, and because the portions are based on DC and marvel character designs, you might have to learn how to grow the heads and shrink the hands in order to make a character who looks more to your taste.

If you are particularly patient, you can create your own assets to upload, allowing an almost infinite amount of customisation. Taking the character into Photoshop or GIMP, afterwards, and let you tweak the final bits and pieces.

Hero Machine has been through several versions. Many of the early versions are downloadable and can be used I need a local machine. The newest versions a lot a lot more variety in poses and character shapes, but are entirely used online.

Unfortunately, as Adobe Flash is currently bring sun-set we are awaiting a new version in a more modern software engine. In the meantime, if your browser supports Flash, it is well worth a look.

Hero Forge for Character Portraits

An alternative way to create a character portrait online is to go to the Hero Forge program, which is a website that allows you to design custom miniatures using a very similar interface. Once you have something you like, you can capture it with print screen and then imported into something like gimp for colorizing and editing.