What are /r/DMToolkit's favorite Products & Services?

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https://www.amazon.com/SCS-Direct-Monster-Action-Figure/dp/B00W5WSN5A?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_6

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I got these two sets and don’t regret it. Multiples of each in two colors, they can be painted but it’s not the best material for it.

I've tried a few programs and Wonderdraft is by far the best featured program I've found for world maps.

Has a lot more features than Inkarnate and is a one-time purchase. It has robust support for custom assets and a solid community to draw from. Some of my favorites are from 2-minute tabletop, but even just using the default assets you can produce really amazing maps in relatively little time.

Check out /r/Wonderdraft for some examples!

These are some great solutions! I don't have much to add, except that you can expand the visual range of your telecommuting player by adding a clip-on lens to the webcam. The only problem I've had with telecommuting players is that they can't always see the other players, and placing the laptop/tablet far enough away can become inconvenient. Something like this can clip onto the tablet or laptop or whatever. A wide-angle or fisheye lens lets them see more of the room!

On Android, I use Smart Recorder. However, it seems that Voice Recorder is rated higher.

A bit late to the party, but I'm using "Pocket Campaign" for Android.

It is some sort of offline wiki.

I use it to record my NPCs, factions, towns, whatever, add pictures, show links between all of them. Pretty easy to use.

I also add the outline of past/future sessions. It replaced alot of other tools for me.

I use a bulletin board that I’ve lined with shelf liner - link below. It has just enough tackiness that things don’t move, and there’s no adhesive. Been using them since the cardboard tile era of 3rd edition: Smart Design Classic Grip Shelf Liner - 12 Inch x 10 Feet - Non Adhesive, Strong Grip Bottom, Easy Clean Kitchen Drawer, Cabinet, Cupboard Dresser Protector Cover, Non Slip Rubber Mat - Graphite Gray https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LWAFD6M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_XTHJSQ2322V63SZ9868G

One piece of advice: Notion lets you create a notebook from other people's templates. There are two you should be aware of:

• The one that comes in the box is alright, especially if you're going to use this like a published resource for your players. But it separates things that maybe shouldn't be separate, and doesn't entirely fit my style.
• If I were starting today, I'd use Sly's template, which makes more sense for a DM's private notes. I don't use 100% of his prep method, but having NPCs, locations, and notable items all in the same database makes more sense to me.

This is the best one i have found. I don’t know avout condensed but they are definitely complete.

https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/D%26D%205th%20Edition/Extras/bestiary.html

Shame WOTC make it inhibitavely expensive to have a complete collection on DNDBeyond, especially for our group who collectively bought all the hardcover books, but for obvious reasons now have to play online.

Thanks for leting me take a peek into your campaign. It is great concept.

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I have started to make something similar for me, too...

Travel to nowhere and back

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But I am not that inspirational man to get things going, so am stuck

I use https://www.noisli.com/ in work when one of those 3-hour (random non-lyrical music) things on Youtube won't do the trick.

It's more environmental, like water, wind, flames, nighttime, or even passing trains, but it's helpful.

GIMP is free, but you don't have art assets.

If you want a buy-once alternate to Inkarnate, look at Wonderdraft by MegaSploot. It has a section on www.cartographyassets.com with free assets that can be used to make your map.

Also, unrelated to Inkarnate stuff, but MegaSploot also created DungeonDraft which has become my favorite grid/token based map builder, especially since Forgotten Adventures got their asset integration done.

Anyway, hope this helps to a degree!

Can confirm DMHelper is really neat and has more features than was mentioned above. Also still in development. New stuff is added all the time. Also very helpful community on Discord.

As for creating own maps i can suggest Wonderdraft and Dungeondraft.

Wonderdraft is more geared towards actual world maps.

Dungeondraft (as the name implies) is for creating caves, dungeons, rooms,..... "Battle maps" essentially. Dungeondraft is still in it's early stages and has some bugs but is already very useable and yields good results (imo).

This is possibly more complicated than it needs to be, but I use Figma.com for this. Figma is really a collaborative layout & design tool. I download the background from DnDBeyond, place monsters, and then draw boxes over each area I want to obscure. When we play I send them the public link and make the boxes invisible as they progress.

Here's a still of what it looks like (minor spoilers for Lost Mine of Phandelver/Starter Set) Cragmaw Castle in Figma

Here's my current process:

• Download the DM & Player map from DnDBeyond
• Open them as layers in GIMP and erase anything that players shouldn't see from the DM map (so the Player map shows through). I do this so I can keep the fancy D&D numbering, but you can just as easily go with the regular player map and add your own room numbers (which is what I did in the example image). Export the image as jpg.
• Drag the background image into figma and lock it into place
• Place images for monsters in rooms. Put player tokens near the entrance
• Draw boxes over each area, flatten them (figma term), and label them with the room number. Make sure to lock them so you don't accidentally drag them around.
• Send users the link. If the player logs in, ask them to disable the UI (a.k.a. the sidebar & menubar) so they don't see any spoilers. You can also adjust sharing settings to allow them to edit. Keep in mind that his would let them to move anything, not just their token.
• As players progress, make the boxes invisible (click the eye) to reveal each area.

Looking back at what I've written, there are probably a lot of simpler ways, but it's what I was able to figure out at the time.

*Edit: formatting

You're going to want a mix of programs. First, grab Tiled. It's free. You can grab Fire Emblem tilesets and sprite sheets at various places around the web, not sure how legal it is though so I won't link any specific ones. Regardless, you can also buy tilesets and assets in a similar style on Itch and such, so just find the assets you like and build your map with Tiled.

Then my personal recommendation for actually running the game is Foundry VTT. It's a one-time $50 purchase for the DM, and your players can connect to your game for free using a web browser (Chrome works best). Foundry will allow you to set a grid size and shape on your map, set up multiple "scenes" for different maps, place tokens, implement auto-calculated fog of war, and stream audio to your players from your hard drive in addition to the visuals so you can have fun FE battle music if you want.

OneNote is 100% the best campaign management tool. Check out OneTastic, a OneNote addon that lets you record and download macros. Automatically populating a Table of Contents for the entire notebook is an absolute gem- I can't stress enough how much that addon helped my campaigns become more organised.

As for VTT, I heard great things about Foundry but haven't used it myself. There's apparently a steep learning curve but I have DM friends who swear it's the best thing since ever. I personally use Roll20. I like it but it has its limitations; they really are behind the times in many of their development features- I'm honestly too invested in Roll20 with all my NPC sheets and maps and dynamic lighting to switch to another VTT, but I'd give Foundry a chance if I were you. Apparently they have a very forgiving 30-day refund policy so there's very little you could lose from giving it a go.

Check out Doodle. Let's you create date surveys that will get you pretty close to what you're describing.

My group uses this every few months to schedule. DM creates poll with dates available to DM, rest of the group responds with the dates they can play. DM then sends calendar invites to group for the dates with the most player availability.

Obsidian.md is primarily a notetaking app, but the Leaflet plugin is fantastic, and lets you link each marker to its own note.

I was using OneNote however I have recently switched over to Obsidian. It is Mac only, but if you’re on macOS it’s great. It’s open source, easily expandable, easy to link notes within it, and you can use Markdown. So far it’s great.

I have been using Discord with a friend for a world we are building together and that has been super helpful for capturing ideas and collaboration. We will likely transfer everything to a wiki once things are complete and when we start running our individual games in the world we’ll use Discord to discuss how actions our respective groups take affect the world overall.

Squid or Big Fat Canvas both have this functionality, I believe - but I'm not sure about hex grids.

Windows is built in with Speech Recognition. I haven't messed with it, but I'm sure it works OK.

Also, you could get a gaming keyboard like a Logitech G13 with macro programmable buttons and fix up what ever you like.

I looked into programmable 'decks' a while back, found this.

I just found this and am not sure if I'm horrified or impressed.

Fifth Edition DM tools

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wgkammerer.dmtools

It's absolutely wonderful, and you can import all of the monsters from files that people have posted online, makes it really easy to setup encounters, track initiative and experience. I found it through the character sheet app made by the same guy, and I have found it useful just because of being able to import character sheets made from that app.

That's about what I ended up getting, though I got this one from amazon instead. That one has little boards in the base and walls, so then it keeps its shape a little bit better than some of the others. Personally, I'd like it to be a bit larger, so that I could keep the dice inside as well, but it's not a terribly big deal. These little trays are the best for cheap dice trays.

Check out themonstersknow.com for specific ideas on tactics if you need some, but for strategy, your best choice is "On War" by Carl von Clausewitz (much better, though not mutually exclusive with, Sun Tzu's "The Art of War").