#dungeon master resources

[thatonenewdungeonmaster]

Put this together for my local gamestore and wanted to share the wealth

[anim-ttrpgs]

How to Choose Music for a TTRPG Session & Eureka Song Selections

When our own group plays any TTRPG, we always like to have some amount of background music to help with the mood and tone, and if you do too, then here's a post about how best to choose it, because it is a learnable skill!

I am one of the creators of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

and the idea for this post grew out of making a curated list of songs for Eureka sessions, each sorted into different categories for easy access. The Narrator in a Eureka campaign exercises very little control over the story and pacing of the game, so it isn't very helpful to plan for a specific reveal of specific scene set to a certain song. To that end, I have sorted these songs into various types of scenes, tones, etc. for you to grab as the story is emerging.

You can find these lists here:

Session Intro Music (in case you wanna open each session with a musical theme like an episode of a tv show)

Investigation Scene Music (low-stakes) or Meal Scene

Investigation Scene Music (tense/creepy) Part 1

Investigation Scene Music (tense/creepy) Part 2

Foot Chase Music

Vehicle Chase Music

Scooby-doo-ass Chase Music

Investigators Fleeing/Hiding from Monster Music

Unarmed Combat Music

Deadly/Armed Melee Combat Music

Deadly/Firearm Combat Music

Monster Rampage Music

Monster Hunting Music (as in the monster is a PC who is hunting prey)

How to Choose Music for a TTRPG Session

There’s a few things that make a good TTRPG session song that aren’t immediately obvious.

Avoid Lyrics

Lyrics are a no-go 90% of the time. You gotta assume that the players will be trying to read rules and/or do math during the session and lyrics can make that harder.

Avoid Loud, Dissonate, or Disorienting Music

For the very same reasons—and this is especially useful to keep in mind for a horror-themed game like Eureka—it can't be too dissident or grating. A lot of horror video game music is really dissident screechy and offensive to the ears because this induces a tiny sense of panic, but again, like with lyrics, this means it’s hard to actually play a TTRPG while listening to this.

Don't Outpace the Combat

For combat music, a fast-paced “action” song can work, but if it’s too fast-paced it really quickly outpaces the combat itself because TTRPG combat is necessarily kind of slow. I do have plenty of fast-paced actiony songs in those lists, but those are best grouped into a playlist in sequence rather than looped, because then you at least have the rather frequent serendipity of the song changing on a per-turn basis.

The usual better option is something “tense” and “cool” but a bit more understated, usually with a mid-intensity repeating beat. Complex action songs work in other mediums like movies because their notes can be tailored to sync up to the actual actions on-screen, but that won’t happen in a TTRPG 90% of the time, even if just because describing a character throwing a punch takes way longer than a character throwing a punch in a movie.

For Eureka I also had to like make sure there was a good selection of action music in there that wasn’t too “cool” or “heroic.” Eureka characters are not fearless action heroes nor usually trained soldiers. If they are in a fight, it usually isnt cool, it’s scary. If anything, the combat music should be the bad guy’s theme, not the protagonists’, because they’re the ones with the advantage. When a Eureka PC does have the advantage and can be super “cool” in a fight, they’re probably a monster, in which case it’s the other way around, they’re the terrifying bad guy in the NPC’s story, and I tried to pick music to reflect that with “darker,” more “sinister” tracks.

Choose Songs without Shifts in Tempo or Intensity

You want something that is very easy to loop. Lots of cool songs go through pretty dramatic changes in their intensity over the course of their runtime. This is cool like I said when they can be synced up to action in a movie, but they’ll never (or rarely) sync up with anything in a TTRPG session. They’re going to be playing over and over on like a 3-minute loop as you roll dice and occasionally look up rules, and if this loop is really noticeable because of how the song starts out slow and then swells in intensity, that is going to be annoying fast. You want a song that has a relatively consistent level of intensity throughout its whole runtime.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[leidensygdom]

Hey hello! I wanted to show one of the things I'm currently offering on Patreon- A token border pack! It includes 144 borders (9 variants, 16 colors each) and a template to make it easier to put them in, including a tutorial on how to use it. If you're interested, you can get it from my Patreon Shop for 4€ or you can sub to any of my tiers (smallest one is 3€!), which will give you access to any other TTRPG content I release in the future too.

There's also a freebie pack for this one, with few token options in it. You an access it by following me there, and then download! Thank you for your time <3

[rhozahscraftedcatalog]

Another Friday means a new set of Curious Collectibles tables have arrived!

If you like these and want even more options each week, consider joining me on Patreon! Patrons get access to more options, with new tables released every Friday! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Some additional inspirational prompts for the above treasure items:

What sort of magic does this want contain? ... Or perhaps it was meant to be a food source?

Who commissioned such a gaudy helm? Or perhaps those gems each contain a special power? Or dare it... a soul?

Who commissioned such a piece and where would this sort of beast even be found in?

What could this item be used for? Perhaps it is attuned to the plane itself?

And most importantly, what option would you choose? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - As always, this table is available and free for you to use in your home DnD / Pathfinder / Tales of the Valiant / Shadowdark / TTRPG games, to help generate some more descriptive loot. These treasure options are perfect for a new quest-hook or a truly epic / one of a kind reward to feed your players (ever growing) loot goblinoid hunger.

If you love ttrpg stuff like this and are looking for more loot options, as well as a hoard of printable paper minis, terrain and monsters to help fill your table, check out my Patreon page! I create affordable paper minis, VTT Tokens and more, with a release every week! You can follow for free so you never miss a post or join as a member to get access to all the extra Patreon exclusive goodies.

[firsttimedmsendhelp]

Quick question, how do you figure out puzzles to include in your dungeons? Are there like preset ones or do you come up with it yourself or what exactly? Help a girl out please!

[artandstarstuff]

Hey guys, a new goal is up for dungeon tables! I’ll be making a set of tables, each for a different environment, and first up is the desert. Many more to hopefully come!

[edenthebat]

D&D Campaign Planner/Character Sheet Organizer

ok so because I am becoming a DM this year in my school TTRPG club, I've been looking for things to hopefully make my life a little easier for keeping track of the campaign and sharing stuff with my players.

that being said, I have found this really cool website:

It lets you create and keep track of campaigns, create characters, add other players/dms to the campaign, link different aspects and such, and a whole lot more!!

It's free to make an account, all you need is a verifiable email! There is an option to support them and get extra perks, but they're not necessary to use the website.

This seems really cool!!! Also, other Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, please share other sites you know of in the comments and reblogs! (Help a new dm out lol /lh /nf)

[rexorgdnd]

IDK if it will be touched on anywhere else, but I at least wanted for the record's sake to mourn r/DnDBehindTheScreen being frozen.

Since I discovered D&D in 2015, homebrew was what fuelled my imagination, but r/DnDBehindTheScreen's advice was what glued so many of my games together. Just a constant outpouring of amazing insight from other people who love the art of ttrpgs.

In memory of what this subreddit offers even as a frozen archive, I want to go over some of my favourite bookmarked posts:

Shadow of the Colossus - Running Colossal Monsters as Reactive Dungeons rather than statblocks

Alternatives damage vulnerability rules to help keep encounters stay balanced even when a party's playing to its strengths. Combine with Soft Vulnerabilities to really spice your monsters up

Creating Armies: more than statblocks. One of the most creatively-engaging tutorials I've ever seen to get you think about statting out parts of your world. Want to build humanoid soldier statblocks? Take a nation from your campaign, and boil down its army into a few key traits (for me, this was a rabbit-folk nation, so its traits ended up being keen instincts and jumping). Build two CR 1/2 soldiers representing the ranged and the melee infantry, and then simply scale them up into veterans like you're building an upgrade, using your key traits as inspiration for how each soldier rank builds upon the previous (for me, that included building jumping as a disengage action into the rabbit folk archers, and letting veteran bodyguard rabbits hop over towards a target to take a hit for them. Suddenly, I had a novel army identity just off the back of one trait).

Magic Item Swap - Take a magic item, leave a magic item. Don't know what magic item to put next dungeon? Bam, 200 of them in one link. You're welcome.

Let's Build a Monster that Matters: Dragons. Most you could possibly want in a one-source resource for how to think of and imagine dragons in your setting. Fizban's before Fizban's, basically. The same user also made fantastic homebrew dragons under their "Draconomicon" posts complete with lore and encounters. Combine with All the colors of the kobolds, a series that creates entire cultural veins for metallic and chromatic shades of kobold.

I wish I had had the confidence to share some of my own work on this community before it went down. Thank you everyone who posted on the subreddit, and I hope Tumblr, Bluesky, and every other D&D forum can thrive to fill the hole that both WOTC and Reddit's poor company management drove through their communities.

[galilleon]

Hey all, This is my first Tumblr post ever! I'm pretty new here, but I'm hoping to share some DM techniques, tools and tips and to make some new friends as well! Feel free to send a chat request (an ask[?]) if you're interested!

With that aside, on with the post!

Better and More Meaningful Random Encounters!

Random encounters are a staple of DnD, they are expected to be there during exploration as a way to make the world feel alive, to have it have an aura of adventure and danger, to eat up party resources and put pressure on the PCs to make interesting and important choices, and also as a way for a DM to reasonably 'stall' the party with a quick and easy situation.

Usually, it ends up something like this:

There's just one problem with most random encounter tables though, it's so easy for them to be GOSHDARN BORING! Especially for a newer DM.

Making them interesting becomes gambled improv on the DM's part if they're not used to it, and it's hard to keep track of the important factors that need to be kept in mind

Luckily, I ended up finding a great source for random encounters from 'Dungeon Masterpiece' on YouTube, and I integrated it into my own DMing. I figured that I'd share it here for any that want to work it into their own sessions as well!

After adjustment, a single table can account for multiple entire sessions of in-depth worldbuilding and fun without getting dull!

Sources:

Source 1 (Creating interesting Random Encounter Tables):

Source 2 (Making Random Encounters reflect your Worldbuilding):

There's 4 major methods we can use to improve the Random Encounter table

1. Make the table a straight 1dx roll.

2. Adding 'depth'.

3. Adding meaningful encounters.

4. Prerolling and/or Multirolling.

You can also check out the "Where to Start?" section for some direction to make getting it down and prepped all easy peasy!

1. Straight Roll:

Its enticing to go for 2d6 or the such in order to add non-linearity to the rolls, but these sorts of adjustments only end up making one or two encounters extremely likely and leave all others in the dust, it often ends up defeating it's own purpose of interesting randomness.

In the previous example, it was extremely likely to only get Wolves, Barbarians, Orcs, or Spiders, from a table of 12! A straight roll would serve us much better. The rare rolls are already rare enough as is!

Simply enough, adjusting the original example by replacing the 2d6 with 1d12, it'd become something more like this:

#2. Adding Depth:

We can add more columns in the encounter tables. These columns will represent different aspects about the encounters that we can roll on separately!

Usually it can be difficult as a DM to naturally come up with motives for the encounters, showcase the worldbuilding and have it all come together.

This setup can give you a solid guideline on how the creatures/people think (if any), and also sets up the overall area so that you get an idea of what events tend to occur there as a result of its occupants. 

We want to add 3 more columns to the tables to convey different aspects of the encounter. Fill in these new columns corresponding to the expectations of each encounter.

We'll roll each of these and combine them, then we'll interpret them to make a robust, in-depth random encounter with truly unexpected results!

I recommend rolling alot of complete encounters at once and interpreting the context to the vast general area the party is travelling in.

i. Behaviour: How the creatures act. Are they friendly, scared, aggressive, curious, mischievous?

ii. Complication: Something behind the scenes in the encounter. Do they have sick young? Broken equipment? Are they starving?

iii. Significant Impact: This is a tick box, and will only be present under ONE of the rows. It will be rolled like the other columns, but ONLY once. It signifies which encounter is the Significant Encounter

The Significant Encounter will have its encounter's presence prominent amongst all the other random encounters in the area. There could be burn marks and carcasses from a rampant dragon, or a goblin raid leaving tracks moving through the area. Which is the most impactful of the different encounters?

Adding this to our previous example would expand it to:

Rolling this would give us things like:

Significant encounter: Owlbears

Note that the significant impact shows that the Owlbears are a massive problem in the area. Perhaps the Owlbears are agitated for an unknown reason, and are unnecessarily aggressive.

The significance of Owlbears gives us context to the second one as well! Perhaps the hunters raided an Owlbear den, and adopted an Owlbear cub from there as well.

There could be uneaten carcasses, ravaged trees, less wildlife, etc around these parts.

Note how much sheer CONTEXT these columns add to our encounters. It's invaluable!

3. Adding Meaningful Encounters

Usually random encounters tend to be rather mundane and very one-note.

There's usually some general wildlife and monsters, different disparate factions without any rhyme or reason, and maybe a general non-combat encounter or two, but these don't really tell us about the area or its surroundings at all by themselves.

Instead, we can add in wildlife and monster encounters specific to the biome, non-combat encounters, and encounters of nearby factions and/or settlements to the table, and we can even add environmental encounters in there as well.

Note that we're not tied down to 12 encounters, and can expand it ad infinitum according to our need of diversity in our encounters.

Just add in specification and connection, and suddenly the dominos all fall into place.

Lastly, we'll also be adding in 'DOUBLE TIME' which will let us roll on everything twice, and make it so it's a double encounter!

Thus, the table can instead be adjusted to:

Note how each and everything has its relation in one way or another, but through the sheer variance, they remain truly random and novel.

4. Prerolling and/or Multirolling

Lastly and this is just something that I do, but that I found gamechanging. Be sure to pre-roll 5-7 encounters for each session, for the general area the players are going to be headed in.

Note that you don't need to really prep anything at all, just interpret all of them on a surface level as a buffer.

Also note that you don't need to use all of them if they're not needed. The foreshadowing and signs are worldbuilding and having secrets that the players don't unravel is just as useful as the ones that they do, perhaps even moreso. It adds depth and detail beyond the scope of what the party will encounter

It simply let's you get an idea of the connections between encounters, allows for foreshadowing, and acts as a deterrent to getting caught off guard.

Even if you roll mid-session, I recommend calling for a 5 minute break, rolling 5-7 encounters at the same time and interpreting them and their connections before resuming the session.

It WILL make a difference, trust me

Where to start?

It can be difficult getting inspiration or direction to get started in creating these random encounters, and sometimes you don't want to go through the hassle of thinking them up from nothing

For some great conceptual headstarts and examples for these tables, you can check out 'Worlds Without Number' and it's:

- Page 205 (Great general templates for encounters differentiated by broad creature types such as Beasts and Monsters, Sapient Monsters, and Humans)

- Pages 206-219 (For inspired locations to occasionally run rare encounters or groups of encounters in. This works best with flexible/discovered worldbuilding given the significance of some of these, and you also want to add these in sparingly to keep them significant)

- Pages 246-247 (These pages have great templates for the kinds of encounters and situation to be included in the tables, and it can be expanded vastly, and certain options can be selectively and repeatedly chosen to meet our needs. Mood works well as a complication.)

There might be other pages that are useful as well for these sorts of random encounters in the wilderness that I haven't come across yet. If so, give them a shout out and I'll be sure to add them in. It's worth checking it out in its entirety for some great tips!

Conclusion

Again, credit goes to Dungeon Masterpiece and Worlds Without Number for excellent adjustments. This has been quite long, but I hope you stuck around till the end.

Many a session have been made easy but complex ever since this was introduced and I hope that this helps you out as much as it helped me in my prep and improv!

Feel free to give any advice in formatting on Tumblr, or any feedback on the post itself. It really means a lot to me, thanks!

[notetakers-blog-of-holding]

The dumbest and funniest free D&D resources!

[npcfactory]

I posted my pinned post to the wrong account, thats like, super embarrassing.

This is a D&D Character inspired by watership down!

She has no set class but she presents female and is a harengon!

She is free for anyone to use, with credit!

For more information on my free NPCs take a gander at my pinned post!

[dawnbirdwhistle]

A Christmas gift for DMs interested in the Shadowfell!

Hello everyone, Happy Holidays!

While browsing r/DndBehindTheScreen, searching for Just Shadowfell things, I came across a post from u/Malchior

I found it super helpful! Even though it was years ago, I wanted to share the art I made, so anyone who wants to use them irl in cards can download the files and print :)

I am an artist before a writer, and this is my first time doing something like this. I wanted to give back to the community, though - and I hope you like the design ^^

The picture below shows how mine looks like irl!

For printing: the dimensions of the cards are 6x9 cm, mine are coloured teal -> I didn't test it in black and white, I admit. Let me know if it doesn't work!

Here is the Google Drive link, I made a new account so it will hopefully stay up forever:

Happy rolling <3

[doodlinge]

hey!!! do u like writing about specific materials for better description!!!! i know i do!!!! here's a list. ur welcome.

animal fibers:

- wool (comforting, cozy, reliable, manmade)

- silk (luxurious, expensive, powerful, relaxed)

- alpaca (naturally water and fire resistant, two types:

suri alpaca wool: longer and silkier fiber resembling dreadlocks without matted fiber, thought to be rarer since it was reserved for royalty during incan times

huacaya alpaca wool: soft, dense, crimpy sheep-like fiber thought to be more cold-resistant

- camel (desert-like, incredibly soft and was usually used for tents, carpets and cloaks)

- cashmere (expensive, very comfortable, absorbs and releases water from the air depending on environment. been used for hundreds of years)

- mohair (a luxury wool originated from turkey)

other fibers:

- linen (sheets and comforters come to mind)

- cotton (soft and light)

- velvet (distinctively soft and luxurious)

- chiffon (lightweight and sheer that drapes elegantly)

- denim (sturdy and used in jeans and jean jackets)

- satin (soft and like silk)

- lace (pure and innocently elegant)

- bamboo

stone:

- granite

- marble (elegant, godly, statuesque. also good for countertops!)

- limestone

- basalt (hard, volcanic rock)

- onyx (rare black but soft stone. sometimes translucent)

- slate (chimneys, fireplaces, poolside, patios)

- sandstone

- quartz

- soapstone (unusally soft to the touch stone, easy to carve and heat resistant)

- clay

- mica (used for insulation and also used in edible glitter... look it up!)

wood grain:

[leidensygdom]

This project I'm part of is now live! I got to draw a little freaky creature for it, which you can view in the kickstarter 👀

It's a DnD 5e supplement organised by artists and writers with a strong focus on human made art, to oppose AI within TTRPG spaces!

There's a lot of talent involved in this. We have four microsettings with different themes--ranging from Classic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Gothic Fantasy and Dark Fantasy 💖

[rhozahscraftedcatalog]

We have reached the weekend, so it is time for another new set of Curious Collectibles tables to drop!

If you like these and want even more options each week, consider joining me on Patreon! Patrons get access to more options, with new tables released every Friday! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Some additional inspirational prompts for the above treasure items:

Who made this mechanical marvel? What sort of origin do the clockwork gears have? Could it contain a mystical magic linked to the mechanical plane of order?

What sort of spells could this cuff already hold? What were they intended to be used for? Could someone without magical ability use them as their own?

Are we sure the deep red stains are from the wine? Or could they be from something... else...

Who would keep such a thing?! Can they?!... petrify... each other?!

And most importantly, what option would you choose? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - As always, this table is available and free for you to use in your home DnD / Pathfinder / Tales of the Valiant / Shadowdark / TTRPG games, to help generate some more descriptive loot. These treasure options are perfect for a new quest-hook or a truly epic / one of a kind reward to feed your players (ever growing) loot goblinoid hunger.

If you love ttrpg stuff like this and are looking for more loot options, as well as a hoard of printable paper minis, terrain and monsters to help fill your table, check out my Patreon page! I create affordable paper minis, VTT Tokens and more, with a release every week! You can follow for free so you never miss a post or join as a member to get access to all the extra Patreon exclusive goodies.

[dungeonmentsh]

Random Table: d12 Local Legends

Do you want to inject some spice into your campaign by adding an NPC of unusual nature? Well then consider rolling on this random table of local legends! Roll one 12 sided die, and the value will give you an NPC to add to your session and spice things up.