My Next RPG Campaign - GM Resources

For me, a big part of being a game master is preparation. And I'm dedicated to constant self-improvement. Seeing that I already spend so much of my time connected to the Internet, it makes sense that I would dedicate a part of that time to locating resources and hopefully learning from them. So, here's a few of my favorite resources.

The Alexandrian

The Alexandrian has proven invaluable to my most recent campaign (and likely to my next one). His series on Node-Based Scenario Design, Urban Crawls, The Art of Pacing are top notch. Really anything from his Gamemastery 101 is great reading that will make you evaluate how you run games, ways to improve, and encouragement to try new things.

Blog of Holding

Paul's Blog of Holding is another fantastic independent resource for D&D DMs. He often takes tiny bits of information from the margins of the text and fleshes them out into cohesive thoughts and suggestions. A great example is his post on a campaign setting based on ideas from unpublished TSR settings. Some others are the Bank of Tiamat, 5e Demographics, and 5e hex maps. One of my favorite recent posts is the cuteness rule, which is something had put into use in my Time and Tide campaign.

r/DnDBehindTheScreen

Reddit is a favorite of mine. There's several good subreddits for GMing but r/DnDBehindTheScreen which is a newcomer to the game has some of the best content. The Ecology of the Monster is my favorite. It makes you think critically about the monsters available and how you should deploy them against characters. But there are many, many posts spanning everything necessary to be a DM. And while most of the content is oriented towards Dungeons & Dragons, the concepts generally presented are good for running any type of game.

Dungeonomics

Not necessarily great for rulings or direct GM advice. But multiplexer tells amazing stories that mesh real historical economics into the high fantasy worlds of D&D. Every time I've read one of her pieces, I've come away with a deep appreciation for the depth of her research and the craziness of financial instruments. Also, I've laughed every time. Murder hobos, Transmuters Bank, Old Man Quest Givers and so much more.¹

Preparation

There's a bunch of other preparation I'm doing to get ready for my Pulp Heroes campaign. I'm going to re-watch the entire Indiana Jones series and take copious amounts of notes. I've got a basic plot outline structured but until my players create their characters nothing is final. I expect to do a few re-writes between now and when we open the campaign early next year.