All in Worldbuilding
Dungeons are the bread and butter of adventuring in D&D, and dungeon maps are one of the most exciting things for the players to explore and engage with. Since we already learned from the previous articles how to design world, region, and hub maps for our sandbox campaign, let's see how we could design and create dungeon maps and learn how to organize all of them for your next session.
So why is it important for us as DMs to have Hub Maps? Hub Maps are mainly used to organize your NPCs, stories, and plot hooks in one place that would lead to your quests or other locations. Hubs might also be an excellent avenue to add some side quest content for your players to invest more into the NPCs and add a layer of story for the quests connected to a hub.
While World Map is the most helpful tool for the DM to design their overarching sandbox campaign, Region Maps is one of the most valuable tools for the player to experience your story in your Sandbox Campaigns. Regional Maps entice the players to go to different plot hooks and be intrigued by what the region offers. For the DM, it's also a valuable tool for planning your quests and having a player progression that does not go out of hand with too many choices for your players but also provides the freedom to explore your sandbox campaign organically.
World Maps are essential for DMs to grasp the big picture and define the type of world in which your campaign is set. Even though it's the first step, and it's not the most crucial map type, but its creation leads to the most important map type creation - Region Maps. The reason is that the players will not use World Maps the most often, but a good World Map is a founding block for everything else.
Was it about a good year since AI took off as the next big thing? Even though it's remarkable technology, it's still a bit sketchy, raising important questions about regulations, intellectual property, and ethics, which are still being explored. However, until Skynet takes over, I'm here to delve into how we can enhance our Dungeons & Dragons sessions and generate some silly things!
Not so long ago, I wrote an article about which Note/Worldbuilding app DM's should use for their games. And the thing was, I didn't hear about LegendKeeper at that time, but afterward, after getting a couple of recommendations, I tried it. Previously, I said it's not worth migrating your notes into a new app if it's not good enough since it takes a lot of time. And boy, oh boy, my notes are flying off into LegendKeeper for a good week now, and they will not stop.
So what made me change when it comes to LegendKeeper instead of Evernote? Well, let's find out.
A lot of times, I see that DM's treat their shops and merchants as vending machines. Players put in the Golden coins inside the machine, an item or potion drops from it. That's D&D shops for you unless players get frustrated with bartering and start beating the living crap out of the merchant like a vending machine instead. DMs might think that Shops and Merchants are not as important as the story. However, I see them as an excellent opportunity that might enhance your storytelling. And today, we shall see how I run my D&D shops and Merchants…
Inkarnate is one of my favorite map-making tools that I use most of the time when I'm creating world or region maps. I have used this tool for about two years now, and I think I'm quite qualified to write a review about it. So let's see what kind of maps Inkarnate can help you create and if it fits you.
Towns are probably the most balanced location for Dungeon and Dragons stories. They are not too big like the cities or small as villages, yet towns strike a perfect balance in their scale. I choose Towns over other areas since they don't require as much work and preparation as the cities and give way more content opportunities than the villages..
I like a little bit of realism in my DnD games. I like City Building games, and I think it's rather fun to try and have some elements of the economy in my DnD world. By implementing a couple of things that emulate the economy, it made my merchant/shop/guilds more interesting and believable, and today we will take a look at those ideas.
In the last episode, we are looking at ways how not to make an Epic Wizards Tower. That video made me sick, I got the plague(the flu) for the following week so this video is me trying to wrestle with the flu, my tendencies for rambling and the English Language. Today, we are looking at ideas on how to make fantasy maps for Dungeons and Dragons, that you can use at your table, enjoy.
One of the biggest problems in running a sandbox campaign, in my opinion, is the scale problem and the biggest of them all - burnout since you probably will need to prepare more than one or couple things before the session. In this blog post, we will take a look at how I deal with these scale problems and what do I do to avoid burnout, that could happen rather fast if not managed well.
When writing many characters for your RPG game, how do you find inspiration to distinguish your NPCs from the player's characters? The answer is not the easiest, in my opinion, especially when you need to tie them with your story that you are planning to make as a Dungeon Master. These are a couple of ways that I find inspiration for the characters that appear in my games. With these tips, I find something to write even if I have nothing but a blank page looking at me, looking at me like a buffoon.
Villages are not the most exciting places in DnD. Most of the time, a village is a place for your players that just started the campaign or in the long run, a stop to rest up between adventures that lead the players to Dungeons or other Quest Locations. But that doesn’t mean that they have to be boring or don’t have something to do with them. The opposite, if you craft your village well, there could be plenty of things to explore for your players and stories to craft if you do it well.
