#ttrpg development glossary

[the-princeps]

Ttrpg jargon explanation #7 Meatgrinders and dungeoncrawlers

Meatgrinders, a meatgrinder is in some ways the equivalent of a soulslike, when done well it is harsh but fair and death is permanent. The goal is to be very careful, touch every tile with a 10ft pole and so on.

Dungeoncrawl, this is a scenario where you're navigating an area (the dungeon, though it doesn't have to be an actual dungeon) and advancing. A good dungeon has atleast the following

combat encounters

resource management

traps and puzzles

roleplay

The combat encounters are obvious, the classic dungeoncrawl will have you battling orcs or elves or such.

Resource management if as if not more essential, this is most clearly manifested in the managing of the amount of torches, food and hp you have. Is it worth it to try and get that loot, with the lowered hp you don't know if you'll be able to beat the x.

Traps are an extension of resource management, they teach the players to consider the risks of collecting and greedily running at loot

Puzzles are generally just a fun challenge that is different to combat.

Roleplay is obviously important, they're named ttrpgs for a reason.

[bitegore]

I made a character sheet to plot your OC's development over time! (There's supposed to be a character name in the big white space next to "over time" but it got eaten a little lmao)

You can use this for whatever you want, and you don't have to credit me. Feel free to change or edit anything you feel like. Please don't tag me if you credit me - just link to the original post.

Credits, explanations & a transparent version under the cut :D

Credits:

The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.

Fonts used were Bisdak (titles) and Rockwell (body). Both are free! You can use them to fill it out if you like.

Inspired by a comment @maybe-solar-powered-calculator made on this other post about filling it out for characters at multiple points along their arcs. Thanks for putting the idea in my head :D

This is explicitly released under a CC0 1.0 deed, ie: you can do fucking whatever you want with it and I don't care and you don't have to tell anyone where you got it from and no one gets to stop you.

-

Last time I made one of these I got a bunch of questions on all manner of things, and I can never keep up, so I'm just appending a set of notes for how to use it and a glossary because I know some of these phrasings will be confusing.

Ignore or change anything you don't feel like works for you here. You can do whatever you want forever.

Suggested / intended use & general notes:

This sheet could work for something story-level, if you want. But it's really only good for individual arcs; if the character goes through multiple arcs in your story, then they're going to fit poorly here. In that case, you're probably better off doing versions for each arc, or just adapting this to a different format more suited to your thing.

Also, if your arc has a nontraditional structure - divorced from the typical "rising action - climax - conclusion" type of structure where there's a clear 'important turning point' - it may not work as well either.

The mindset section is meant to come at it from a 'golden mean' standpoint - that is, everything on either extreme of the slider is 'too much' and therefore bad. It's not bad-to-good! The far right side is a flaw too. They're only grouped the way they are on basis of the specific OCs I personally had in mind when I put it together.

Growth is labeled 'worse'-to-'better' but it means, like, active decrease in that area vs active increase; if nothing changes, it should stay at the center even if it sucks. The category is about contrasting changes, and sometimes changes are for the worse!

The entire sheet is very deliberately subjective. It should really be answered from the character's perspective - how they feel about it, not what's necessarily true. Technically you can do whatever you want and I can't stop you, but it's a better tool if you approach it from the point of view that the character may believe things that aren't true - that will define their behavior way more than the objective facts of the story.

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Definitions:

This part is long as hell - recommend using ctrl+f to find the specific words you're stuck on. I defined everything.

General categories:

Mindset: how your character thinks about themself and how they act. Their understanding of their own approach to life. Attitude, viewpoint, decision-making process, that sort of thing.

Circumstances: the relationship between your character and the world around them. Where they are, what that place is like, and how they feel about it.

Growth: how the character and their impact - their attitude, their behavior, their immediate surroundings - changes over time.

Outset: the start of the character's arc.

Present: the 'center' of the arc. If you're planning something ahead of time and it hasn't 'happened' yet, then this is the near future.

End-game: where they are after the conclusion of the arc.

Mindset terms:

Center of the world: "If I have a problem, it's the only thing that matters to me." Self-centered, self-absorbed. Doesn't necessarily mean anything beyond that - they don't necessarily have to be unpleasant to be entirely focused on their own life.

my life isn't relevant: "Everyone else's problems are so significant, I don't pay any attention to my own". Someone who ignores or neglects their own life in service of some other thing, or doesn't consider their own behavior to have any real importance.

Only see enemies: Paranoid. Everyone's out to get them. Anyone who seems nonthreatening is hiding their potential for danger and everyone who seems threatening is a threat. The character must remain ever-vigilant, lest the cashier at the 7/11 suddenly stab them, or their best friend turn out to secretly be trying to poison them to death.

Only see friends: Naïve. Everyone is a good actor who wishes everyone else well, and if they don't seem like they're acting from a place of kindness or care then you probably don't understand what they're up to. The character is pretty sure the stranger holding that knife is, like, someone to chat up maybe, they're clearly only hanging out in this dark alleyway because it's a nice spot and no other possible reason.

overthink everything: Ten thousand thoughts per every single action taken. Maybe they never get around to acting at all. They have to consider every possible outcome. What if by eating lunch they accidentally trigger the apocalypse?! Who's going to think about these things if not them?!?!?!

impulsive to action: Act first, think never. What do you mean "consequences of actions"?

Unilateral decisions: "I will make every choice and no one else's opinions or thoughts are relevant". Discounts outside suggestions. Firmly convinced that they know best in any situation, and will brook no disagreement with their views when it comes to actually doing things.

Command me, please: "I don't know what to do and I don't know what to even start with, someone please tell me what to think". No confidence in their own views. Will not make any decisions unless forced and even then will beg someone else to please tell them what to do. Has no idea what's best and is pretty sure anyone else will have a better idea.

can't ask for help: No one will ever help the character; they have to do everything themself, even the things other people have repeatedly offered to do for them and have much more experience with. Doesn't necessarily mean that no one will help them or that they are explicitly barred by some real-world circumstance; just that, for whatever reason, they refuse to ask for help. This is an attitude thing - will they ever reach out? No? Then they're here.

too reliant on others: Have they ever solved a problem alone? Do they believe they're even capable of doing so? The character all the way at this end of the scale absolutely never expects to be able to do anything themself, has no trust in their ability to solve a problem, and needs someone else to come save them from it. The kind of person who needs ChatGPT to do their homework. Again - doesn't actually mean anyone will help them, or that the people they're relying on are reliable - just that they think they are helpless without ... well, help.

Weapon maker: This has to do with problem-solving strategies and not actual weapons. The weapon-maker is a character who views every situation as a conflict that cannot be de-escalated or solved by cooperation, and responds appropriately. The most fundamental weapon maker character turns everything into an argument, a fight, a war, etc. There are a bunch of other responses to conflict, though - they might avoid problems that need solving because they avoid conflict generally too. Fundamentally what you want to answer here is: when they see a locked box and they don't have the key, do they respond to it the same way they'd respond to someone telling them "you can't open this box"? And how do they respond to that? Typical weapon-maker approaches: - brute-force the box open or try and then give up if it doesn't work; and also get into an argument that might turn physical with the hypothetical person - shrug and give up immediately, in both situations so on and so forth. Another hallmark is that they kind of suck at problem-solving and give up if brute-forcing a problem doesn't work. This is not someone who is picking locks unless someone else told them to - they have one solution, it's to make everything into a conflict, and then to win that conflict by beating them or to give up because they think they'll lose.

Tool maker: This person approaches every situation like it's a puzzle, not a fight - up to and including actual fights. Tool-maker characters generally assume that a situation can be solved by just finding the right approach and doing it the clever way. There's the same fundamental question as above - if your character sees a locked box and has no key, would they approach it differently than someone telling them they're not allowed to open the box? 'Typical' tool-maker approaches: - I can trick the person into giving me the key by saying the right things, and I can also pick the lock because fundamentally there are 'right answers' to both of these - If i make friends with this person, they might change their mind, because now we're cooperating. I can still pick the lock because there are 'right answers' there. - The person has a reason for wanting me not to open the box, so I can definitely figure out what that is and solve the reason so then they'll let me open it. I can take whatever it is even if they really want to keep it if I just find the right answer. I'm going to break this box into little pieces because that's the easiest way to get into it but I could probably open it some other way if that wouldn't work.

A note - the center of this bar is someone who generally has different responses to different kinds of situations - like, in the box example, they'd approach the box and the person with two different general attitudes and processes - but generally responds to those situations using the same kind of decision-making process for each category every time. Most people are nowhere near either extreme. Characters tend to be classifiable into weapon-maker and tool-maker because they are fictional and it's easier to define one kind of approach than many. Approximately average approaches: - pick the lock if no one's around, but give up if someone is there because someone telling me not to open the box is a conflict i think i'll lose but a locked box is just a puzzle that i can solve - argue with the person, but give up on the box, because they're approaching the box as a puzzle and they don't think they have the skill to get into it, but the person is someone who can be convinced or bullied into handing over the key

I made this particular dichotomy up, which is why I think I get a lot of questions on it whenever I put it into anything, but I also don't know of any other snappy way to describe this sort of thought or approach variance, and it's genuinely useful for character writing in my opinion.

Pessimist spot-finder: Generally a downer but not necessarily. This kind of character just approaches everything with a close eye for problems, issues, reasons to find fault. If they're miserable, it might be why, but like, they can be a cheerful spot-finder if you want, I just wanted to get at "the glass is half empty" and "the glass is half full" more than anything.

Optimist upside fan: The opposite. "The glass is half full". If there are problems, they can find something about them that's not so frustrating or bad to focus on. Pretty damn good at overlooking minor issues if there's no reason to fixate on them. Not necessarily cheerful.

Abysmal company: could not give less of a damn about treating people the way they 'should' be treated. Maybe they take pride in that. Maybe they just think it's irrelevant. Either way, they know they treat people badly and they don't see any reason to stop. Does not necessarily mean that they treat people badly if they think they're doing the right thing and are wrong. Doesn't mean they're actually pleasant or unpleasant to hang out with, either, unless you really want it to mean that.

Decent to others: treats people well as a matter of course, or at least they sure think they do. Makes an effort. Would probably care and/or consider changing their behavior if someone said they were treating someone poorly. As before - they can be completely un-self-aware and just think they're doing right by people while treating them completely horribly.

Morality is irrelevant: 'abysmal company' for broader approaches to life and problems. Maybe they just know they're myopic and don't think other people's problems matter. Maybe they just gave up on trying to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' and outsourced it to someone else or stopped paying any attention. Maybe they just like to take morally unjust actions and can't be bothered giving a damn when someone points out that they're morally unjust, or maybe they're proud of it. Kind of a villain trait generally, but not necessarily - it doesn't have to mean they act badly, just that they don't care if they do. Also, this is about how they choose their own actions and view their own behavior. They can think morality is relevant for other people as long as they ignore it when they act themself.

Always in the right: feels morally righteous in every decision they make. Standard superhero type of trait. Doesn't necessarily pass judgement on others, doesn't necessarily act well according to everyone's moral code (see: blue and orange morality), but they are extremely principled and will never deviate from the moral code they personally believe in. And they do genuinely believe in it.

Circumstances terms:

Generally terrible to generally excellent: how subjectively decent is your character's situation, overall? If they think everything is horrible, but the situation is charmed to everyone except them, then it's generally terrible.

Need for changes to passive tolerance: will they do something about it? Do they feel like they have to?

No agency in action to decisions are huge: agency being "how much power do I have to make changes here?", this just asks how much they have. No agency means that, no matter what they do, nothing will happen - they might be locked in a cage or somehow otherwise completely unable to use any sort of power at all, even the power of just leaving. The other end of the spectrum is where every decision the character makes makes a huge difference, not just to themself but to everyone around them as well. They can start wars, they can have anyone they want killed, they can do anything whenever they feel like it. If they think they have no agency even though they do actually have agency, they don't have agency here. If they feel like they have all the agency in the world and can do anything, then they do even if it's not true. It's perceptual again.

Stakes are deadly to mistakes solvable: what are the consequences of failure? Will you die, will you lose status you can't afford to lose, will you lose belongings, will you have to apologize, will nothing happen at all? Mistakes solvable is where they think every mistake is solvable forever - the character pushes someone through a woodchipper and they come out and to fix it, maybe an apology has to occur, but not much else. Does not necessarily mean no one gets hurt or killed as long as the character thinks there are no permanent consequences. This is the most important one on this section to keep subjective because it will greatly influence how your character approaches situations. A character who thinks everything is deadly-stakes may go to cartoonishly-extreme lengths to avoid turning a report in a day late. A character who thinks all mistakes are always solvable may push someone through a woodchipper and then just assume they can say they're sorry and it'll all go away. The setting and their approach do not need to be applicable.

Needs go unmet to attended with care: how do the people around them treat them? Do they pay attention when the character needs something, or do they ignore it? Does the character have to do everything themself around here, or are there people who will help out?

Regarded poorly to regarded well: how do they think other people see them? Are they respected, are they liked, or are they disliked? Do people broadly trust them or are they pretty sure everyone regards them with suspicion?

Nothing changes to changes in seconds: functionally the 'stability' meter of your setting - is the situation generally stable, or are things constantly changing? Does your character feel like every five minutes, there's a new problem that needs dealing with, or do they feel like nothing has ever happened ever?

Growth terms:

Changes in place: do they go somewhere else? Does the physical setting otherwise change (eg; earthquake, war, etc) ? Are there any other reasons that the 'vibe' or 'experience' of the place is different from before?

Change in power: does the character's percieved agency (see: no agency in action to decisions are huge) change? Alternately you can use it if they've gained or lost power in some percieved way (deposed, assigned a commanding position, etc).

Change in bonds: do their relationships with people change? Have they made new friends, lost old friends, changed the nature of their relationships with friends or partners, etc?

Change in beliefs: straightforwardly, have their beliefs, morals, etc, changed?

Change in hurts: have they undergone some horrible experience? Do they have past trauma from some pre-arc horrible experience they're healing from and/or discovering they're more powerfully subject to? Did they experience a physical injury that they're recovering from or which materially changed their life? Did something recent dredge up old issues? So on and so forth.

Change in hopes: Do their desires for the future look the way they used to? Do they care about different things now? This is something the character is not actively working for, but may be tied to actual goals.

Change in fears: are they overcoming fears? Growing past them? Gaining new ones? Are they scared of shit different from how they used to be?

Change in goals: Not the same as a hope because it needs to have a specific, achievable outcome the character is actively working toward. Do those material goals look different? Perhaps they no longer want to work against something, maybe they didn't have any goals and now they do. Or maybe they've realized the goal is impossible, or something has happened to make that goal unachieveable. Whatever it is, if there's a change, it's a change.

Change in self-awareness: their beliefs about who they are and what they're like, and what their circumstances are. Have they gotten more self-aware, have they gotten less self-aware, or has nothing changed?

Change in relationships: their relationships' overall health and resilience, as far as the character is concerned - which doesn't mean they're necessarily good, just that the character thinks they're how they're supposed to be. Have they improved? Have they gotten worse? Have they not changed?

Change in knowledge: do they feel like they know more about the world, their place in it, the people around them, etc? Not necessarily how to do things - just general information and awareness.

Change in social standing: how does others' regard for the character change over this part of their arc? Do people like them more or less? Are they respected more or less than before? Has nothing changed? And so on.

Change in skills and abilities: do they feel more skilled than they were before? Do they feel like they know how to do as many things as before? Again - not necessarily rooted in reality - a classic example of a character being wrong about this is a 'big fish in a small pond' character who used to be the high school sports star going to college on a sports scholarship and discovering they're not the best any more, and suddenly feeling like they're the worst - when they're better than they've ever been in an objective light. Use a subjective viewpoint for this.

Change in agency in life: how does the character's percieved agency change? Do their decisions matter less now than ever? Do their actions make way more happen than before? (See: no agency in action vs decisions are huge)

Change in outlook: Here's the upper/downer part. Are they more or less hopeful for the future? Do they think things are more terrible now? Are things improving as far as they're concerned? Or has that not changed?

Change in goal progress: how do they feel like they're progressing on the goals they've set for themself? Are they getting further and further away? Are they getting closer?

If some of this doesn't make sense and you want a clarification, you will have to tag me to get my attention, because I'm turning notifications for this post off the minute it leaves my immediate social circle.

Transparent version: (sorry you had to scroll so far)

[button-kin-games]

Development Diary: Jude's World, Part 7

At last my solo, tarot-based TTRPG about a plucky preteen protagonist struggling to reunite their warring parents is in the hands of play testers. I've been resisting doing any active development until I've received more feedback, but let's talk about what I've been hearing so far.

Feedback #1: Tone

Test readers said they liked the game but found the tone "sombre". This was cause for concern.

I'm not sure why I assumed that my little game about divorce would be a giggle? But I did. While the genre of the game is not comedy, it is inspired by 90s kids shows that I loved, which always sprinkled sassy one-liners and hijinks in even throughout more serious plots. They wanted their main characters to be likeable and aspirational, and they needed to balance the tone of the heavier drama for kids. Why didn't more of that source inspiration come through in my initial draft? Well.

Firstly I wanted to make the rule text clear. This means balancing detail with conciseness - I don't want to leave unnecessary ambiguity, but I also don't want to exhaust my reader with minutiae. It's easy to forget when writing game texts that it's okay to sacrifice a little of each of these for the sake of flavour. The field of optimisation is a triangle, not a line.

Secondly I have a lot to say about society's attitudes towards divorce. Maybe the introduction to a game text, which is intended to entice and invite the reader, isn't the place to explore those concepts fully. Was I wrong when I wrote that divorce is a women's rights issue and a hard won privilege, access to which should be expanded in a free and progressive society, or that an virulently anti-divorce tone of parent-trap-style stories is deeply problematic? No. Is that potentially a downer to read about when you're trying to get into a playful headspace? Maybe. (Yes.)

I may write up some of these more intense thoughts in a separate blog post or essay and refer to that in my text rather than including them there. That way those who are interested can read up while everyone else can have some peace. Credit for this idea goes to Laurie O'Connell who mentioned using a similar strategy in one of his games while being interviewed on the excellent What Am I Rolling? podcast.

Feedback #2: Organisation

I should have seen this one coming. It's telling that I've overhauled the structure of the text 5 times now. The feedback is that it's still not flowing quite right.

From experience this is something I'll continue to tinker with until near the end of the development process. Although I have hit upon an idea I want to try in the next version: I want to try writing my game like an academic paper.

I studied Psychology at uni. I didn't really like it because my tutors expected me to, like, go to the library and read a lot of academic papers, which clashed with my pre-existing plans to chain-smoke in the pub all day. In the intervening years I've both quit smoking and somehow retained some knowledge of the structure of an academic paper: abstract, content, then conclusion, with all the same information in those three sections using different emphasis and levels of detail.

When I first learned about this format I thought it was insane. Why all that repetition? Then I actually did a spot of teaching and realised: that's just how we learn. You cannot say something once and expect a listener (or reader) to retain it. No matter how simple the message seems to you.

So I'm going to try that for the next version of my game. Simplified rules, followed by a rules deep dive, followed by a glossary/diagrams/play examples to enrich what we've covered before using different presentation styles. I'm excited about this idea. Let's see how it goes!

If you're interested in play testing the game I'm more than happy to provide subscribers with a copy of my current draft. You can email me at yvris@buttonkin.com.

[greyplainsttrpg]

I was sent this.

AS A TTRPG GAME DESIGNER, the lack of keywords in 5e is genuinely baffling. Most of the book is baffling to me now that I've actually written a game book.

Why are the page numbers of the spells not referenced in the Class Spell Section (not doing a great job explaining it, but hey)? Like, literally why not? It would be three characters at the end of each spell, and it would save everyone a massive amount of time by the end of the edition.

Why are JUST the Ability Scores and Skills capitalized? Not Spells, not Actions, not Class Features, Classes, or anything else as far as I can reckon. JUST Abilities and Skills. Sub-point, why are the Skills written as "Ability (Skill)" in text? If you're using "natural language" most of the time, why are you deciding to be excessively clear in this one instance? It sounds bad, and it is structurally backwards on the Character Sheet: "Skill (Abl)." You know, the thing Players will actually be looking at most of the time they are playing this game.

I think the reason why the action economy is so arcane is not JUST 4e's fault. 4e was a reaction to 3.5, and 3.5 had some WACKY combos. 4e found ways to make the bizarro action-economy of down-shifting cheese of 3.5 more balanced. From my sensibilities, that was the goal of 4e. My conspiracy theory is that the developers wanted to get ahead of the action-economy nonsense of 3.5 in a way that specifically targeted spellcasters (which of course were the primary culprits of prestige-class/feat ex machina "I cast Wall of Fire as a Free Action"). They wanted the balance of 4e, but they did not want to keep the flattened gameplay mechanics (understandably), so instead you have this strange bastard-child compromise. It's confusing, and it still sucks because martials get caught in the Bonus Action limitations, anyways. Want to know how to make Martials good? Give everyone the option to use an Extra Attack with their Bonus Action at 1/2 Prof or something. EZ fix (oh wait, we bounded the Proficiency system, OOOOOOOPS).

Sir, you could you please give me a glossary.

Can your index stop condescending me. "See xyz" is more text than just putting the page number. This is not a pick your own adventure story, I just want to know how your game works because a PC at my table is drowning from an inverted-gravity-well toilet or something.

Minor gripe, I don't like the second tense in these sorts of games. I'm drinking a beer and solving a problem--MY CHARACTER is the one using a goblin as a plunger to free their party member, thank you very much.

Those are all my related gripes from this thread. My game series is called Greyplains. I can guarantee you that I did the best I could with keywording things appropriately, a glossary, a useful index, etc.

So okay, my harping on about D&D 5e actually being relatively complex isn't to say "and that's why D&D 5e is bad," it's to address the idea that D&D 5e is easy to learn (it's clearly not: despite its market dominance a lot of people actively resist learning it and also a lot of people are also teaching it wrong). But there is more to it than that: D&D 5e has implemented design decisions that make it harder to learn than some of its predecessors.

Part of this is down to the insistence on using natural language for what is, ultimately, still a heavily keyworded system, meaning to ambiguity arising from when it's unclear whether a given phrasing refers to a keyword.

Part of it is down to absolutely bizarre moon logic that has actually made the game harder to understand. During an early playtest the game had a relatively simple action economy: a character could move and do a single action. This was done to address the "difficulty" of the action economy of D&D 4e. Now, 4e actually has a pretty dang simple action economy of a standard, move, and minor action; the reason it tends to slow people down is because it leads to analysis paralysis, with players trying to optimize those three actions to the best of their ability. So the slowing down effect of the action economy of 4e was actually misidentified as it being too difficult.

Now the simplification of the action economy into action and move is actually something I can get behind. But once the designers realized that dang 4e was actually kind of cooking when it introduced an extra action characters could do in addition to a movement and an attack and they were forced to deviate from their action and move model. And they introduced the bonus action.

The bonus action is, in many ways, similar to D&D 4e's minor action, but worse in every possible way. Bonus actions come with a bunch of limitations, exceptions, special edge cases governing when they can take place during a round, some of them have special triggers that need to happen first before you can use them. And then there's the entirely artificial limitation on number of spells a character can cast per round which adds unnecessary complexity.

All of which is to say: arguably more complex games can be easier to teach than D&D 5e because they are actually better written and make use of design techniques that actually improve learning, such as templating and keywording, and don't have bizarro universe action economies that make Rolemaster 2e's action economy seem relatively straightforward.

[jaesreferenceblog]

writing references

world building:

ultimate world building questionnaire

how to create a magic system in six simple steps

fantasy calendar generator

holiday name generator and holiday description generator

a fantasy language generator

literally building your world (tips on where to place cities and geographical features on maps, as well as lore-building tips)

character building:

fantasy city generator (generators details, people, businesses and inventories)

jobs for fantasy characters that aren't knight or peasant

123 ideas for character flaws

638 personality traits

150+ character mannerisms

list of personal strengths and 50 examples of strengths and weaknesses

list of common phobias

list of pet peeves

42 character development questions

writing tips:

emotion thesaurus

reverse dictionary and thesaurus and the similar tip of my tongue

cheat sheets for writing body language

a complete glossary of terms for fantasy writers (this one is pretty silly, but not completely without use)

resources for writing injuries

useful geographical descriptors for writers

more tips for combat, action, and potential injuries

tone vocabulary list

how to speed up or slow down your pacing

the 8 laws of foreshadowing

quick tips to create more conflict

other:

plot generator

1600+ one word prompts

fantasy city generator (generates a city complete with description, inhabitants, businesses and inventory. made for ttrpg but can translate to a novel)

rating the fastenings of armor based on homoerotic potential

[stopbleedingontheinside]

OpenDnD Resource Library

So as part of the pro-diversity discord server I run called OpenDnD, which you can join here, I made a master document of dnd-related resources. It’s stored on a google doc [link], but I also figured I’d make a rebloggable version. 

Topics include: make your gaming accessible; creating player characters and npcs; map design; encounter building; worldbuilding, making homebrew content, and music & immersion.

Rest under the cut: be warned, it’s long.

General:

Resources:

Google drive of 5e core books and some supplements (free)

Assortment of TTRPG books (free)

Roll20 DnD 5e Compendium (free)

DnD 5e System Reference Document - breakdown of the rules into topics (free)

DND 5e sortable spell list (free)

Printable Spell Cards (free)

DM campaign binder template pages (with example photos) for organising  information

Collection of DM assets - tokens, map building things, and so on (free)

DM tips:

Skyflourish’s DM tips (free); “The Lazy Dungeon Master” series (paid)

Haze-Zero's Session 0 Topic List and Guide (free)

Skyflourish's "Getting Player Feedback" (free)

Tips for first-time DMs (free)

Critical Hits archive (free)

The RPG Athenaeum post index (free)

Accessible Gaming:

Dyslexia friendly character sheets - Pathfinder and 3.5e (free)

Dyslexia friendly character sheets - 5e (free)

Large-font character sheet (free)

Braille dice: 64 Ounce Games; Shapeways; Thingiverse

"Dungeons and Dragons and Disabilities" - article on accessible gaming (free)

"Dungeons, Dragons & Disabilities" - another article on accessible gaming (free) 

Converting from other editions to 5e:

“Conversions to 5th edition D&D” by WOTC (free)

Nerdarchy’s “Converting D&D Published Adventures to 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Modules” (video, autogenerated captions only)

Understanding Bounded Accuracy (free)

Player Character Creation:

Starting Out:

Step-by-step playable character creation from the PHB (free)

DND 5e point buy calculator (free)

Character creation tables compilation - referencing all the available character options for D&D 5th Edition by Wizards of the Coast, including the Unearthed Arcana articles, as well as the Plane Shift supplements (pay what you want)

Class character sheet bundle (free)

Monster player races (pay what you want)

Fantasy random name generator (free)

Non-human name suggestions - taken from Xanathar's Guide (free)

Pre-made 5e character sheets - from WOTC (free)

More pre-made character sheets (free)

Fleshing them out:

Comprehensive background generator - automates the process of rolling on all the character generation tables that can be found in the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player Handbook, Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (free)

We Are Adventurers collective members list - each blog is kinda like an endless moodboard regarding specific classes, e.g. rogue/druid (free)

Searchable database of character portraits of women in realistic armour (free)

Pathfinder random backstory generator (free)

8 extra homebrew backgrounds for a DnD character (free)

Hack and Slash homebrew backgrounds (free)

"Knife Theory" for backstory creation (free)

Personality generator (free)

62 ideas for character flaws for creating a well-balanced character (free)

Skyflourish’s "Four Tips for Character Development" (free)

Misc:

DnD disability mechanic (free)

Non-Player Character (NPC) creation:

Generating NPCs:

RPG Tinker - NPC creator tool (free)

SkyFlourish's "Instant NPCs" (free)

Random NPC generator; Villain generator (free)

NPC Statblock Compendium - 64 new statblocks for 82 published 5e subclasses (free)

Character Cache - TTRPG character concepts with Fate Core, Savage Worlds, and DND 5e stat blocks (paid)

"Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game" (paid)

Fleshing them out:

Skyflourish’s "Three Motivations for Villains" (free)

The Chatty DM's "Making Memorable NPCs" (free)

Vanir's villainy series: "Proper Villainy"; and "Proper Villainy: The Crockpot Of The Damned"; and "Crockpot Villany" (free)

DM's Deep Dive "Bringing NPCs to Life" (video/podcast with summary below)

Matt Mercer's GM Tips "How To Create Non-Player Characters for RPGs" (video, captioned)

Matt Colville's Running the Game: "NPCs!"; and "NPCs 2! High Level NPCs, Followers, and DMPCs"; and "Bad Guys!" (videos, auto-generated captions only)

International Dialects of English Archive (free)

“Accents 101” masterpost (free)

Map design/ creation:

Premade maps:

2-minute Table Top (free and paid)

Axebane (free)

Dungeonmapster (free and paid)

Venatus Maps (free)

Fantastic Maps (free)

Elven Tower's Map-Adventures Vault (free)

D&D Wiki (free)

Deven Rue (free and paid)

Cartographers’ Guild (free)

Map-making/cartography tips:

Fantastic Maps (free)

Deven Rue (paid and free)

Cartographers’ Guild (free)

Dieter Rams Design Principles - for Dungeon Design (free)

Map-making tools/ map generators

Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator (free)

Dave’s Mapper -  tile-style map creation (free)

Dungeon Painter Studio - Steam app (paid)

Donjon Random Dungeon Generator (free)

Hxtml - hex-tile map creator (free)

Medieval fantasy city generator (free)

Cartographers’ Guild (free)

Random trap generator (free)

Encounters & Encounter Building:

Encounter-building tools:

Token creator (free)

Kobold Fight Club Encounter Generator/ Calculator (free)

Encounter difficulty calculator (free)

Theory/discussion:

DnDBeyond's "A New Dungeon Master’s Guide to Miniatures" (free)

Skyflourish's “Guide to Theatre of the Mind Combat” (free)

Skyflourish's “Guide to Set-Piece Battles” (free)

How to spice up combat! (free)

Worldbuilding:

World Anvil - a worldbuilding/writing tool (free)

A resource guide (/masterpost) for world and map generation (free)

Make your own calendar (free)

Alternative fantasy calendar maker (free)

Candlekeep Forum - Glossary of Phrases, Sayings & Words of the Realms (free)

Drow language info and translator (free)

Fantasy name generators (free)

Random settlement; building; tavern; monument; weather etc generators (free)

20 Random Ancient Monuments (free)

Random magic shop generator - generates lists based on settlement size and shop type (free)

Player rewards:

Random treasure generator (free)

Single-use magic item list (free)

Random trinket generator (free)

The Monster Harvester Handbook (free)

Fur and pelts prices (free)

Pricing magical items/ “Sane Magical Prices” (free)

Unearthed Arcana (UA) rules for downtime activities in 5e  (free) - also see Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Homebrew:

Make your own:

"Beginner's Guide to Homebrewing" (free)

GM Tips - "Creating Homebrew Content in RPGs!" (video, captioned)

Skyflourish's "Reskinning Monsters"; and “Making Monsters Interesting” (free)

"Marasmusine's meter" - a 5e Homebrew Race Design Guide (free)

GM tips - "How to Customise Creatures!" (video, captioned)

GM tips - "Creating Magical Items!" (video, captioned); Magical Items template (free)

"How to write the best D&D adventures ever" (free)

GM tips - "Write One-Shot RPG Campaigns!" (video, captioned):

"The Five Tips You Never Hear When Creating a Homebrew Setting" (free)

The Homebrewery - makes your homebrew writeups look like the official guides; and this thread can help you with text formatting if you're unsure (free)

Pre-made:

DM’s Guild

DnDHomebrew Subreddit (free)

Basalt-dnd's homebrew monster statblock directory; and their "other" directory - incl races; spells; items; diseases etc (free)  

DND 5e Homebrew (tumblr blog, free)

Music & Immersion:

Music/ sound effects:

Phanary - atmospheric sounds (free)

Tabletop Audio - TTRPG ambiences and music (free)

Radio Rivendell - medieval-style music (free)

RPG Sound Mixer (free)

Soundsnap - Sound effects and loops (free)

Syrinscape - sound design/ soundtracks (paid)

Roleplaying:

"Weem’s DM Tips for RP Prompting and Immersion" (free)

"Performance Anxiety - Helping your players hit their RP potential" (free)

“Getting Characters to Roleplay” (video, captioned)

"How to be a better roleplayer" (free)

DndBeyond's "Improvisation in D&D for New Dungeon Masters" (free)

Misc:

"Creating a sense of immersion in roleplaying games" (free)

"Four tips for writing effective D&D read-aloud text" (free)

Creating atmosphere (free)

RPG races-inspired food platters (free)

"7 props for your D&D game" (free)