Creating a Dungeons and Dragons campaign isn’t easy. There’s a lot of thought and planning that goes into crafting an entire world, which can quickly start to feel like a part-time job for Dungeon Masters that regularly run sessions. Luckily, there are hundreds of tools out there that can help create these worlds, which will shave off quite a bit of time and effort that can otherwise be spent actually playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Map Editors
Creating a map is an important part of designing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It’s the first step to crafting a fully-realized world, which helps sell a campaign overall. While there are plenty of options out there, some are certainly better than others. For those fine with spending money on an application, there are none better than Wonderdraft, a powerful new tool to create anything from small villages and hamlets all the way to complete worlds. The Wonderdraft subreddit is full of examples of creations users have made for their campaigns and can be an excellent place to look for those that need a little bit of inspiration.
For those that are a bit apprehensive to spend money on software, there are plenty of free alternatives too, though they won’t be as powerful. Inkarnate is one such program, and while some of it is locked behind a paywall, it’s one of the best map editors out there. It’ll give players a lot of the same options as Wonderdraft, though it definitely feels like a slightly more budget program. That being said, it’s still one of the best map creators on the internet. There are plenty of other programs out there just focused on cities and so forth, but Inkarnate and Wonderdraft are two of the best options.
Character Creators
If there’s a single aspect of creating a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that eats away time, it’s creating NPCs. Every campaign needs dozen of them when everything is said and done, and making them feel like living, breathing, characters with depth can be a herculean task. Thankfully, there are programs out there that can randomly generate characters with unique names, traits, and backstories that DMs can use in their campaigns - aspects that are important to consider before starting a campaign.
For those moments when a party is hell-bent on going on a shopping spree before heading out, there’s a handy tool on Donjon, a website with plenty of other great Dungeons and Dragons tools, that will help generate merchants. It’s a quick way to generate a merchant with a name and a few key characteristics, as well as a full inventory based on the size of the city that the party is in. Be sure to write these characters down. Players will remember shopkeepers and want to return. They always remember.
There’s also an NPC generator on Kassoon that will go way more in-depth by not only generate basic stats and traits but also fairly in-depth backstories. It’s a wonderful tool for crafting NPCs on the fly, or even coming up with entire campaigns that revolve around a specific character. Again, write these characters down. Remembering important NPCs is a key tip for new Dungeon Masters.
Generate Combat Encounters
Not everyone likes to roleplay, and it can take quite some time before players learn to roleplay like pros. There’s a good chance that a DM will want to throw in some combat encounters for those that don’t like acting or just haven’t grown accustomed to it yet. That’s where tools like Kobold Fight Club come in. The website will automatically generate combat encounters for characters to partake in, or customize them for fights that the dungeon master is planning.
The benefit of using a randomly generated combat encounter is that it’ll help keep fights from becoming tedious goblin-bashing contests, as they’ll usually spit out encounters with some of the weirdest creatures in the monster manual in them. That will help keep things varied and interesting, though it does usually fall to the DM to shake up encounters with more interesting landscapes, events, and so on.
Production Value
Dungeons and Dragons is a game that can be played just with pens and paper, but it gets a lot cooler when players add props, figurines, and anything else that makes the game more immersive. For Dungeon Masters writing their own campaigns, Home Brewery will help make sheets look like full-fledged published pieces. It takes a tiny bit of HTML knowledge, which may seem intimidating at first but is surprisingly easy to learn. It’s a great tool to write out campaigns that look official, and the site is available for free.
For those looking for figurines to spice up a campaign, Hero Forage is an excellent place to create some custom ones. Players don’t necessarily need miniatures to get started with dungeons and dragons, but it can help immerse them in their characters. Hero Forge has a broad list of customization options at relatively fair prices, depending on the material they’re made with.
The list of resources players have to create amazing dungeons and dragons campaigns is just about endless. While it can be tempting to just run a bare-bones adventure, and even refreshing sometimes, adding at least some of these elements can leave an incredibly positive impression on the players. Plus, they can speed up the process of actually designing a campaign, leaving Dungeon Masters with extra time to help new players customize their characters. One day, they may even finally give DMing a try, when they see how easy it can be, giving exhausted Dungeon Masters a chance to finally play.