Top products from r/DnDBehindTheScreen
We found 23 product mentions on r/DnDBehindTheScreen. We ranked the 41 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
1. Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons (Dungeons & Dragons)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
Used Book in Good Condition
2. Expedition to Undermountain (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying, Adventure)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
3. Halls of Undermountain: A 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Supplement
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
6. Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Dungeons of Golarion
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Used Book in Good Condition
7. Roots of Evil (AD&D: Ravenloft Adventure RM1)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
8. Thoughts of Darkness (AD&D/Ravenloft Module RQ2)
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
10. How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps: Step by Step Cartography for Gamers and Fans
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 1
How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps Step by Step Cartography for Gamers and Fans
11. Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection - Softcover
Sentiment score: 2
Number of reviews: 1
Role playing game
12. Forgotten Realms Adventures (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Hardcover Accessory Rulebook)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Used Book in Good Condition
13. Official Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Wilderness Survival Guide
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
14. Dragons of War (Dragonlance module DL8)
Sentiment score: -1
Number of reviews: 1
15. Dungeon Tiles Master Set - The Dungeon: an Essential Dungeons & Dragons Accessory
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Dungeon tiles: essentialsAge range: 12 and upManufacturer: wizards of the coast
16. City of Splendors: Waterdeep (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying, Forgotten Realms Supplement)
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Used Book in Good Condition
17. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Tor Books
18. Unlikely Friendships Mini Wall Calendar 2017
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
One of the best uses of this was in the old Forgotten Realms books, especially those for 2nd-edition AD&D. They had a whole section in the FR hardcover book on alternate currencies and their effective values. It also had several pages of tables for coming up with gemstones, artistic objects, and non-gem stone as treasure.
(By 'non-gem stone' I mean things like marble. A half-ton block of marble might be incredibly unwieldy, but worth a nice chunk of coin to a sculptor.)
The coinage included cultural notes that gave some glimpses into various countries. Things like the 'bela', from when Sembia tried their hand at making paper currency. They printed too many and devalued it to the point where a 1-bela note is worth only 1 cp. Same goes for the steelpence, made as an alternative to gold but overproduced. It mentions the term "Buying steelpence with bela" meaning financial stupidity.
Waterdeep has an unusual-shaped coin made of electrum. It has very little value outside the city -- something like 2 sp -- but is worth something like 10 gp in the city. Cormyr's coins have notable kings stamped on them.
I think the book's worth using if you have a Realms game, regardless of edition. Here's the Amazon listing.
My campaign is a sandbox so I'm just building a world, creating conflicts, and dropping the players in to let them pursue what they want. The major inspirations from Ghibli are the conflicts and world building flavor:
I love world building and map making, so I'm having a blast populating the world in painful detail. There is QUITE a lot more to it than this, but if you take those core conflicts and sprinkle in some of the plot hooks from OP, you should be good to go have a grand adventure in Ghibli land.
I love the idea about birthdays, I'm definitely gonna steal that.
I've always had a similar thought about made-up calendars. They are often complicated with a bunch of names and dates that need to be remembered. For my current campaign, I decided to literally just use a real-life calendar. I bought a cheap mini-calendar from amazon and have been marking off the days as they pass in-game. This way I can also tell the players "It's February 23rd" and they know exactly what kind of weather to expect, how much time has passed since January 2nd, stuff like that.
I was also very happy with the calendar that I found because the title of it is "Unlikely Friendships", which could pretty much be the name of every campaign I've ever played in.
You should check out the Dragon Magazine and the Draconomicon. Just about everything is pulled from those canon sources.
Edit: I don't know why the bullet points aren't working. Sorry.
I don't mean to one-up OP here but I thought I'd mention Grimtooth's traps again. A big collection of traps and short encounters that are extremely deadly and unpleasant (as in your party will almost definitely die to them) but are VERY good for inspiration. They were written in the 80s so it's back when D&D was a bit more deadly and characters considered more expendable so they WILL need tweaking. But the traps are described in quite a bit of detail including triggering mechanisms and diagrams for the more complicated ones. They also only rely on very basic spells or are purely mechanical so you can fit them in anywhere. Quite a lot of them are just about fooling the player into killing themselves, which is always fun :D.
I've yet to find a better resource for traps than those books so I thought I'd share :).
This immediately made me think of the fantastic novel by Susanna Clarke Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell wiki
I don't want to go into detail because spoilers. I think I can get away with saying that someone is half-given to a faerie who transports the person magically every night - they end up sleep deprived and no-one can understand why they are so tired and lose all strength to live with. You could certainly spin it around some similarly dark invisible drawback.
I HIGHLY recommend the book. It's also available in a well regarded TV series
Perhaps the pixie might even pass on her 'ownership' as a gift to a higher ranking and more powerful fae Lord or Lady?
I just finished CoS a few weeks ago... easily one of my favorite campaigns. I loved the old 2nd edition stuff and had all the supplements and all the novels. I loved all the little references to the characters and family lines I knew from the novel I, Strahd (which is a fabulous book to read if you haven't already; I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin is also worth it).
So! I didn't want to leave this place either. My players are returning soon with new characters 150 years after the events of the story involving their old characters. I want them to see the long-term changes their old characters made, like how they restructured the leadership of Vallaki. Across the realm, they new characters will explore the changed terrain while the players will be able to recognize the marks their old characters left behind.
You can easily go this route, but there's another option, too, if they're set on keeping these characters. Look up an event called The Grand Conjunction. My memory isn't perfect, but I'm sure there are plenty others in this sub and similar subs that can help you out. Basically, you had to stop the realm of Barovia from bleeding into the Forgotten Realms plane and unleashing its evil upon its inhabitants. The borders of the Ravenloft realms shuffle and open, and other realms like Nova Vaasa, Forlorn, and Borca, join Barovia to form the Demiplanes of Dread properly. There's a 6-book adventure set that culminates in Roots of Evil. This page can tell you more; scroll down to section II.
It's not 5E, but the Pathfinder supplement Dungeons of Golarion gives several themes for mega-dungeons. In particular, the last one, the ruins of a mine overrun by undead, is my favorite description and setup of a mega dungeon that I have ever seen.
The book doesn't detail ready to run dungeons, but instead has a chapter on each dungeon, giving a history/backstory, level descriptions or overviews and some unique monsters or magic-items that can be found in the dungeon. It should be readily usable for 5E or 4E. If you can get a copy it might be a decent source of inspiration.
If you haven’t read Parasite Rex, please do. Lots of beautiful horror inside, and it’s a fascinating read!
I recently started buying a few of these packs:
http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Master-Set-Dungeon/dp/0786955554
but since there are quite a lot of them I was wondering if some could share their experience with these tools and give some advice on which are worth their money and which should rather be avoided?
Thanks in advance!
The old school AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide has some great info in it.
https://www.amazon.com/Official-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons-Wilderness/dp/0880382910
I think you're looking for this. You'd have to update basically everything you see, but if you want Undermountain - this is Undermountain.
edit: D&D 3.5 and 4e D&D made conversions of the original, those might also might be an avenue to take.
Pratchett's golems might serve as inspiration, http://www.amazon.com/Feet-Clay-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0062275518
While it was written in 1968, Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook is easily convertible to a fantasy milieu. it's the strategy and tactics you want.
I'm unfamiliar with 5th edition and any changes they have done to any campaign settings, so I might say something pretty stupid here.
So, why not go for something that has already been done in the FR setting? You could use the Undermountain, located under the mountain range (and the city of) Waterdeep. There is a 3.5 supplement of Waterdeep, and a 3.5 supplement for the Undermountain (and there is also one for 4th edition, but I have no experience with that one). The waterdeep book is mostly flavor, and you can use the undermountain book for the same reason and simply convert whatever you find interesting to suit your 5e needs.
https://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Darkness-Ravenloft-Module-RQ2/dp/1560763531
Sound like this might be what you are looking for or at least might give you some ideas.
See if you can track down a copy of the 3.5 Draconomicon. Apart from being a very good resource in general, it goes in to some very good detail about just exactly what you can do with the parts of a dragon and how much different parts can sell for. I've used it almost as-is for 5e with no trouble.
> Dragonlance module DR8 "Dragons of War"
Do you mean this? https://www.amazon.com/Dragons-War-Dragonlance-module-DL8/dp/0880380977
Dave and Brett, get out of here.
Relatively new DM here - started last year. Here's my progression of hand-drawn maps. I introduce the maps to the players by selling them through an absent-minded but prolific cartographer. Here they are in chronological order, with descriptions below.
Forgive the weirdly truncated scans; I only have access to an 8.5" x 11" scanner, but these were drawn on 9" x 12" paper. These were all drawn on drawing or bristol paper with graphite, then inked. I borrowed a lot of the drawing style of later maps from Jared Blando's How to Draw Fantasy and RPG Maps, which I highly recommend checking out.