Game Master Series – serie

Traditional TTRPGs have almost always relied on player reactions in order to function. In other words, there is an evil wizard out to take over the world. The player characters are good, therefore it’s their duty to stop the wizard. Game play then follows a traditional storytelling narrative of protagonists working to return their world back to the status quo. Bad guy makes a move, good guys move to stop him. They react to the situation the Game Master (GM) presents. This limited style of gameplay can grow tiresome and redundant and places almost the entire burden of game creation on the GM. That's where proactive roleplaying comes in.With proactive roleplaying, GMs give over the narrative to the players. They imbue their characters with goals and desires, wants and needs, and then let them make the decisions about how to achieve those things. It’s no longer up to the GM to provide the entertainment. The characters choose what to do to achieve their goals, and the GM is the one reacting to their choices. Every conflict and “adventure” a character goes on is in service to their goal, rather than the typical “random bad guy of the week” adventure.The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying gives GMs and players all of the information they need to play their favorite 5E TTRPG in their favourite settings, while transforming their games from reactive and restrictive to proactive, unbounded, player-driven narratives.

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 the latest dragon-centric gaming supplements have simply diluted their awesome, alien presence by revealing (almost) everything there is to know about the creatures.In The Game Master’s Book of Legendary Dragons, readers will find more than two dozen truly unique, 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 a 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, wyverns, 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 and magic items, plus three incredible one-shot adventures and a foreword by Luke Gygax, son of D&D co-creator and RPG legend Gary Gygax.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.

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 colour illustrations, lore, stats, combat tactics, and special abilities for each exciting entry. You’ll also find detailed tactics and combat strategies dozens of other minions 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.

Following the example of the first volume in the Game Master’s Handbook series, this new entry forgoes stat blocks and maps in favor of clear explanations and guides that focus on developing and running an original campaign.Homebrewing an original setting and story is one of the most challenging and rewarding things a GM can do. It’s tough to get started with worldbuilding, plotting, and resolving your campaign - but this book walks GMs already somewhat familiar with running the game through a process for designing a homebrew campaign to be proud of, from scratch. At the core of the book is one big idea: The purpose of a TTRPG is to discover a story together with your friends, not to tell them a story you’ve already written.Have an idea for a game? If so, this book teaches you the process for transforming pages of notes into a fully-realised campaign outline. You’ll learn how to write narrative arcs that develop with the players and end satisfyingly even without an ending being written in advance. You’ll even learn how to design mechanical details for your setting that complement the story the group is telling at the table.Finally, you'll learn a simple system for adapting existing content (professionally published or from other homebrew sources) to fit in your campaign (with a special focus on the material provided by the other books in the Game Master’s series).

Created by Will Earl, wildly publisher founder and host of DnD Shorts, The Game Master's Deck of Wild Magic and Mischief is designed to make the use of magic in TTRPGs more exciting, dangerous, unpredictable and fun.What is wild magic? In Dungeons & Dragons, as well as other fantasy-themed TTRPGs, wild magic is a random, unpredictable force that can produce unexpected magical effects that are out of control of those who wield such powerful forces. Such chaos-creating fields can be imposed on another character or enhance one's own abilities. Wild magic can be a natural occurrence or a product of wizardry. No matter how it comes into play, it's sure to alter the playing field in ways no one can anticipate (which is half the fun!).This deck of wild magic is bursting with 20 fantastical benefits and 20 mischief-making effects that will elevate more traditional combat encounters or casting opportunities into mind-bending challenges that have the potential to turn a conflict - or the entire game - upside down.With The Game Master's Deck of Wild Magic and Mischief, players and GMs can draw cards from the deck at random, causing wild magic to spiral across the battlefield or the home front, empowering monsters with terrifying new abilities and rewarding players with bizarre and hilarious magical effects. It's everything you need to craft epic, evolving, and unpredictable encounters with wild magic!