Ten Cool D&D Things #51-60
This list was emailed on December 13th, 2022.
I have taken the most popular item from each email to compile Fifty Amazing Free D&D Links! Bookmark that page because it contains reams of great content, all free.
The blank page can be tyrannous when prepping a D&D session. Brian Rideout has a great collection of resources for idea mining.
Duncan Rhodes has some solid advice on How to write (Murder) Mystery Adventures in D&D.
Richard Compton has devised a clever technique where he mashes up a D&D monster with a subclass. In this post, he explains the method using the Monk subclasses. Look at his archive for more examples, some of which are inspired. I love that gnoll avenger...
Johnn Four has five tips to make players genuinely hate the evil villain in your campaign.
The Alexandrian says the map is the adventure. It's a love letter to maps, really, and one that's close to my heart.
John Arcadian of Gnome Stew has devised a modular and upgradable weapon and armor system for D&D 5E. Yes, it does break the existing cost/benefit system, but it also gives the PCs a genuine incentive to spend money on their gear. In the right campaign, this would work well.
Scroll for Initiative offers some quick tips on running a low fantasy D&D campaign. His suggestions would suit a campaign set in Lankhmar or Conan's Hyperborea.
One of the boffins at the DMs Academy has a simple trick to make your campaign world feel alive. Well, it is simple to understand. It would take some work in practice.
This one is fun! Sean McCoy of Mothership RPG fame has devised a twitter-based challenge called Dungeon 23. I'm not sure if I will participate yet, but I'll follow along.
This list was emailed on December 20th, 2022.
Beth and Jonathan Ball suggest ways to navigate DM "blocks" in your D&D game. This article is full of good advice.
It's that time of year again- you know what I mean! J.R. Zambrano presets five amazing D&D holiday adventures!
Dump Stat Adventures shares ten rules for creating a dungeon. These are very good - follow them, and you will have a better-than-average dungeon.
Have you ever put your D&D characters in charge of a militia or small army? Dave Clark has devised militia actions to support this sort of scenario. It's a very clever idea, and it has broader applications.
Simarys recently posted a list of medieval job titles. You've seen such lists before? What sets this one apart is that it keeps many traditional job titles, meaning it is full of color. Next time your players are in town, instead of meeting Jon the Blacksmith, perhaps they encounter Calantha the Cinder Wench, Jadon the Rag Picker, or Sylphie the Qwylwryghte?
Scroll for Initiative has ten tips to make D&D challenging at higher levels.
Tabletop Joab has a lengthy post on immersive theatre techniques for Dungeon Masters. This one will repay close reading.
Larry Hamilton has some advice on how to use festivals in your campaign. Introducing a festival is a great way to bring your home base to life!
For those of you interested in the history of D&D, I have written a thorough review of Dragon Magazine's second issue.
One of the boffins at the DM Academy has a very cool trick for describing prophetic dreams. The comments are good, too.
This list was emailed on December 27th, 2022.
The Lazy Dungeon Master has developed a checklist for identifying quality dungeon maps. It is worth adding to your DM toolkit.
One of the boffins at the DM Academy shares a simple tip to make D&D combat more interesting. It works.
Throne of Salt presents 100 mysterious tomes for your RPG game. The entire list bursts with adventure seeds.
The next version of D&D will have holy orders, giving clerics a minor social role and a little power bump. The original playtest document only had three orders, but Brandes Stoddard created seven more. They are very good, too.
Stuart Pate has run many multi-year D&D campaigns. In this article, he tells you how to keep players returning for a thousand hours.
Taylor Reisdorf has posted a 45-page compendium that thoroughly revises the standard D&D races. It is beautifully presented, has lots of good ideas, and is entirely free.
For those yet to catch up with the news, J.R. Zambrano has posted a list of every official D&D book we know is coming out in 2023. I'm looking forward to Planescape, but the Phandelver book will be good too.
Kat Kruger presents an outline for a holiday-themed adventure called The Wild Hunt. It includes an excellent example of "monster-reskinning," which is a skill all DMs should develop.
The always-informative Monte Cook has a challenging piece on subtext in game writing. It's good material, though it might be hard to apply.
Continuing with the literary theme, Mike Burke has a typically lengthy article on the importance and use of context in your RPG campaign. Thankfully, he suggests some ways to use the concept in practice.
This list was emailed on January 3rd, 2023.
Damen Cook shows you how to run unstoppable, unkillable monsters in D&D. He also explains why you might want to!
Speaking of monsters, WOTC is releasing more and more of them these days. Dave Clark reveals how to add official monsters to your unofficial world.
Have you ever asked everyone to roll an Intelligence (Arcana) check and had the brainy wizard fail while the barbarian knucklehead succeeds? DM David explains why d20 tests make experts look inept. The article includes plenty of juicy historical detail, and the advice in the final paragraphs is worth the price of admission.
The sun is shining in Sydney, but I understand things are icy in the northern hemisphere. Johnn Four shows you how to use extreme environments and weather conditions in your D&D game.
Stuart Pate has some simple advice: don't punish your players. He is right, and it's easy to fall into this (bad) habit.
One of the boffins at the DM Academy explains why it's important to say "No, but..." She makes a good case, and I need to do more of this in my own game.
Half of the D&D internet is talking about #Dungeon23. Sean McCoy, who started the meme, explains what it is all about (hint: megadungeons). I'll be participating and sharing my creations on Twitter (@mtblack2567).
If you decide to create a megadungeon yourself, Noisms demonstrates how to come up with a concept. This process can be applied to most adventure designs.
More on this topic! Gus, creator of the well-received Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier, shares his step-by-step process for creating a megadungeon.
Finally, factions are critical to any lengthy D&D campaign (including megadungeons). Dump Stat Adventures illustrates how to add factions to a dungeon.
This list was emailed on January 10th, 2023.
Peter lists a group of "must have" dungeon features. It's a simple list, but creators often neglect these elements. When you do pay attention to them, your whole dungeon becomes tighter and more immersive.
DnD Speak presents 100 goblin tribes. There are some clever and amusing entries in that list!
The Dice Goblin shows you how to make meaningful dungeons with cyclic dungeon generation. It's a well-written article.
RJD20 shares some Paladin Inspired Monsters For Your Next D&D session. Beware the Fire Giant Templar!
Mike Bourke returns with another academic article, and this time he is debating the pros and cons of randomization in RPGs. Such articles are not everyone's cup of tea, but I know some of you enjoy this material.
Thespian suggests a D&D puzzle based on moral questions. It's a fascinating little idea, but I'm curious about its scalability. Could you use such puzzles more than once in your game?
Headless Hydra Press has released a free NPC character sheet. Nifty!
One of my editors, Leith Brownlee, has just started a substack. In his initial post, he shares lessons learned running Rime of the Frostmaiden.
Scroll for Initiative explains how much treasure and magic you should give your players.
Finally, something a bit different. You may have heard in the media that Hasbro is modifying the Open Game License. This change is bad news for creators like myself. If you want to find out more and access some resources to help, please join the Defend the OGL discord server.
This list was emailed on January 17th, 2023.
Josh created 23 dungeon features for #dungeon23. You can easily throw these fun and creative elements into your next dungeon. Very flavorful!
Mike Shea explains how to sandwich game mechanics with narrative. If you can learn to do this as a habit, it will shift the flavor of your game.
Ronny has created custom class reference sheets for all the 5E classes. They look good and are very handy.
One of the boffins at the DM Academy suggests that you should embrace old-school design to save your sanity. They make a great point.
Dyson Logos is giving away an attractive one-page dungeon called Manse of the Vile Beast. Just add a monster, and you are ready to go.
The Dungeon Mastering team identified pop culture archetypes for each D&D class. These are fun but surprisingly handy when coming up with a character concept ("My monk is going to have a real John Wick vibe.")
Stuart Pate suggests we strive for sincerity in our RPG creations. I make a similar point in my book, though I use the word "authenticity."
Noisms shows us how to construct a random encounter table. Such tables get a lot of criticism but are dynamite when done well.
Merric shares a simple tale about a bard who decided to go alone. I think he got what he deserved, do you?
Amellwind recently updated a 400-page Monster Manual for the Monster Hunter universe. Beautiful work and completely free.
This list was emailed on February 7th, 2023.
Mike Shea made his name devising helpful tips for Dungeon Masters. In this post, he flips the table and tells you how to be a great player.
Dndspeak presents 100 quests involving tool kits. These are creative and fun!
Mr. Warhamster recently discovered a character-building technique that changed EVERYTHING. Read the comments as well.
Brain Rideout shows you how to build an intriguing campaign world through encounter tables.
Hastek01 shared 50 pages of new D&D spells, taken from older editions and converted to Fifth. All completely free.
Johnn Four suggests 12 ways to surprise and delight your players and their characters. Some of these are rather sweet.
I use Notion myself, but John Arcadian (a fellow I always pay careful attention to) swears that google sites should be your next campaign management system.
Kyle Shire explains how to run a D&D campaign that ends in an apocalypse. Solid advice!
The ever-prolific Elven Towers recently published a free wilderness encounter called a sacrifice in the forest. It has a nice map, and you can quickly drop it into your campaign.
Reader DM Micycle has just gotten serious about blogging and shared a recent post on combining ideas to create something cool. It's a classic and effective technique.
This list was emailed on February 14th, 2023.
Keith Baker explains what background prompts are and how they can help your players develop their characters - right from the start.
DnD Speak presents 100 swamp encounters. Some of these are very creative.
Sly Flourish is back, listing his top 10 D&D Fifth Edition products for 2022. I enjoyed reading this list; it reminded me of a few books I need to revisit.
If you have ever created a fantasy world, you have probably spent some time playing with conlangs (short for "constructed languages"). Dan from Throne of Salt reviews many of the most popular conlangs. It is a surprisingly entertaining piece that has me thinking again about language in my world of Iskandar.
Rise Up, Comus is searching for a better RPG gazetteer. I've been doing some work in this area myself, and his article is insightful.
One of the boffins at the DM Academy had a recent revelation about what your job as a DM is. She's right and has identified a trap we often fall into.
Per Arne Kobbevik wrote an intriguing piece about high-trust trad adventure design. I wasn't familiar with the "high-trust" idea, and I'm still digesting what he says.
Johnn Four shares his recipe for building epic adventures. Not surprisingly, it draws on many of his past tools, such as five-room dungeons.
Noisms shares some thoughts on a style of D&D play that he calls the motivated sandbox campaign. It's a subtle but meaningful variation of the regular sandbox campaign.
Carreau has just released his Grimoire of Everything. It's 200 pages of player options, all free.
This list was emailed on February 22nd, 2023.
Monte Cook got tired of designing games for jerks. In this thoughtful article, he discusses the trade-off between tight rules that are resistant to abuse and loose rules that encourage creativity.
Not every challenge happens down in the dungeon or out in the wilderness. Konsumterra presents 100 petty village hazards.
Kobold Press is participating in Dungeon 23, and they've decided to turn it into a design tutorial. This initial post covers the dungeon entrance.
Speaking of tutorials, Brian Rideout takes you step-by-step through a 12-room dungeon design. It's always helpful to "look over the shoulder" of another writer.
What happens when the characters fail a skill check? Folks have written a lot about this subject, but questions remain. Justin Alexander sheds some light using a recent example from his Ptolus campaign.
Ric Wood describes how to run RPG adventures in cities. He spends quite a bit of time discussing pathcrawls. This is a beautifully written and presented article on an oft-neglected topic.
Here's another "how-to" article. Captain Cavement describes how to run a D&D investigative adventure. His process is very similar to my approach in Fraternity of Ash. That's not surprising, given we were both influenced by Justin Alexander's node-based design theory.
Have you ever created a fantasy world and found that cities and nations all feel the same? Dan has a lengthy article on how to make a diverse fantasy setting. It includes a good worked example.
Scythe 95 suggests using the fear of predators to spice up D&D wilderness travel. I've used this technique, and it works a treat.
Finally, Yuri Rodriguez has converted 25 Elden Ring bosses to D&D 5E. There are some neat ideas for boss actions amongst them.
This list was emailed on February 28th, 2023.
Mike Shea identifies the six elements of a near-perfect game of D&D. You should read on to the "D&D Tips" section near the bottom of the page--it is top-shelf advice!
RJ Compton has three tips for a successful D&D campaign. They require some work, but if you enjoy being a Dungeon Master, it should be fun work.
As a nice complement to the above article, Stephen Bandstra suggests ten ways to start a new campaign. Some of these are really fun.
Kelsey Dionne extols the virtues of the open game table. This approach is exceptionally feasible in the age of virtual gaming. Indeed, you could make a compelling "actual play" channel based on this technique.
Hirelings, squires, torchbearers, porters, etc., have gone out of fashion in the modern game, and it's a great shame. Such followers have provided some of the funniest moments at my table. For those who still indulge, ktrey has created d100 follower foibles.
Johnn Four has identified why homebrew adventures suck and how to fix them. I mostly posted this because of the graphic under point 2. Learn that lesson well!
DM Micycle is always a source of simple and sensible gaming advice. In this post, he discusses the trap of nested plot hooks. I fall into this error so often.
I know you like puzzles. Arnold Kemp does too, and he has written some dungeon puzzle dos and donts. And he gives examples.
Are your big bad bosses a bit dull? That's ok because Joseph Carro has four simple tips for creating compelling villains.
I know how much you folks love free content. Death Denied is 192 pages of undead monsters, all free. There are NSFW and SFW versions.