I'm sure this has been posted before but new stuff comes up all the time.
So:
What are your favourite free or low-cost resources for TTRPG stuff?
EG during my brief miniatures phase I bought old board games missing some parts, for the little miniature guys in there.
I also think Trello is an absurdly helpful free tool for world building and for managing a campaign as a GM.
The PDF copy of #CastlesAndCrusades player's handbook is available for free from the Troll Lord Games website here https://trolllord.com/product/castles-crusades-players-handbook/.
TV Tropes is great for teasing out story ideas. I've found that once I understand basic story structure, it's a lot easier to make small changes to keep players involved in a familiar plot but with enough twist to keep them interested.
When running a published module, I've been lucky enough to find digital copies of maps available with a quick search. Drop it into a chat service (our group uses Element, another free resource!) to show players the lay of the land without having to draw out details. Use a browser with a screen capture and you can drop specific snippets and cut out spoilers.
The above mentioned Element is great for keeping individual channels for game chat, sharing spells or pictures of characters and monsters ad well as maps, and can host calls for online games.
Youtube can be great for finding playlists or specific pieces of music or clips for background atmosphere or show off what your scene would look like.
Of course! I'm all about gaming on the cheap.
The way Paizo opensourced Pathfinder 1e, you can pretty much run it all from the SRD pages, with all the classes, monsters, feats, and equipment available.
It can be a double edged sword though. I have players who love to optimize builds and spend hours reading through equipment info and feats. That can make it really difficult to make encounters not wind up trivial.
@cynical13 hmmm that's an interesting one.
I'm torn between systems that have optimisation options like that (because they're a blast!) and simpler systems that miss out that extra flavour, but don't have a handful of indispensable feats, or a few game breaking builds, etc.
I do think it's nice when players are that engaged though! I'll take that any day over players who don't care that much.
I tend to favor lighter systems that give me a lot of narrative freedom over crunch, but I picked the system as a Christmas gift to my wife a few years ago.
It is nice having such engaged players and I do appreciate the challenges. It's just more moving pieces to keep track of with all the fiddly rules.
@ConorMahood for remote gaming, a nice markdown-based editor like Obsidian is great, and in particular Obsidian let's you link documents and effectively have a mini wiki about the campaign you're playing.
A web-based option like Notion will let you do something similar and share it with others
@davey_cakes I've been trying to figure out this very evening if Obsidian is for me!
I've been trying to use some free resources but the paid option seems like a less head wrecking way to sync...
@ConorMahood yeah I think you can store the "vault" in Dropbox or similar folders.
I get a ton of use out of it and subscribed to give them money. Sync is nifty though, and fairly seamless for me so far.
But it's easy enough to paste around.
Joplin is a nice option and the Vivaldi web browser has a built-in notes utility that will sync with your Vivaldi account.
@davey_cakes I have to give them credit, it's pretty fantastic that they have a paid option but also openly tell you "you can use your own syncing method if you want, or pay us, it's no biggie."
That feels generous and kind of community-friendly.
@ConorMahood I've used a locally hosted wiki (first mediawiki, then dokuwiki) for organizing all of my GM resources for almost 2 decades now.
Also plundering old boardgames for bits.
@ConorMahood eclipse phase have free copy of their rules books on their blog. It's lacking illustrations I think? But if you want to do hard sci-fi in not so distant future with some horror element, it's a nice option.
for people who want miniature without spending a lot on plastic mini, there are a few paper option. I like https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/185973/goblins-army-pack personnally, the art style is vibrant and bring touch of fun
@ConorMahood @ng76 You can get a "make your own boardgame kit" on 'zon or whatever. Big white gameboards with & without grids, blank cards, meeples, and other bits. Use markers to color in whatever you want. They're almost everything you need for any tabletop game.
Obsidian is a top-tier local knowledge base manager, it's how I organize all of my notes for a game.
A few stacks of index cards, a few sheets of poster board and a tub of sharpies are good for anything.
A lot of gift wrapping paper has 1 inch grids on the back meant to help in cutting. Makes great very cheap large grids for biiiiiig maps.
Draw on it with markers for terrain, mark it up as you play. No big deal.
Reuse the used maps to wrap presents 😉
Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention https://versesrpg.com, my completely open, free, and open-source ttrpg system.
@ConorMahood
I'd recommend following the Frugal GM blog.
They're always posting links to free (or cheap) GM tools and resources.
Conor Mahood
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