The best prop I ever did - I made a simple box shaped clay pot and embedded a real key inside a hollow space. The sides of the pot had weird lines on them in the patterns - the players had to dip the box in ink and hand print onto paper and when arranged properly formed a map and a word. One of them kept mentioning that it rattled a little bit but kept dismissing it as a broken piece or an artefact from my amateur (at best) pottery skills. When they realised they needed a key and were told that they already had it and had from the start, the look of realisation was priceless. They asked several times if I was sure it was ok to break it - revealing the key.
Something you didn't mention about the Box of Doom (which wouldn't matter to a home game, to be fair) is that it has its own camera angle. Box of doom rolls are pretty much the only dice rolls that the audience actually get to directly see the result of, which adds to the narrative weight of that roll.
oh, and we play nowadays with a tv embedded into a table top for maps etc with some terrain on - but whenever they roleplay around the camp fire, I kill the lights and bring up a youtube video of a camp fire and we literally sit round the fire.
I use the "Ultimate RPG Campfire card deck" every time my players do a travel from one location to another...to get the characters develop more of a back story and do more conversations at the table.
We have had fun making "spiritual weapon" minis for our clerics. A clear plastic fork tine glued to whatever weapon then attached to a base makes for a floating visual. One of our cleric's spiritual weapons took the form of a rolled up newspaper. The look on his face was priceless when we brought the "weapon" out.😁
I'm DMing this campaign in Al Qadim. One of my players rolled (no joke) 4 consecutive natural ones on Perception checks. As a joke, he said he would get is eyesight checked when he got to town and he did. Well, I got this hieroglyphs eyesight test printed and hooked to the wall. The table rolled laughing.
While many of these props are awesome, they're also expensive. So here are some budget suggestions that have worked for me. For mini's I use chess sets, this gives you a good variety of visually diverse pieces of varying importance. Dinosaur/animal toys are also great for monsters. Rather than a full dice tower it's often easier to set aside a particularly significant pair of dice for people to roll. If you have oversized or highly decorated dice they're great for this. Finally for dry erase mats I've found it useful to have a half dozen laminated sheets of grid marked A3 paper. They work with dry erase so you can draw or erase and change the environment at will. You can also shift them around and move in pre drawn structures easily. Oh and the rings for bottle caps work well for condition markers.
I used a wet erase battlematt a lot when we played in person (before covid and moving away etc). It's a really great tool, especially because you can mark everybodies position if you use minis and roll up the matt after playing and store it, if you have to clean up the table after play or something like that, and then roll it out agin at the next session.
I'm sure you already know this but for people that don't, that collaborative map things is iconic of a style of game called a West Marches campaign! they can be SO much fun but deffo hard to pull off.
I just found your channel this evening and I've recently been looking at getting into DnD. I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers. Your content is clear and concise with some hunor mixed in which isn't forced/fake. Easily earned my sub. 🤠
One props that i use every week in my sessions that i havent seen anywhere in vids is hp/mana/gold tracker wheel for players. Those are soooo usefull. Erasing pencil on the paper always cause ripping at some point. This prop is gold and very usefull. Probably my fav by far
To add something that I think PLAYERS should consider - a small laminated/sticky-back plastic initiative tracker, and bring a dry-erase marker with a cloth to wipe it down. I used a bookmark sized tracker that came with a pencil set our DM got us all for a Christmas gift and some sticky-back plastic I had at home for covering sketchbooks (which actually could be used to make DIY dry-erase grids on the cheap ;D). I take initiative from players as we roll (and decide if we're using the 2024 alert feature lol), whilst the DM rolls for the enemies, and HAND IT to the DM so he can add us to his list, then take it back. It's SO fast and easy. And I can then add in the enemies as they appear and then prop it up for the players to reference. Extremely cheap and reusable! Gonna add my 2 cents with the knowledge that everything in this video is optional (also - i love that in this video the most pricey options have the lowest cost alternatives listed right next to them - fantastic editing choice to have the wet-erase next to the dungeon tiles. It's not often videos about this sort of thing feel like the pros and cons and shortcuts are weighed up without it feeling like an Ad To Buy Everything, you do a great job at showing why something might be useful if you like a certain kind of storytelling. Although I will argue that the putty you have is whitetac, it's only blutac when it's blue ;D). I've only just started my DM journey and I've only really begun my "player journey" in the last year and a half but sometimes newer "I'm just happy to be here" perspectives can be useful for cutting down high-expectations? Also! I can already feel how much Players engaging with imagination vs the DM having to do a summer hols craft project every session matters lmao. So! The AOE measures and condition rings (and the wet erase map, though we also use map books to make quick street/room battlemaps when needed) are SO SO useful for the games I was a player in that it was the first thing I checked out on the VTT i decided to use when DMing for online friends. Condition rings in particular are so useful when you have a lot of status effects pinging about and at least one person at the table is still getting to grips with things (....me!! Playing my first spell caster (cleric) and SEEING my spell/channel divinity effects on the enemies really helped with remembering to roll concentration checks and remember which undead were Running). There's so much nuance between certain similar-sounding conditions that having a tracker with the specific Term written on them really helps speed things up - especially when planning a turn ahead of time. Terrain pieces are extremely cool from a player POV but I feel like they'd be extremely stressful for a DM unless you had a bucketload of storage and money to drop on them and a lot of experience to draw on when it came to pre-building battles. They're definitely something to manage your expectations about AS PLAYERS and not stress about as DMs. The best thing a DM can do is free - describe, and add extra senses other than visuals; and the best thing a player can do is ask questions! It can make a space feel super real even if it's just a grid with some wobbly "straight walls" drawn on - especially when re-described during combat turns. No doubt experienced DMs know this but as a newer DM I have to keep reminding myself it's not about flash, it's about drawing a player in. I DO love the prop suggestion though. Getting handing a letter or puzzle a DM had written out previously, even if it's a scruffy note on normal paper? Feels great. Love the idea of creating a hometown and the collab world building! The only thing I found I needed to get invested in my character and the other PCs is a CONSISTENT mini, not necessarily one that looks exactly like them. Maybe it's the frugal "I can draw that" part of me though! I don't also mind so much about the mini of an enemy if the DM has described it well. I think cardboard minis with size-appropriate bases are the way to go for DMs who want that variety without breaking the bank (or their cupboards) with plastic minis. They slip nicely into sectioned plastic wallets. I'm shocked to hear a lot of DMs use just laptops. A DM screen seems like a no brainer for IRL play. You can fit so much behind there - including a laptop if you need one. As a player I like the mystique of hidden roles and my DM hiding their reference book behind the screen, I feel like it lets them keep more things open and thus keep play flowing smoothly too!
Also at least from a private VTT perspective I knew what I wanted to look for for out of combat sections of game play - concept art and designs. I am NOT into GenAI and feel kinda Eh when DMs use it (knowing how much stolen art they draw on and how much energy every image uses? not into that) but for private games there's a shit load of inspiring, human made stuff out there. Art Station has a lot of incredible concept artists who share their portfolios and you can use those for mood setting if you don't want to use a top-down map during social scenes. Would recommend you keep the artist name/link to the image you use somewhere and NEVER use stuff like that for a public commercial game without explicit permission but! If it's not perfect you can include that as part of the Session 0 spiel.
Another tip is to get a load of generic minis that can be used for a crowd or hoard of something. They can be something small and generic that can be stored in a small container (my GM reuses the containers that hold the flavored warter pouches for minis per campaign and other things). Something like meeples or small toys you can get from the dollar store or in bulk like army men. Sometimes the absurdity of the imagery of the generic tokens also is a riot. We were playing Savage Tide (think King Kong’s island of giant animals) and we were escaping a giant anthill. After we reached a safe place, we watched as the ants were tearing apart a dinosaur. But, with no ant minis, my dm used a bunch of pink flamingo tokens. So we were treated to the sight of a triceratops figurine being devoured by a swarm of flamingos. Honestly a priceless moment for me.
If you don't have much money but do have a printer (or are good at drawing I guess), paper minis are the way to go. First time I played in person with my friends (it was a one shot) I surprised them with paper minis and they were so delighted they asked to keep them. Some paper, maybe a little cardboard, and a bottle cap at the bottom to make it sturdy and easy to move around on the map and you're good to go. They're very versatile and cheap and a great way to reuse any cardboard or bottlecaps you've got lying around. A wet erase map like you said is also super useful! Definitely important for my games. And I do love a good physical prop. It's so much fun to write letters and things to hand out to players. I remember for that one shot I handed all my players a sealed recruitment letter a few days before we were scheduled to play, and then during the game (it was a murder mystery) I handed them physical letters that were clues. Such a simple, basic thing but a physical sheet of paper can go a long way to making the situation feel real.
I like that Matt originally just used plastic bottle rings instead of fancy ones. Also I just use modeling clay to make my own cheap minis. I let players make their own as well if they want
For the minis in my campaigns I have a box of wooden peg people that are 4 sizes and the creature token box. The wooden pegs have numbers on them and they are colored red and black so I can have more than one turn in initiative.
So glad I decided to watch this, last night I kept thinking about how I would love to see Matthew Lillard and anyone else that played/voiced Shaggy would all play dnd together. Not at least I can watch Matthew play
There are some players who will thrive in a verbal rich, theatre of the mind game, and I imagine most players would do okay with it. However, a visual representation of what is being described helps so many players understand the GMs vision, even if it's little more than a sketch on a fast food restaurant napkin. You don't need fancy equipment for D&D, but it would be fun to improvise a game with a kids meal. You can have french fry minions. McD's has sonic the hedgehog minis right now, excellent BBEG. Will the Chicken Nuggets be successful at rescuing the soda from the evil hedgehog overlord? Only time will tell.
Yo, the map idea is one I used years and years ago! When I was around 15, my DnD circle started turning into plural circles, but I couldn't run 1st or 2.5e like I had learned on, so I created my very first world and learned 3.5e and let all my players create their hometown along with their backstory and I even allowed them to edit small amounts of terrain around them to fit certain things like "I remember climbing this tree as a young lad" type stuff. They all loved it, and we played more than one campaign there, so my master map had all their previous characters' hometowns while they were adding new ones. They loved it until I couldn't spit out good ideas as fast as they wanted lol
Wet erase mats are my most valuable tool. I essentially learned DnD on those mats and picked up a lot of tips that helped me move over to digital table tops with ease. Since I like to run modules, if there is a location players want to go that the module did not provide, I can just whip together a map real quick. One homebrew module I run uses randomly generated rooms where I test out encounters, traps, and puzzles. That module almost lives and dies on dry erase and drawing tools since making or lugging around loads of premade maps or tiles would be impractical for it for me.
One thing I got from the channel Tabletopnotch was blatant mini games. Solving a maze while blindfolded. Playing an actual card game within your game. Word jumbles. The Headbands game with DnD monsters. Fun ways they've used props to get players roleplaying beyond the character sheet. It reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy VII mini games.
My best prop was a map fragment that hinted at the location of a very secret door in the dungeon. I used fancy rag paper, drew the map and the writing with a fountain pen, and burned the edges to make it look authentic. The writing was home-made runes, which looked ancient and resulted in a simple substitution cipher that, I hoped, would take them a while to break. The computer-geek player cracked it in three minutes.
For the sticky putty, that's not always a good option if you're using a lot of handmade terrain. It can leave pieces on it or do damage to the terrain such as with flocking/static grass. One thing that I've seen for several DM's with things that seem to pop up in a lot of things for pros are the small whiteboards...especially if they're using the eraseable gridmaps since they work keeping track of things in the short term such as various passive scores that might come into it or various specifics for the adventure that might be needed, along with stuff like damage or effects the players wouldn't know about.
I have a Screen in my tabletop to display maps. Love it. But there is also a sheet plexiglass over it so that I can display a “wet erase” map on the screen and still draw in my own maps or anything else. It’s almost the best of both worlds. I also have an Initiative track for each character/ monster that everyone can see. I place Condition rings on that to keep clutter off the map but this way they still serve the same purpose.
If you make a red, orange, and yellow pompom our of yarn the brush it with a cheap wire pet brush, it makes an amazing fireball.❤ You can also do something similar to make a wall of fire.
I actually put all my lore and notes into a chat gpt instance, that way I can ask it about the blacksmith that the players talked to 6 months ago and it answers with everything I need to play that NPC. way easier than searching through notes and keeps the game flowing.
Ive used minis from various board games as minis, numbered dice for enemies, made my own spell cards back in 3.5, get creative. So long as your player are there to play and have fun it'll work. I had a DM give me XP because he wanted a cart prop so while my character wasnt there I got bored and improvised one out of 3x5 card stock/ tape/ and my swiss army knife, kept me from being a distraction and made a prop for him. he still has it i think...
In the Star Wars campaign I'm running, I picked up a model solar system, and created a model of the system my game takes place in, complete with asteroid belt and other neat little tweaks. It makes for a fun visual to bring out when my players are travelling from planet to planet.
Great tips. What to use but also how to use them! I also use parchment I make myself, and of course a feather to write riddles and puzzles. And it's not combat related. The faces when I take one of those from behind my screen... Try it! (Or print a nice writing and then, dip it in coffee)
Great video! I love using all of the above in your video. If there are any artistic players at your table, or one that owns a 3d printer, then you can engage them to help you world build. I have a player that helps make terrain and simpler items like "wanted" posters, flyers, maps, etc. My biggest issue now is transporting it all as I am a mobile DM and storing it at home. Future video?
Re: The monitor in the table top, I recently started a new campaign and one of the players has a projector we use for basically the same function. Lower the lights a little bit and use a section of White Board and it's awesome.
In a campaign now where the DM had me come up w/the name of my hometown and added it to the pre-existing world map. Haven't made it back there as we've had no reason to (nor does my character want to go back) but I do hope we get there eventually. Not a huge thing but it definitely helps provide a stake in the world. Other thing he suggested we do is keep journals as our characters and I highly recommend anyone playing do that. Doing so has helped flesh out my character in numerous ways that I hadn't even thought about when I came up w/the idea for them. Its been almost as much fun writing these entries as it has actually playing my character.
of course you brought out the one mini i recently fought that was terrifying my party, we went to pick a single stupid flower and get into a boat battle with a froghemoth elder, we barely got away, we didn't win, but we did get the flower; stupid flower
Hmm. Mentions the video tabletop, but not Roll20 and similar virtual tabletops, which pretty much handles a lot of the battlemaps and minis things featured here?
Digital tabletop simulators already fixed most of those issues and also fixes many others. My DM got spell cards thinking it would help, but I never used them (tablet/phone searching is faster/easier), and when 1 of the players did finally use the cards it slowed everything down till they stopped after realizing the point I already made. Going digital is also much less time/money consuming for the DM. You never mention the potions I saw mercer use once that are bottles filled with colored glue which have dice in them (wait till the colored glue dries before adding the dice). Those would make the game faster/better, since all you have to do to roll healing potions is uncork the bottle and dump the dice out (the fact that they are easy/cheap to make at home is a bonus).
I'm drafting a game table, based off of extruded aluminium/aluminium and laminate planks and neoprene tiles, early days yet and will probably prototype it using off cuts to test out the concept
Print Outs are very practical as well. Super cheap, easy to make and you can write little numbers or letters on them. So there is literally a Zombie 1 and a Skelli 5. Very easy to keep track of HP or Initative. And if they get shredded by toddlers or a cat it isnt that big of a deal. Though I prefer 3d mini-figs.
I feel like a DM screen is a barrier between you and the players, i feel it is better to keep stuff concealed in other ways, such as a box off to the side, than to put up a barrier. i also feel like it makes players feel like they have less agency in my games, as i might be changing things and hiding them behind the screen.
9:15 I disagree. I have books, all my cheat sheaths, and HP sheets are done on my screen. I don't want my players seeing minis until combat starts. My laptop isn't effective enough to function as a screen.
I actually have included box of doom rolls in my campaigns! Recently there was a battle where a bunch of soldiers were going to slaughter innocent civilians across a small village, and they had to save as many as they could. I gave each civilian a decent AC and the dodge action, but I rolled every attack against an NPC in front of the table. The look of horror when the players realized that the soldiers got their first kill, before I even said a word because they could see the dice roll. The looks on their faces is going to stay with me for a very long time.
I got 2 3D printers (resin for monsters & heroes and filament for terrain). I now have hundreds of minis & terrain pieces and almost all of the 3D models I've printed were free downloads from creators online. Now I just have to get around to painting it all...
I have the plastic disc Critical Role has and some other templates. The plastic disc is a foot wide, only good for in house play. It packs like beep… stuff. I use dry erase maps at the local FLGS. Sometimes to save game time I will use Flickr and print out a 20 page map which has 1 to 1 inch grids. But this takes up lots of prep time. And never seems to tape up well. DO NOT use a teacher’s plastic compass to draw round towers. Risers are good. But dungeon tiles just take too long to set up and take down. Props are great. When Adventure League was only doing one magic item per module, I would hit the Dollar Store for props. Hey Bonus Action has this nice plastic plate. BA, “What” DM, “You never seen plate armour before?” Or the various kid toys at Dollar Store became various magic items. Props does hit a creative itch for DMs. Just watch how much you spend for what will be in game for five minutes.
Please don't let D&D balloon into a hideously expensive tabletop strategy combat game with mediocre combat rules. Focus on the roleplaying, the exploration, the interactions, the puzzle solving, the adventuring! Core rulebooks, some dice, a GM screen, maybe a few markers to show relative positioning (or perhaps Prof DM's "ultimate dungeon terrain"),and some paper and pencils. Job done.
I think an amazing prop could just be fans. Hear me out controlling wind. Like if the players are on a ship crossing a sea and there are strong winds you could simulate that irl
Accessories are awesome, but make sure you have a good plan and gameplay for your table first! Just because the pros do all this with a nice budget, you can do great things in the theater of the mind. I have a player that spend over $40 on their mini! Another that just uses a bottlecap and has a pen cap as his mount. I often use generic skaven minis I got in a bargain bin to be a stand-in for any number of monsters. You're only limited by your creativity!
My grognard players like to justify the many books they bought by piling them on the table, so I end up not having room for a screen on our smaller tables. Normally it's no big deal, I memorize a lot when it comes to what creatures are able to do, what conditions mean, and what's coming up next in the game, but every session I have, I have to be careful where I put my minis before they're introduced. Having that screen would be useful, but it's not something high on my priorities.
One persons increased emersion is another's overload of clutter. To many dungeon tiles, too many terrain features, and too many figures can all slow down play. It all varies with individuals cognitive profiles, with player and dm style, and with the balance of content within different campaigns.
flat battle map, 2d ad on scenery and DIY character and Monster tokens.... nothing more that i need (i think i have over 200 character / monster tokens so i have a wide selection with monsters in different poses and styles)
Maps and minis look cool, but IMO, they're a bit of a cheat. They offer every person on the battlefield an up-to-the-second view of everything that's going on, when there's no way that a person actually on that battlefield would have access to that information.
Most props i used when DMing IRL, were letters. I loved to work with paper to make it look older, or (with a LOT OF CARE) have the bad guy burn an incriminating evidence if the players fail their rolls. Everything paper related, pieces of letters left on a fireplace, regional maps with incorrect geography because I had my map, of the world. The NPCs had maps that their cartographers made, and the players bought\stole\got those. Still have some paper already processed through tea and used coffee powder to become props if i ever come back to DMing IRL
Honestly, I'm not subscribing because your videos are entertaining enough to watch once in a while when they pop up, but they feel hollow and lack meaningful content to make me want to subscribe.
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The best prop I ever did - I made a simple box shaped clay pot and embedded a real key inside a hollow space. The sides of the pot had weird lines on them in the patterns - the players had to dip the box in ink and hand print onto paper and when arranged properly formed a map and a word. One of them kept mentioning that it rattled a little bit but kept dismissing it as a broken piece or an artefact from my amateur (at best) pottery skills. When they realised they needed a key and were told that they already had it and had from the start, the look of realisation was priceless. They asked several times if I was sure it was ok to break it - revealing the key.
imma bout to STEAL
that sounds awesome! Is there any tutorial out there for making that kind of puzzle?
@@artloveranimation there is airdry clay thats pretty cheap out there!
Tutorial plz
Do you have a tutorial? Sounds really cool
Something you didn't mention about the Box of Doom (which wouldn't matter to a home game, to be fair) is that it has its own camera angle. Box of doom rolls are pretty much the only dice rolls that the audience actually get to directly see the result of, which adds to the narrative weight of that roll.
This is true!
also its so fun when we, the audience, get to see what the rool was but it’s kept a secret for the table 😆
oh, and we play nowadays with a tv embedded into a table top for maps etc with some terrain on - but whenever they roleplay around the camp fire, I kill the lights and bring up a youtube video of a camp fire and we literally sit round the fire.
I use the "Ultimate RPG Campfire card deck" every time my players do a travel from one location to another...to get the characters develop more of a back story and do more conversations at the table.
Ordered. Thanks.
We have had fun making "spiritual weapon" minis for our clerics. A clear plastic fork tine glued to whatever weapon then attached to a base makes for a floating visual. One of our cleric's spiritual weapons took the form of a rolled up newspaper. The look on his face was priceless when we brought the "weapon" out.😁
0:36: dice tray designated for important rolls (or special dice)
1:50 area of effect measurers
2:30 condition rings
3:15 wet erase grid
4:27 dungeon tiles
4:58 terrain and risers
5:30 miniatures
8:55 DM screen
10:20 monitor in table
11:05 monster books
11:20 blu-tack
12:30 props
l4:30 notepads; laptops; pens; printers; tables; dice
I'm DMing this campaign in Al Qadim. One of my players rolled (no joke) 4 consecutive natural ones on Perception checks. As a joke, he said he would get is eyesight checked when he got to town and he did. Well, I got this hieroglyphs eyesight test printed and hooked to the wall. The table rolled laughing.
That's amazing lol. It's the little things sometimes
Please make a video about props. I'd like to know what other DMs are using.
Oooh this is a good idea!
Yess just recently i was thinking of how to improve my prop box with 3d printed props
I've made so many of the things on this list with my 3D printer, which is why a 3D printer would be my #1 recommended accessory for a GM.
It is next on my list!
I've got most of the buildings from curse of strahd 3d printed. The castle is a slog
While many of these props are awesome, they're also expensive. So here are some budget suggestions that have worked for me.
For mini's I use chess sets, this gives you a good variety of visually diverse pieces of varying importance. Dinosaur/animal toys are also great for monsters.
Rather than a full dice tower it's often easier to set aside a particularly significant pair of dice for people to roll. If you have oversized or highly decorated dice they're great for this.
Finally for dry erase mats I've found it useful to have a half dozen laminated sheets of grid marked A3 paper. They work with dry erase so you can draw or erase and change the environment at will. You can also shift them around and move in pre drawn structures easily.
Oh and the rings for bottle caps work well for condition markers.
I used a wet erase battlematt a lot when we played in person (before covid and moving away etc).
It's a really great tool, especially because you can mark everybodies position if you use minis and roll up the matt after playing and store it, if you have to clean up the table after play or something like that, and then roll it out agin at the next session.
Oh my word why did I not think of this? 🤦🤦🤦
That's brilliant, thank you so much! 😍
I enjoy all of the videos and I wanna thank you for helping me become a better dm!
Thankyou!
I'm sure you already know this but for people that don't, that collaborative map things is iconic of a style of game called a West Marches campaign! they can be SO much fun but deffo hard to pull off.
I just found your channel this evening and I've recently been looking at getting into DnD. I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers. Your content is clear and concise with some hunor mixed in which isn't forced/fake. Easily earned my sub. 🤠
One props that i use every week in my sessions that i havent seen anywhere in vids is hp/mana/gold tracker wheel for players. Those are soooo usefull. Erasing pencil on the paper always cause ripping at some point. This prop is gold and very usefull. Probably my fav by far
I'd like to see a video on tips and tricks for running games via Zoom, Discord, etc. I haven't played an in-person game since before Covid.
To add something that I think PLAYERS should consider - a small laminated/sticky-back plastic initiative tracker, and bring a dry-erase marker with a cloth to wipe it down. I used a bookmark sized tracker that came with a pencil set our DM got us all for a Christmas gift and some sticky-back plastic I had at home for covering sketchbooks (which actually could be used to make DIY dry-erase grids on the cheap ;D). I take initiative from players as we roll (and decide if we're using the 2024 alert feature lol), whilst the DM rolls for the enemies, and HAND IT to the DM so he can add us to his list, then take it back. It's SO fast and easy. And I can then add in the enemies as they appear and then prop it up for the players to reference. Extremely cheap and reusable!
Gonna add my 2 cents with the knowledge that everything in this video is optional (also - i love that in this video the most pricey options have the lowest cost alternatives listed right next to them - fantastic editing choice to have the wet-erase next to the dungeon tiles. It's not often videos about this sort of thing feel like the pros and cons and shortcuts are weighed up without it feeling like an Ad To Buy Everything, you do a great job at showing why something might be useful if you like a certain kind of storytelling. Although I will argue that the putty you have is whitetac, it's only blutac when it's blue ;D). I've only just started my DM journey and I've only really begun my "player journey" in the last year and a half but sometimes newer "I'm just happy to be here" perspectives can be useful for cutting down high-expectations? Also! I can already feel how much Players engaging with imagination vs the DM having to do a summer hols craft project every session matters lmao. So!
The AOE measures and condition rings (and the wet erase map, though we also use map books to make quick street/room battlemaps when needed) are SO SO useful for the games I was a player in that it was the first thing I checked out on the VTT i decided to use when DMing for online friends. Condition rings in particular are so useful when you have a lot of status effects pinging about and at least one person at the table is still getting to grips with things (....me!! Playing my first spell caster (cleric) and SEEING my spell/channel divinity effects on the enemies really helped with remembering to roll concentration checks and remember which undead were Running). There's so much nuance between certain similar-sounding conditions that having a tracker with the specific Term written on them really helps speed things up - especially when planning a turn ahead of time.
Terrain pieces are extremely cool from a player POV but I feel like they'd be extremely stressful for a DM unless you had a bucketload of storage and money to drop on them and a lot of experience to draw on when it came to pre-building battles. They're definitely something to manage your expectations about AS PLAYERS and not stress about as DMs. The best thing a DM can do is free - describe, and add extra senses other than visuals; and the best thing a player can do is ask questions! It can make a space feel super real even if it's just a grid with some wobbly "straight walls" drawn on - especially when re-described during combat turns. No doubt experienced DMs know this but as a newer DM I have to keep reminding myself it's not about flash, it's about drawing a player in. I DO love the prop suggestion though. Getting handing a letter or puzzle a DM had written out previously, even if it's a scruffy note on normal paper? Feels great. Love the idea of creating a hometown and the collab world building!
The only thing I found I needed to get invested in my character and the other PCs is a CONSISTENT mini, not necessarily one that looks exactly like them. Maybe it's the frugal "I can draw that" part of me though! I don't also mind so much about the mini of an enemy if the DM has described it well. I think cardboard minis with size-appropriate bases are the way to go for DMs who want that variety without breaking the bank (or their cupboards) with plastic minis. They slip nicely into sectioned plastic wallets.
I'm shocked to hear a lot of DMs use just laptops. A DM screen seems like a no brainer for IRL play. You can fit so much behind there - including a laptop if you need one. As a player I like the mystique of hidden roles and my DM hiding their reference book behind the screen, I feel like it lets them keep more things open and thus keep play flowing smoothly too!
Also at least from a private VTT perspective I knew what I wanted to look for for out of combat sections of game play - concept art and designs. I am NOT into GenAI and feel kinda Eh when DMs use it (knowing how much stolen art they draw on and how much energy every image uses? not into that) but for private games there's a shit load of inspiring, human made stuff out there. Art Station has a lot of incredible concept artists who share their portfolios and you can use those for mood setting if you don't want to use a top-down map during social scenes. Would recommend you keep the artist name/link to the image you use somewhere and NEVER use stuff like that for a public commercial game without explicit permission but! If it's not perfect you can include that as part of the Session 0 spiel.
Another tip is to get a load of generic minis that can be used for a crowd or hoard of something. They can be something small and generic that can be stored in a small container (my GM reuses the containers that hold the flavored warter pouches for minis per campaign and other things). Something like meeples or small toys you can get from the dollar store or in bulk like army men.
Sometimes the absurdity of the imagery of the generic tokens also is a riot. We were playing Savage Tide (think King Kong’s island of giant animals) and we were escaping a giant anthill. After we reached a safe place, we watched as the ants were tearing apart a dinosaur. But, with no ant minis, my dm used a bunch of pink flamingo tokens. So we were treated to the sight of a triceratops figurine being devoured by a swarm of flamingos. Honestly a priceless moment for me.
If you don't have much money but do have a printer (or are good at drawing I guess), paper minis are the way to go. First time I played in person with my friends (it was a one shot) I surprised them with paper minis and they were so delighted they asked to keep them. Some paper, maybe a little cardboard, and a bottle cap at the bottom to make it sturdy and easy to move around on the map and you're good to go. They're very versatile and cheap and a great way to reuse any cardboard or bottlecaps you've got lying around.
A wet erase map like you said is also super useful! Definitely important for my games.
And I do love a good physical prop. It's so much fun to write letters and things to hand out to players. I remember for that one shot I handed all my players a sealed recruitment letter a few days before we were scheduled to play, and then during the game (it was a murder mystery) I handed them physical letters that were clues. Such a simple, basic thing but a physical sheet of paper can go a long way to making the situation feel real.
I like that Matt originally just used plastic bottle rings instead of fancy ones. Also I just use modeling clay to make my own cheap minis. I let players make their own as well if they want
For the minis in my campaigns I have a box of wooden peg people that are 4 sizes and the creature token box. The wooden pegs have numbers on them and they are colored red and black so I can have more than one turn in initiative.
So glad I decided to watch this, last night I kept thinking about how I would love to see Matthew Lillard and anyone else that played/voiced Shaggy would all play dnd together.
Not at least I can watch Matthew play
Love this video and all your videos keep them coming. This is awesome thank you.
Thank YOU!
There are some players who will thrive in a verbal rich, theatre of the mind game, and I imagine most players would do okay with it. However, a visual representation of what is being described helps so many players understand the GMs vision, even if it's little more than a sketch on a fast food restaurant napkin. You don't need fancy equipment for D&D, but it would be fun to improvise a game with a kids meal. You can have french fry minions. McD's has sonic the hedgehog minis right now, excellent BBEG. Will the Chicken Nuggets be successful at rescuing the soda from the evil hedgehog overlord? Only time will tell.
Great list of stuff! Totally agree about props and atmospherics 👀
Yo, the map idea is one I used years and years ago! When I was around 15, my DnD circle started turning into plural circles, but I couldn't run 1st or 2.5e like I had learned on, so I created my very first world and learned 3.5e and let all my players create their hometown along with their backstory and I even allowed them to edit small amounts of terrain around them to fit certain things like "I remember climbing this tree as a young lad" type stuff. They all loved it, and we played more than one campaign there, so my master map had all their previous characters' hometowns while they were adding new ones. They loved it until I couldn't spit out good ideas as fast as they wanted lol
Wet erase mats are my most valuable tool. I essentially learned DnD on those mats and picked up a lot of tips that helped me move over to digital table tops with ease. Since I like to run modules, if there is a location players want to go that the module did not provide, I can just whip together a map real quick.
One homebrew module I run uses randomly generated rooms where I test out encounters, traps, and puzzles. That module almost lives and dies on dry erase and drawing tools since making or lugging around loads of premade maps or tiles would be impractical for it for me.
One thing I got from the channel Tabletopnotch was blatant mini games. Solving a maze while blindfolded. Playing an actual card game within your game. Word jumbles. The Headbands game with DnD monsters. Fun ways they've used props to get players roleplaying beyond the character sheet. It reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy VII mini games.
Great vid mate!
I recently brought a sheathed boot-dagger, as a player, only for the GM to hand us a wax-sealed letter prop, and we used the dagger.
Back when I was DM at my house, I would build dungeons and towns and more importantly boss battles, entirely out of Legos, to include Lego miniatures
My best prop was a map fragment that hinted at the location of a very secret door in the dungeon. I used fancy rag paper, drew the map and the writing with a fountain pen, and burned the edges to make it look authentic. The writing was home-made runes, which looked ancient and resulted in a simple substitution cipher that, I hoped, would take them a while to break. The computer-geek player cracked it in three minutes.
For the sticky putty, that's not always a good option if you're using a lot of handmade terrain. It can leave pieces on it or do damage to the terrain such as with flocking/static grass.
One thing that I've seen for several DM's with things that seem to pop up in a lot of things for pros are the small whiteboards...especially if they're using the eraseable gridmaps since they work keeping track of things in the short term such as various passive scores that might come into it or various specifics for the adventure that might be needed, along with stuff like damage or effects the players wouldn't know about.
The process for making a collaborative world is the same as the Fabula Ultima TTRPG, really nice !
i cant wait till the next video!!
Thankyou!
I have a Screen in my tabletop to display maps. Love it. But there is also a sheet plexiglass over it so that I can display a “wet erase” map on the screen and still draw in my own maps or anything else. It’s almost the best of both worlds. I also have an Initiative track for each character/ monster that everyone can see. I place Condition rings on that to keep clutter off the map but this way they still serve the same purpose.
If you make a red, orange, and yellow pompom our of yarn the brush it with a cheap wire pet brush, it makes an amazing fireball.❤ You can also do something similar to make a wall of fire.
I actually put all my lore and notes into a chat gpt instance, that way I can ask it about the blacksmith that the players talked to 6 months ago and it answers with everything I need to play that NPC. way easier than searching through notes and keeps the game flowing.
Ive used minis from various board games as minis, numbered dice for enemies, made my own spell cards back in 3.5, get creative. So long as your player are there to play and have fun it'll work. I had a DM give me XP because he wanted a cart prop so while my character wasnt there I got bored and improvised one out of 3x5 card stock/ tape/ and my swiss army knife, kept me from being a distraction and made a prop for him. he still has it i think...
In the Star Wars campaign I'm running, I picked up a model solar system, and created a model of the system my game takes place in, complete with asteroid belt and other neat little tweaks. It makes for a fun visual to bring out when my players are travelling from planet to planet.
Great tips. What to use but also how to use them! I also use parchment I make myself, and of course a feather to write riddles and puzzles. And it's not combat related. The faces when I take one of those from behind my screen... Try it! (Or print a nice writing and then, dip it in coffee)
5:10 Matt also uses risers to help visualize things.
Great video! I love using all of the above in your video. If there are any artistic players at your table, or one that owns a 3d printer, then you can engage them to help you world build. I have a player that helps make terrain and simpler items like "wanted" posters, flyers, maps, etc. My biggest issue now is transporting it all as I am a mobile DM and storing it at home. Future video?
Re: The monitor in the table top, I recently started a new campaign and one of the players has a projector we use for basically the same function. Lower the lights a little bit and use a section of White Board and it's awesome.
In a campaign now where the DM had me come up w/the name of my hometown and added it to the pre-existing world map. Haven't made it back there as we've had no reason to (nor does my character want to go back) but I do hope we get there eventually. Not a huge thing but it definitely helps provide a stake in the world.
Other thing he suggested we do is keep journals as our characters and I highly recommend anyone playing do that. Doing so has helped flesh out my character in numerous ways that I hadn't even thought about when I came up w/the idea for them. Its been almost as much fun writing these entries as it has actually playing my character.
The journal idea is awesome!
of course you brought out the one mini i recently fought that was terrifying my party, we went to pick a single stupid flower and get into a boat battle with a froghemoth elder, we barely got away, we didn't win, but we did get the flower; stupid flower
I always love the concept of big minis 😂
Hmm. Mentions the video tabletop, but not Roll20 and similar virtual tabletops, which pretty much handles a lot of the battlemaps and minis things featured here?
Brennan has been out there and said that outside of D20, his games use mancala beads to play.
Wonderful video. ❤
I find the creature and terrain kit very useful, they both are able to be written on by dry erase markers
Digital tabletop simulators already fixed most of those issues and also fixes many others. My DM got spell cards thinking it would help, but I never used them (tablet/phone searching is faster/easier), and when 1 of the players did finally use the cards it slowed everything down till they stopped after realizing the point I already made. Going digital is also much less time/money consuming for the DM. You never mention the potions I saw mercer use once that are bottles filled with colored glue which have dice in them (wait till the colored glue dries before adding the dice). Those would make the game faster/better, since all you have to do to roll healing potions is uncork the bottle and dump the dice out (the fact that they are easy/cheap to make at home is a bonus).
Love seeing High Rollers and Dungeons of Drakkenheim here
I'm drafting a game table, based off of extruded aluminium/aluminium and laminate planks and neoprene tiles, early days yet and will probably prototype it using off cuts to test out the concept
Print Outs are very practical as well. Super cheap, easy to make and you can write little numbers or letters on them. So there is literally a Zombie 1 and a Skelli 5. Very easy to keep track of HP or Initative. And if they get shredded by toddlers or a cat it isnt that big of a deal. Though I prefer 3d mini-figs.
I feel like a DM screen is a barrier between you and the players, i feel it is better to keep stuff concealed in other ways, such as a box off to the side, than to put up a barrier. i also feel like it makes players feel like they have less agency in my games, as i might be changing things and hiding them behind the screen.
Props, try and use them all...steal some of the grandkiddies toys too!
9:15 I disagree. I have books, all my cheat sheaths, and HP sheets are done on my screen. I don't want my players seeing minis until combat starts. My laptop isn't effective enough to function as a screen.
I actually have included box of doom rolls in my campaigns! Recently there was a battle where a bunch of soldiers were going to slaughter innocent civilians across a small village, and they had to save as many as they could. I gave each civilian a decent AC and the dodge action, but I rolled every attack against an NPC in front of the table. The look of horror when the players realized that the soldiers got their first kill, before I even said a word because they could see the dice roll. The looks on their faces is going to stay with me for a very long time.
I always have a map or poster related to the campaign on the wall behind me when I GM.
I got 2 3D printers (resin for monsters & heroes and filament for terrain). I now have hundreds of minis & terrain pieces and almost all of the 3D models I've printed were free downloads from creators online. Now I just have to get around to painting it all...
I have the plastic disc Critical Role has and some other templates. The plastic disc is a foot wide, only good for in house play. It packs like beep… stuff.
I use dry erase maps at the local FLGS. Sometimes to save game time I will use Flickr and print out a 20 page map which has 1 to 1 inch grids. But this takes up lots of prep time. And never seems to tape up well. DO NOT use a teacher’s plastic compass to draw round towers.
Risers are good. But dungeon tiles just take too long to set up and take down.
Props are great. When Adventure League was only doing one magic item per module, I would hit the Dollar Store for props. Hey Bonus Action has this nice plastic plate. BA, “What” DM, “You never seen plate armour before?” Or the various kid toys at Dollar Store became various magic items. Props does hit a creative itch for DMs. Just watch how much you spend for what will be in game for five minutes.
Please don't let D&D balloon into a hideously expensive tabletop strategy combat game with mediocre combat rules. Focus on the roleplaying, the exploration, the interactions, the puzzle solving, the adventuring! Core rulebooks, some dice, a GM screen, maybe a few markers to show relative positioning (or perhaps Prof DM's "ultimate dungeon terrain"),and some paper and pencils. Job done.
I really like physical props for mechanic or story purposes that aren't necessarily part of combat.
Wet erase grids are so goated i use mine constantly and im alway looking for bigger ones
The map koop tip is awesome
I think an amazing prop could just be fans. Hear me out controlling wind. Like if the players are on a ship crossing a sea and there are strong winds you could simulate that irl
very loud tho
i use chess pieces for mobs, as well as recurring archetypal characters in combat
14:55 Bro really said “2D printer”
oooh, haven't heard that outro music before. Nice.
Didn’t the blue tack came from Brennan Lee Milligan?
Accessories are awesome, but make sure you have a good plan and gameplay for your table first! Just because the pros do all this with a nice budget, you can do great things in the theater of the mind. I have a player that spend over $40 on their mini! Another that just uses a bottlecap and has a pen cap as his mount. I often use generic skaven minis I got in a bargain bin to be a stand-in for any number of monsters. You're only limited by your creativity!
Indeed!
Could you make the background music softer? It was so loud I nearly coudln't understand what was being said. Sidenote: I might be getting old.
My grognard players like to justify the many books they bought by piling them on the table, so I end up not having room for a screen on our smaller tables. Normally it's no big deal, I memorize a lot when it comes to what creatures are able to do, what conditions mean, and what's coming up next in the game, but every session I have, I have to be careful where I put my minis before they're introduced. Having that screen would be useful, but it's not something high on my priorities.
People not subscribing is like vicious mockery
One persons increased emersion is another's overload of clutter. To many dungeon tiles, too many terrain features, and too many figures can all slow down play. It all varies with individuals cognitive profiles, with player and dm style, and with the balance of content within different campaigns.
We also call that putty, poster tack.
Maybe a 4d printer can transport the user through time if they choose to.
I have a specific die i only use for importent things
This is why I like VTTs. I don’t have to invest hundreds in minis.
That was...really unhelpful... but the Box of Doom is really cool thing.
Anything's a prop if you're brave enough....
I have a 20 year old dragon from Warhammer Fantasy I use it for every dragon
Fairy liquid is washing up liquid? I guess good to know that even in our world, it's best to fight your urges and not consume fairy drinks.
I really want to do the box of doom in my games
flat battle map, 2d ad on scenery and DIY character and Monster tokens.... nothing more that i need (i think i have over 200 character / monster tokens so i have a wide selection with monsters in different poses and styles)
I use I a doom dice instead of a box of doom.
Maps and minis look cool, but IMO, they're a bit of a cheat. They offer every person on the battlefield an up-to-the-second view of everything that's going on, when there's no way that a person actually on that battlefield would have access to that information.
Real Americans call it Sticky Tack
I use a mechanical pencil to measure 30 ft because it's six inches long.
Most props i used when DMing IRL, were letters.
I loved to work with paper to make it look older, or (with a LOT OF CARE) have the bad guy burn an incriminating evidence if the players fail their rolls.
Everything paper related, pieces of letters left on a fireplace, regional maps with incorrect geography because I had my map, of the world. The NPCs had maps that their cartographers made, and the players bought\stole\got those.
Still have some paper already processed through tea and used coffee powder to become props if i ever come back to DMing IRL
If so much unecessary crap on the table might as well play a true wargame instead 😂
word
I like inspiration coins
You could even have an inspiration die
I like those little trays that hold like your bardic inspiration and that type of stuff so you just hand out the dice
2D printers, really? :D Im too old...
First
Honestly, I'm not subscribing because your videos are entertaining enough to watch once in a while when they pop up, but they feel hollow and lack meaningful content to make me want to subscribe.
Thanks this is good feedback!
Nope, all I need is my imagination. I will never spend money on roleplaying games.
For the algorithm!