D&D 5E GM Improvisation Aids in 5e

[Psikerlord#]

I found Vornheim: The Complete City Kit, by Zak Smith, to be a highly useful improvisation toolkit for running the kind of city described in that book. Something similar, for a medieval city or town, would be really great.

Yes that book is quite amazing I think.

 

[bedir than]

A selection of legends that kids grow up hearing.

 

[Psikerlord#]

1. Useful random encounter tables, by environment. I really like the example "Sylvan Forest" table in the DMG, and would like to see a lot more like this, including variants for certain environments (e.g. Forest, Deep Forest, Cold Forest, Sylvan Forest, Haunted Forest...).

2. Battle maps, by environment. When the party gets into a scrap in the forest, I'd like to have a selection of forest maps in which to place the encounter. Not too many -- maybe 3-5 per environment. This would be a very expensive product, since quality map-making does not come cheap.

3. Big list of interesting traps, puzzles, hazards, and obstacles. I have a lot of trouble coming up with fun dungeon puzzles on the fly (and the best traps/hazards/etc. are actually puzzles). It's a huge problem for me because I love improv-style gaming, but I also love a good dungeon crawl, and I find the things that make dungeon crawls entertaining require a lot of forethought.

4. Are you familiar with any of the Savage Worlds Plot Point settings, with their "Savage Tales?" These are like mini-adventures, along the weight of, "You find a treasure map that leads to a crypt hidden in the bend of a river. Six wights, one of which is a leader with maximum hit points and a +2 longsword, guard a treasure containing 3,000 electrum pieces and 4,000 copper pieces." Actually some of the Savage Tales get much more elaborate than that, but usually not more than 2 pages or so. I like the Savage Tales because they are a bit more robust than a plot hook -- they don't just give you the start of a mini-adventure, they give you the whole thing -- but they are small enough that you can just drop them in where-ever you need them.

I can certainly do 1, 3 and 4. I suspect 2 is out of my price range, barring a kickstarter or similar.

 

[Psikerlord#]

A selection of legends that kids grow up hearing.

Definitely doable, perhaps tied in with religion?

 

[Blue]

Or social class, or race, or whatever.

Including lots of hooks and stuff. Nursery stories that include burning trolls with fire. Children's rhymes that include plot hooks or foreshadowing. Moon of Black/Elven wrack, Moon of Mud/Rivers of Blood.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A table of random downtime events, just little everyday medieval things to add atmosphere when nothing else is happening, like:

1 Die of Cholera
2 Die of Bubonic Plague
3 Die of Disentery
4 Die of Typhus
5 Die of Small Pox
6 Die of Pneumonia
7 Die of Botulism toxicity
8 Die of Septicemia
9 Die of complications related to Malnutrition
10 Die of exsanguination while being treated for one or more of the above
11 Die of drowning in the course of a trial for witchcraft
12 Die suddenly with no apparent cause.
etc...

 

[ammulder]

1 Die of Cholera
2 Die of Bubonic Plague
3 Die of Disentery
4 Die of Typhus
5 Die of Small Pox
6 Die of Pneumonia
7 Die of Botulism toxicity
8 Die of Septicemia
9 Die of complications related to Malnutrition
10 Die of exsanguination while being treated for one or more of the above
11 Die of drowning in the course of a trial for witchcraft
12 Die suddenly with no apparent cause.
etc...

I want to play in YOUR game. (Because, see, I'd get to try out a lot of different character concepts in a relatively short while...