Fifty Amazing Free D&D Links
Every week I email a list of ten excellent D&D links to my newsletter subscribers. Last week I sent out my fiftieth list! To celebrate, here is a list of the most popular items from each email.
Mike Shea has created a level 1-20 campaign outline called Demogorgon Must Die! It is full of fantastic ideas.
Teos Abadia explains why so many DMs have trouble challenging their players.
Hugo award-winning author Lou Anders and Travis Vengross of the Dark Dice podcast share eight useful world-building tips.
Here is my very own Top 50 D&D Tips for Dungeon Masters. I trust you'll find something helpful in this collection.
The Dark Arts Players Companion contains new races, subclasses, spells, and creatures. It is very nicely produced and completely free!
Have you seen the Lazy DM Cheat Sheet? Laminate it and keep it near at hand when playing.
Do you like random tables? D&D Speak presents 100 interesting background events for a major city.
Teos Abadia shares three D&D adventures he wrote for the Dwarven Forge. Really well crafted and completely free!
J.R. Zambrano loves creating "top five" lists. This time around, it is the five best cantrips for beginners.
Blades in the Dark is an indie RPG that raised some serious cash on Kickstarter a few years ago. Dump Stat Adventures has three simple ideas you should steal from it and include in your D&D game.
The D&D homebrew community has developed some excellent material, but few things equal to this. With over 200 pages of imaginative monsters and full-color illustrations, the Book of Beautiful Horrors is entirely free.
DM David shares 7 Discarded D&D Rules That Could Improve the Game. I especially liked number 7.
Sometimes your characters find themselves neck-deep in water, but the relevant Fifth Edition rules are threadbare and scattered throughout the core books. The Old Dungeon Master has consolidated this material and expanded it with a set of well-crafted house rules. If you are doing a water-based campaign, you will find this helpful.
Reader Jeffrey P emailed me a superb NPC generator from tetra-cube. You can use this to populate your world with quality characters very quickly.
Over at the DM Academy, Novakid describes one of the biggest mistakes a DM can make. I've done it more than a few times.
The Lazy Dungeon Master has an easy trick to create engaging overland travel sequences in D&D. What will your players do at the poisonous ancient obelisk of the Illithids?
Mr. Straw Hat has identified the most effective D&D puzzle. And you know, he is on to something.
A friend recently said, "our games need to use more than 25% of the character sheet," meaning there is more to D&D than combat. Nerdarchy has five persuasion skill challenges you can drop into any game.
Bell of Lost Souls nominates Five Classic Dungeons Worth Delving Again. I've only played one of these, but I want to explore the others.
Are your players visiting the town square? Loot the Room presents Six Curious Market Stalls.
How will the new generation of AI-based natural language tools impact RPG design and play? Paul Bellows has created a very impressive AI-based NPC generator. It is a level above anything else I've seen.
Johnn Four explains what to do when characters fail an ability check. There are some excellent strategies here, and I encourage you to work them into your game.
DnD Speak brings us 100 Banned and Evil Tomes. Some entries are gruesome, some are funny, and some are both. Does anyone want a copy of 195 Easy Projects with Human Skin?
Ryan from 2CGaming is one of the sharpest designers I know. In this post, he explains why the Balor is Fifth Edition's best-designed monster.
We often learn more from mistakes than successes. DM David shares his five biggest game-mastering blunders.
In my home campaign, we've rediscovered the joys of hexcrawling. Justin Alexander just published a terrific article on how to stock your hexes.
Paul Hughes describes the proper use of traps in D&D and gives examples. Though short, this may be the best treatment of the subject I've seen.
Now, this is cool. Dyson Logos is releasing a new five-room dungeon every Monday. It sounds like a great way to populate your hex crawl!
Social encounters mainly involve other people, right? Not so fast! Scroll for Initiative lists 22 monsters from the Monster Manual that work better as social encounters.
D&D Speak brings us another list; this time, it is 100 things found in a haunted crypt.
There's been some discussion about traps rattling around the D&D blogosphere. Rise Up Comus presents ten traps that don't suck. I like his approach.
This blog post is a few years old but is too good to neglect. Bastionland devised 21 cheap tricks for DMs. There is some excellent advice in this list.
Sly Flourish tells us about the only D&D subsystem you will ever need. And he is right.
DM David shares six things every 1st-level adventure should have. It's fantastic advice!
Scroll for Initiative presents the D&D house rules he loves and loathes. I always appreciate reading about house rules, and there were a couple I hadn't heard of before.
Fifth Edition flanking is a contentious topic. The Hopeless Necromantic suggests a flanking rule variant I've never seen before.
The Grizzly DM has some welcome words for stressed-out DMs.
Here's a post that's close to my heart. Creighton describes six adventure presentation mistakes to avoid. I agree with five of his points and disagree strongly with the other. Can you guess which?
Over at the DM's Academy, they've compiled a fabulous list of dialog lines to put in the mouths of your NPCs. I'm certainly going to use a few of these!
The Alexandrian explains a method to spice up D&D fights, which he calls "clever combat." He includes a couple of excellent examples, though I'd like to see more.
Two goblins guard the cave entrance, and your rogue sneaks up to listen to their chatter. What do they hear? Konsumterra created 100 examples of dungeon guard gossip to answer this question.
Would you like a free 129-page supplement? Terror Unto Madness is a book of aberrations for D&D 5E!
Eldritch Fields shares six D&D forest encounters. He created these with his quick lair generator, a simple tool that produces surprisingly rich ideas. It is worth taking a closer look.
D&D Speak has created 100 travel montage events. These well-crafted mini-encounters will add color to your next journey.
Ingo ran over 300 sessions of D&D Fifth Edition and discovered 23 tips for speeding up combat.
Stephen notes that the terrain is an adversary. This post is the best write-up on D&D terrain usage I've seen.
Scroll for Initiative demonstrates how to use factions to make your monsters unique. I always encourage you to use factions in your D&D game.
Many of you already use Dungeon Scrawl to create your maps. Are you aware that it recently underwent a significant upgrade? Check it out!
In Describing Rather than Defining, Monte Cook explains a methodological shift in the early days of RPGs and its negative impact on scenario design. It's a very insightful article.
Gabe Rodriguez designed a 67-page 5E campaign guide called The Streets of New Capenna, and it's beautiful. This setting would be an excellent place for your players to explore as a change of pace. And, of course, the book is entirely free!