Dungeon Dives

  There’s a reason that it’s a lot easier to find a group of players than it is a Dungeon Master. Worldbuilding, crafting locations and npcs, writing a plot, reading modules, brushing up on rules, pulling out minis, building encounters, getting maps together, picking rewards, researching lore, creating mechanics, scheduling and rescheduling, setting up the table and then actually running the damned session. Face facts, its almost a part time job except a lot of us spend money on the privilege. And we love every minute of it. Despite the passion, finding the time to do it all can be a challenge. Fortunately for us, the immense popularity of 5e means that tons of creators, much more talented than I, have put together some amazing resources for us to save time and run better games. Here are 15 resources I use on a regular basis.

1. FantasyNameGenerators.com – Don’t let the name fool you. While this absolute powerhouse of a tool does indeed have a massive variety of name generators, its so much more. From gem descriptions to swear word generators (Grief Wizard!) this site has literally hundreds of random gens to toy around with.
2. RollForFantasy.com – Sister site of our previous link, this collection of tools has dozens of DM Guides, battle map creators, terrain projects, puzzles, music and more.
3. Donjon.bin.sh – Another powerful weapon in our arsenal. This site allows you to literally create an entire campaign in a handful of clicks, alongside very descriptive generators for things like taverns and magic shops. It also has some dedicated portions for other systems like AD&D & Pathfinder.
4. dndspeak.com – A bunch of useful D100 tables for any occasion
5. 1000CharacterPregens – As the title suggest, its one long document of pregenerated 5e characters.
6. ImprovedInitiative.com – An initiative and combat tracker. Full stat blocks from official material as well as some 3^rd party sources.
7. watabou.github.io – A handful of quick map generators with some light modification abilities.
8. SpotifyDnDPlaylist – A 5hr long fantasy music playlist.
9. AdventureLookup.com – A database of prewritten adventures. Multiple filters let you find an adventure to fit any theme.
10. 5e.tools/lootgen -Random loot generator based on all the tables from the Dungeon Masters Guide. All of the magic items come fully statted.
11. TheFatefulForce.com – Bunch of free digital battle maps.
12. readytorole.com – Huge list of adventure seeds categorized by environment.
13. themonstersknow.com – 5e combat tactics for creatures/npcs from WOTC official product. The author Keith Ammann really goes into incredible depth and changed the way I run encounters. Highly recommend picking up any one of his physical books.
14. ceryliae.github.io – Comprehensive digital DM screen containing all the rules references from the core books. I always keep this up in a tab during sessions.
15. WorldBuildingResourceMasterList – Google doc jam packed with world building articles.

Again, these are just my go to tools that I use when running a game or prepping. There are tons more resources out there made by skilled creators. If you have a tool you use that I missed then please drop a comment down below!