D&D supplements All DMs Need

We’re going big for this one. You know what people say, you ain’t doing nothing if you ain’t doing it big. Fantasy World Creator allows you to go big when it comes to designing your very own combats and maps. The base package comes with over one hundred modular tiles that you can make into combat locations, along with other terrain tokens such as roofs, treasure chests, and traps. On top of that, it comes with player tokens AND monster tokens, allowing a full-on customizable combat setup. It might be pricy, but it is hella worth it.

Then there’s the Treasure Pack, which comes with more tiles, as well as equipment sheets and character tokens. The main event, though, is the Dungeon & Town Pack, which has customizable 3D terrain you can pair with the original pack for immersion unlike ever before! The cherry on top, of course, is The Master’s Black Book: a dry-erase notebook with awesome artwork that will help you keep track of all the stats and details that you need. These supplements together make for breathtaking campaigns.

Although adding so many details and elements to your sessions gives them a boost in quality, it will soon become hard to keep up with all of them and it’s not gonna make your life any easier. One way to do that, though, is by using the phenomenal Objects of Intrigue decks. Trust us, these decks are a godsend and they can reduce prep-time to a hilariously high amount. While using such a deck, I only worked for around 30 minutes for a fun-packed 4-hour session. Every time your party travels, you will pull out a card, allowing for brand new adventures based on where they are currently going, with modular outcomes and plenty of fun improvisation opportunities. If you want to create a fun, whimsical story with minimal preparation, this is the way.

So, now that we’ve said all there is to say about the Objects of Intrigue, it’s time to talk about its angrier cousins, the Wandering Monsters decks. While Objects of Intrigue provides for fun, random encounters with plenty of varying directions, the Wandering Monsters decks are very cut and dry. You find something wandering around and you fight it. In a Westmarches style game, where combat is king, this is a randomizer with a good deal of balance that gives good encounters for most level brackets.

Critical Hit, Fail & Luck Decks

Last up in our deck trilogy are Luck Decks! These small devilish creations come in four variants, a Critical Fail Deck, a Critical Hit Deck for DMs, a Critical Hit Deck for Players, and a Luck Deck. The first three are pretty intuitive: whenever you get a Natural 1 or a Natural 20, you draw a card, and the DM chooses one of its effects. This heavily improves combat, adding an element of uncertainty unlike the routine of a regular D&D battle. But, beware, to keep the balance, we recommend getting both Critical Hit decks, as only the players or only the monsters having that luxury might be skew fights to one side a little too much. The Luck Deck is where things get really interesting. Each card is a “tide of luck”. This can either be a good luck tide or a bad luck tide, with random benefits or drawbacks. Luck decks can make for a superb rework of the inspiration system if you feel it’s a little too dull.

Treacherous Traps

We’ve talked plenty about diversifying combat or exploration, but one thing we haven’t touched on thus far are traps. Traps, although seldomly used by newer DMs (and I count myself in that category too), are marvelous additions to any dungeon crawl. Not only that, they’ll put the party on edge, while also making your rogue feel important (not that they needed any additional help with that). Treacherous Traps is a book meant precisely for us newer, less conniving DMs. It comes jampacked with guides to creating traps, how best to lay a trap in front of unsuspecting players, as well as plenty of premade traps to instantly throw into your world, without any additional prep time. Every page has information the TGH team would deem essential, so make of that what you will. What we will make of it is that it is a worthwhile addition to your collection.

The D&D Adventure Grid

If you have an in-person campaign going, cool decks of cards and books filled with monsters won’t be enough to keep your players entertained forever. Yes, theatre of the mind is a valid way of playing (and I might say sometimes it has its benefits), but having a cool map setup is always a good choice. And there is no better quick map setup than the D&D Adventure Grid. This 64×54 cm dry-erasable 2-sided map is an affordable, quickfire way of ensuring you always have a map at the ready. You can easily customize it and each of its two faces has a different design (dungeon and grass) that you can explore and add further changes to the type of terrain you plan to run your battles on. Not to mention, it is effortless to carry because it folds down to the size of a piece of A4 paper.

Books of Battle Mats

As much as we love how much modularity is in Fantasy World Creator and how easy it is to move around the D&D Adventure Grid, there is nothing in this world better for the flavor of your game than a Book of Battle Mats. It is the end-all, be-all of tabletop maps. It is not too pricy, it has A LOT of maps with different designs, all of which are dry-erase and wet-erase, and it provides for insane variety. Thus, there is no choice better than this one, which we make with incredible ease. Trust us, a Book of Battle Mats is all you’re ever going to need to bring your game to a whole new level.

Remarkable Shops & Their Wares

After thinking and working hard on so many details of a campaign, you probably feel exhausted, right? Creativity has to have its limits, so here’s a tool that can truly help make your sessions memorable. Shops are the kind of detail that are overlooked SO often. After all, the party members just want to make a quick trip to the store, right? Well, maybe. But if your goal is to create an immersive experience, this kind of detail can make or break it. Remarkable Shops & Their Wares will teach you how to make unforgettable stores, top to bottom. It has every resource material you might need to make anything from classic good stores to black markets. It covers locations, items, and even how to roleplay the shopkeepers. Not only will they become a cohesive part of your universe, but every trip to the shop will have the potential of becoming a unique and memorable interaction.

And those are our picks for the D&D Supplements all DMs need. The best part? All of them can be found on our online shop, a single click away. Also, what do you think is another supplement all DMs need? You can tell us through a Facebook message or a comment to our original Facebook post. We’ll be watching and may even bring some of your recommendations in our stock.