From the #1 Best-Selling author, Jeff Ashworth, comes the latest addition to The Game Master series, with more than 500 NPCs ready to populate your campaign whenever you need them! As is often the case in tabletop roleplaying games, players often venture into locales or look for answers in places and among people busy Game Masters simply didn’t anticipate. Or, just as often, an adventure won't have fully fleshed out characters in place for the locations and encounters outlined for gameplay. The Game Master's Book of Non-Player Characters solves these issues and more by providing Game Masters with the information they need to “fill in the holes” in their campaign play. It will enable GMs to instantly add depth, color, motivation and unique physical characteristics at a moment's notice to unexpected or underwritten characters as they pop up during gameplay, ensuring every session is a memorable one for players and GMs alike. This edition also includes more than 50 hand-drawn illustrations of select NPCs detailed in the book, 3 bonus one-shot adventures, and a foreword by online influencer Jasmine Bhullar.

For many tabletop RPG players, the joy of an in-depth game is that anything can happen. Typical adventure modules include a map of the adventure’s primary location, but every other location?whether it's a woodland clearing, a random apothecary or the depths of a temple players elect to explore?has to be improvised on the fly by the Game Master. As every GM knows, no matter how many story hooks, maps or NPCs you painstakingly create during session prep, your best-laid plans are often foiled by your players' whims, extreme skill check successes (or critical fails) or their playful refusal to stay on task. In a game packed with infinite possibilities, what are GMs supposed to do when their players choose those for which they're not prepared? The Game Master’s Book of Random Encounters provides an unbeatable solution. This massive tome is divided into location categories, each of which can stand alone as a small stop as part of a larger campaign. As an example, the “Taverns, Inns, Shops & Guild Halls” section includes maps for 19 unique spaces, as well as multiple encounter tables designed to help GMs fill in the sights, sounds, smells and proprietors of a given location, allowing for each location in the book to be augmented and populated on the fly while still ensuring memorable moments for all your players. Each map is presented at scale on grid, enabling GMs to determine exactly where all of the characters are in relation to one another and anyone (or anything) else in the space, critical information should any combat or other movement-based action occur. Perhaps more useful than its nearly 100 maps, the book's one-shot generator features all the story hooks necessary for GMs to use these maps as part of an interconnected and contained adventure. Featuring eight unique campaign drivers that lead players through several of the book's provided maps, the random tables associated with each stage in the adventure allow for nearly three million different outcomes, making The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters an incredible investment for any would-be GM. The book also includes a Random NPC Generator to help you create intriguing characters your players will love (or love to hate), as well as a Party Makeup Maker for establishing connections among your PCs so you can weave together a disparate group of adventurers with just a few dice rolls. Locations include taverns, temples, inns, animal/creature lairs, gatehouses, courts, ships, laboratories and more, with adventure hooks that run the gamut from frantic rooftop chases to deep cellar dungeon-crawls, with a total of 97 maps, more than 150 tables and millions of possible adventures. No matter where your players end up, they'll have someone or something to persuade or deceive, impress or destroy. As always, the choice is theirs. But no matter what they choose, with The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters, you'll be ready.

All the information Game Master's needs to create compelling dungeon crawls, deadly fortress traps and clever riddles or puzzles to activate players’ critical thinking skills alongside their critical rolls during tabletop RPG play.

A quirky Dungeons & Dragons-inspired adventure that will appeal to gamers and readers of the Mr. Lemoncello's Library series. What if your favorite fantasy game characters showed up on your doorstep IRL? Sixth graders Ralph, Jojo, Noel, Persephone, and Cammi are hooked on fantasy tabletop role-playing games. When they somehow manage to summon their characters to Ralph's house, things take a truly magical turn! The five are soon racing around town on a wild adventure that tests their both their RPG skills and their friendship. Will Ralph and crew be able to keep their characters out of trouble? Trying to convince a sticky-fingered halfling rogue not to pickpocket or a six-foot-five barbarian woman that you don't always have to solve conflicts with a two-handed broadsword is hard enough. How will they ever send the adventurers back to their mystical realm? "Epic...for young fans of Stranger Things."--SLJ "An exciting new adventure exploring friendship...[with] often humorous commentary on social issues."--Booklist "Both funny and heartfelt...[The Game Masters of Garden Place] has as much to offer diehard fans as it does newcomers to fantasy role-playing."--Bulletin

This incredible book details more than two dozen unique, heart-stopping dragons, plus dragon-kin, dragon-related organizations and magic - everything you need to make dragons the centerpiece of your campaign, full of mystery, terror and legendary excitement.

From the creator of the popular blog The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes a compilation of villainous battle plans for Dungeon Masters. In the course of a Dungeons & Dragons game, a Dungeon Master has to make one decision after another in response to player behavior—and the better the players, the more unpredictable their behavior! It’s easy for even an experienced DM to get bogged down in on-the-spot decision-making or to let combat devolve into a boring slugfest, with enemies running directly at the player characters and biting, bashing, and slashing away. In The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, Keith Ammann lightens the DM’s burden by helping you understand your monsters’ abilities and develop battle plans before your fifth edition D&D game session begins. Just as soldiers don’t whip out their field manuals for the first time when they’re already under fire, a DM shouldn’t wait until the PCs have just encountered a dozen bullywugs to figure out how they advance, fight, and retreat. Easy to read and apply, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is essential reading for every DM.

Building upon existing materials in the "Dungeon Master's Guide," this title was specifically designed to facilitate play, especially when the Dungeon Master has a limited amount of preparation time. Chapters include discussion on running a game, designing adventures, building and using prestige classes, and creating campaign settings.