Every so often I like to post links to neat things I find online that you can use in your campaign. So let’s go…
Calendar Generator: I really like this tool, it’s basically on online calendar generator. You tell it the name of your calendar, the name of the days and months, how many days in a week, etc… and the generator puts out a pdf of your calendar for you to download or print out at your leisure. Very useful stuff. Find it here.
Star Wars Cargo Hold Content Generator: I think at some point anyone who plays SW enjoys playing a smuggler and flying around in a Millennium Falcon type ship. Well, those ships carry cargo, and if you need to generate cargo on the fly, check this out. Just enter how much cargo capacity you are carrying, and the generator does the rest. Find it here. BTW, that site belongs to one of the developers of the SW Saga Edition game.
Star Wars web site content: Recently, Wizards of the Coast gave up their SW license, but left behind a fantastic game with Star Wars Saga Edition. They just pulled down all their websites related to the game, but someone managed to make a file of it all and put it up for download. It’s worth grabbing if you play Saga Ed. Find it here.
Gametable: I’ve been playing around with this program quite a bit, since it has zero documentation to show you how to do anything. I have managed to get the hang of a few things, and I like it. It’s basically a very simple virtual tabletop. You can play grid less D&D on it, or if you prefer, it has both a square grid, and a hex one. It has tokens, map pieces and other graphical enhancements to cook up a quick battle map.
I plan to write a tutorial in the near future for this. For you Maptools lovers out there, Gametable removes a lot of the complex things built into Maptools. I know that Maptools is more robust, but it also has more of a learning curve. This is simpler, for more casual gamers I believe. Get it here.
Fantasy fonts: Here’s a neat site for a bunch of fonts you can use for handouts and such. These are mostly related to Lord of the Rings. I love using handouts in my gaming, and you will too after you see these fonts.
Well, that’s it for now, enjoy!
www. Newbie DM .com 
Ismael_DM
June 8, 2010
While I do have a fondness for Maptools, I’ll get plenty of mileage out of those fonts and the calendar!
OnlineDM
June 8, 2010
I’m a lover of Gametable as well. I’ve mostly switched over to MapTool now, but I’m actually using Gametable to build my maps. I love that you can click and drag walls onto the grid, etc. For what it’s worth, it looks like Gametable has had to change its official name to OSU-gt (some other company had a program with a similar name that they were selling).
Feel free to use anything you like from my blog about my OSU-gt experiences (posts about Gametable are here).
SashatheDM
June 8, 2010
Hi, NewbieDM. I just downloaded Gametable, and it’s great, but I love the underlay setup that you have. I know how to access the .png files, but I was wondering both how to change the underlay files en masse, and where you got the texture. It’d be even better if you’d e-mail me a copy of your underlay files, but it’s fine if you’d try to answer my other questions.
Thanks,
SashatheDM
newbiedm
June 8, 2010
Sasha, that’s not my software. I just linked to it. I haven’t created any textures for it, nor underlays. The folder it comes in has the files in it, I guess it’s a matter of taking them out and swapping in whatever you want. I believe it only accepts png files….
SashatheDM
June 8, 2010
I realized that :p. I was assuming that the screenshot that you display is of your making, though. Given the previous, I also assumed that you created the texture, but it appears I was wrong. Thanks, though.
Also, I’ve been editing the resources for it since soon after I downloaded it, and it does only accept .png files.
LooneyDM
June 8, 2010
Personally I’m a fan of maptools. One of the big selling points was the documentation and the helpful forums. I’d be interested to hear which complex things gametable doesn’t have and how you feel their lack benefits casual gamers. I recommend that you write a tutorial for setting up a server and connecting clients if you’re going to write tutorials. That is usually the most complex thing of using any online mapping program for RPGing.
OnlineDM
June 8, 2010
@LooneyDM: My two cents is that Gametable (OSU-gt) and MapTool are pretty darn similar in a lot of ways. There are a few things that are “simpler” about Gametable, though. Gametable’s dice macros are simpler, I would say – they’re not really programmable beyond the number of dice you roll, the number of sides on each die and the number you add to the total. Gametable also saves maps only single maps (well, you can have a private map tied to a public map) while MapTool allows you to have multiple maps in one campaign. Gametable doesn’t have token properties as MapTool does. It also doesn’t have a fog of war function, just the private map that you can put things on until you want to publish them.
Personally, I like all of the things MapTool has that Gametable lacks, but it’s true that Gametable is simpler without them. The one thing that I wish MapTool had is Gametable’s ease of creating maps using drag-and-drop objects like walls.
Ismael_DM
June 9, 2010
@OnlineDM I’ve been able to use the object layer to drag-and-drop walls to make a quick & dirty map. I just have to resize the grid to the correct size, if needed, afterward. I find it easier to use terrain and the brush function.
OnlineDM
June 9, 2010
@Ismael_DM: Hmm, not a bad idea! I just took a few minutes to play around with it, and this has potential. For instance, I like the “Wall” and “LongWall” graphics that come with Gametable (OSU-gt) since I can drag and drop them onto the grid. After your suggestion, I decided to do the same thing in MapTool. I added my Gametable directory as a resource for MapTool, went to the Object layer and started dragging and dropping. Everything is still snapped to the grid, but resized to one square by default.
If I’m using a wall that’s supposed to be 2 squares long, it shows up running down the middle of one square when I drag it onto the map. However, I can then resize it to Large size, et voila! If it’s a four-square in length wall, I resize to Gargantuan. If I had to do this for each and every wall segment manually it would be a huge pain in the butt. Fortunately, I can do it once and then copy and paste that resized wall chunk from there.
If I were building a full map, I would probably put a few of the properly-sized walls at the top of my map and then copy and paste them from there as needed rather than dragging and dropping from the sidebar.
Thank you for the suggestion. I think this is going to let me do in MapTool what I loved about Gametable!
Ismael_DM
June 10, 2010
Glad I was able to help!
Ever since I was able to build a tavern and simply remove/hide the roof once the PCs actually go inside, I’ve been sold on MapTools.
I was a bit too terse in my last comment so I feel like I should expand:
I tend to build my walls via textures, they load faster in Maptools when you’re distributing the map. This also lets me keep ~ 6-8 maps in a campaign file without issue. (More than that has given me issues.) I’ve made a few maps with objects, like you described, but they never seemed as good as the texture maps. I tend to use the background layer for building terrain and building outlines. I use the object outline for doors, building furnishings, basically anything the PCs are going to move/interact with.
OnlineDM
June 10, 2010
@Ismael_DM: Thanks for the tips! I don’t have a lot of textures to use – I wish I had the ones from the videos that you shared. But even with basic colors, I can probably use them to make nice-looking backgrounds. I certainly don’t want my games to grind to a halt because there are too many objects on the map.
When you say you use the objects outline for doors and so on, do you use the object layer and then draw textures on it, or do you use the object layer and drag door objects onto it as objects? I don’t know the subtleties of how one approach would be better or worse than another.
By the way, I’d love to be able to pick your brain directly (not that I don’t love exchanging comments on NewbieDM’s blog!), so please either leave some contact info here or come by my blog where you can get my contact info. It sounds like I have much to learn from a more experienced MapTool DM!
Ismael_DM
June 11, 2010
@OnlineDM: For the doors, I just place a door object in the object layer. This allows hiding the door from the player’s view. Another good object is tables/chairs/etc. I don’t know about you, but my players have, on more than one occasion, barricaded themselves in a room or modified furniture in some way.
I’m not that experienced, the MapTool tutorials are a great source of information. I did a quick scan through your blog but didn’t see any contact information.
OnlineDM
June 14, 2010
@IsmaelDM – Sorry about that! Somehow I thought my contact info was on the blog. My email address is OnlineDungeonMaster, and it’s a Gmail address. Thanks for pointing me toward the tutorials and for your direct help, too!
bigbadmikey
June 17, 2010
Thanks for the info!