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.
Conor Mahood
Jeff