Become the Ultimate Game MasterThanks to tabletop roleplay, millions of fans are creating unforgettable collaborative stories. No matter what roleplaying game you want to play, this book is the key to unlocking endless adventure!Award-winning game designer Justin Alexander has created an incredible compendium of advice, perfect for any aspiring Game Master. This book is packed with the strategies you need to create amazing dungeons, battles, roleplay encounters, and more. Full of practical, hands-on advice, just hearing the first chapter of this book will have you ready to run a game in less than an hour. From there, Justin teaches you all the skills and techniques you need to explore dungeons, solve mysteries, steal priceless artifacts, unravel strange conspiracies, and venture forth on epic journeys!No matter what game you're playing, this book is the key to unlocking the limitless realms of your imagination.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

The Game Master's Book of Traps, Puzzles and Dungeons provides GMs with endless options for populating their adventures with challenging riddles, puzzles, spiked pits, Rube Goldberg-style deathtraps and much more - everything they need to push player character to their limit and bring new levels of excitement (and anxiety) to their game play.Whether part of a pre-planned adventure or a random encounter, these brain teasers, puzzles and traps will make every dungeon crawl, fortress break-in, or temple sacking that much more fun. GMs will find more than 60 challenging puzzles, 60 unique traps and 50 modular dungeon chambers, each with its own set of possible encoounters, meaning GMs can generate a fully-functional (or completely dilapidated) dungeon in a few rolls of a dice. With intricate technical illustrations, beautifully rendered top-down location maps and three one-shot adventures, written by RPG inflencers including Jasmine Bhullar and the creators of the Three Black Halflings podcast, The Game Master’s Book of Traps, Puzzles and Dungeons is the ideal tool for any GM hoping to put the fun back in fun-geon*.*not a word. Read more

The Game Master's Book of Instant Towns and Villages provides GMs with all of the inspiration they need to conjure up unique, vivid urban environments at a moment's notice, or when trying to come up with ideas for new places to be explored. This game-saving collection brings together nearly 170 fully-realized places organized by environment and divided up into villages, towns, cities and capitals, so that when players are trudging through a dangerous swamp, unrelenting desert or stormy coastline and need to find shelter, they can stumble upon a fully realized settlement, elven enclave or dwarven mining camp, without requiring any development in advance on the part of the game master. At its core, this book works a bit like the bestselling Game Master's Book of Non-Player Characters, but instead of providing information about the people one might meet, Instant Towns and Cities provides sketches of urban centers which can act as on-demand solutions to unexpected needs (ex. the characters need to find a physician right away and head for the nearest town, which until now, the GM had not developed) or as concepts that inspire entire adventure story arcs, depending on the party’s (or the GM's) wants or needs. Each location is packed with interesting people to meet, locations to explore and story hooks to investigate (or avoid!). It's a problem-solving tool unlike any other, certain to take the pressure off game masters who find themselves in need of a creative solution for urban areas at any time in any location. Read more

More than 300 random tables designed to help you build a new world from scratch or take your existing RPG campaign to new levels of creativity and excitement, plus 3 exciting one-shot adventures!While The Game Master's Book of Astonishing Random Tables is not a wondrous item, you'd be forgiven for assuming it has magical properties. That's because within these pages are countless adventure hooks - side quests and travel complications and chase sequences and skill challenges and other encounters suitable for any environment. And that's just one section. These table results aren't just short line listings of random answers either. Inside, you'll find rich, fully examined results and supplemental pieces of text that provide you with all the information you need to use them effectively. With this book by your side, you can develop an entire campaign setting, its pantheon, its various continental forms and proclivities of its population. From the big questions ("Where does magic come from?," "Who's in charge?," "Why are we at war with our neighbors?") down to the most minute detail ("Can my party avoid paying property taxes on their new keep if it's actually an instant fortress?"), this book has you covered. Develop a rich tapestry of trade and commerce by randomizing your realms economy or find out who's really pulling the strings by rolling on the Puppet Government table. Want more ideas? How about a table or curses or dreams or wild magic results or spell scroll side effects or a random potions generator or a list of things your party shouldn't tough (but probably will)? All those and much, much more are waiting within.So relax, unwind and unleash the unknown. By letting this book spark your creativity and set the stage for each session, you can focus on the important things like how to properly destroy that instant fortress). Read more

In a game packed with infinite possibilities, what are GMs to do when their players choose what they have not prepared?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. 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. “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 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.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. Read more

As most TTRPG fans know, one of the most exciting elements of any roleplaying game is that the story can go anywhere at any time. Unfortunately, Game Masters can’t possibly prepare for every unpredictable request, unfortunate die roll or unbelievably bad player decision that might unfold at their table. That's where this book comes in: Featuring more than 500 more maps, roll tables and story hooks, The Game Master’s Book of More Random Encounters will save readers hours of planning by providing all new enchanting adventure maps, perilous plot twists and unexpected NPCs that they’ve come to expect from the Game Master series in an easy-to-follow format that's compatible with all their 5e adventures.Featuring plenty of practical places like taverns, inns and alchemist's labs as well as unexpected locations in far-off realms, farther-off planes and even the farthest reaches of the galaxy, The Game Master's Book of More Random Encounters is everything readers loved about the first book in the series―but EVEN MORE. Whether they’re assigning a destination following a teleportation mishap, wondering what it would be like to dine at chain restaurant in the Abyss or looking for a simple spot for their players to kick their feet up for a few hours (careful, that coffee table is a realm unto itself), this action-packed tome is the remedy for maladies Game Masters didn't even know they had.Includes:· Dozens of plug-and-play encounter locations suitable for most fantasy settings· Variant roll tables to mix up the action for every map· Three one-shot adventures to flow into your own campaigns· and more! Read more

When your players are traveling through the wilderness from Point A to Point B, here’s the key to making that journey as intriguing and exciting as possible!As every GM knows, you can spend hours preparing an adventure, but rarely is any map filled in so completely that you can easily define what lies waiting in the wilds between where they are today and where they’d like to be tomorrow. That’s where The Game Master’s Book of Legendary Locations comes in.Legendary Locations provides Game Masters with more than 150 fascinating sites, obstacles, legends and landscapes spread across eight environmental zones, designed to make every journey an unforgettable one. From poisonous swamps and bottomless wells to dragon skull temples and abandoned mines, each location includes a brief history, exotic lore, potential dangers to fight and treasures to be won, along with illustrations throughout. Larger entries include special Game Master notes and random encounter tables to ensure each incredible locale is as compelling as possible. Each environmental zone also includes a completely fleshed out lair, including monster stat blocks, a map and full page illustration.In addition, Legendary Locations also includes dozens of roll tables for determining random encounters, eerie occurrences, natural hazards and more to ensure players are always experiencing something unique and unexpected.It’s a wellspring of inspiration and a fathomless resource for keeping players on their toes and ensuring that the journey is just as exciting as the destination. Read more

Introducing the first book in The Game Master's new "Handbook" series!Is your roleplaying in a rut? Flip the table and try something new! Proactive roleplaying will re-energize your players – and your game. Most adventures in traditional TTRPGs start out the same way: Something bad happens and your players have to muster their courage to stand against it. Whether it’s rescuing the little dog that was kidnapped by the local troll, stopping an assassination attempt at the archduke’s wedding or recruiting an army to disrupt the construction of a world-ending ritual site, the party will always find a way to save the day. After all, what kind of heroes would they be if they let the dog, duke or entire population die? Saving the day is fun, but it starts to get repetitive after a while. If you’re using a “bad guys try to do stuff, good guys try to stop them” engine to drive all your sessions, you’re taking all the agency out of your players’ hands. Bad stuff happens, good people have to try to stop it, roll, rinse, repeat.There’s a better way to play (and prep) your sessions. The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying shows you how to convert your TTRPG gameplay from predictable action/reaction cliches to player-driven narratives that put all the choices (and most of the prep work) in the hands of your players. The goals are theirs. The decisions are theirs. Everything that happens in the world you’re building together occurs not because you planned it, but because the PCs are following their own paths, rather than Game Master breadcrumbs, to the scene of the next adventure. The proactive approach ensures every battle has tension, every faction has a function and every session is high-stakes (and an absolute blast), putting the players and their characters in the driver’s seat so you can sit back and simply put giant goal- (and soul-) crushing roadblocks in their way.You’ll also find:• Foreword by Ginny Di with an afterword by Jeff Ashworth• Writer’s block-breaking charts• Case studies from decades of sessions• Templates for goal-driven NPCs and factions• A modular adventure setting and much more!The Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying is compatible with your favorite 5th edition Fantasy Tabletop RPGs! Read more

Make your PCs sweat with villains and minions designed to challenge them as never before!- New deluxe edition of Masters, Minions and Tactics from the award-winning fantasy art studio Jetpack7- Includes more than two dozen deadly BBEGs, including 5 new villains exclusive to this edition- Villains for low level and high level parties, plus tactics for more than 75 different minions and Big Bads- Completely reedited and redesigned, with exclusive guidelines for creating your own original villains and minions, as well as three exciting one-shots adventures!A game master’s biggest challenge can be prep time. With busy lives in mind, this book provides new and exciting content to help GMs save hours of time preparing for a game. Inside, readers will find twenty-five “Big Bosses,” along with insights into how they use their minions strategically in order to decimate any heroic threat that might cross their paths. The Game Master’s Book of Villains, Minions and Their Tactics provides tips and strategies that readers can use to “drag and drop” a BBEG into a new or existing game, with full color illustrations, lore, stats, combat tactics, and special abilities for each exciting entry. You’ll also find detailed tactics and combat strategies for more than 75 minions and bosses found throughout the 5E game. In addition to providing three exciting one-shot adventures, the book also shows you how to create your own original villains, minions and monsters – the best of the worst your game has to offer. Read more

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. Read more

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Ginny Di's The Game Master's Deck of Boons and Banes is one of those unique additions to the table that will leave a lasting impression on players and their in-game characters. 10 out of 10.―Jenny Melzer, Comic Book ResourcesWhether you're looking to reward your party for a job well done or show them the consequences of angering the wrong deity, The Game Master's Deck of Boons and Banes can bring a shifting power dynamic to every sessions. Conceived by tabletop RPG expert Ginny Di and featuring 20 boon and 20 bane cards, all stunningly illustrated by Tim Foley, this deck will help you advance player goals or hurl them (and your story) in an entirely different direction. Upon drawing a bane card, for example, a character might suffer a curse that threatens to strangle them the more active they are. However, pulling a boon could very well bestow a blessing from a higher power, such as a pair of guardian wolves that travel with the character wherever they go. The exact composition of the deck is up to the GM. The boons are a great temptation―but drawing a bane could bring about a crippling result. Players will need to weigh the odds every time. The deck also comes with a companion book, including a description of each card’s effect and how it impacts the PC who drew it, as well as 80 side quest ideas (two for each card) and helpful recommendations for scaling card effects up or down depending on the level of the characters drawing from the deck.The Game Master's Deck of Boons and Banes is a true game changer for your game! Read more

Experience the wonder and terror of dragons as they were meant to be!- New and expanded edition of Legendary Dragons from the award-winning fantasy art studio Jetpack7- Includes more than two dozen world-shattering dragons, including 6 new dragons exclusive to this edition- Dragon cults, dragon riders, aerial combat, magic items and much more- Completely reedited and redesigned, plus 3 exciting one-shots adventures!Game Masters and players alike are familiar with dragons and the threat they present in the world’s most popular tabletop roleplaying game. They’ve become so well-known, however, that some might say the magic has worn off them a bit. Even with the benefit of high-profile gaming supplements, they've become generic monsters, making the dragons in “Dungeons & Dragons” a shadow of their former imposing selves.In The Game Master’s Book of Legendary Dragons, readers will find more than two dozen truly epic beasts, each of which comes with a complete backstory, a history, motivations, lair actions, legendary combat actions and more. These creatures are designed to be a worthy focus to any campaign, whether as a mind-blowing BBEG for an unforgettable, high-level climax, or as a motivating force that runs in the background of a lower level adventure. Game Masters will also find new dragon-kin, drakes, kobolds and dragon races, plus new dragon-related organizations, skills, classes and magic, including dragon riders, dragon hunters, enhanced spells, aerial combat and airship options, dragon cults, magic items and more.The Game Master's Book of Legendary Dragons will provide endless ideas for Game Masters and countless hours of epic-level fun for adventurers willing to test their mettle against the baddest beasts the game has to offer. Read more

Take the first step into an amazing world of fantasy adventure! The Pathfinder Beginner Box contains everything you need to learn how to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, including rules to create your own fantasy hero and tools to make your own amazing stories. Will you be a courageous fighter, charging headfirst into battle, or a sly rogue, moving quietly to strike at foes from the shadows? Maybe you will be a knowledgeable wizard, wielding incredible arcane spells or a wise and pious cleric, using the power of your deity to shape the world for the better. It is all up to you! Inside you will find a rich toolbox, filled with everything you need to get started, including rules for character generation, an introductory adventure, guidelines to build your own campaign, character sheets, a full-color map, character pawns, and dice. This deluxe box set is the ideal introduction to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, leading the way to a lifetime of adventure! The Pathfinder Beginner Box includes: • An 80-page Hero's Handbook, including rules for character generation, a solo adventure, skills, spells, and equipment. • A 96-page Game Master's Handbook, containing an introductory adventure, over 20 pages of monsters, rules for building your own adventure, and magic items. • Four premade characters so you can jump right into the action and four blank character sheets if you want to make your own hero. • Over 100 character and monster pawns to use on the full-color double-sided adventure map. • Four game reference cards to help players remember their actions. • A complete set of polyhedral dice, including a d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, and d4. Read more

Eat delicious snacks and game-friendly meals in between dice rolls and encounters with this easy-to-follow RPG themed cookbook perfect for every game group.Feed your gamer group with this collection of 75 game-friendly bar bites, finger foods, and easy-to-share meals. With recipes from the passable Goodberries Baked Cheese-wrapped dates to the one-handed Dragon on a Stick Easy-Eat Meat Skewers to the player-favorite Inspiration Points Peanut Butter White Chocolate Pretzels, this cookbook has you covered for any game night adventure. Complete with easy-to-follow recipes and the wit and wisdom of the authors of A Dragon Walks into a Bar and Düngeonmeister, this book will hit the spot for hungry fighters, spellcasters, and anyone else at the table. Additional recipes include: -Goblintzes—Cheese Blintzes -Genasi’s Delight—Masala Peanuts -Remarkably Movable Rods—Candied Bacon -The Picked Pocket—Hamburger Stuffed Rolls -Healing Words—Lavender Cupcakes with Honey Frosting -Shards of Elemental Chaos—Candy Bark -Hex Grid Cookies—Map-Based Sugar Cookies Read more

“A good fit for any downtime moment in any genre.” —Forbes Take your tabletop roleplay to the next level with this first-of-its-kind card deck filled with questions to help you get to know your character and your party!Your adventuring party does a lot together, fighting side by side, and saving the world (or destroying it, depending your alignment): but at the end of the day, how well do you know them? This deck gives you the opportunity to share your character’s backstory, and even create new details, through question-based roleplay. Created by the RPG expert, author, and podcaster James D’Amato, this deck has 150 unique and interesting question cards to spark discussion, inspiration, and collaboration. Read more

Fight for Glory! Inside the 376-page Pathfinder Monster Core, you’ll find over 400 creatures, including fantasy classics like elves, ogres, and all-new dragons; wild animals from giant ants to ferocious wolves; and the unique monsters that threaten the world of Pathfinder, like sinspawn and noxious needlers. These creatures cover all levels of play, from the slow and mindless zombie shambler to the ultra-powerful demonic Treerazer! The ideal resource for Game Masters planning their next battles and player characters looking for monstrous allies to summon! Pathfinder Monster Core is the definitive monster rulebook for the fully remastered Pathfinder Second Edition RPG! These rules are compatible with previous Pathfinder Second Edition rulebooks, incorporating comprehensive errata and rules updates and some of the best additions from later books into new, easier-to-access volumes with new presentations inspired by years of player feedback. Along with the Player Core, GM Core, and Player Core 2, these books provide a new foundation for the future of tabletop gaming! The pocket edition presents the same contents as the standard edition in a smaller sized softcover for a lower price and better portability. Pathfinder Monster Core includes: • More than 400 monsters! • Gorgeous full-color illustrations on nearly every page! • Detailed monster lists sorted by level, type, and rarity to help you find the right monster for any situation! • Detailed lore sidebars offering additional information about Pathfinder's most popular monstrous friends and foes! • Published under the new Open RPG Creative (ORC) license, giving players and Game Masters even more freedom for making their own creations based on Pathfinder Second Edition. Read more

The finest mages, scientists, and academics of the Age of Lost Omens are gathering! Journey to a fortress-city in demon-ravaged Sarkoris to learn the ancient magical secrets of the Magaambya's wizards, Lepidstadt's bleeding-edge theories on reanimating flesh with electricity, the extraplanar fey philosophies of the Cobyslarni, and the lore of more than a dozen other academies! With so many prominent scholars in one place, rivalries are sure to abound―whether in the classroom, on the sports fields, or during field trips to dangerous lands. This 128-page book gives GMs and players a vibrant roster of luminaries, students, athletes, and wizards to build their very own magical academies. Whether players build bonds with classmates or clash with rivals, they'll gain diverse options like advanced spymaster gear, dazzling new martial arts techniques, or new wizard spells and schools, including the remastered Runelord! Read more

A Wild Adventure! A sound echoes across the world’s farthest wildernesses: the howl of countless animals and beasts! This all-new 224-page Pathfinder rulebook dives deep into the wilderness like never before! With new ancestries, character options, animal companions, wilderness foes and more, Howl of the Wild provides a traveler’s pack worth of value for players and Game Masters alike! Join a bumbling naturalist and an eccentric crew as they cross continents in their fantastic airship, searching for four legendary beasts. Along the expedition, you’ll find... • Six playable new ancestries to bring PCs' wildest characters to life: strong minotaurs, swift centaurs, magical merfolk, amphibious athamarus, animals awakened to consciousness, and insectile, metamorphic surkis! • Archetypes, spells, and other player options inspired by nature, from additional options for shapeshifting druids to playable werecreatures to archetypes that let you fight with claw, tail, or wing. • New animal companions, weapons and armor forged from the scales and fangs of magical beasts, and all the gear you need out in the field! • A menagerie of Golarion’s animals and beasts for GMs to unleash on players, covering animals like dinosaurs and sharks, expansions on classic monsters like chimeras and griffons, and never-before-seen creatures like the transparent sky fisher, the potion-brewing apothecary bee, and the extradimensional rift chameleon. • All rules optimized for the remastered Pathfinder Second Edition game! Read more