I really love to use a book called “the monsters know what they’re doing” in prep because it really helps me understand the monster or monsters I am running
The lair book is the biggest help for me. I know some people look at the other two books and say everything in there is implicitly obvious. But I feel they were useful to me.
The author put a lot of advice online! Just google the name of the monster/stat block you'll be running, followed by "the monsters know", and you're likely to find an article by them about how to run that monster at the table 👍
Yeah, I ran by this philosophy from the simple "what's my motive?" when running monsters. I have had exactly one group and one prominent player who hated that I ran monsters by what they are. Now that I have the book, I point to it and let future groups know, I go by that.
I completely forgot about when I ran an Eberron campaign, I would make a pdf of the Sharn Inquisitive with different articles that also contained clues and plothooks. That was so fun! Really want to do something similar again
That's awesome! Yeah I did something similar a couple times for a homebrew online campaign. I definitely would like to try it again when my PCs are back in a city.
I always run D&D at someone else's house so I have to be very intentional with what I bring. The only stuff I bring are: dice, pencils, a pencil sharpener, blank printer paper, dry erase markers, a foldable dry erase mat, a set of cheap plastic chess pieces to use as minis, a knotted cord to measure distance, a deck of playing cards for initiative, and some notes.
Ahh location is another important detail. I wouldn't be bringing all these books if I ran at someone else's home! I love the image of the chess pieces and string for distance. Very creative!
I love weird dice. I found two d30s at a thrift store that have all the letters of the alphabet and 4 'wild spaces'. I have used them to name a few NPCs when I was stuck during my prep time with what a name should be. Just roll them, look at the letters it gets and start making mouth sounds of them until it morphs into a name. Obviously that can't really work in the middle of a game, but weird dice are always fun to collect. An other die I have that is weird is a green die that has what looks like various types of attacks. There is an archer on one side, a person shooting a magic or psychic blast, someone kicking, etc. I haven't really used it before, but I have considered rolling it with some d4s or d6s and making little enemy squads/camps. Like roll is and get like 3 archers, 2 mages, and 5 martial artists. Then just go and dig through statblocks to make them.
Awesome! Yeah, I found a bunch of these at once and have been on the lookout for weird dice ever since. I really like that idea for generating bandit parties or something
When my kiddos were super little my wife picked up some 'story dice' which are sets of 9 d6's with different symbols on them. Some are based more on weather, or settings, locations, people, or emotions etc. And when I am confronted with a situation that I am not anticipating as a DM and am not able to come up with a proper setting on the fly it is fun to roll a few dice to do the 'thinking' for me. Or for things like weather, I'll have whoever is on watch overnight roll it to see what the weather is like the next day. They were bought just as an education tool to help kids learn to express themselves better, or to learn how to tell basic stories, but we have gotten far more use out of them now that they are older than we ever did for what we bought them for!
Great video! My minimalist kit; -Dice; Standard + extra d6’s and 2d6 weather dice (similar to yours) I like to roll 2 and either combine the results, pick the single result that “works the best” or have the weather transition from one result to the other. -my DM’s Notebook (usually digest-sized w/ dot-grid) -wet erase markers, pen & pencil -a pouch of various colored glass “beads” (like marbles w/ a flat side) for monsters/NPC’s, in case we decide to use a grid for anything) -AJ Pickett’s Big Pockets Silicone Battle Mat (double sided Hex/square). Awesome mats and easily portable. AJ is preparing to launch a new Kickstarter for these! -a pouch of Hero Coins -a travel-size game of Mastermind. -iPad w/ relevant pdfs and the -Spells 5e app -often a small puzzle toy
I’ve been playing, mostly dming, for over thirty years, but I find your videos interesting. I like the fun bits you add to the game like the maps and npc handouts. Keep making the game fun.
Hey bob how i can get those weird dices ? i think they will help me to improve the decison making when i prepare the game session beacuse usaly i spend hours beacuse i cant decise what i want use 😅 so that really help me thx a great video as always❤ @@BobWorldBuilder
Depends a lot on what I'm running. If I am running an adventure by Goodman Games, all I need are: Adventure Module, dice, dice tray, a few relevant handouts, pencils, pen, highlighter, DCC rule book, DCC tables book, notebook, lego 1:1s for when theater of the mind won't cut it. If I am running WoTC module for 5e, I also have a laptop w tons of notes and statblocks in Microsoft Notes... takes way more prep and org time for WoTC stuff. MM, PM and DM Guide too. Although I always have the core rulebook and manuals next to me, it is rare that I actually use them during game play.
Probably the most-used tool in my toolkit is Maze Rats. Great for prep. Great for generating random stuff at the table. It's compact and almost endlessly useful!
Dry erase markers are the best addition to my GM kit (actually borrowed from a player who is a teacher and has them lying around). Theatre of the mind is great, I like to make things up on the fly so a set map breaks the flow a bit for me. Can add cover or anything as and when we like.
My GM toolkit is for both online and in-person as I run both. I run Shadowdark currently for both games, though the online was a convert from 5e so its like a 80% conversion to Shadowdark from 5e. The in person is 100% Shadowdark. What I have for each session is not actually too different. I can also fit everything for my in-person game in a small tote bag. 1. My personal notes which I write up in a Word document. It starts with a "little" recap of each session I write and read to my players. Then just the social standings between the different factions and the players for wherever they are and some personal notes for changes to a dungeon I am using or to parts of a module. I use old school modules as a base but build my own plot into them that fits my campaign world. So for online these are just open on my computer or I print off the couple of pages for in-person. Using the pages that mark changes to a module as book marks to the page I would need. 2. Dice of course and a dice tray and a DM screen. 3. A page with only the necessary information for any monsters that could pop up based on where the characters are at and what they will come across. 4. Map of the town and the local area I printed off from Staples that I made in Inkarnate. 5. Handouts for magic items, notes, important items, etc. 6. For in person only - A Chessex battlemap to draw out what the players are exploring. This is usually only a dungeon or could be a temple/inn if conflict breaks out. Minis are from the Pathfinder bestiery box and I will just use the stands if there are more than what it comes with for a specific monster. The minis all fit in a small ziploc bag. Any random monster will be something that makes sense with the area which I prep for so I don't need the whole box. 7. Some ambience music either played in the Roll20 playlist or on my phone through spotify.
Great video. I also like that you mentioned the difference between in-person and virtual. Another thing that also matters to me a lot is theater of the mind vs. physical minis and maps. You mentioned giving out weathered pages, and this is the stuff I love personally. I get bored of saying, "I attack the closest enemy" in mind-theater type play. I know everyone is different, but I know that I personally wouldn't have been able to pull off one of my favorite D&D fight moments if I couldn't see the distance between minis and realize that the fastest way to a flying enemy was a straight line running up gravestones and using every item/spell I had to boost my jump distance and height. I literally wouldn't have achieved those heights with theater of the mind. All of that is to say, I think theater of the mind versus minis is also an important distinction between different styles of running a game and would affect your toolkit.
Thanks for sharing! Roll tables are something I still need to get the hang of. Most important for my running campaign is probably Legendkeeper for everything from worldbuilding and character references to session notes and journals and agreed house rules and lines&veils. Of course a pen and paper for quick notes and rule references websites and usually tabletop audio and some spotify playlists for music. And then the rest varies greatly for in person or online and what session is ahead :)
My pleasure! I've heard good things about Legendkeeper, and I used to use tabletop audio allll the time. RUclips music playlists can be annoying because of the ads :P
DM / GM Kit videos might be my favourite thing to watch. Especially when you break down what you use, and how. It gets me thinking about what I can add/remove from my kit... and how to be more efficient!
My most useful tool is simply initiative trackers. Simple numbered cards that I got from one of the 5e starter set. It's really helpful to just hand them to the players (and the monsters I'm controlling) so that instead of figuring out who's next, I just shout whatever number is next and the player will start their turn
Very nice! That used to be a staple at my tables as well. During online play we got used to using automatic trackers, and now that we've gone back to in person, we mostly just go in order around the table!
I keep a simple spreadsheet up on my laptop for initiative tracking with a few columns for the character name, initiative roll, Remaining HP, status, status count (turns remaining), and encounter. This lets me pre-roll initiative and HP for all of the enemies and NPCs that I am prepping for, and I can easily add another few entries on the fly. When an encounter kicks off I can filter the list by the players and encounter, add the player rolls, and sort by initiative. If someone casts something that has an effect for 1 minute, then I can add 10 turns, and update as we roll through the sheet. As someone who is super forgetful about status effects, and doesn't deal with paper kipple behind the GM screen gracefully, this helps a ton! Especially if we have to take a break and have to come back to the encounter!
@@BobWorldBuilder my players still like to throw dice to figure out who's first. Only issue I found with initiative is when you have monsters appearing in the middle of the fight, because then we need to reshuffle the initative cards, so I just throw then a the end of the round
How cool that you and the Dungeon Professor came out with similar videos. I'm a very visual person so I like using miniatures and terrain in all my games. Lucky for me I don't have to kart them everywhere since I use my art study as a meeting place for our games.
Dungeon Tiles and dry erase markers (for when I play in person) are incredible. They come in 5x5 and 10x10 tiles. When you homebrew your dungeons like I do, just draw them with those tile sizes in mind and put doors on the edges of the tiles. That way, the players only see what they’ve explored so far and, when they open a new door, you just add the tile for that room to the table. 10/10 accessory; highly recommend.
I use a lot of Photoshop. Almost in everything, even in in-person games. But I think it's only because I have used Photoshop for 25+ y, and I am very comfortable with it.
For my GM kit I usually have a core rulebook of whatever game I'm running + the associated monster book that I'm using that day, a dry erase grid for combat, 4 sets of dice, a calculator, and a note pad for tracking hit points/note taking. As well as my prep notes and any specific monster figures that I know the party is going to fight. I used to think I needed piles of books and loads of ready to go note cards and minis but since I switched primarily to Pathfinder 2e I realized I only ever really used 2 books at a time anyway and only needed the bare essentials to run a fun game.
I was reading your humorous comment and wondered... Are there some criterias for the dices you like to use on a particular game ? ...or just presently... ?
Being able to show pictures of the major NPCs really helps the players think of them as actual people, and not just quest-dispensers or plot devices. If the adventure I'm running doesn't include them, I can usually find something appropriate online (one of the DMs I play with uses Picrew to generate all her NPC images). One trick I've used sometimes is to "cast" well-known actors in the various roles. They meet an elf noble, I hand them a picture of David Bowie. Goblin merchant? That's Danny DeVito, tinted green. Just by showing the picture, you've already established a memorable personality.
I am a travelling DM which makes a lot of stuff difficult, however it does build ingenuity. I use a military style backpack (i think 30/40 liters) containing: - a small drawer box with segments inside each drawer (like a toolbox). Each segment has a mini for the session. One drawer is for minis I might improve in/didn't plan. - DM screen, I use the dragonshield DM screen since it has blank space for a4 paper which can be easily placed plus a ridge at the top which lets you slide cards to the top. - Blank/Drawn cards, I use cards to mark initiative with the order being presented on top of the GM screen in card form, I also pre-prepare cards with art/ info I can put on top of the screen when relevant -Big book of battlemaps by "Loke", can be used for specific set pieces or using the first 2 pages for a generic blank slate to draw dungeons on. -A box with, pencils, whiteboard markers, and erasers for both. - dice sorted in a box similar to the mini box mentioned above. - Notebook - if the game is a pre-written then I bring the book too. I have pretty much stopped using the core books at all, since at this point I don't need to look much up, and it is easier to do so on the phone rather then flip through a book that takes table space. For stat blocks I pre print them and put them on the gm screen's inserts. My small notebook contains the prepped content, if there is prep.
Dry erase markers/surfaces are very helpful for the game. I have a whiteboard that is approximately a4 size and a battle mat with a hex grid on one side and a square grid on the other. Reusable, adaptable, improvisable. But the most important tool, be it online or in person, is something to take notes with.
In-person: to do prep I have a "DnD Utility" yt playlist with you, Ginny di, and jocat. It's public btw if anyone so chose. I have a tablet and my dice set of choice (my latest is a 3 sets I call peaches n cream. Yes I name my color coordinated dice sets). I have a white paper in a sheet protector with dry erase as a map and we TotM. And MOST IMPORTANTLY - a coffee cup with a "Dungeon Meowster" cat pic. =) Btw awesome video Bob! Always love to see other DM kits! Adding this to my all important playlist for sure!
My more "unique" things I always have at my table: - small bluetooth speaker, with atmospheric audio ready to go - a wood wick candle, trying to que up the smell to a location if possible - Booklight that clips to my DM screen - photo album. This one is new for my current group, but I print out 3x4 photos of NPCs to label and put in the album for the players
One of the things I find the most useful when playing is an initiative tracker I stole from some video on youtube : it's a bottle full of sand, with a stick where I can put wooden cloth pins with the names of my players and those of my monsters. When someone's turn is over, i switch the pin to the other side, so that I (and my players, but I'm mostly worried about my memory and attention span) always know who's turn it is. So much easier for me than keeping track with a written initiative order !
Hey Bob! Love your channel. I've been making my own ttrpg for some time now. I put your videos on in the background when I work on it. Keep up the good work! I have an RPG satchel I carry to my games when I GM in person. I have a few key rulebooks which I swap out depending on games, a handful of minis, some hand-made 1" square monster tokens, a set of dice, a roll-up grid map with dry-erase markers, pencils and a few other basic items. I might grab some of those dice for random weather, moods, and other misc. randomization. They seem like good tools.
OneNote has been a great tool in my belt. Just bring able to organize everything into sections, have links to other sections of the notebook. I typically take pictures/screenshot of the stat blocks, then I can just have everything I need on my laptop screen for reference. I also take session notes in it, but I only do that after the session. For during a session, I take physical notes. Not much actual typing happens during play.
I did not prefer online gaming during Covid lockdown, but I really became fond of digital maps. When we got back to in-person gaming, I built a digital tabletop out of some scrap wood and an old TV. I put on a carrying handle and a multicolor LED strip that I can turn red for combat. I really enjoy it.
I switch with another DM to run and play over roll20 for friends who are spread out, and I also DM in person for teens at the public library. (I'm the youth services person for the library.) Online, one of the most useful tools I now use every time is a google doc for notes for the party. Everyone has access, and each time we play we refine how we use it a bit. Party inventory, checklist of to-dos, major NPCs, and other notes. When I'm DM, I don't edit it except occasionally I correct spelling of a proper noun if the players didn't ask in session. But I do check it regularly, because it gives a very good idea of what the players are thinking and connections they make. In person, I provide dice to all the kids (some bring their own, but they're kids so they don't always remember) the core rulebooks and campaign book, DM screen, notebook and pencils. The more unique parts of my setup are: Table rules posted on the player side of the DM screen (again, I run for teenagers at a public library), goal notes to remind players about things they said they wanted to do, and sand timers. Nothing gets a group of kids more excited about a puzzle than suddenly putting a time limit on them. I also have a binder for each group where I keep all their character sheets. the kids do not bring their character sheets home.
My GM kit includes the core books from whatever game I'm running. If D&D it's the players handbook, DMG, and monster manual. Then I have the 3rd edition Arms and Equipment Guide, 3.5 Magic Item Compendium, and Pathfinder 1e Ultimate Equipment Guide. Some of my dice collection, pens, pencils, and a notebook or two, index cards, and sometimes a dedicated pencil eraser. Then I have miniatures or in most cases miniature replacements which are flat glass beads from the dollar store in various colors and two sizes small and large. Considering I usually need to travel to GM, that is actually a lot of things.
Hey Bob! Digital Table: PHYSICAL DICE! Rolling them is faster than typing /roll 2d6+6 or whatever, and honestly, even faster than finding and clicking a radio button. Also physical monster stats, so I don't have to flip tabs to find the monster stats or open a menu or whatever.
The one thing I use the most is my 12 year old iPad. I can have pdfs of all the rulebooks (tho they can load slow), and I make may scenario prep in iPad friendly sizes. It also has music for when I can use it (mostly game soundtracks), and I can stick images into pdfs for places and npcs. The most useful thing I did was compiling al the 5e spells from the various books into a single alphabetiicised document with useful bookmarks so I can quickly reference them.
my main planning tool was notion. i had all of my planning, worldbuilding and so on in there and the biggest thing about that was the linking back and forth. one time i sat down and made a database with every spell because the rulebooks are annoying to look up spells in and we don’t have wifi because we play in a garden hut. also convenient when i‘m playing a spellcaster because i can tag all of the spells i know. we are two people with aphantasia so we use maps and minis (aka grids and whatever dice we aren’t using in that moment) just so we can all be on the same page about what is going on. i wish i hadn’t just learned about rolling table books today, without ever having one i absolutely needed one and now i have stopped dming.
I've read a few people elsewhere say "you don't need a dice, use a table and regular dice" - and they're right. But still, there's something different for creativity if I'm not rolling d8 or d20 against a random table.
I have a small hand-held whiteboard I use a lot to track HP and showcase quick doodles for scenes when I run games, a bag of dice or two, and a home-made Initiative Tracker Stick to help me and my players keep track of the Initiative order. That was about what I had, aside from the books, when I last ran a game in person.
I play in person and I use a variety of books for prep, but in game my biggest help is binders, one with encounters and one with npc’s and name lists for cities. Whenever the party meets someone I write it down in my notes then put it into a document after the session because you never know who they will latch to. Whenever I’m bored I’ll make an npc or encounter and add it to the binder. I almost make main story encounters and plot points for the rare time they stay on track.
I sometimes use Kobold Fight Club to get a feel for the "balance" of an encounter (something I am generally loose on) but otherwise I am really in the pen and paper camp for most prep. I generally jot down ideas, things that might happen, encounters that might pop up. I like to keep it loose enough to be able to throw something in if the pace needs a jump or something like that. However, I get snowed in every winter and invariably will run some online games and use Dungeon Scrawl and Owlbear Rodeo for all that.
Dice. Mechanical pencil and notepad. Laptop with tabs open to google doc prep notes. Module I am running, and manila folder with handouts. Dry erase, gridded whiteboard. Party minis (detailed to character and painted), and Pathfinder Pawns (minis) for medium and smaller critters (or a larger mini I don't have) - this makes it easy to differentiate party members from enemies on the battle mat. Scatter terrain, and various patterned battle mats. PHB needs to be handy, but most of us own one.
Yeah I have a little tupperware tub of pens, pencils, dice, index cards, etc. Then a folder with extra blank printer paper, it also contains a few scene ideas for the session, a running log of what happened last session, a log list of NPCs as we meet them, and finally a random treasure table I often update with stuff my party would find interesting and useful plus some random fun stuff. I don't allow books at the table. We play super fast and loose, beer and pretzels style.
In my campaign, I started using parking clock to track the in-game time. Story of my world has predefined events, and sometimes, an hour of rest might cause that the NPC won't get saved. So, using the clock helps out a lot.
I also bought both CoS and ToA... but sadly my group only played a bit of CoS, and we no longer play 5e. My DM kit for our 5e time looked a lot like yours, I got to say! But now I only a small notebook, my dice set, some abstracted circular terrain (a la PDM) and minis.
Well were are enjoying ToA! If you're still playing a d20 fantasy system, it may be worth trying to convert it. And it sounds like you have great taste in DM tools! haha
@@trynda1701 Hello! I guess the system just ran is course for us, and for me particularly as a DM... to much subclasses and feats hehe and PC beign so powerful. I do have the Essentials Kit that I could run for time to time... but no Tasha's for me, to many options. We switched to minimalism & OSR (mainly Old School Essentials & White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Games, with some Shadowdark and a bit of Lamentations of the Flame Princess). The kind of genre we like is more low magic and Sword & Sorcery and less High Fantasy.
Notebook. Sometimes I print out a stat block or something and paste it in the notebook. Pencil, eraser, black pen, red pen. Dice. Occasionally I'll make a sketch of a monster or something, maybe a map.
My most used tools at the table: coffee, food and decoration. I know it sounds dumb, but for the in person experience that's the most important stuff to have. In my opinion at least.
I DM with players in the same room and I recently came across a home page that let me keep track of the damage / hit points of all my monsters. It’s such a relief to just be able to have it in my old iPad and keep it next to my DM screen. I also use it to keep track of the new Druid players conjured animals hit points so she can focus on the battles. Also you didn’t mention a DM screen. And atop of that I keep the initiative track by having player names on folded pieces of paper that have the names visible from both sides so we all can help each other out to keep the game flowing. I also have a dice tower and since I’m so bad at counting in my head I roll the damage out in the open and let my players help me count. To keep the flow going and immerse them more
I also have tiny different colored clothespins that I attach on the pieces of paper with the player names on my DM screen to mark different conditions (sure helps keeping track when they are concentrating on a spell). I also have the condition cards from the starter set that really helps players understand their situation and I have a lot of small jewels in different colors to also help mark conditions on the miniatures on the battle grid. Depending on what is appropriate and what is needed there could be a mixture of the methods displaying conditions. Since my wife and I are dice goblins we have a sack of dice sorted by type. So I can get a handful of dice and throw them all at the same time :)
As for miniatures I have some round tokens of hard paper that I got from the 3.0 starter set back in 2001. They do the job and it I want more appropriate tokens I can print using a sprocket printer or a regular one
Oh...this pinches my heartstrings...my original set of dice, given as a gift by my first group, went missing somehow during one of the many moves I made when I'd remarried. It was the early 80's and we were playing a homebrew that our GM created mixing Traveller with some other space game. The dice were really old school: I had to color in the numbers with an oil pastel. My group said it was part of the initiation. I had retired them because the points and sides were wearng down from use, and somehow they just went missing. I still have the pouch they came in tho.
Not mine specifically, but one of my friends gm'd a game I was in and they had a letter that was fully waxed and sealed like properly. It was an important item for the players to obtain. That's one of my favourite ttrpg moments EVER
This video is incredibly insightful and gives me a ton of organizing ideas! Personally, I've been using DonJon a lot, since most of my games take place online with most of them being one-shots. But that laminated grid with the blank on the other side is such a simple yet ingenious idea. You've quickly become one of my favourite D&D content creators alongside Baron from Dungeon Masterpiece. Thanks for all you do, Bob!
I love using the DCC tables for random loot/items/mishaps etc. Making magic items that act like the spells in DCc (without telling the players the full extent) is exciting. “The chaos fireball wand of wild magic” that doesn’t work the first 2 times you use it…only to have it burn half the town down all the sudden!
I like to be standing up during games, with the maps and other atmospheric content cast to the TV. Standing up keeps me in more of a performative mindset. I'm not crafty, but I like creating digital assets like maps, images, etc. So, my notes are in my computer on OneNote. I use Dungeon Alchemist for the majority of my maps along with easy to create short videos that I typically use to set up battles.
Dice, pencil, grid paper. That's pretty much my setup. I use to use a lot of cool terrain and minis. But, the more stuff I added, the more my game bogged down. So now I have a quick clean approach.
OneNote for world creation, game notes, player notes, notes, and literally anything the campaign needs. I will definitely try those weather dice though!!
Love the idea of having a whiteboard to sketch out the general lay of a battlefield. I hate how in-the-weeds the grid-based play can get where it discourages the players from doing anything cinematic. A whiteboard would be nice to just give the players the gist of everything's placement. What a great idea.
Hey Bob, great video as usual. It would be helpful if you could post some links to some of the specific items like your gridded sketch pad and such in the show description so people could track them down. Thanks for sharing!
Having done D&D & a few other ttrpgs back in the 70s and early 80s, I completely missed the whole digital aspect of it, so its cool to be reminded of the possibilities. I think I'd have loved having computer files instead of most of my notes (but not all; just love the feel and personalness of paper). I'd also have loved specialized die; think the closest I got was when each six-sidded dice was a different color. My go-to items were my old-school D6 (and later my D20 too), notepad and sketchbook (for showing a scene or item/being players couldn't picture or for makeshift paper figures when I was into that), and pencils. And once I phased into everything being set in some era of either the Marvel, DC or Charlton universes a shopping bag of comics for reference materials.
Dice that are attuned (2D10 one a different colour and in tens normal mix of dice 3 extra D6) several sharp pencils, a good smudge free eraser, a dice tower that doesn’t make too much noise.
I have a big dry erase grid that we put on the table in case I need to sketch an encounter, but mostly its just cool because it adds to the DnD feel at the table. I run nearly everything from my laptop because the encounter creator on Dnd beyond makes it way easier to track 5e combat, although ive started to move away from 5e and toward ICRPG.
Both in person and physical (I tend to hang a webcam over a physical battlemat): Loke Battemats, dry erase markers and Infinitokens dry erase tokens, dry erase board (tracking initiative, NPC HP etc), stack of business cards (for NPC name generation), a book of random tables (Loke)
Oh, most used is a Google Sheets document with tabs for Player/PC information and Session Notes. When I am running non-published campaigns I also have a tab for NPC information
I only DM in person right now. I’ve got a computer bag with the following: I’ve got a dice bag of the very first dice I ever bought (like 12 different colors of the standard seven dice), and maybe 3 or 4 more sets of the standard seven in two more containers. I also have two dice trays, one I let players use who don’t have their own. And obviously I let players without dice use some of mine. I’ve got spirals I bought for my campaigns. Right now I just put everything into the same book. But now that I’m running like four games a week and playing one, I might start buying a separate spiral per campaign. I’ve got chargers and batteries for both my iphone and ipad, both of which come to every game. I’ve got a separate scheduling book for my games that I keep in that bag. I’ve got lots of pencils and two pencil sharpeners. (I used to use only mechanical pencils, but I have a very heavy hand and the leads just end up slipping back into the body of the pencil).
The only tools I use are my dice, my laptop, and a homemade GM's screen. It's a four-panel screen with sheet protectors on both sides so I can insert whatever I want in each panel, useful information for me, or anything I want to display to my players on the other side.
I haven't done much, but I made a points tracker out of legos so it would be easier to keep track of sorcery and ki without constantly writing masses of data that do not need to be recorded. I don't anticipate needing to know how many points I had in the past. I only need to know what is currently available. I would probably use legos for a lot of things if I played in person. Miniatures is an obvious one, and you can get a square grid out of them if you need one
Buy yourself a white erase board. they're super useful for physical play DND. I use mine for just about everything from tracking HP, XP, loot to important notes to just joting down names i came up with on the fly (so i don't forget). they're light, cheap, reusable and generally fantastic. I've become a big fan of minimalistic DMing. so I've started transferring things to 3x5 cards. Monster stats are great to jot down onto them so you don't have to go flipping through a book, you just pull out the appropriate cards ahead of time and lay them out for when they're needed. You can use them for just about anything too; handing out magic item cards so they have the stats for them at their finger tips. i've writen out entire dungeons on 3x5 cards; where each room is it's own card; while one has a picture of the dungeon drawn and labeled on it. i have that NPC attitude dice too.
I've been running Pathfinder 2e for a while and use some of the following tools to make my games way easier to run. I'll start with stuff specific to PF2 before going on to more general items. Pathbuilder 2e is great for making characters PF2 Tools has a monster builder and an encounter tracker which makes my life so much easier at the table. Archives of Nethys is the best repository for all the rules of the game, it's search function is super powerful and great to use. Now, for the more general stuff: I like Dungeon Scrawl for sketching maps on my computer, I then pull those sketches into Clip Studio Paint to go fully detailed using free assets from Forgotten Adventures if it's an online game To build the dungeon layouts, I use the Cyclic Dungeon Generation PDF by Sersa Victory (it's free!) I use Notion to prep and take notes on sessions, using a modified form of the Lazy DM Guide as a reference I use FoundryVTT to run games online, in person I tend to use a very low-power laptop to pull up my notion notes Finally, I use Discord bots like Avrae and PF2ooler for easy dice-rolling and looking up certain items in my online games There are loads of tools out there as well for random dungeon generation, loot tables, etc. I don't tend to use those so often, but I like One Page Dungeon by watabou the best.
our round is online only (except once a year, when we meet at one players place) i had everyting in foundry but recently switched to obsidian because the searchign stuff is so much easier, adding new stuff is so much easier and even though its online i always have my amethyst dice right next to me, that my group bought me, to roll random decisions - always faster then to tipe /roll 1d20 or even just clicking a button. and i have a rolltable for weather and at the morning i let one player "roll for weather" for our "on site" sessions i love to use a A4 sheet of magnetic whiteboard and whiteboard fridge magnets in different colors - on the green ones i write the playernames and the red ones i write on the fly the "monster names" and use these magnets as a initiative order and i can also add hp to these magnets and erase/rewirte the hp for the monsters, when a monster dies i just remove them for the magnetic whiteboard
I play virtually so I have: Laptop with powerpoint for all maps and pics of setting, npcs and characters. Physical dice Dice tray. Drawing tablet that is wipeable. Monster manual. Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. Cup of tea
My main tools are OneNote for all of my planning and plotting, Kobold Fight Club for encounter "balance", Improved Initiative for initiative tracking, and mz4250 minis for enemies. I recently started using Bardify for ambience, but I often forget to keep that going mid-game. I also have a World Anvil world setup, but I dunno, I'm just not as big a fan of it I guess? Plus the WizKids Warlock dungeon tiles and pieces that my daughter likes setting up for our sessions.
I had a few books Id go to for ideas. The book of Vile Darkness, The Complete Book of Villians, From AEG a book just titles "Evil", and finally the Dragon Magazine with the special evil section. For handouts I was fond of tea staining some paper to make it look kinda old for found notes. You can also lift ideas from the White Wolf games. Their world of darkness evil books are pretty good.
Hey Bob, great video. Was wondering where you got that attitude dice with the faces? I think that would be great to add to my dm gear plus I also just find it neat idk.
I only do in person games. All my sets of dice are available, along with a DM screen, inspiration coins from Arcane Goods, UDT that I got inspiration from PDM, some dry erase maps, and minis. I have gotten crazy with Warlock Tiles but I am really digging having actual terrain now instead of just drawing out maps on the table every session.
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Awesome video as always!
I really love to use a book called “the monsters know what they’re doing” in prep because it really helps me understand the monster or monsters I am running
I second TMKWTD. Also, UTV!
Seconded, those books are fantastic to make monsters more "alive"
The lair book is the biggest help for me. I know some people look at the other two books and say everything in there is implicitly obvious. But I feel they were useful to me.
The author put a lot of advice online!
Just google the name of the monster/stat block you'll be running, followed by "the monsters know", and you're likely to find an article by them about how to run that monster at the table 👍
Yeah, I ran by this philosophy from the simple "what's my motive?" when running monsters. I have had exactly one group and one prominent player who hated that I ran monsters by what they are. Now that I have the book, I point to it and let future groups know, I go by that.
I don’t know if this is for anybody else but seeing a full filled out notebook is so satisfying.
I love that while there are videos showing other DM's kinda fancy log books, Bob's is a plain old spiral notebook.
I completely forgot about when I ran an Eberron campaign, I would make a pdf of the Sharn Inquisitive with different articles that also contained clues and plothooks. That was so fun! Really want to do something similar again
Dang this is a cool idea
That's awesome! Yeah I did something similar a couple times for a homebrew online campaign. I definitely would like to try it again when my PCs are back in a city.
I always run D&D at someone else's house so I have to be very intentional with what I bring. The only stuff I bring are: dice, pencils, a pencil sharpener, blank printer paper, dry erase markers, a foldable dry erase mat, a set of cheap plastic chess pieces to use as minis, a knotted cord to measure distance, a deck of playing cards for initiative, and some notes.
Ahh location is another important detail. I wouldn't be bringing all these books if I ran at someone else's home! I love the image of the chess pieces and string for distance. Very creative!
I love weird dice. I found two d30s at a thrift store that have all the letters of the alphabet and 4 'wild spaces'. I have used them to name a few NPCs when I was stuck during my prep time with what a name should be. Just roll them, look at the letters it gets and start making mouth sounds of them until it morphs into a name. Obviously that can't really work in the middle of a game, but weird dice are always fun to collect.
An other die I have that is weird is a green die that has what looks like various types of attacks. There is an archer on one side, a person shooting a magic or psychic blast, someone kicking, etc. I haven't really used it before, but I have considered rolling it with some d4s or d6s and making little enemy squads/camps. Like roll is and get like 3 archers, 2 mages, and 5 martial artists. Then just go and dig through statblocks to make them.
Awesome! Yeah, I found a bunch of these at once and have been on the lookout for weird dice ever since. I really like that idea for generating bandit parties or something
When my kiddos were super little my wife picked up some 'story dice' which are sets of 9 d6's with different symbols on them. Some are based more on weather, or settings, locations, people, or emotions etc. And when I am confronted with a situation that I am not anticipating as a DM and am not able to come up with a proper setting on the fly it is fun to roll a few dice to do the 'thinking' for me. Or for things like weather, I'll have whoever is on watch overnight roll it to see what the weather is like the next day.
They were bought just as an education tool to help kids learn to express themselves better, or to learn how to tell basic stories, but we have gotten far more use out of them now that they are older than we ever did for what we bought them for!
Great video!
My minimalist kit;
-Dice; Standard + extra d6’s and 2d6 weather dice (similar to yours) I like to roll 2 and either combine the results, pick the single result that “works the best” or have the weather transition from one result to the other.
-my DM’s Notebook (usually digest-sized w/ dot-grid)
-wet erase markers, pen & pencil
-a pouch of various colored glass “beads” (like marbles w/ a flat side) for monsters/NPC’s, in case we decide to use a grid for anything)
-AJ Pickett’s Big Pockets Silicone Battle Mat (double sided Hex/square). Awesome mats and easily portable. AJ is preparing to launch a new Kickstarter for these!
-a pouch of Hero Coins
-a travel-size game of Mastermind.
-iPad w/ relevant pdfs and the -Spells 5e app
-often a small puzzle toy
Excellent kit!
I’ve been playing, mostly dming, for over thirty years, but I find your videos interesting. I like the fun bits you add to the game like the maps and npc handouts. Keep making the game fun.
I really appreciate that! :)
The "unusual dice" is a great idea!
Yep! Who needs a table for random weather when it's right on the die? haha
Hey bob how i can get those weird dices ? i think they will help me to improve the decison making when i prepare the game session beacuse usaly i spend hours beacuse i cant decise what i want use 😅 so that really help me thx a great video as always❤ @@BobWorldBuilder
Depends a lot on what I'm running. If I am running an adventure by Goodman Games, all I need are: Adventure Module, dice, dice tray, a few relevant handouts, pencils, pen, highlighter, DCC rule book, DCC tables book, notebook, lego 1:1s for when theater of the mind won't cut it.
If I am running WoTC module for 5e, I also have a laptop w tons of notes and statblocks in Microsoft Notes... takes way more prep and org time for WoTC stuff. MM, PM and DM Guide too.
Although I always have the core rulebook and manuals next to me, it is rare that I actually use them during game play.
Great point! Different games are going to require different materials
Thanks for posting, sir! Love seeing how others have their table set up.
Glad you liked this! It was fun to make and I look forward to having this video as a record when my gear inevitably changes in the future
I always loved making weathered handouts for my Call of Cthulhu games. Its just very fun 😊
Yeah I think Call of Cthulhu is well suited for props because they can really contain clues to the ongoing mystery
Probably the most-used tool in my toolkit is Maze Rats. Great for prep. Great for generating random stuff at the table. It's compact and almost endlessly useful!
Dry erase markers are the best addition to my GM kit (actually borrowed from a player who is a teacher and has them lying around).
Theatre of the mind is great, I like to make things up on the fly so a set map breaks the flow a bit for me. Can add cover or anything as and when we like.
Yeah my friend got a few of these thin ones from work and I like them so much more than the blocky ones!
I’d love to see more creators put this kind of content out! Always fun and interesting to see
Glad you enjoyed it! :)
My GM toolkit is for both online and in-person as I run both. I run Shadowdark currently for both games, though the online was a convert from 5e so its like a 80% conversion to Shadowdark from 5e. The in person is 100% Shadowdark. What I have for each session is not actually too different. I can also fit everything for my in-person game in a small tote bag.
1. My personal notes which I write up in a Word document. It starts with a "little" recap of each session I write and read to my players. Then just the social standings between the different factions and the players for wherever they are and some personal notes for changes to a dungeon I am using or to parts of a module. I use old school modules as a base but build my own plot into them that fits my campaign world. So for online these are just open on my computer or I print off the couple of pages for in-person. Using the pages that mark changes to a module as book marks to the page I would need.
2. Dice of course and a dice tray and a DM screen.
3. A page with only the necessary information for any monsters that could pop up based on where the characters are at and what they will come across.
4. Map of the town and the local area I printed off from Staples that I made in Inkarnate.
5. Handouts for magic items, notes, important items, etc.
6. For in person only - A Chessex battlemap to draw out what the players are exploring. This is usually only a dungeon or could be a temple/inn if conflict breaks out. Minis are from the Pathfinder bestiery box and I will just use the stands if there are more than what it comes with for a specific monster. The minis all fit in a small ziploc bag. Any random monster will be something that makes sense with the area which I prep for so I don't need the whole box.
7. Some ambience music either played in the Roll20 playlist or on my phone through spotify.
Great video. I also like that you mentioned the difference between in-person and virtual. Another thing that also matters to me a lot is theater of the mind vs. physical minis and maps. You mentioned giving out weathered pages, and this is the stuff I love personally. I get bored of saying, "I attack the closest enemy" in mind-theater type play. I know everyone is different, but I know that I personally wouldn't have been able to pull off one of my favorite D&D fight moments if I couldn't see the distance between minis and realize that the fastest way to a flying enemy was a straight line running up gravestones and using every item/spell I had to boost my jump distance and height. I literally wouldn't have achieved those heights with theater of the mind.
All of that is to say, I think theater of the mind versus minis is also an important distinction between different styles of running a game and would affect your toolkit.
I use: Maze Rats, Perilous Wilds and some tables from Mythic GM Emulator 2.0. and ÜNE Npc Generator.
Nice! Maze Rats has a ton of useful tables
Thanks for sharing! Roll tables are something I still need to get the hang of.
Most important for my running campaign is probably Legendkeeper for everything from worldbuilding and character references to session notes and journals and agreed house rules and lines&veils.
Of course a pen and paper for quick notes and rule references websites and usually tabletop audio and some spotify playlists for music.
And then the rest varies greatly for in person or online and what session is ahead :)
My pleasure! I've heard good things about Legendkeeper, and I used to use tabletop audio allll the time. RUclips music playlists can be annoying because of the ads :P
Great behind the scenes, Bob. 👏🎲
DM / GM Kit videos might be my favourite thing to watch.
Especially when you break down what you use, and how.
It gets me thinking about what I can add/remove from my kit... and how to be more efficient!
Same!
Awesome! Glad you enjoyed this!
My most useful tool is simply initiative trackers. Simple numbered cards that I got from one of the 5e starter set. It's really helpful to just hand them to the players (and the monsters I'm controlling) so that instead of figuring out who's next, I just shout whatever number is next and the player will start their turn
Very nice! That used to be a staple at my tables as well. During online play we got used to using automatic trackers, and now that we've gone back to in person, we mostly just go in order around the table!
I keep a simple spreadsheet up on my laptop for initiative tracking with a few columns for the character name, initiative roll, Remaining HP, status, status count (turns remaining), and encounter.
This lets me pre-roll initiative and HP for all of the enemies and NPCs that I am prepping for, and I can easily add another few entries on the fly. When an encounter kicks off I can filter the list by the players and encounter, add the player rolls, and sort by initiative. If someone casts something that has an effect for 1 minute, then I can add 10 turns, and update as we roll through the sheet. As someone who is super forgetful about status effects, and doesn't deal with paper kipple behind the GM screen gracefully, this helps a ton! Especially if we have to take a break and have to come back to the encounter!
@@BobWorldBuilder my players still like to throw dice to figure out who's first. Only issue I found with initiative is when you have monsters appearing in the middle of the fight, because then we need to reshuffle the initative cards, so I just throw then a the end of the round
How cool that you and the Dungeon Professor came out with similar videos.
I'm a very visual person so I like using miniatures and terrain in all my games. Lucky for me I don't have to kart them everywhere since I use my art study as a meeting place for our games.
Dungeon Tiles and dry erase markers (for when I play in person) are incredible. They come in 5x5 and 10x10 tiles. When you homebrew your dungeons like I do, just draw them with those tile sizes in mind and put doors on the edges of the tiles. That way, the players only see what they’ve explored so far and, when they open a new door, you just add the tile for that room to the table. 10/10 accessory; highly recommend.
Nice!
Awesome video as always!
Glad you enjoyed!
I use a lot of Photoshop. Almost in everything, even in in-person games. But I think it's only because I have used Photoshop for 25+ y, and I am very comfortable with it.
Use what you know!
For my GM kit I usually have a core rulebook of whatever game I'm running + the associated monster book that I'm using that day, a dry erase grid for combat, 4 sets of dice, a calculator, and a note pad for tracking hit points/note taking. As well as my prep notes and any specific monster figures that I know the party is going to fight. I used to think I needed piles of books and loads of ready to go note cards and minis but since I switched primarily to Pathfinder 2e I realized I only ever really used 2 books at a time anyway and only needed the bare essentials to run a fun game.
Bob: I have like a dozen sets of dice!
Me: (looks at dice mountain) Yeah... I have... about... that many too...
Grace is building a mountain of dice, trust me haha
I was reading your humorous comment and wondered...
Are there some criterias for the dices you like to use on a particular game ? ...or just presently... ?
Being able to show pictures of the major NPCs really helps the players think of them as actual people, and not just quest-dispensers or plot devices. If the adventure I'm running doesn't include them, I can usually find something appropriate online (one of the DMs I play with uses Picrew to generate all her NPC images). One trick I've used sometimes is to "cast" well-known actors in the various roles. They meet an elf noble, I hand them a picture of David Bowie. Goblin merchant? That's Danny DeVito, tinted green. Just by showing the picture, you've already established a memorable personality.
That's a great tip! I'm going to have to try that out
I am a travelling DM which makes a lot of stuff difficult, however it does build ingenuity.
I use a military style backpack (i think 30/40 liters) containing:
- a small drawer box with segments inside each drawer (like a toolbox). Each segment has a mini for the session. One drawer is for minis I might improve in/didn't plan.
- DM screen, I use the dragonshield DM screen since it has blank space for a4 paper which can be easily placed plus a ridge at the top which lets you slide cards to the top.
- Blank/Drawn cards, I use cards to mark initiative with the order being presented on top of the GM screen in card form, I also pre-prepare cards with art/ info I can put on top of the screen when relevant
-Big book of battlemaps by "Loke", can be used for specific set pieces or using the first 2 pages for a generic blank slate to draw dungeons on.
-A box with, pencils, whiteboard markers, and erasers for both.
- dice sorted in a box similar to the mini box mentioned above.
- Notebook
- if the game is a pre-written then I bring the book too.
I have pretty much stopped using the core books at all, since at this point I don't need to look much up, and it is easier to do so on the phone rather then flip through a book that takes table space. For stat blocks I pre print them and put them on the gm screen's inserts. My small notebook contains the prepped content, if there is prep.
Dry erase markers/surfaces are very helpful for the game. I have a whiteboard that is approximately a4 size and a battle mat with a hex grid on one side and a square grid on the other. Reusable, adaptable, improvisable.
But the most important tool, be it online or in person, is something to take notes with.
Ahh hex grid white board is next level
In-person: to do prep I have a "DnD Utility" yt playlist with you, Ginny di, and jocat. It's public btw if anyone so chose. I have a tablet and my dice set of choice (my latest is a 3 sets I call peaches n cream. Yes I name my color coordinated dice sets). I have a white paper in a sheet protector with dry erase as a map and we TotM. And MOST IMPORTANTLY - a coffee cup with a "Dungeon Meowster" cat pic. =)
Btw awesome video Bob! Always love to see other DM kits! Adding this to my all important playlist for sure!
Thanks so much for sharing! :)
My more "unique" things I always have at my table:
- small bluetooth speaker, with atmospheric audio ready to go
- a wood wick candle, trying to que up the smell to a location if possible
- Booklight that clips to my DM screen
- photo album. This one is new for my current group, but I print out 3x4 photos of NPCs to label and put in the album for the players
One of the things I find the most useful when playing is an initiative tracker I stole from some video on youtube : it's a bottle full of sand, with a stick where I can put wooden cloth pins with the names of my players and those of my monsters. When someone's turn is over, i switch the pin to the other side, so that I (and my players, but I'm mostly worried about my memory and attention span) always know who's turn it is. So much easier for me than keeping track with a written initiative order !
Hey Bob! Love your channel. I've been making my own ttrpg for some time now. I put your videos on in the background when I work on it. Keep up the good work!
I have an RPG satchel I carry to my games when I GM in person. I have a few key rulebooks which I swap out depending on games, a handful of minis, some hand-made 1" square monster tokens, a set of dice, a roll-up grid map with dry-erase markers, pencils and a few other basic items.
I might grab some of those dice for random weather, moods, and other misc. randomization. They seem like good tools.
Thanks! That sounds like a trusty kit. The random dice are fun because they cut out the middle man of rolling on a table lol
OneNote has been a great tool in my belt. Just bring able to organize everything into sections, have links to other sections of the notebook. I typically take pictures/screenshot of the stat blocks, then I can just have everything I need on my laptop screen for reference. I also take session notes in it, but I only do that after the session. For during a session, I take physical notes. Not much actual typing happens during play.
I did not prefer online gaming during Covid lockdown, but I really became fond of digital maps. When we got back to in-person gaming, I built a digital tabletop out of some scrap wood and an old TV. I put on a carrying handle and a multicolor LED strip that I can turn red for combat. I really enjoy it.
I switch with another DM to run and play over roll20 for friends who are spread out, and I also DM in person for teens at the public library. (I'm the youth services person for the library.)
Online, one of the most useful tools I now use every time is a google doc for notes for the party. Everyone has access, and each time we play we refine how we use it a bit. Party inventory, checklist of to-dos, major NPCs, and other notes. When I'm DM, I don't edit it except occasionally I correct spelling of a proper noun if the players didn't ask in session. But I do check it regularly, because it gives a very good idea of what the players are thinking and connections they make.
In person, I provide dice to all the kids (some bring their own, but they're kids so they don't always remember) the core rulebooks and campaign book, DM screen, notebook and pencils. The more unique parts of my setup are: Table rules posted on the player side of the DM screen (again, I run for teenagers at a public library), goal notes to remind players about things they said they wanted to do, and sand timers. Nothing gets a group of kids more excited about a puzzle than suddenly putting a time limit on them. I also have a binder for each group where I keep all their character sheets. the kids do not bring their character sheets home.
It's great that your running games at your local library! Keep up the good work!!
My GM kit includes the core books from whatever game I'm running. If D&D it's the players handbook, DMG, and monster manual. Then I have the 3rd edition Arms and Equipment Guide, 3.5 Magic Item Compendium, and Pathfinder 1e Ultimate Equipment Guide. Some of my dice collection, pens, pencils, and a notebook or two, index cards, and sometimes a dedicated pencil eraser. Then I have miniatures or in most cases miniature replacements which are flat glass beads from the dollar store in various colors and two sizes small and large.
Considering I usually need to travel to GM, that is actually a lot of things.
Hey Bob! Digital Table: PHYSICAL DICE! Rolling them is faster than typing /roll 2d6+6 or whatever, and honestly, even faster than finding and clicking a radio button.
Also physical monster stats, so I don't have to flip tabs to find the monster stats or open a menu or whatever.
The one thing I use the most is my 12 year old iPad. I can have pdfs of all the rulebooks (tho they can load slow), and I make may scenario prep in iPad friendly sizes. It also has music for when I can use it (mostly game soundtracks), and I can stick images into pdfs for places and npcs.
The most useful thing I did was compiling al the 5e spells from the various books into a single alphabetiicised document with useful bookmarks so I can quickly reference them.
Dude, I feel you so hard on Curse of Strahd. Running that adventure really made a GM outta me (for better or worse) 😅
For random tables, I love my copy of Table Fables. It's a small paperback, but has much of what your big book has. I use it loads.
my main planning tool was notion. i had all of my planning, worldbuilding and so on in there and the biggest thing about that was the linking back and forth. one time i sat down and made a database with every spell because the rulebooks are annoying to look up spells in and we don’t have wifi because we play in a garden hut. also convenient when i‘m playing a spellcaster because i can tag all of the spells i know. we are two people with aphantasia so we use maps and minis (aka grids and whatever dice we aren’t using in that moment) just so we can all be on the same page about what is going on. i wish i hadn’t just learned about rolling table books today, without ever having one i absolutely needed one and now i have stopped dming.
Love all your content and this one is especially timely for me as I will be DM’ing my first game at the end of August.
Wooo! Good luck, and just remember to have fun!
I've read a few people elsewhere say "you don't need a dice, use a table and regular dice" - and they're right. But still, there's something different for creativity if I'm not rolling d8 or d20 against a random table.
I have a small hand-held whiteboard I use a lot to track HP and showcase quick doodles for scenes when I run games, a bag of dice or two, and a home-made Initiative Tracker Stick to help me and my players keep track of the Initiative order. That was about what I had, aside from the books, when I last ran a game in person.
I play in person and I use a variety of books for prep, but in game my biggest help is binders, one with encounters and one with npc’s and name lists for cities. Whenever the party meets someone I write it down in my notes then put it into a document after the session because you never know who they will latch to. Whenever I’m bored I’ll make an npc or encounter and add it to the binder. I almost make main story encounters and plot points for the rare time they stay on track.
For my in house game, my most used tool is index cards in 3 sizes: reg., large, & MINI! These come in handy for all sorts of things!!
I sometimes use Kobold Fight Club to get a feel for the "balance" of an encounter (something I am generally loose on) but otherwise I am really in the pen and paper camp for most prep. I generally jot down ideas, things that might happen, encounters that might pop up. I like to keep it loose enough to be able to throw something in if the pace needs a jump or something like that. However, I get snowed in every winter and invariably will run some online games and use Dungeon Scrawl and Owlbear Rodeo for all that.
I've used and loved each of those tools! Haven't used KFC in a long time, but Dungeon Scrawl and Owlbear are two staples when I run online
Dice. Mechanical pencil and notepad. Laptop with tabs open to google doc prep notes. Module I am running, and manila folder with handouts. Dry erase, gridded whiteboard. Party minis (detailed to character and painted), and Pathfinder Pawns (minis) for medium and smaller critters (or a larger mini I don't have) - this makes it easy to differentiate party members from enemies on the battle mat. Scatter terrain, and various patterned battle mats. PHB needs to be handy, but most of us own one.
I forgot one: I use a Amazon Fire tablet to display pictures to my players.
Yeah I have a little tupperware tub of pens, pencils, dice, index cards, etc. Then a folder with extra blank printer paper, it also contains a few scene ideas for the session, a running log of what happened last session, a log list of NPCs as we meet them, and finally a random treasure table I often update with stuff my party would find interesting and useful plus some random fun stuff.
I don't allow books at the table. We play super fast and loose, beer and pretzels style.
In my campaign, I started using parking clock to track the in-game time. Story of my world has predefined events, and sometimes, an hour of rest might cause that the NPC won't get saved. So, using the clock helps out a lot.
I also bought both CoS and ToA... but sadly my group only played a bit of CoS, and we no longer play 5e.
My DM kit for our 5e time looked a lot like yours, I got to say! But now I only a small notebook, my dice set, some abstracted circular terrain (a la PDM) and minis.
Well were are enjoying ToA! If you're still playing a d20 fantasy system, it may be worth trying to convert it. And it sounds like you have great taste in DM tools! haha
If you don't mind me asking, what changed your mind about playing 5e?
Plus, what system do you now use? 😊
@@trynda1701 Hello! I guess the system just ran is course for us, and for me particularly as a DM... to much subclasses and feats hehe and PC beign so powerful.
I do have the Essentials Kit that I could run for time to time... but no Tasha's for me, to many options.
We switched to minimalism & OSR (mainly Old School Essentials & White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Games, with some Shadowdark and a bit of Lamentations of the Flame Princess).
The kind of genre we like is more low magic and Sword & Sorcery and less High Fantasy.
Notebook. Sometimes I print out a stat block or something and paste it in the notebook. Pencil, eraser, black pen, red pen. Dice. Occasionally I'll make a sketch of a monster or something, maybe a map.
The first matching set of dice I ever bought where plain white dice with plain black numbers and I never looked back.
They work great.
My most used tools at the table: coffee, food and decoration. I know it sounds dumb, but for the in person experience that's the most important stuff to have. In my opinion at least.
Gotta set the mood! We've settled into having a snack session before we start.
I DM with players in the same room and I recently came across a home page that let me keep track of the damage / hit points of all my monsters. It’s such a relief to just be able to have it in my old iPad and keep it next to my DM screen. I also use it to keep track of the new Druid players conjured animals hit points so she can focus on the battles.
Also you didn’t mention a DM screen. And atop of that I keep the initiative track by having player names on folded pieces of paper that have the names visible from both sides so we all can help each other out to keep the game flowing. I also have a dice tower and since I’m so bad at counting in my head I roll the damage out in the open and let my players help me count. To keep the flow going and immerse them more
I also have tiny different colored clothespins that I attach on the pieces of paper with the player names on my DM screen to mark different conditions (sure helps keeping track when they are concentrating on a spell). I also have the condition cards from the starter set that really helps players understand their situation and I have a lot of small jewels in different colors to also help mark conditions on the miniatures on the battle grid. Depending on what is appropriate and what is needed there could be a mixture of the methods displaying conditions.
Since my wife and I are dice goblins we have a sack of dice sorted by type. So I can get a handful of dice and throw them all at the same time :)
As for miniatures I have some round tokens of hard paper that I got from the 3.0 starter set back in 2001. They do the job and it I want more appropriate tokens I can print using a sprocket printer or a regular one
Oh...this pinches my heartstrings...my original set of dice, given as a gift by my first group, went missing somehow during one of the many moves I made when I'd remarried. It was the early 80's and we were playing a homebrew that our GM created mixing Traveller with some other space game. The dice were really old school: I had to color in the numbers with an oil pastel. My group said it was part of the initiation. I had retired them because the points and sides were wearng down from use, and somehow they just went missing. I still have the pouch they came in tho.
Not mine specifically, but one of my friends gm'd a game I was in and they had a letter that was fully waxed and sealed like properly. It was an important item for the players to obtain. That's one of my favourite ttrpg moments EVER
This video is incredibly insightful and gives me a ton of organizing ideas! Personally, I've been using DonJon a lot, since most of my games take place online with most of them being one-shots. But that laminated grid with the blank on the other side is such a simple yet ingenious idea. You've quickly become one of my favourite D&D content creators alongside Baron from Dungeon Masterpiece. Thanks for all you do, Bob!
I love using the DCC tables for random loot/items/mishaps etc.
Making magic items that act like the spells in DCc (without telling the players the full extent) is exciting. “The chaos fireball wand of wild magic” that doesn’t work the first 2 times you use it…only to have it burn half the town down all the sudden!
I like to be standing up during games, with the maps and other atmospheric content cast to the TV. Standing up keeps me in more of a performative mindset. I'm not crafty, but I like creating digital assets like maps, images, etc. So, my notes are in my computer on OneNote. I use Dungeon Alchemist for the majority of my maps along with easy to create short videos that I typically use to set up battles.
Such a good reminder! I was doing that more at the start of our campaign, but now I usually have a book or two on my lap at any given time haha
Dice, pencil, grid paper. That's pretty much my setup. I use to use a lot of cool terrain and minis. But, the more stuff I added, the more my game bogged down. So now I have a quick clean approach.
OneNote for world creation, game notes, player notes, notes, and literally anything the campaign needs. I will definitely try those weather dice though!!
Love the idea of having a whiteboard to sketch out the general lay of a battlefield. I hate how in-the-weeds the grid-based play can get where it discourages the players from doing anything cinematic. A whiteboard would be nice to just give the players the gist of everything's placement. What a great idea.
Hey Bob, great video as usual. It would be helpful if you could post some links to some of the specific items like your gridded sketch pad and such in the show description so people could track them down. Thanks for sharing!
Keep up the great content!
Having done D&D & a few other ttrpgs back in the 70s and early 80s, I completely missed the whole digital aspect of it, so its cool to be reminded of the possibilities. I think I'd have loved having computer files instead of most of my notes (but not all; just love the feel and personalness of paper). I'd also have loved specialized die; think the closest I got was when each six-sidded dice was a different color. My go-to items were my old-school D6 (and later my D20 too), notepad and sketchbook (for showing a scene or item/being players couldn't picture or for makeshift paper figures when I was into that), and pencils. And once I phased into everything being set in some era of either the Marvel, DC or Charlton universes a shopping bag of comics for reference materials.
Love your work mate
Dice that are attuned (2D10 one a different colour and in tens normal mix of dice 3 extra D6) several sharp pencils, a good smudge free eraser, a dice tower that doesn’t make too much noise.
I have a big dry erase grid that we put on the table in case I need to sketch an encounter, but mostly its just cool because it adds to the DnD feel at the table. I run nearly everything from my laptop because the encounter creator on Dnd beyond makes it way easier to track 5e combat, although ive started to move away from 5e and toward ICRPG.
Both in person and physical (I tend to hang a webcam over a physical battlemat): Loke Battemats, dry erase markers and Infinitokens dry erase tokens, dry erase board (tracking initiative, NPC HP etc), stack of business cards (for NPC name generation), a book of random tables (Loke)
Oh, most used is a Google Sheets document with tabs for Player/PC information and Session Notes. When I am running non-published campaigns I also have a tab for NPC information
Your handwriting is fantastic!
Haha thank you, but I promise it's usually not xD Those first two pages were good because I was being very deliberate, but it devolved pretty quick
Single best "book o tables" I've got is Jason Sholtis' *The Dungeon Dozen*. Nothing frames a scene better than his whimsy
Bob, that book of random tables is definitely on my to-buy. I can use that for my DCC campaigns that I am running!
Well fortunately DCC has a ton of tables already! haha
I only DM in person right now. I’ve got a computer bag with the following:
I’ve got a dice bag of the very first dice I ever bought (like 12 different colors of the standard seven dice), and maybe 3 or 4 more sets of the standard seven in two more containers. I also have two dice trays, one I let players use who don’t have their own. And obviously I let players without dice use some of mine.
I’ve got spirals I bought for my campaigns. Right now I just put everything into the same book. But now that I’m running like four games a week and playing one, I might start buying a separate spiral per campaign.
I’ve got chargers and batteries for both my iphone and ipad, both of which come to every game.
I’ve got a separate scheduling book for my games that I keep in that bag.
I’ve got lots of pencils and two pencil sharpeners. (I used to use only mechanical pencils, but I have a very heavy hand and the leads just end up slipping back into the body of the pencil).
I really like this kind of videos :)
Sharing info between DMs is so useful
The only tools I use are my dice, my laptop, and a homemade GM's screen. It's a four-panel screen with sheet protectors on both sides so I can insert whatever I want in each panel, useful information for me, or anything I want to display to my players on the other side.
Where did you find those wonderful specialty dice! Was it a set? DCC tables alone are pure gold!
Digital - Fantasy Grounds and Dungeondraft. In person - AJ Picketts Silicon Battlemat
Great video as always bob, would love to see an in depth video on theatre of the mind and how you run combat!
I haven't done much, but I made a points tracker out of legos so it would be easier to keep track of sorcery and ki without constantly writing masses of data that do not need to be recorded. I don't anticipate needing to know how many points I had in the past. I only need to know what is currently available.
I would probably use legos for a lot of things if I played in person. Miniatures is an obvious one, and you can get a square grid out of them if you need one
In-person. Arkenforge and IR tracking for our minis. LOVE the program.
I like having the "big experience" if you will. The whole kit and kaboodle, which mostly stems from my love for the hobby crafting side of things.
Buy yourself a white erase board. they're super useful for physical play DND. I use mine for just about everything from tracking HP, XP, loot to important notes to just joting down names i came up with on the fly (so i don't forget). they're light, cheap, reusable and generally fantastic. I've become a big fan of minimalistic DMing. so I've started transferring things to 3x5 cards. Monster stats are great to jot down onto them so you don't have to go flipping through a book, you just pull out the appropriate cards ahead of time and lay them out for when they're needed. You can use them for just about anything too; handing out magic item cards so they have the stats for them at their finger tips. i've writen out entire dungeons on 3x5 cards; where each room is it's own card; while one has a picture of the dungeon drawn and labeled on it.
i have that NPC attitude dice too.
I've been running Pathfinder 2e for a while and use some of the following tools to make my games way easier to run. I'll start with stuff specific to PF2 before going on to more general items.
Pathbuilder 2e is great for making characters
PF2 Tools has a monster builder and an encounter tracker which makes my life so much easier at the table.
Archives of Nethys is the best repository for all the rules of the game, it's search function is super powerful and great to use.
Now, for the more general stuff:
I like Dungeon Scrawl for sketching maps on my computer, I then pull those sketches into Clip Studio Paint to go fully detailed using free assets from Forgotten Adventures if it's an online game
To build the dungeon layouts, I use the Cyclic Dungeon Generation PDF by Sersa Victory (it's free!)
I use Notion to prep and take notes on sessions, using a modified form of the Lazy DM Guide as a reference
I use FoundryVTT to run games online, in person I tend to use a very low-power laptop to pull up my notion notes
Finally, I use Discord bots like Avrae and PF2ooler for easy dice-rolling and looking up certain items in my online games
There are loads of tools out there as well for random dungeon generation, loot tables, etc. I don't tend to use those so often, but I like One Page Dungeon by watabou the best.
I pass out Deodorant and Listerine strips to my new players so I don't pass out myself.
Great video Bob! That weather die is awesome. And i love the book of random tables.
My most useful tool is Rakugo, a japanese theater comedy tradition which uses VERY limited props to great effect. Made my NPCs sooo much fun. :D
our round is online only (except once a year, when we meet at one players place) i had everyting in foundry but recently switched to obsidian because the searchign stuff is so much easier, adding new stuff is so much easier
and even though its online i always have my amethyst dice right next to me, that my group bought me, to roll random decisions - always faster then to tipe /roll 1d20 or even just clicking a button.
and i have a rolltable for weather and at the morning i let one player "roll for weather"
for our "on site" sessions i love to use a A4 sheet of magnetic whiteboard and whiteboard fridge magnets in different colors - on the green ones i write the playernames and the red ones i write on the fly the "monster names" and use these magnets as a initiative order and i can also add hp to these magnets and erase/rewirte the hp for the monsters, when a monster dies i just remove them for the magnetic whiteboard
Love these ideas. Thank you for this type of DnD content.
I play virtually so I have:
Laptop with powerpoint for all maps and pics of setting, npcs and characters.
Physical dice
Dice tray.
Drawing tablet that is wipeable.
Monster manual.
Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
Cup of tea
My main tools are OneNote for all of my planning and plotting, Kobold Fight Club for encounter "balance", Improved Initiative for initiative tracking, and mz4250 minis for enemies. I recently started using Bardify for ambience, but I often forget to keep that going mid-game. I also have a World Anvil world setup, but I dunno, I'm just not as big a fan of it I guess? Plus the WizKids Warlock dungeon tiles and pieces that my daughter likes setting up for our sessions.
The Monster Overhaul is also great for RPing monsters, especially outside of combat
I had a few books Id go to for ideas. The book of Vile Darkness, The Complete Book of Villians, From AEG a book just titles "Evil", and finally the Dragon Magazine with the special evil section.
For handouts I was fond of tea staining some paper to make it look kinda old for found notes.
You can also lift ideas from the White Wolf games. Their world of darkness evil books are pretty good.
Hey Bob, great video. Was wondering where you got that attitude dice with the faces? I think that would be great to add to my dm gear plus I also just find it neat idk.
Thank you! I'm pretty sure that and the rest of the weird ones came from Chessex's own website, but it was a while back, so I'm not certain.
I only do in person games. All my sets of dice are available, along with a DM screen, inspiration coins from Arcane Goods, UDT that I got inspiration from PDM, some dry erase maps, and minis. I have gotten crazy with Warlock Tiles but I am really digging having actual terrain now instead of just drawing out maps on the table every session.
Thanks for sharing gear and techniques. I really appreciate these. Love the content on this channel 👍🏻