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DM’s toolbox




As a DM, you can approach how you create your universe by using different methods. You take some time (or not) before each of your sessions and prepare something for the players to enjoy. However, even inspired, it may take you quite a lot of time to create the perfect dungeon, city, NPC, a name, or some weird area. For this, and much more, here I’ll list you my intensive list of resources to get stuff from quickly, so you don’t have to carry all the heavy weight from worldbuilding on your shoulders.
Encounter building: Kobold’s fight club
You need to create some balanced encounters for your players on a whim, or for your next dungeon or session, but don’t want to do math using the CR. Just tell the webpage how many party members there are, which level they are in and start adding monsters to see how difficult the encounter will be for your players, plus the amount of xp they will earn for completing it.
Take this with a grain of salt though, as CR isn’t often the best way to know how difficult an encounter may be for your players. Even the game designers admit that! However, it’s still a really valuable resource for me and deserved a spot on this list.

Giving some random NPC a name: FantasyNamesGenerator
This one is the crème de la crème of resources for DMs. It’s so good even DnDBeyond decided to use it for their character’s creation section. Quick! You need a name for that random farmer your players just rescued from the owlbear! Select a race and click the Generate random name. That’s it! Problem solved! Write that name down so you don’t have to remember it and there you’ve got your new NPC character.

Get some inspiration and help on details: Pinterest
I've talked about this one before. It's an amazing tool for when you are not inspired enough or want to give a very detailed information of some npc or place your players find. Organize the images you like in different categories (for example, elf cities)  and get ready to go with those new things you'll be creatong!

Keep your campaign organised: Trello
Your players are adventuring in a big continent, full of cities, capitals, important places. Each of them also has several pubs, inns, general stores and more possibly, with NPCs living in them. Each of this npc has its own personality.
You can use a word document to have this all organised, but you'll take a lot of time to get to the things you are looking for while playing. That's what Trello is useful for! You create tables, each of them with different content inside, which can also have extra content inside those! In this I make tables for all the important cities and places in my campaign, each containing some quick details about their owners or how it looks like. If used properly, this tool is a must have.

Writing some things down, or making the session planning: Google Drive
Imagine this Friday you can't use your house to play, but your friend suggested to use his house for the session. You don't need to carry all the planning you made in MS Word, that's what the cloud is for!
Upload your things to Google drive and get yourself a tablet (or ask your friend for his/her PC) and you'll be able to access everything on the web! 
 
Keeping track of your player’s location when playing theatre of the mind: Roll20
Ok. Playing theatre of the mind you don’t really need to know exactly where your players or the enemies are located. I myself have never used it this way, but heard some do. Use Roll20 and place them in a map. You can get some nice looking images from the internet to put your players’ tokens in, so as to then display it on a TV screen or projector. You can also use this to keep track of your players’ initiative or health remaining.

Ultimate Random things generator: Donjon
Finding Donjon was a wonderful thing for me. It really gives me inspiration for my dungeons, locations and NPCs, and it can do so much more. Chance is if you want some random generator, or a list of anything from the game, this website has it.

https://donjon.bin.sh/

Is there some webpage you think should be in this list? Let me know in the comments, as you may not only help me, but also future viewers!
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