The Game Masters Book Of Non Player Characters

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." --The Bulletin

I’ve been role-playing all my life and I’ve run a lot of well-received campaigns. My players asked me what made my games work and this book is the result. This isn’t a rulebook for any gaming system, but it’s a how-to for my style of creating memorable NPCs, planning games, and engaging with your players. - Foreword, by Erica Lindquist - On Storytelling - Before the Game - Building Your Story - Running Your Game - Players & Player Characters - Problems - Rules & Mechanics - Setting & NPCs

"Playing a role-playing game is a delicate dance. If everything runs smoothly, it feels like you and your friends are able to maneuver effortlessly through dramatic, epic, and uproariously silly scenes where everyone gets a chance to shine. And yet, other times it just doesn't come together. Combat slows to a repetitive grind, the Game Master runs out of good Non-Player Character (NPC) ideas, or after twenty-six rounds maybe even the most beautifully designed encounter just gets a bit stale. Sure, you could prep an absolute powerhouse of an all-killer-no filler role-playing session. Spend time getting fun character voices ready for every NPC. But that sounds like way too much work. This is the book you turn to for help. It's a big book of ideas designed to slot right into your existing campaign, organized into neat little tables. If you salivate at chaos magic effect tables and daydream about wild, unexpected die results, you already know it can also be fun to throw caution to the wind and let randomness determine as much as possible. Even the most organized GMs and the tightest adventure modules benefit from a little spice!"--

From the author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes an introduction to combat tactics for Dungeons & Dragons players. In his first book, The Monsters Know What They’re Doing (based on his popular blog), Keith Ammann unleashed upon the D&D world a wave of clever, highly evolved monster tactics. Now it’s only fair that he gives players the tools they need to fight back…and prevail! An introduction to combat tactics for fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons players, Live to Tell the Tale evens the score. It examines the fundamentals of D&D battles: combat roles, party composition, attacking combos, advantage and disadvantage, Stealth and Perception, and more…including the ever-important consideration of how to run away! Don’t worry about creating a mathematically perfect character from square one. Survival isn’t about stats—it’s about behavior! With four turn-by-turn, roll-by-roll, blow-by-blow sample battles, Live to Tell the Tale breaks down how to make the best choices for your cherished characters so that they can survive their adventures, retire upon their accumulated riches, and tell stories about the old days that nobody will ever believe.

Ramp up your role-playing game (RPG) and make your character your own with this fun, interactive workbook—an essential addition to any player’s gaming kit. You’ve chosen your class, bought your weapons, and rolled for your stats, and you’re now the proud owner of your own RPG (role-playing game) avatar. But before you begin your adventure, there’s so much more you can do with your character to make him or her your own! Just how evil is she? What does his dating profile look like? Where did she get that scar? What does he want for his birthday? With fill-in-the blank narratives, prompts, and fun activities to help you customize your character at the start of the game, or build out your backstory as you play, The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Book will help you fully imagine your character and bring them to life for the ultimate gaming experience!

The Lazy DM's Workbook contains a wide range of tools, maps, and reference sheets to help you run your fifth edition fantasy roleplaying game--and is designed to be useful right at the table. This book contains numerous fifth edition rules references, guides, and random generators to help fire up your imagination as you prepare and run your games. The workbook also contains ten lazy lairs: full-color maps and quick descriptions of locations common to most fantasy roleplaying games. When the characters take a game session in a direction you didn't expect, you can use any of these lairs with minimal prep time, running it straight out of the book. The Lazy DM's Workbook is an indispensable reference, designed to be kept at your side as tales of high adventure unfold at your gaming table.

The beginning of a hard sci-fi series, Deam Park is a visionary science fiction classic from Larry Niven and Steven Barnes A group of pretend adventurers suit up for a campaign called "The South Seas Treasure Game." As in the early Role Playing Games, there are Dungeon Masters, warriors, magicians, and thieves. The difference? At Dream Park, a futuristic fantasy theme park full of holographic attractions and the latest in VR technology, they play in an artificial enclosure that has been enhanced with special effects, holograms, actors, and a clever storyline. The players get as close as possible to truly living their adventure. All's fun and games until a Park security guard is murdered, a valuable research property is stolen, and all evidence points to someone inside the game. The park's head of security, Alex Griffin, joins the game to find the killer, but finds new meaning in the games he helps keep alive. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Improve your RPG campaign with this comprehensive and interactive guide to making the most out of your gaming experience. Whatever RPG game you play, from D&D to Call of Cthulu to licensed games like Star Wars, every detail is important. From setting the scene to choosing the right music or even adjusting the lighting to create the right atmosphere, every choice helps maximize your gaming experience. The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide provides practical advice for everything from pre-game preparations and in-game improvisation to working out a plan of attack with your teammates to learning how to lean into the setting of your game. Including instructions, prompts, and activities, it offers everything you need for successful, fun role-playing with your friends every time you play. Create hours of narrative and make the most out of your storytelling skills by setting the perfect scene for your adventure. Whether you need advice on your character or working better with your gaming group, James D’Amato includes everything you’ll need to take your game to the next level.

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.

Do you play Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder? Are you spending hours on GM prep? Well, no longer. Cut down game master prep time with 25 1D100 fantasy random tables. Find items for a cell, a wine cellar, a dead orc, and more. Also, exciting random encounters for different terrains. Plus food and drink. Some of the tables in the book: Inn Names Names of Knightly Orders Desert Encounters Forest Locations Road Encounters Items in a Cell Items in a Chest Items on a Dead Orc Jewelry Items in a Wagon Items in a Wine Cellar Beers Thieves Guild Quests Dungeon Health Side Effects Get The Book of Random Tables and The Book of Random Tables 2

Level up your Game Master skills with these fun, interactive prompts and activities to help your worldbuilding from RPG expert James D’Amato. Make your next campaign truly unique with the help of this interactive guide to world building! From RPG expert James D’Amato comes a fun new guide that teaches beginner and experienced gamers alike how to build and create their own game elements for customizing existing adventures or creating new stories from scratch. The Ultimate RPG Game Master’s Worldbuilding Guide includes dozens of activities for a wide range of genres from fantasy and sci-fi to horror and x-punk. This lively and interactive book helps Game Masters create dynamic destinations, powerful items, shadowy organizations, compelling villains, and more. Make the most of your gaming experience with these unique and personalized ideas for your gaming group’s next adventures!

Looking for inspiration for your next tabletop RPG campaign? Discover 50 premade dungeon maps and start the adventure! Dungeon Maps for Game Master book contains 50 unique and customizable dungeon maps. It's a perfect asset for tabletop role-playing game players and Game Masters. Maps can be filled with additional objects, loot, monster and location features. Each map has an additional dot grid notebook-style page for story description, encounter details or extra space for mapping. The index page helps with navigating to the desired map quickly. About This Book 50 unique maps additional dot grid pages index page convenient size: 8.5 in x 11 in (A4) premium matte-finish cover design high-quality white paper

Four Non-Player Characters (NPCs) find themselves forced to pretend they're adventurers in order to save their town and loved ones.

Come join the adventure in Symbaroum, the acclaimed Swedish roleplaying game! Explore the vast Forest of Davokar in the hunt for treasure, lost wisdom and eternal fame. Visit the barbarian clans to trade or to plunder their treasuries. Establish a base of power among princes, guilds or rebellious refugees in the capital city of Yndaros. Or survive encounters with Arch Trolls, dark-minded Blight Beasts and undead warlords. But whatever you do, never ignore the warnings spoken by the wardens of the forest: tread carefully and do not disturb the ruins of old, for the dark deep of Davokar is about to awaken. Made in Sweden

108 unique dungeon maps of various sizes. High quality matte finish cover. 8.5 x 11 book size. Lots of room to write notes on the pages. The dungeon layouts are also great for solo play and the book makes a great gift for your game master friend or family member.

We RPG game masters have a lot of tools to help us run our roleplaying games. Our monster books and bestiaries give us piles of foes to throw at our adventurers. The various guides for game masters often give us non-player characters, treasures, and story-building tips. One of the hardest parts of game mastering, however, is coming up with interesting adventure locations for our characters to explore. These locations need to be fantastic, detailed places that capture the minds of our players every session we run. Good locations are hard to improvise and often hard to strip out of a fully-fleshed-out adventure. Sly Flourish's Fantastic Locations is a book, available in PDF and print-on-demand, that gives you twenty system-agnostic locations to drop into your favorite fantasy roleplaying game. Each location builds on a fantastic theme, such as a mysterious ancient structure under the ice, a cursed castle of a mad king, a fallen celestial fortress, and a dwarven mine that cracked into the tomb of a dead god. Each location includes artwork by Brian Patterson of D20Monkey. Sometimes this artwork takes the form of maps. Sometimes it's an overlook of a specific location. These sites and structures aren't full adventures. Instead, you and your players build your own stories in these fantastic locations, then you populate them with the monsters that fit your story. Thanks to the support of 779 backers on Kickstarter this book was expanded to include a total of twenty locations each with full color artwork. This book is system agnostic. You can use it in just about any fantasy roleplaying game.

32 year-old Tar and their friendship group of fantasy-loving nerds are transported into the world of their role-playing game in this cosy, queer portal fantasy.