D&D General Most helpful/useful product to help run sessions for a DM ?

[abazaba]

I was just wondering, but: what would be (to you) the quote/unquote 'best' product you came across from a DM perspective ? In the sense of making it easier or more helpful to you as a DM to run sessions.

For the specific product, perhaps it was the level of detail so you don't have to come up with as much for yourself, or perhaps it was light on details so you could fill things in on your own ? Was it the way the material was presented ? Was it an adventure or perhaps a source-book ? Was it the details and amount of maps or perhaps the vagueness of them so you could fill them in for yourself ? Was it a 'generic' DM guide like the D&D DMG or something similar ? Something else entirely ?

 

[Stormonu]

One that's really helped me of late is monster cards. Not having to have flip through a big book and just having the needed stats in front of me is a real help.

Another is a combat tracker - a place where I can have both the player's basic info (Name, class, AC, hp, damage, special notes/active spells or items), initiative and a place to track monster hp (if I'm not using dry erase markers on the cards themselves).

Beyond that, just a blank notepad/journal to keep track of game notes, NPCs, dates in game, etc. or the computer equivalent.

When I'm doing pregame prep (or sometimes at the table if the game takes an unexpected turn) books of random tables or one-shot items - locations, NPCs, villians, etc. are both fun and useful to fill in gaps as well as inspire encounters and adventures.

 

[abazaba]

One that's really helped me of late is monster cards. Not having to have flip through a big book and just having the needed stats in front of me is a real help.

Another is a combat tracker - a place where I can have both the player's basic info (Name, class, AC, hp, damage, special notes/active spells or items), initiative and a place to track monster hp (if I'm not using dry erase markers on the cards themselves).

Beyond that, just a blank notepad/journal to keep track of game notes, NPCs, dates in game, etc. or the computer equivalent.

When I'm doing pregame prep (or sometimes at the table if the game takes an unexpected turn) books of random tables or one-shot items - locations, NPCs, villians, etc. are both fun and useful to fill in gaps as well as inspire encounters and adventures.

Thanks! I had not even thought of things like that. Those all seem useful.

My mind immediately went to things like 'Eberron: Rising from the last War', as I think I have seen people online stating that for them it was a source book they could mine for ideas for years to come. Also (for reasons I can no longer remember) I think I had people mention the original 'Forgotten Realms Campaign Set' as well.

But perhaps that is not the important part here.

 

[overgeeked]

A few things.

Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. It's easily the best "unofficial" DM's guide out there. Don't let the name fool you. It's not about being lazy, it's about prepping smarter. Modular prep that you can drag and drop that centers the PCs and makes things infinitely easier on the referee.

Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying. Along similar lines, this one is about prepping smarter, not harder. The premise is simple. Instead of starting with your prep and trying to figure out how to hook the PCs in, start with the PCs and prep around their goals.

Forge of Foes / Monster Manual on a Business Card. These are amazing resources. I'm a big fan of just using the core numbers for monsters and improvising the rest. I don't need or want a massive tome of stat blocks, I just need to know about what the monster's AC and HP should be and how much damage an attack at that level should be. These are invaluable for that.

Dry erase index cards. Seriously. These things are a life saver. I used to burn through a few dozen index cards a session and got tired of wasting the paper so I looked around and found these. Same great functionality, zero waste.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Dry erase index cards. Seriously. These things are a life saver. I used to burn through a few dozen index cards a session and got tired of wasting the paper so I looked around and found these. Same great functionality, zero waste.

I didn’t know this existed. I’ll have to take a look. Any particular brand that you’d recommend?

 

[Coroc]

I never used this myself, but i read about people using a bunch of pregenerated NPCs detailed out to some degree, similar to the monster cards, so you can easily wing random stuff if e.g. the group decides to do a conversation with some local barkeeper or beggar.

 

[abazaba]

Thank you for all that. And although I never read 'Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master', I am aware of it. So it's good to hear someone recommend it. Perhaps you are already aware of it, but the author has a new book coming up called 'Rise of the Lazy GM'. Not intended as a replacement, but more of a side-by-side book if I understand correctly.

Announcing Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster!

For the past year I've been working on a new book. I've kept it somewhat quiet, only more recently showing chapters (and eventually the entire second draft of the book) to our fine Hero-tier Sly Flour...

slyflourish.com

 

[overgeeked]

I didn’t know this existed. I’ll have to take a look. Any particular brand that you’d recommend?

No. I don't know what brand I have. They're cheap, around $12 for most packs of 45-55, so if one brand sucks try another. Sorry.

 

[Coroc]

One that's really helped me of late is monster cards. Not having to have flip through a big book and just having the needed stats in front of me is a real help.

Another is a combat tracker - a place where I can have both the player's basic info (Name, class, AC, hp, damage, special notes/active spells or items), initiative and a place to track monster hp (if I'm not using dry erase markers on the cards themselves).

Beyond that, just a blank notepad/journal to keep track of game notes, NPCs, dates in game, etc. or the computer equivalent.

When I'm doing pregame prep (or sometimes at the table if the game takes an unexpected turn) books of random tables or one-shot items - locations, NPCs, villians, etc. are both fun and useful to fill in gaps as well as inspire encounters and adventures.

For my last D&D campaign i used some excel sheet with all the info for the mobs i intended to use. Mob name AC Armortype weaponry/damage, saves hp range etc. that helped a lot, you can create an encounters on the fly if needed e.g. 5 city guards HP 15-25 and a captain hp 40 just use an extra sheet, scrible down 15 18 19 20 24 40 and if they take damage use a checklist to x out their hp. Wvery other info is on your excel sheet.

 

[Stormonu]

One that's really helped me of late is monster cards. Not having to have flip through a big book and just having the needed stats in front of me is a real help.

Another is a combat tracker - a place where I can have both the player's basic info (Name, class, AC, hp, damage, special notes/active spells or items), initiative and a place to track monster hp (if I'm not using dry erase markers on the cards themselves).

Beyond that, just a blank notepad/journal to keep track of game notes, NPCs, dates in game, etc. or the computer equivalent.

When I'm doing pregame prep (or sometimes at the table if the game takes an unexpected turn) books of random tables or one-shot items - locations, NPCs, villians, etc. are both fun and useful to fill in gaps as well as inspire encounters and adventures.

Ah, sorry - I was thinking obviously more about at-table resources moreso than prep.

I like the original FR grey box set, but a lot of people seem to like the 3E book better. Both are excellent templates for setting up a vibrant campaign world, and for me the 1st ed is a more enjoyable read.

For 5E, I really like the Gamemastery series of books (Game Master's Book of...); they contain a lot of tables to build things on the fly and some of the later books in the series have excellent drop-in locations, NPCs and villains that are well-fleshed out.

I'm also a sucker for monster books, and the Monster Manual Expanded series is my go-to book (or at least my wife's go-to ). Lots of pre-5E monsters and advanced versions of existing monsters and very professionally put together.

A lot of my adventure design roots came from the old 1E & B/X adventures and disassembling those to put together my own stuff. However, I greatly enjoyed the Reincarnated series, especially "Into the Borderlands", "Isle of Dread" and "The Lost City" as not only did they reproduce the originals and convert these to 5E, but they got the authors to go into the design aspects of these adventures so you got insights into why they did what they did and point out some of the more interesting aspects of these adventures. Out of the three mentioned above I find I like "The Lost City" the most, because it isn't just a run-of-the-mill dungeon crawl, it's an investigation into the collapse of a whole society and interaction (and possibly rebuilding) while dealing with a powerful (but not world-ending) enemy force/organization.