D&D General Recommend some good PDFs/products to me

[der_kluge]

I'm in the market for some good PDFs or products. But, what I'm looking for seems a bit elusive. I want... ideas. I want side quests. I want locations.

What I don't want: Crunch (don't need it; won't use it), campaign settings (already have one I like), a campaign (already built my own, TYVM). I'm looking for stuff to "fill in the blanks" in the my campaign. Side quests, mainly. They could be modules, too, I suppose, but my standards for those tend to be very, very high. I'm definitely more interested in sandbox style things versus real linear type modules.

I've been scouring DriveThruRPG, and just keep coming up short. I've found really, really generic "plot hook" type stuff, but it's so overly generic that I can't really use it.

What do people recommend? (Yes, I'm happy for publishers to come in here and pitch their products, too)
I'm just... not really seeing anything that's really applicable to what I'm looking for.

The old "Foul Locales" series from Mystic Eye Games is pretty good for this kind of thing. Penumbra had a series of books called "En Route" that were also kind of in the ballpark of what I'm looking for as well.

 

[Monayuris]

Here are some of the resources I've been using to help stock my hex crawl campaign. The overall theme is to look at products from other game systems (mostly OSR) and convert them to 5E. In my experience, I've found it trivial to convert.

Hex Crawl Chronicles. They are a series of hex crawl maps with keyed locations. The locations are very terse. Just a paragraph or two, but it is filled with adventure sites, settlements, and interesting locations that can be put on the map in your game. They are written for Pathfinder, but you can convert them over to 5E.

Populated Hexes series by Third Kingdom Games. Drivethrurpg or Patreon. The author puts out a series of stocked hexes. Written for Old School Essentials (B/X clone), but again stuff is pretty easy to convert to 5e.

One Page Dungeon Contest. Has a plethora of small dungeons and adventures. Quality varies and some are more art pieces than actual usable content, but I've found some very good ones that have been fun at the table.

Adventure Frameworks. A series of small modules that can be put into a campaign. Usually, run for $1-2 each. Written for the author's own RPG (Low Fantasy Gaming, which is in and of itself very cool), but it is closely compatible with 5E.

Trilemma Adventures has some very interesting locales designed to be thrown into a campaign. Very cool concepts.

It may be more than you're willing to invest, but you can look at some of the more modularly designed megadungeon products.

Stonehell dungeon is designed in a very modular fashion. It has each level split into themed quadrants. It is pretty easy to just break out each quadrant and just use it as a separate dungeon. It is written for Labyrinth Lord but can be converted to 5E.

Forbidden Caverns of Archaia is similar in that it is a collection of smaller dungeons that can be broken out and placed individually.

 

[Mercurius]

The Lairs series from Kobold might be useful. Book of Lairs, Creature Codex Lairs, Underworld Lairs, Eldritch Lairs, and upcoming Book of Lairs II. They're all tied to other Kobold products, though, in that you need Tome of Beats to use the first one, Creature Codex to use the second one. I believe Underworld is tangentially connected to Kingdom of Ghouls, as side quests. Not sure about Eldritch, but I'm sure you could easily swap in other monsters if you don't have the Kobold books (but you should, as they're excellent).

 

[TarionzCousin]

Have you seen Raging Swan Press' stuff? I recommend it for side quests, fluff, things to populate "empty" rooms or wilderness.

Here on DriveThruRPG: DriveThruRPG.com - Raging Swan Press - The Largest RPG Download Store!

 

[jayoungr]

I second the recommendation for Raging Swan. They're great for getting the imagination flowing, and they have a huge amount of system-neutral materials.

ENworld's own EN5ider magazine has lots of great snippets that can be dropped into a campaign: villages, villains, organizations.

Get more from EN5ider Magazine for D&D on Patreon

Monthly magazine of 5E supplements and adventures since 2016!

www.patreon.com

Also, here's a group of free products that might be of interest to you--they include interesting situations and quests/hooks, sometimes with location attached. And again, they're free!

So, a Cleric and a Vampire Walk into a Tavern - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

So, a Cleric and a Vampire Walk into a Tavern - A series of short encounters and story hooksthat may cause your partyto question the safety of their local tavern… Des

www.dmsguild.com

So, a Blind Woman and a Medusa Walk Along the Road… - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

So, a Blind Woman and a Medusa Walk Along the Road… - A treasure trove of short encounters, story hooks, and random tablesthat can make that long journey to the next adventur

www.dmsguild.com

So, a Wizard's Apprentice and a Demon Walk Into a Magic Shop… - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

So, a Wizard's Apprentice and a Demon Walk Into a Magic Shop… - A baker's dozen of short encounters and story hooksthat may cause your party to question their desire to go shopping…

www.dmsguild.com

 

[Morrus]

My current Kickstarter has five plug in settlements with NPCs, plot books, rumours, and stuff. Each is about 4-5 pages long.

Over the Next Hill: 5 Plug-In Settlements for your 5E Game

Five plug-in locations for your 5E game with maps, descriptions, plot hooks, rumors, and NPCs in a short softcover booklet!

www.kickstarter.com

 

[der_kluge]

My current Kickstarter has five plug in settlements with NPCs, plot books, rumours, and stuff. Each is about 4-5 pages long.

Over the Next Hill: 5 Plug-In Settlements for your 5E Game

Five plug-in locations for your 5E game with maps, descriptions, plot hooks, rumors, and NPCs in a short softcover booklet!

www.kickstarter.com

That actually looks really good. There will be a point in my campaign where the party might end up in some strange towns. Could definitely use these to fill in those gaps. Thanks!

 

[der_kluge]

Have you seen Raging Swan Press' stuff? I recommend it for side quests, fluff, things to populate "empty" rooms or wilderness.

Here on DriveThruRPG: DriveThruRPG.com - Raging Swan Press - The Largest RPG Download Store!

Will definitely check it out. And no, I hadn't heard of it, because DriveThruRPG's search features actually suck. lol
Thanks for the link.

 

[der_kluge]

The Lairs series from Kobold might be useful. Book of Lairs, Creature Codex Lairs, Underworld Lairs, Eldritch Lairs, and upcoming Book of Lairs II. They're all tied to other Kobold products, though, in that you need Tome of Beats to use the first one, Creature Codex to use the second one. I believe Underworld is tangentially connected to Kingdom of Ghouls, as side quests. Not sure about Eldritch, but I'm sure you could easily swap in other monsters if you don't have the Kobold books (but you should, as they're excellent).

I liked Creature Codex a lot more than Tome of Beasts, though I do own both. I wasn't aware of that series, but I do like that kind of stuff. I don't know how much of them I would ever use, but I guess that never stopped me from buying a product before.

 

[Voadam]

What's your preferred system? 5e?

My first thought was Foul Locales and En Route as being good themed ones, but you mentioned those at the end of your first post.

I was also a fan of the 3.0 Eden Odyssey short adventure collections, I did not end up using them but the Merithian ancient civilization in Wonders Out of Time with a couple themed side trek adventures to throw in next to a main plot really appealed to me.

I've read some of the Purple Swan ones for Pathfinder and found them decent little sites and elements.

I've read the 5e Book of Lairs from Kobold and they are a set of a lot of decent short adventures across a range of levels using an assortment of monsters from Tome of Beasts. I have not read Creature Codex Lairs, but if you prefer the Codex it has 9 short adventures based around monsters from there.

Tales of the Old Margreve is another Kobold short adventure collection, themed around a dark fairy tale-ish forest setting that has been translated into 5e from its earlier incarnations.