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[tomahawkbunny]

dm/gamemaster asks

a little love for all my forever dms out there because i always love hearing from people who run! these are written with dnd in mind but should be applicable to other systems and for gamemasters in general. 

✨ plot hooks ✨

1. how did you get into ttrpgs? was there a transition into the dm’s seat, or have you always been there? are you playing more often than you’re running or vice versa?

2. what was your first time running a game like?

3. have you picked up any general dm tips or tricks that you’d like to share? what types of resources do you use, if any?

4. do you have any noticeable dm mannerisms? anything you’ve picked up from ttrpg shows or other dungeon masters in your life? or common tropes, themes, or encounters that reappear across your games?

5. what is your favorite part about running a game?

6. what is your least favorite part about running a game (if there is one)?

7. if you could give one piece of advice to first time gamemasters or people thinking of running their first game, what would it be?

8. what types of stories do you like to tell? what is a game of yours incomplete without?

9. what is your preferred roleplay to combat ratio? do you enjoy one more than the other as a dm/gm? why?

10. what is something your players do that makes your job easier or livens up the table in a way that you appreciate from the gm seat?

✨ lore dump ✨

11. favorite npc(s) you’ve ever played?

12. npc you wish the pc’s had spent more time with/gotten to know better?

13. favorite place(s) you’ve describe or created?

14. place you wish the pc’s had spent more time in or a plot hook they didn’t follow?

15. what are your favorite battle memories? do you have a favorite villain/enemy/monster you’ve played?

16. is there something that you desperately want to run someday, be it a specific system, setting, module, campaign, npc, etc?

17. what is your proudest improvisation moment?

18. funniest improvisation moment?

19. is there any major plot detail you would go back and change from a game you’ve run?

20. best/worst player-ism that stuck in a game (ex. getting a name wrong to the point that’s just what everyone says, whether on purpose or accident)?

✨ behind the screen ✨

21. where do you draw inspiration from when you’re getting ready to run a game?

22. do you prefer running homebrew, independent modules, or source material? do you mix and match?

23. are you a stickler for the rules that are set or is there just about anything you’re willing to introduce a mechanic for?

24. how long does preparing for a session usually take you? do you chronically under or overprepare?

25. what do you do when you feel stuck preparing for a session (ex. not sure where to take the party’s reaction to a hook and nothing’s coming to you)? how do you work through it?

26. what do you do when you feel stuck making a decision in game (ex. not sure what an npc’s or environment’s reaction to the party’s decision would be)? how do you manage it and get the flow of the game back?

27. have you ever had a big dm goof (forgetting to give information, giving too much at the wrong time, etc.)? how did it turn out?

28. what do you have to have in front of you to feel confident going into a session?

29. how do you treat critical success and failure? have you ever had a game-breaking nat 20 (or nat 1) to honor? what happened?

30. have you ever had or been close to a tpk, or otherwise stressful party situation? how did you handle it? were there any shenanigans to save the day?

✨ chance ✨

31. best game snack/drink?

32. do you have any dice/other mechanic rituals? do you feel like you roll abnormally well (or the opposite)?

33. if you can, post your favorite comment/note/line from your game prep or gm notes made during a session

34. do you do anything adjacent to your games like make playlists or journal (in character or about the game)?

35. how do you wind down after an intense session?

36. how do you gear up to run a session? any pregame getting into character/setting moments?

36. wildcard: any question you haven’t answered or received and want to!

[tomahawkbunny]

The B.O.L.O.G: A Big Ol’ List Of D&D Generators...

Ladies, Gentlemen and Everyone and Everything in-between, I present to you: The B.O.L.O.G, or the“Big Ol’ List of Generators”, something I’ve been working on for a long time.

The “Big Ol’ List Of Generators” (or B.O.L.O.G for short!) has pretty much everything, with over 100+ DM and Player Tools, Random Generators, Cheat Sheets and Reference Sheets to help take your DnD Games to the next level!

Eigengrau’s Generator

Procgen Mansion Generator (with 3D Visuals & Floorplans!)

Chaotic Shiny 

rollforfantasy.com

D&D DM Tip Generator (Sly Flourish)

D&D 5e Mob Damage Calculator (Sly Flourish)

DND Speak

Random Potion Generator for D&D (GeekNative.com)

donjon.bin.sh

Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator

Watabou Medieval Fantasy City Generator

5eTools

5eMagic.Shop (Magic Shop Generator w/ Items and Prices)

D&D 5e Tools by Leugren

JenniferBrussow.com (D&D Library Generator)

dnd5espells.rpglist.net (D&D Spell Scroll Generator)

RPG Tinker (NPC Generator)

Mithral and Mages (5e Treasure Generator)

Site of Many Things (Random Magic Item Generator)

Kobold Fight Club (Encounter Builder and XP Calculator)

DM Heroes (NPC Generator)

Here Be Taverns (Tavern & Menu Generator)

Instant Tavern Generator (WoTC)

Red Kat Art DnD5Tools

Myth Weavers Dungeon Generator

Not Another Tavern Generator

Goblinist.com (Random Encounter Generator)

FantasyNameGenerator.com

FastCharacter.com (Character Creator)

Tetra-Cube.com (Random Character Generator)

ChaosGen.com RPG Tools

AutoRoll Tables - Github 

Indie Loot Generator for D&D 5e

Kassoon D&D Tools and Generators

Sane Magic Item Prices

Weak Magic Item generator

Watabou’s One Page Dungeon Generator

D12dev

Fantasy Calendar Generator

Drugs for D&D

Poison Generator

ancientquests.com

thievesguild.cc

5thdnd.com

John’s Dungeons and Dragons Tools

enneadgames.com

springhole.net

roll1d12.blogspot.com

seventhsanctum.com

npcgenerator.com

dungeonmastersvault.com

Random Spell Scroll Generator by u/Zwets

What Do You Want? (a Character Motivation Generator) by FencedForest

Maze Generator

NPC Generator by theunburnedwitch

Cafe Arcane (D&D Tools)

Worldbuilding: Clothing and Fashion (HumanVariant)

Slyscript’s Glossary of Archaic Words

Vulgar: A Fantasy Language Generator

Megacosm Generator

The 100 Most Important Things To Know About Your Character

Nonsense Generator

Tree Description Generator (by ModernBarbarian)

Overflower (A Flower Generator by Bleeptrack)

Tiny Quests for Tiny Goons

Magic Carpet Generator (by Zoyander Street)

Potion Description Generator (by Piecewise)

The Monsters Know What They’re Doing

D&D Swarm Damage Calculator

Monster Manual Encounters (Reddit)

MapGen4 (from Red Blob Games)

Random Inn Floorplan Generator (by Inkwell Ideas)

Instant Dragon Generator (by WOTC)

TabletopAudio (Custom Soundboards and Presets)

Phanary.com (Soundboards and Presets)

Iron Arachne Culture Generator

Merchant Wagon Generator (GeekNative.com)

RPG Market Generator

Random Prophecy Generator (GeekNative.com)

TrollMystic Random Generators

RanGen Random Generators

Improved Initiative Tracker

Chicken Dinner’s Point Buy Calculator

Adventurer’s Codex

Hit Effect Description Generator

Maker’s Forge Games

1 Dot Villain Generator

MiniWorld’s NPC Generator (by Profession)

The Thieves Guild

D100 Tricks, Puzzles and Riddles

GiffyGlyph.com

Orteil’s Dungeon Generator

Character Goal Generator

Tavern Description Generator

Shipwreck Description Generator

Realm Description Generator

Quest Generator

Character Personality Generator

Forest Description Generator

Character Appearance Generator

Dragon Description Generator

Farmland Generator

House Description Generator

Fantasy Swear Word Generator

“A Wise Man Once Said…” (A Fantasy Quote Generator)

[tomahawkbunny]

d&d character playlists

here’s my dnd playlists. hope you like them!

artificer // barbarian // bard // cleric // druid // fighter // monk // paladin // ranger // rogue // sorcerer // warlock // wizard

[tomahawkbunny]

all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is

[tomahawkbunny]

A town for all seasons. Created to represent Phandalin from the Lost Mine of Phandelver. Available in sunny, rainy, dawn/dusk, night, winter, and winter’s night variants. High res links: Daytime Rain Dawn/dusk Night Winter Winter’s Night

[tomahawkbunny]

A pattern of the D&D 5e character sheet.

[tomahawkbunny]

Art by Ognjen Sporin

[tomahawkbunny]

So this is a cheat-sheet I’ve made for personal use to just have an overview over all the basic D&D rules. The first page covers most of the text rules. The color divides the sections more or less from one another.

The second page covers most of the important tables and stats, that you’ll probably need through the game. Hope you like it and find some use for this! Cheers.

[tomahawkbunny]

What's your favorite RPG that has only 1 page of rules?

Hoo, boy – that’s a tough one. For sanity’s sake, I’m going to assume that this means RPGs where the rules are actually presented in the span of a single page – i.e., excluding RPGs where the rules could hypothetically fit into a single page of text, but are more spread out for the sake of examples and illustrations and such.

Premise-wise, I’d have to give it to Honey Heist, because who doesn’t want to be a goddamn bear? Technically it’s a two-pager, but the second page is just a bunch of tables for randomly generating a scenario – the actual procedures of play are all on page one.

(A close runner-up  in this category is Crash Pandas by the same author, which loses points because I like bears better than raccoons, but gains points for having formal mechanics for resolving what happens when half-a-dozen raccoons attempt to collaboratively drive a car.)

In terms of economy and density of content, I’m really impressed with Hall of the Dwarven King, which manages to fit not only the complete rules on a single letter-size sheet of paper, but the game board as well – which is no mean feat for a game that’s basically trying to be tabletop Dwarf Fortress!

(Lasers & Feelings also falls into this category. I’m not actually a huge fan of its particular take on its source material, but it’s a wonder of page design.)

From the standpoint of sheer chaos potential, it’s hard to beat All Outta Bubblegum (warning: direct PDF link), which is exactly what you think it is. The text’s protestations notwithstanding, you don’t have to be drunk to play it, though it does admittedly help with getting into the proper mindset.

On the flip side, from the perspective of mechanics that made me go “hey, that’s clever”, regardless of premise or outcome, there’s Poet Glorious, whose conflict resolution rules could be described as the Prisoner’s Dilemma cross-bred with a haiku poetry slam.

Finally, because I’m a huge pretentious nerd, my favourite one-pager on the basis of being super esoteric and weird is probably our own @geostationary’s Heaven Will Be Mine-inspired Hyperion Frame Zetta: Intertextuality of Twilight Lovers, a game about bored mecha pilots sexting each other.

(Honorable mention in this category goes mention to P H Lee’s fascinatingly morbid Amid Endless Quiet, which is just barely disqualified for having rules that overflow a single page by a couple of paragraphs.)

Obligatory cost rundown: All Outta Bubblegum and Lasers & Feelings are free, and Crash Pandas, Hall of the Dwarven King, Honey Heist and Poet Glorious are pay-what-you-want. Hyperion Frame Zetta is non-free but has a special offer if you’re LGBT+ and broke, and Amid Endless Quiet is six bucks, but it’s part of an anthology, so you get four games for that price.

[tomahawkbunny]

World Building Resources

World Building Worksheet (Great for Fantasy/Science Fiction)

Forms of Government

Types of Art  - Perhaps the culture you’ve built doesn’t emphasize painting and drawing, but glasswork or sand art as an art form. Be creative.

7 Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding - What NOT to Do

Cyberpunk Derivatives (Steampunk, Clockpunk, etc.)

Rules of Building Believable Mythology

Fantasy Resources

Medieval Demographics Calculator

Fantasy Calendar Generator - (Can also be used for Sci-Fi)

Social Organization - List of Worldbuilding Questions

Random City Generator

Guide to Fantasy Subgenres

Types of Superpowers (Wiki)

Types of Magic

Magic in Fiction - Wikipedia, discusses ways characters can use magic.

List of Magical Creatures

Creating Fantasy Religions

Science Fiction Resources

Types of Planets

Types of Spaceships

Star System Generator

Creating Believable Aliens

Designing a Hypothetical Alien World

List of Emerging Technologies - Wikipedia

Weapons of the Future

Applications for Artificial Intelligence

Misc.

Things to Remember When Writing Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Types of Fictional Apocalypse

10 Universal Myths of the Ancient World

List of Mythologies

Future Timeline - Predictions technology, natural disasters, etc., for future; organized by year. An easy to use resource.

[tomahawkbunny]

Fantastic art by Jemma Salume

[tomahawkbunny]

Random mansion generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

[tomahawkbunny]

The Curious Case of The Calm Delilah is arriving this week on the DMsGuild! 

I’m giving away a small run of complimentary copies to anyone interesting in leaving a review. If you want to get your hands on a free copy of this upcoming horror mini-campaign to play with your friends, then drop me a message ASAP! First come first served, they’ll be all gone soon! 

[tomahawkbunny]

It’s happening tomorrow everybody! My Deck of Many Things Kickstarter will be going live!

Where: tinyurl (dot) com/DOMT-KS (weird typing bc tumblr hates urls and won’t put things in tags bc they’re dumb)

When: 10am MST/Mountain Standard Time

What: Full color printing, custom deck box, and all 22 cards fully illustrated! For use in your home games as a beautiful prop.

Other Details: The Kickstarter will run for 30 days, with a base goal of $2500. At this point the decks will be funded, and everybody will receive their items. We have dice bags and a set of sparkly mini prints as add-on rewards, as well as a custom card commission tier!

Stretch Goals: At $3000, everybody who backed at the basic deck tier and higher will receive a set of three holographic stickers! At $5000, an enamel pin reward will be added as an option. Finally, at $7500, everybody’s decks will be upgraded to have gold edges, free of charge!

I hope you’ll come out and support my work two years in the making, and that you’ll all be able to enjoy your own copy of the Deck of Many Things!

[tomahawkbunny]

4 Genasi Subraces for your review and commentary! Please leave feedback if you can it’d mean a lot.

[tomahawkbunny]

115 New Short Adventures! One Page Dungeon Contest 2019

115 New Short Adventures! One Page Dungeon Contest 2019

CHAMPIONs! One Page Contest 2019  has closed all subbmissions and now there are 115 new mini adventures to play as a one shot or inspiration or just for the map. Click the link to read all the original entries: One Page Dungeon Contest 2019

Lookong for more OnePage adventures? Check here more than 700 entries of the past years!

If you want to support this contest, check the One Page Dungeon…

[tomahawkbunny]

8 Character Creation Tips (for DnD or just writing in general)

1. Have a goal

While it may sound like I’m stating the obvious here, your character needs to have something they want to accomplish. Maybe they want to be the best at something, see a place, fall in love, conquer the world, or something else. Whatever it is, they need to have something that they desire beyond all other things. Ideally, give them more than one goal. Make them have to sacrifice one to achieve the other, to add extra drama

2. Have a reputation

Maybe they’re the best artist in their class or they’re great at juggling. Perhaps they slipped on the stairs in front of their whole village. Either way, give something for the locals to remember about them. That way it can give you a starting point for the interactions with other characters

3. Have a friend

Whether a friend, a coworker, a sibling, an army buddy, or someone they saved, have someone close to your character whom they’re close to and wish well. Yeah, angsty “I have no friends” characters can be fun, but in small doses; eventually the reader gets fed up with them. At the very least the character needs someone to talk to or bounce ideas off of

4. Have a home

It may be a neighborhood they grew up in, their parents’ house, or a room they’ve been renting in a tavern. Hell, it could even be a person if you so choose. Everyone needs to feel secure at one time or another

5. Have a signature item

Now, recognize that this may not work for EVERY character, but it’s up to you to decide what will fit and what won’t. In many cases, it can work. A signature item is something that is recognizably YOUR CHARACTER’S, be it a weapon, a scarf, a toy, or a piece of jewelry. It’s something that makes them feel like themself

6. Have a problem

This should be something other than the problem addressed in the main plot line. Maybe a member of their family is sick, they are broke, or they’re failing their classes. This helps make your character seem more realistic because NO ONE has one problem at a time

7. Have a secret

This can affect the plot or not; either way, it helps make your character more well rounded. Maybe your character can’t read, left their crewmates to die when a kracken attacked their ship, or made their long lost sister run away. If you choose to have it affect the plot in any way, this secret should embarrass your character, make it so that other characters don’t trust your character, or somehow endanger them and the people they’re close to if found out

8. Have a reason to be brave and to fight

Maybe it’s because your character wants to be like their hero, maybe it’s so they can repay a debt (like if someone saved their life previously), maybe it’s for their child, but your character needs to have a reason to occasionally face their fears

Have fun!!!