D&D General What is your favorite D&D material/products from a small publisher?

[Urriak Uruk]

Hello! Because I've gotten bored of the canon thread, I wanted to make something a little more positive!

One of my favorite things is seeing all of the entirely new material being made for TTRPGs today, especially material made by very small publishers. Now, I really like all the products made by WotC, Paizo, and Kobold Press as much as the next person. But it is also great to see material made by a much smaller company, sometimes only an individual, that seems entirely made as a labor of love.

So I wanted to ask; what is your favorite material made by a small publisher, regardless of edition (and even system neutral) for fantasy TTRPGs?

I'll start with this example; Hot Springs Island by Swordfish Islands!

It's a system-neutral hexcrawl detailing an island and all of its locations and denizens. I could go deeper, but this map speaks for itself!

Because it is system-neutral, the monsters and encounters are not given stats, but most of them can be found in your game's Monster Manual. There is also no level recommendation, so you can try and tailor the game to whatever you prefer.

I really like how this lineart reminds me of the old-school gaming style, but also has been made to look modern. And tables! I love tables!

So there's my recommendation, what's yours?

Note: Please refrain from promoting your own material. There are other places to do that, and I want the focus here to be to promote others material you like, not your own.

 

[Parmandur]

Aside from Kobold Press, my main third party source of 5E material has been Goodman Games. They have the officially licensed big reprints with WotC, but they also have a bunch of small modules of their own for 5E that are very nice.

 

[Ath-kethin]

My favorite overall has been Campaign Guide: Zakhara - Adventures in the Land of Fate, for two reasons.

One, it updates my favorite D&D world of all time, Al-Qadim, to 5e and directly addresses most of the problematic aspects of the original material, and

Two, I am the one who wrote and developed it.

Aside from that, I love the Primeval Thule Campaign Setting from Sasquatch, the 5e Talislanta: the Savage Land, and Green Ronin's The Lost Citadel.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

By virtue of the fact that I've been running a campaign set there for 15 years and in another campaign for almost as long, I'd have to say Monte Cook's Ptolus. I knew, when it was announced, that it might be the last setting book I'd ever need, as it scratched pretty much all of my itches.

Your mileage may vary, but Renaissance era civilization (including better-than-D&D-standard technology) falling back toward a dark age, a fleshed out and complicated faux medieval Catholic church, a reason for all the D&Disms, campaign material for everything from street-level gang war to tackling the secrets of the cosmos (you could seriously use 3E's Hordes of the Abyss as a supplement for Ptolus), Game of Thrones-level politics and more all work great for me. It's also got the benefit of having been Monte's own setting for multiple campaigns, so it has a much more lived in feel than many settings, which seem to mostly be designed to flesh out an outline, rather than having NPCs that are there because they showed up in a game one time and ended up taking on a life of their own. Now, when I have player characters show up in the Delvers Guild Library and Maproom, it's full of NPCs who are interesting in a way that feels like it evolved in play, because they almost certainly have.

Other contenders: Green Ronin's systemless Pirate's Guide to Freeport and Goodman Games' Dungeon Alphabet and Monster Alphabet have also gotten long use at my tables and are as worth as much to me, or more, than anything WotC has put out.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Does Adventure in Middle-Earth counts?
Or things D&D adjacent? If yes:

• Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures, from Flatland games
• Veins of the Earth (sadly mostly made for Lamentation of the Flame Princess...) and Deep Carbon Observatory are really fun if you like grunge-y D&D stuff.

 

[Shardstone]

I think its ill-form to plug my own stuff here But I do love Veins of the Earth tremendously, and its been very impactful on my own project creations. I also love the Midgard Campaign Setting, especially how its so supported. Darkplane (which isn't really able to be gotten easily these days) is a great psychic thriller early 20th century Fantasy world I also adore, and I quite like A Deadman's Guide to Dragongrin by Absolute Tabletop, which I think is the BEST dark fantasy setting for 5th Edition released so far.

A Deadman's Guide to Dragongrin

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Beyond the Wall is astonishingly good.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

Most everything from EN Publishing, not kidding. Their (huge) campaigns are marvelous pieces if work, and the smaller things are worth a look as well.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I’ve found Mike Shea’s creations to be very helpful. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master has some really excellent ideas to make prepping sessions very efficient. Ruins of the Grendelroot is a fun setting with easily transferable smaller adventures. I’ll likely invest in more from him.

 

[Dire Bare]

Hello! Because I've gotten bored of the canon thread, I wanted to make something a little more positive!

One of my favorite things is seeing all of the entirely new material being made for TTRPGs today, especially material made by very small publishers. Now, I really like all the products made by WotC, Paizo, and Kobold Press as much as the next person. But it is also great to see material made by a much smaller company, sometimes only an individual, that seems entirely made as a labor of love.

So I wanted to ask; what is your favorite material made by a small publisher, regardless of edition (and even system neutral) for fantasy TTRPGs?

I'll start with this example; Hot Springs Island by Swordfish Islands!

It's a system-neutral hexcrawl detailing an island and all of its locations and denizens. I could go deeper, but this map speaks for itself!

View attachment 141073

Because it is system-neutral, the monsters and encounters are not given stats, but most of them can be found in your game's Monster Manual. There is also no level recommendation, so you can try and tailor the game to whatever you prefer.

View attachment 141074

I really like how this lineart reminds me of the old-school gaming style, but also has been made to look modern. And tables! I love tables!

So there's my recommendation, what's yours?

Note: Please refrain from promoting your own material. There are other places to do that, and I want the focus here to be to promote others material you like, not your own.

Excellent thread, and excellent recommendation!