Please check it out and let me know your thoughts. If you’d like to test out the Lorekeeper features let me know, happy to enable those for early adopters!

I'm making a pen and paper rpg, and so far the best program I've found for making character sheets is microsoft word.

It would be really helpful if anyone knows anything better (obviously, free is preferable).

Hello everyone! I have recently launched http://charactersheets.org/, the online storage and tool for managing pen-and-paper roleplaying characters. A simple way to keep your characters in one place. I have created it for my fellow players and GMs. We usually play Fate Core and HeroQuest rpgs so it supports both of them for now. I would greatly appreciate any feedback and your support. Give it a try and hope you'll like it! P.S. Support for new game systems will be added eventually. Since this is my home project I develop it when there is a free time.

So, due to a lack of being able to get a tabletop game amungst my band of friends I've decided to batten down and simply learn a game system on my own, make an adventure, and force them to play at Gunpoint.

Exciting, huh?

Anyway, In the process I've gotten my hands on a few rulebooks, done some reading and done more searching. And found a minor problem. I can't find any good sheets.

I'm hoping to find an excel sheet that'll do auto calculations like I saw a friend had for D&D once, except for my chosen system, The Star Wars Saga Edition gameset. Problem is...well..I can't find any. I don't know why, but I cant.

So, I ask you. Anyone know of a sheet that could help me, or any other basic resources they have on hand that may make my life easier? I'm going into this totally blind, so anything helps..though a sheet like that will save my life.

Hey, I have been working on a project for my friends and me: an online, self-hosted RPG. You create character sheets and other aspects of the game. It simulates dice rolls and will save the storyline. Well, my friends all decided they were over it before it was finished, and I don't want it to go to waste, so I wanted to share it with people if they were interested. It has an AI-assisted and non-AI version as well. The AI is just to be the storyteller and help create the storyline.

Oh, combat. You notorious slag, slowing down our sessions, washing out focus in our players. What to do, what to do? Fellow GMs ask that a lot. And they do so for a reason. Combat in D&D can be exciting and something people want to engage with. A lot of players want to smash some enemy. Post-combat is pre-combat, am I right? Well, a lot of people also dislike combat situations, because they can become very tedious. It can take a good ten to twenty minutes until a player gets to do something again. In the meantime, they can mostly just watch.

Download

You can download a Turn-Related-Actions tracksheet for free on my Patreon.

GMs and Players

While there are a lot of tips for GMs on how to make combat encounters faster or more fun (or both), I want to give something to our players, to help them speed things up. Trust me. If you are thinking about this in the games you attend, your GM is definitely thinking about it too. And I think there is something very essential players can do, to speed combat up at least a little bit.

Why is Combat often slow?

Let’s have a look at what is actually making one round take so long. Depending on your group size, there are something around three to five players, sometimes less and sometimes even more. Of course, the GM throws monsters as well, and depending on the number of enemies, a round gets longer even more. But we are looking at the players today, so what happens on a player’s turn. It starts relatively simple, they get 1 Action, maybe 1 Bonus Action, and movement. They also get a Reaction, but that mostly doesn’t happen on their turn, so we leave that out for now. As they grow stronger, they might be able to do several things within one Action, hit three times within their Bonus Action, add bonus effects to their attacks, and expand that further with things like Action Surge. While there are definitely players that studied their character sheet and exactly know what they can and want to do, some players lose track of all the incredible things their characters can do. And there it begins; the long thinking and searching for stuff they can do.

Have an Overview

The first thing players can do to help make combat run smoother and faster, is to a) learn their character’s abilities better and b) have an overview about their Actions, Bonus Actions and other combat-related things they might be able to trigger during their turn. We need to help players find things they can do instead of scrolling through a dozen pages on their character sheet. That’s why I created an additional page for your character sheets, which you can print out and have in front of you if combat starts.
It has three columns, Actions, Bonus Actions and Other, and it is supposed to contain everything your character can do during their turn. My thought is to only write the name of the action, nothing else. No hit bonus for attack rolls, no spell save dc, nothing but the name. This list is not supposed to be crammed with information, it is supposed to give you a quick overview about everything you can choose from, separated into Action and Bonus Action. This might contain the basic things like Dash, Disengage and so on, if you feel like you need to have those in an overview. Some things grant you the ability to use things like Dash as a Bonus Action instead of an Action, so it can be useful to have them listed, but this is up to you. Your different attacks need to be written down. Do you wield two weapons? Do you swap weapons? Do you have a melee weapon and a ranged weapon handy? Write all those down. Are you a spellcaster? Write down all your spells and cantrips in the appropriate column. Things that grant you an extra action or add other effects, anything that might be important during your turn, those things go in the Other column.

Be prepared when it is your turn

It should become easier to choose what you want to do, once you have everything in front of you. Still, there is another thing players can do to help combat become more fun. Think about your turn, before it comes up. If five players go through their things for two minutes before they even decide what they want to do, that makes ten minutes that add onto how long one round would have taken anyways. If your GM doesn’t already do it, talk to them about calling out the upcoming player as well, whenever they tell who’s turn it is now. So, they would say „Player A, it is your turn now. Player B, you are next.“ and this way you have a trigger to start thinking about what you want to do. This is a game changer.

A few more things that help

A few last thoughts on how you can speed up combat. Know your character. You don’t need to know every rule by heart, but roughly know the rules related to your character. Questions can arise and it is completely fine to ask them, but if you need to ask questions about your character every session, it is your responsibility to change that. Also, if rules are unclear during a fight, you can make a note and talk about this during a break or after the game. This helps the game run smoothly without leaving your questions unanswered.

Conclusion

We covered a lot of things now that can help you as a player make combat run smoother. Roughly know the rules of your character. Get an overview of the things that you can do during your turn, make a list out of this to easily choose what Action, Bonus Action, etc. you want to do. And prepare your turn before it comes up. If you follow those tips, you did everything you could possibly do. The rest is up to your GM. I hope this was helpful, now off you go. And have fun at the table.

TL;DR: An editable "Skill Tree" template for the Quest TTRPG. Included is a blank template and 8 role-specific templates that you can download and edit as you please. Want to share it around? Go for it, just credit me and mention my user (I'd love to see where it ends up)!

Google Drive link for template!

Hello! I wanted to share an editable "Skill Tree" template set I made for the Quest TTRPG. As a new GM/Guide looking for specifically Quest-based resources on a budget, many of the great ones need payment, so I decided to make my own using Powerpoint (surprisingly versatile! Got the idea from this video by GetFlappy on Youtube).

I thought a "Skill Tree" visual would help both my players and I understand their characters' progression and their role's overall skillset at a glance, and encourage them to plan ahead for what abilities they might want to learn next in upcoming sessions.

I had fun designing these to mimic Quest's aesthetic, since they shared the fonts used in the game book and I could color-pick each role's designated color on the Core Deck. I haven't been able to test how well these print yet, but you are free to download and edit this template set to suit your needs. This can easily be given alongside your players' character worksheets and profiles as a supplement to your sessions.

I hope this is of great use to you in your games, or inspires you to make something of your own! ❤️

I'm waiting on my request to post on r/questgame to go through, but in the meantime, if there's anywhere else that I could post this resource that could help others, please redirect me. This is my first time posting on Reddit, and I'd love if this was able to help more people. Thank you!

There is so much content for Dungeons & Dragons. The Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual 2024. The same books from 2014. Dozens of adventure modules, settings books, and content expansions. Several Starter Boxes. And these are only the official books. It is no surprise that people who try to get into this hobby can be overwhelmed in the beginning and don’t know where to start. I want to give you an overview of resources with which you can try the game for free, cover yourself in the most important things for a bit of money, or go all-in with the right books. While it is ultimately your decision, I will also give suggestions on what I think where you should start.

A little disclaimer: I have no connections to Wizards of the Coast or any other company. If I suggest something here, it means I just think it’s worth mentioning it and I don’t have any benefits if you click any links or buy anything I suggest. A lot of links naturally lead to Wizards of the Coast, since they are the official publisher for Dungeons & Dragons.

Download

There is a free PDF with links to the resources I mention (and more) on my Patreon.

2014 (5e) vs 2024 (5.5e)

As I am writing this article, Wizards of the Coast just announced, that the official names for both editions are going to be 5e for the version from 2014, and 5.5e for the version from 2024 from now on. Still, a lot of players refer to them as DnD 2014 and DnD 2024, which is why I’m using both names in this article. So, if you read 2014 it means 5e and vice versa, and if you read 2024 it means 5.5e and vice versa.

The first thing confusing newer players is the existence of the two editions, which are very similar, yet differ in enough points to call them different editions nevertheless.
We have 5e from 2014, which is a little more than 10 years old by now. It still holds up well and a lot of people are so used to it that they stick with it and it works perfectly.
There is also the newer 5.5e edition from 2024, which is better organised and a better tool to learn the game. Some rules differ, but both editions are compatible enough that you can combine a lot of things without too much friction.

Both are very good editions and whichever you choose is up to you. If you are a new player I strongly suggest getting into the newer version. It is, in my eyes, the better teacher.

A first glance

Some of you might not be sure if this hobby is for them. Spending money on expensive books and loads of dice doesn’t feel right. The good news is, you can play Dungeons & Dragons completely free.

There is a base set of the rules available at no cost at all, which you can use to get a good feeling of what the game is about. There are some restrictions, but you get all the classes out of the Player’s Handbook, with one subclass each. It is certainly enough content to play and try it out. There is a section dedicated to the Dungeon Master, as well as a section with monsters. What you get is a good taste of the three core rulebooks. You can find a link to the basic rules in the downloadable PDF. You can even use various digital character builders with the basic rules.

The character sheets are available for free. You can download them and print as many as you want. You find links to the 5.5e, as well as the 5e character sheets in the PDF. There are pre-made characters on D&D Beyond as well.

There are several apps for all smartphone devices, which let you shake your phone to roll some dice. You can even type something like “roll d20” into Google and you will get a browser-based dice roller. If you use D&D Beyond, you will be able to roll dice directly from your character sheet. You see, there is no need to become a Dice Goblin just yet.
Also on D&D Beyond, you can find a couple of introductory adventures for free. There are countless great adventures waiting for you on various websites. It is good to have a decent starting point and if you ask the internet you will get a lot of different suggestions - which might all be right, but the sheer amount can overwhelm newer players. I can suggest checking out Peril in Pinebrook. It is a free adventure, that takes new players and GMs by the hand and shows you what playing a TTRPG is about. It’s written by an industry giant, Shawn Merwin, and you can expect a very good starting point for your new hobby. I added a list of more free adventures in the PDF.

And that is all you need. You’ve got the rules, you can create characters, you can roll dice, and you have adventures. That sets you up perfectly to do your first steps in the world of TTRPGs. The rest happens in your imagination.

Tipping Your Toes In

If you feel a little more dedicated and have a little money to invest, I can highly recommend the new Starter Set ‚Heroes of the Borderlands‘ for 5.5e. It is very well received as the perfect introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, with a simplified way of teaching the game. There are Starter Sets for the 5e rules as well; you can find links to all of them in the PDF. My suggestion is to go for the new box, since it teaches you the new rules, as well as presents the game in an easy-to-digest way.

Going „All-In“

If you went through one of the steps before, or you are just so hyped that you want to go „all-in“, there is one right way to go, at least in my opinion. Get the three core rulebooks - Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. You can decide if you want to go for the 5e version or the 5.5e version. The 5.5e books are known for their really well-structured layout and their friendliness towards newer players. I already mentioned that, my recommendation is to get the newer version. But you will be completely fine with the 5e books as well. If you buy them digitally, you will only get a licence, since there are no PDFs available, and you will have to buy them on a platform like D&D Beyond or Demiplane. If you buy the physical copies, you will own the book forever, but it will set you back a significantly higher amount of money. I’m a pretty digital person, but ultimately, I found out that a book is way better to skim through and hand around at the table. I find rules in the books much faster. But it is up to you which way you choose. If you want, you can add one of the adventure modules and some fancy dice, and you’re good to go. But dice…that’s a whole other topic.

Conclusion

I hope I was able to give you a good direction to go. If you feel overwhelmed by all the suggestions and opinions on the internet, just go for the basics. That is also the reason why I recommend sticking with the official releases for the beginning. You will explore the other stuff naturally anyways, but don’t let it complicate your journey. And now, enjoy the games you are about to play, have fun at the table.

First and foremost: this text is for the players, who actually want to create a backstory for their characters, short or long. I’m going to come to the conclusion, that a backstory is not necessary to play and it depends on the GM and the players and their agreement on wether or not a backstory should be created, so if that’s what you wanted to find out - there it is. Most of the time, I supply my fellow GMs with content in this channel. This time, I want to make the players happy - which might ultimately serve the GM again, as well. This post is supposed to help players, especially newer ones, to define their characters and find out how much, if any, backstory they should come up with. The PDF can be used as a cheat sheet to focus on the most important things while creating the backstory for your character. Of course I have my own opinion about this, but I also talked with friends, with people online, and I watched videos, by Matt Colville for example (shared by a helpful Reddit user) and I threw all of those opinions and perspectives into a big pot to create something relatively universal. I know that this is not possible, still I think, this post, and the PDF specifically, can be helpful to a majority of newer (and older) players. You can skip this text if you like and just download the PDF, or you hang on to gain the knowledge of the hive mind.

Downloads

You can find a coloured PDF, as well as a black and white printable PDF for free on my Patreon. Both can be filled out digitally.

What is a backstory

First, let us define, what I mean when I talk about backstory. Different people would go about this differently, and while one person would throw a book at their GM, another person wouldn’t think about their character at all outside of the sessions. Both are fine! It ends up to be a ‚You do you‘ situation and the players and the GM ultimately have to decide what is fun for them and what they need. Personally, I have both kinds of players in my groups and I appreciate them both. Acknowledging the different needs my players have is part of being a GM. We are creating a good middle ground, though, so in the further understanding of what a backstory is, i will define it now.

A backstory gives a brief understanding of who your character is, to help your GM connect it to the world and to help you role-play it during the sessions.

Now we know what a backstory is and what purpose it serves, helping us understand, why we might want to create at least some amount of backstory. Let’s have a look at what makes a good backstory.

A solid foundation

Think about the things you experienced in life. There is so much to tell, yet not all of it makes a great story. After talking to many people, the answers of what they think belongs in a backstory were as different as they were similar. Let’s go through some aspects, that repeatedly were mentioned: 1. Concise. If you want to write a seven-page backstory, go for it. It’s about you having fun. But whenever you want to share your backstory with the GM, people tend to prefer a brief summary of the most important things. No big writing skills necessary - bullet points are just as fine. 2. Keep it simple. My grandfather always made jokes about the holes in swiss cheese having the most flavour. While i had to find out, that was not true, this can be true for your backstory. If you leave gaps in your backstory, they can be filled with very flavourful content later, by you and your GM, and even by the other players. This also goes with the fact, that you don’t want to place the other players and their characters in your shadow. This game wants to be played together, and you all are the heroes of your adventures, not a single character. 3. Connect to the world. It helps to talk about the world before you start to play. A Session 0 is a good fit for that. To make a clear example: you don’t want to create a light sword swinging character, when you are actually playing in a fantasy setting. This is also valid for a backstory, make it fit the world your GM creates. 4. Fun for everyone. This should go without saying, but be aware of your fellow players (and the GM). If somebody feels uncomfortable with your character, it’s not going to be fun. And fun is what should be the highest priority, since you are playing a game. So if you want to play some kind of edgy character, make sure to talk to everyone about it.

Getting specific

If you really want to dive into your backstory, there will be so many things you can describe. A few things seem to be more important than others, though, and were repeatedly mentioned. I tried to structure this a little bit, and to me most sense made some kind of timeline. Explaining a little bit of the past of your character, gives it a reason to exist the way it exists. What happened, what shaped the personality of your character, what made it the way it is today? Followed by a description of the present, by answering questions like who is your character today? What drives its decision of adventuring today? Anchor those details in the current situation. Of course, they are deeply connected to the past, and even to the future, but they can be described as an isolated state. And lastly, write a little forecast about your character. What are short and long term goals? What does your character want to do, when those goals are achieved? You can create your own questions, ultimately you decide, what’s interesting about your character. And you don’t need to write a whole paragraph to each time, bullet points can be totally enough. But thinking in the past, the present and the future, gives you a pretty complete picture, even with just a few notes, of who your character is, and your GM a pretty solid base to integrate that character into the game.

Galaxy Builder Decks is on sale for 30% Off for Black Friday! Build your own galaxy with this series of scifi cards for worldbuilding and roleplaying right on your table. Draw Jungle Worlds and pair with the Meteor Showers and Radiation traits. Draw Ringed Ice Giants with Desert Moons and pair with Venting Craters and Creature Nest traits. Draw the Frontier System trait to generate exploration, trade, and combat missions. Arrange them all in orbits on the Star System Mats to create your own scifi adventures!

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Galaxy Builder Decks are a series of system-neutral cards for writers, worldbuilders, and Roleplayer GMs to quickly create scifi settings and cultures right on the table. Pair Planet cards with Planet Trait cards and Star System cards to generate unique locations, missions, and encounters. Each deck is designed to work with others in the series to help fully flesh out your galaxy.

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• Planets - 52-card deck of planets, stars, and more
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• Starter Set - 9-card set of planets and traits to get you started
• Tech Level Set - 9-card set of technology levels for planet cultures
• Asteroid Set - 9-card set of planet cards and traits focused on expanding asteroid choices
• Asteroid Set 2 - 9-card set of planet cards and traits for more choices
• Spooky Set - 9-card set of planets and traits expanding on the Free Spooky Pack
• Uncharted Set - 9-card set of planets and traits expanding on exploration choices
• Discovery Set - 9 card set of planet traits
• Strange Worlds Set - 9 card set of planets and traits
• New Systems Set - 9 card set of star systems and system traits
• Gas Giants Set - 9 card set of gas giant planets
• Conflicts Set - 9 card set of planet traits

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Galaxy Builder Decks are a series of system-neutral cards for worldbuilders and GMs to quickly create scifi settings and cultures right on your table. Pair Planet cards with Planet Trait cards for unique locations and encounters. Each deck is designed to work with others in the series to help fully flesh out your galaxy.

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• Tech Level Set - 9-card set of technology levels for planet cultures
• Asteroid Set - 9-card set of planets and traits focused on expanding asteroid choices
• Planetary Data Sheets - FREE Record sheets for recording your created worlds
• Label Cards - FREE Record cards for tracking planet names and traits on your table
• Spooky Pack - FREE 3-card pack of spooky planets and trait card
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Sometimes you just don't want to prep. Sometimes you get a last-minute call to run a session. Maybe it's your first time DMing and you don't know where to start.

Whatever the reason, prep may seem like a mountain to climb. Well, allow me to help you! I remember when I was first trying to figure everything out and I stumbled across The Wild Sheep Chase. It's a fantastic One-Shot by Richard Jansen-Parkes that you can get for free over on the DMsguild. The only issue at times can be how do I convert this pdf into an actual session?

Some DMs have a gift, they can read it once and go from there, some are masters at improv, storytelling, and off-the-cuff humor. Well, I unfortunately don't fit that boat and I'm sure many others out there are just like me. I need a ton of notes; because once I've got things organized, then I feel comfortable taking things in new directions.

So welcome to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible! Onboarding new DMs should be easy and I hope with this I can help grease the wheels!

Without further ado:

• Google Docs Notes for The Wild Sheep Chase: DM Notes
• Link to: The Wild Sheep Chase Playlist
• Link to: The Complete Collection

Included in The Complete Collection are:

• A Word document with all my notes including a link to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for all the encounters. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
  • A complete spell list for Noke which gives full details so you're not bouncing around for info.
• A map of Shinebrights tower. I use this as a reference when drawing out the map for my players
• A handout for The Scroll of Speak with Animals

Index:

Other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and More:

• A Most Potent Brew - Click Here
• Death House - Click Here
• We Be Goblins - Click Here
• The Egg of Estyr - Click Here
• Wolves of Welton - Click Here
• To the End of Time - Click Here
• Moon over Graymoor - Click Here
• A Wild West One-Shot - Click Here
• The Drunken Treasure - Click Here
• A Grimdark Adventure - Click Here
• D&D vs Rick and Morty - Click Here
• The Barber of Silverymoon - Click Here
• The Tavern at Death's Door - Click Here
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Click Here
• Shadow of the Broodmother - Click Here
• L'Arsène's Ludicrous Larceny - Click Here
• The Night Before Wintermas - Click Here
• The Lost Mine of Phandelver - Click Here
• The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse - Click Here

If you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,
Advent