DIY Magnetic "Shoes" for RPG Miniatures # Something simple today: I've been aware of the 'DM hack' of using plastic soda rings as cheap, impromptu condition markers for awhile, but recently I discovered that those rings are just about the perfect size to make a neat little addition to my DM toolkit: magboots for minis with 1" bases. But Why? # Two reasons, for me, anyway. Reason the first: I recently needed a way to place a mini on a vertical magnetic surface, as a player had Boots of Spider Climb and wanted to walk along a wall above some enemies. I used blue tack for this purpose, but it ke ..read more

Blades in the Dark introduced the notion of progress clocks which are a very concise, visual metaphor for just about any aspect of an RPG for which discernable and meaningful progress is important to track: alert level of the guards on duty, countdown to the villain's master plan taking effect, faction activity, steps to an evil ritual that must be thwarted... oh, and um, hours in a day, I suppose, if time is a critical factor. Let's explore some different ways to represent abstract progress at the table. Dice # Perhaps the simplest way to represent abstract progress is to use the equipment yo ..read more

From Module PDF to Printable Tokens, Automatically # When playing through tactical combat scenarios on a grid, I really enjoy having nice things to put down on the table. Often, that's print-and-paste terrain, sometimes with custom scatter and painted miniatures, but more often than not I use Mike Shea's Lazy Monster Tokens: circular creature tokens with round sticky magnets that work really well with my magnetic bases. They're a cinch to punch out and adhere to a magnet: boom! Instant, fairly cheap creature tokens. Well, except for curating the images, and figuring out how many of each one w ..read more

from Marco Bernardini's map, Elminster's Candlekeep Companion Candlekeep—bastion of knowledge and enlightenment in the Forgotten Realms—is my all-time favorite adventuring locale. It's like Hogwarts meets "The Name of the Rose". The famous library-fortress, sometimes called the Castle of Tomes, has captivated players and Dungeon Masters for decades. It oozes lore, and provides enough nooks and crannies, NPCs and quest objects, adventure, intrigue, and wildly imaginative, fantastic locations to spawn many a rich campaign. However, despite its allure and importance, there remains a noticeable g ..read more

I've recently discovered the Angry GM's Tension Pool mechanic, which is quite ingenious. You should go read that now if you've not seen it before. I'll wait. … To sum up: keep a ceramic, glass or metal cup or container handy in the center of the playing table where everyone can see it. Periodically toss a d6 into the cup, and watch as the noise magically ratchets up the tension. It's a great tool for sessions that are heavy on exploration and social encounters, to give the players a sense of the passing of time, and keep them guessing a bit about what sort of complication the dice will generat ..read more

Maybe you want travel in your Forgotten Realms campaign to seem a bit more "real". Maybe you're knee-deep in prep for your next session, and are wondering just where that bandit cave hideout should be placed relative to the major trade roads. Perhaps you're interested in adding some location-appropriate encounters to your next travel montage. Or care about increasing narrative immersion. Maybe you've gone so far as to present your players with a map of Faerun or the Sword Coast, and they now have reasonable questions. After all, the maps (particularly but not limited to the work of Mike Schley ..read more

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm a big fan of print-and-paste terrain tiles and battlemaps. Of course, being made of paper, they're essentially weightless. One thing that has always annoyed me about dungeon tiles is when the table inevitably gets bumped, they are prone to jostling around, toppling miniatures, and, well, it's not always been pretty. With paper terrain, this problem is amplified. I've seen folks solve for this in several ways: clever use of tabs, or clips, or even bobby pins, but in my mind, nothing really beats the ease-of-use, no-muss-no-fuss, rock solid stability of havin ..read more

Printable awards to give your players. All icon art licensed under CC. Generated via www.naturalcrit.com/badges/. The folks at NaturalCrit have a great little tool for generating Achievement Badges. I think this is a fun and probably underutilized way to give the emotions generated at the table a little spotlight, and to celebrate, commemorate, and commiserate those special moments. Isn't this what Inspiration is for? # D&D 5E has the Inspiration mechanic (PHB p143, DMG p240): the DM can use inspiration to reward good roleplay, clever player actions or quick thinking, or really anything t ..read more

It's been awhile since I've searched for 5E D&D pregenerated characters, so I was surprised when I stumbled across WoTC's pregen zipfiles. They've got 16 or so archetypal builds, each with a sheet for levels 1-10. That's a pretty handy assortment of sheets, but what surprised me was the layout: Statblocks?! # The first thing the eye is drawn to is the colored "monster statblock" in the top-right quadrant. Gone is the iconic "tax form" sheet with the 6 ability scores down the left-hand side. If you've literally ever used a character sheet, you know instantly the layout I'm referring to. I ..read more

I've been GMing at my local area game store lately, running Adventurer's League (AL) 5e games. If you've not done that before, you can think of it like a "pick up game" of D&D: essentially randomized players and GMs from week to week, with adventure content that may or may not have serial thru-lines. It's good fun, especially if you're not hung up on "The Story", and have the good fortune to have a bevy of experienced players in your local area. One of the challenges inherent in this kind of organized play is that, by design, none of the characters necessarily know each other at the table ..read more