Behind the Screen: Our DM Set Up for Dungeons and Dragons 5e!

this week's episode is sponsored by brothers forged legendary rod of initiative Kickstarter they've just launched their first campaign featuring their innovative magnetic initiative tracker for tabletop role-playing games there's so many methods for tracking initiative during the game but the rod of initiative has both style and substance it's a gorgeous showpiece at the table fully handcrafted from metal and engraved wood but the magnetic design lets Dungeon Master's really quickly set the turn order once you've rolled for initiative and you can dive right into battle the whole party could see whose turn is coming up by moving the sword hilt and best of all adding new combatants into the turn order is a snap visit brothers forged dossier or follow the links in the description below to visit their campaign on Kickstarter and now onto this week's episode greetings my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelley McLaughlin and we are the dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything Dungeons & Dragons including advice for Dungeon Master's and guides for players we upload new videos every Thursday so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode today we're gonna hop behind the screen and show you how myself and Kelly have set up our dungeon masters battle stations everything that we have in front of us when we run a game of Dungeons & Dragons when you're a dungeon master there are a lot of things to keep track of at the table everything from the player characters the maps the minis the monsters and the adventure story itself but there's also a lot of accessories and gear that you might have at your table that you need to keep organized and today Monte and I are going to look at how we keep our tables organized so that we can find the things that we need at a moment's notice it's always a personal journey figuring out what you need and what you don't need while you're running the game do you need a dungeon master screen do you need to have all the books right there do you need tokens miniatures or other combat tools to help you track things like initiative and monster hit points we're going to show you what Kelly and I use at the table during our games and hopefully this gives you a few ideas about what might be useful for you to use at yours now also Monty and I have extremely different setups Monty prefers a more modern and digital version of the dungeon master screen at his table whereas I use a more classic version and today we're going to look at both of our setups and the similarities and differences that we have there's so many cool things to show you so let's go take a look at our game rooms so let's take a look at my dungeon master setup it's pretty minimal because I've mostly gone digital for almost everything I use during the game instead of an old-fashioned dungeon master screen I've got my laptop here open to an application called scribe inner that I use to organize all my Dungeon Master's notes not only do I have all the details for my campaign world my journal of my campaign put into scribing her as well as well notes on all the player characters NPCs locations and even my dungeons I'd even put in the notes that I use for improvisation including things like the DC checks of different skills the quick things that you would need to refer to on a dungeon master screen are all here things like random weather generators I have all my notes for random encounter generations and I also include a bunch of notes that help me describe NPCs and locations I've also put a bunch of images into my DM notes that help me describe people's faces and bodies their facial hair and fit hairstyles even the different particular odors that you might encounter in a dungeon or how to describe different bits of medieval fashions I find that resources like this that I've amassed over the years from a variety of sources most of which that I stole from the internet or older versions of the Dungeon Master's guide are much more useful to me than having a quick reference to the rules I have the rules down pretty much Pat and in the rare cases that I need them I've got this tab open on the out screen of my laptop - D&D Beyond where I can quickly search through the d5e rules and often what I'll do is I'll pull up a couple tabs with the monsters that I'm using for that game session so that if I need to refer to their rules I've got them right there I've experimented with other ways of printing out the stat blocks and using stat cards and other things but I find that with my style of DMing this works the best for me besides my dungeon master screen I actually don't use a lot of digital tools for tracking things during play I use my dungeon master screen my laptop as a reference that I can search through and not really something that I'm going to use to track monsters hit points or to take quick notes down with or even to do things like track initiative I find I can do that much faster by using a paper and pencil I use my notepad basically as a scratch pad I'll write down monsters hit points quick names if I whipped up an NPC or any quick notes that I need to remember then at the end of the night I'll look over the notes that I've written down and I'll put these into my campaign journal so that I remember them for the future beside this of course I've got my big dice tray I don't hide my die rolls from my players I roll in the open and I like to have a bunch of red D sixes to roll my fireballs and then my favorite two blue D 20s that have slain their fair share of player characters over the years I used to track initiative with pencil and paper but over the years I've really fallen in love with using initiative trees because both I can easily track it and the players can to this beautiful stand from brothers forged is magnetic and it's probably the best initiative tracker that I've used yet I really love that I can pull the tabs out magnetically and put them back on and use this handy little sword to track whose turn it actually is despite being made out of wood it's totally dry erase so I can just write on it with a couple of the dry erase markers that I keep nearby and then I just wipe it clean with a microfiber cloth when I need to change things out for the next encounter often times I will write out these tabs in advance and I might even pre-roll initiative using this tower is super super easy I just organize all the tabs as people have rolled initiative and then I don't worry about the exact numbers I just organize them as people are calling up their numbers and shift them up and down the tree because it's magnetic and it's really easy to reorganize things if I make a mistake or I need to add a new combatant in this tower here was sent to us by brothers forged they're running their Kickstarter right now to make more of these initiative trees and I really recommend checking them out they did sponsor this video and send this to us and I totally love it now that's everything that I keep in front of me but over here on my right hand side I have all my miniature set out that I'm going to be using for that night now my trick with this is is that I actually set out more miniatures than what I'm going to be using in that game session that way my players can't really metagame and know what I'm actually gonna use I'll usually throw down something like a dragon or beholder or something truly outrageous so they really don't know what's gonna be coming next beside it I also use this table here to set out any other possible dwarven Forge setups that I might use to work on for which has these awesome terrain trays that make it easy to pre build my setups and then lift them up and drop them onto the table over here by my bookshelf I have all my collections of miniatures so if I realized that I need something else usually they're all somewhere in here they're a hugely disorganized mess it makes sense in my brain the way everything is organized I try to organize things by creature type at one point but it's never really stayed organized especially with all the DND that I run even the drawers here where I keep different dwarven Forge pieces I try to keep them organized too like floors and walls and corners and stuff with LEDs but over time they all kind of get mixed up and I kind of remember where everything is so usually I can access it pretty quickly and build something on the fly if I need to if I've only got a few minutes to prepare for the game or a quick break this over here is the glass shelf where I keep some of my favorite collector's miniatures as well as a few of the ones that I painted myself my players know that if I go over to this shelf or the top shelf it's gonna be an epic encounter indeed now I don't need to refer to most of my books during play I've got my collection from a third edition a few books from second edition and other role-playing games over here on the shelves and even more miniatures as well all snapped away in these containers and even a few more in the drawers down here you can literally be tripping over miniatures with every drawer you open down here I've also got these really awesome spell templates from arc night games that I can use to easily measure out the range of a fireball they also have inch counters on them because I actually don't bother with the grid when I'm running with my miniatures I just use true scale measurements and true line-of-sight when I'm playing so I'm more likely to bust out a measuring stick or a ruler than I am actually to count the squares on a grid so that is my dungeon master setup this is what I use during my games of D&D 5e I find it's very modern and digital most of my notes are packed into the screen of my laptop I don't like to use my laptop to track things and play because I can find by using my tokens my miniatures my notepad and my initiative tracker I can keep track of things in combat really really quickly and I just used the laptop as a reference tool my name's Kelly McLaughlin and we're gonna go behind the screen with my dungeon master setup as you can see I run a little bit more of a classic setup as compared to Monty's with the classic Dungeon Master screen making a prominent display here separating the dungeon master from the players and creating that sort of wall for the dungeon master to be able to prepare and analyze and make quick calls without letting the players know what is going on behind the screen you'll see here that we actually use our dining room table unlike Monti who has a dedicated gaming room we convert our dining room table for game night into a Dungeons & Dragons space as well as many other various games that you can probably see hanging out there in the background behind the dungeon master screen I have all of the equipment that I need at the ready in order to run my games this is paired with the fact that behind me when I'm playing are all the other possible resources I might need in case something comes up and I need to pause the game and quickly find something I need to know where it all is but I need the most useful and prominent tools at my fingertips first of all you need your books whatever books you need to run the game for that night I usually like to include the adventure module that I'm running as well as the players handbook and in some instances the Dungeon Master's guide at the end of the day as long as you have your adventure book you sometimes don't need the other books but it's always good to have quick access to them it's also really important to have a notepad and a pencil these are essential items that you're going to use if you do prefer a more digital format maybe there are alternatives but I find that no matter what I would like to have a pencil and a piece of paper this is where I write down all my notes on the game this is where I keep track of hit points and who's doing what I keep a lot of information in my notebook i scribble into it on the go while we're playing the game now if you are looking for a more tactile aesthetic to your game rather than doing this all digitally there are some really cool accessories you can get like magic item cards monster cards or spell book cards that you can actually used to keep track of the spells and items that maybe your NPCs have magic items that you might want to give out as treasure and these are great to hand out to the players so they have a physical representation of the items that they're obtaining or the spell's they have to cast one of the most important factors about the dungeon master screen is the fact that it comes chock-full of information that is really really handy to have right in front of you things like status conditions or different things that could happen to the player characters you also have charts and graphs that showcase different movement speeds land travel and various other things that you don't often think of but are really handy to be able to glance at a chart and find that information of course you need dice and a place to roll them now I will admit that not always does my desk look as nice as it does now sometimes if I need extra dice I end up just taking handfuls of dice out of my bags and throwing them around on the table and picking out the ones I need but usually with the best intentions my games start off looking like this with a number of dice around in my dice rolling tray that I can pick and choose from to roll for anything that I need to roll for but no matter what you always need a lot of dice and a place to roll them so next up we have our miniatures now my miniatures are separated into these separate combat encounters that I expect to happen during the game I don't usually use everything that I put out but it's always good to have more minis than you need to play around with I actually also have another group that I have over here these are what I call my B team and my B team are group of minis that are themed around the location and environment so they don't seem out of place if they were to show up but if the party is having too easy of a time with the combat encounters or they stumble upon something random or stakes escalate to a point where I feel a combat encounter needs to happen I have this B team of miniatures that I use to bring in almost as an improv battle so always have your miniatures but also all have a few extras just in case while we're talking about extra accessories that you could have at your table something that I like to have are little things like tokens or coins the coins I actually give out to my players as treasure so they have something physical and tangible to hold I find it really rewarding and really fun to be able to hand them out money or gold at the table we also have these various colored beads I use these for status conditions at the table if somebody is poisoned or asleep or if darkness is cast I use one of these beads to implicate a lot of different things that are happening at the table now when we get into a bit of the organization beyond the table I like to have all my books handy and at arm's reach away so that I can grab them if I need them if there's something that was in Santa thar's guide to everything or Volos guide to monsters that I wanted to be able to reference these books are right behind me so I can easily turn and grab them now for organization of things like my accessories in dwarven Forge you're gonna see that I have a number of different bins also readily available behind me on the shelf as well as a lot of my tiles and different accessories for mapmaking that way if something comes up and the party goes in a direction that I'm not prepared for I have easy access to all of my tools that I would need to make a beautiful map on my table relatively quickly now if we open up what I call my Dungeons & Dragons cupboard we're gonna find all of the other things that I have up here we have places to keep the most prominent miniatures I have these three little drawers here the top one always contains my party's minis the second one always contains the major villains of the campaign I'm running and the third one are my most generic and most well used miniatures that I use for all sorts of things also in here we have a lot of other equipment we have a pencil case full of pencils erasers and various other tools highlighters and markers we have some of my most used miniatures and dice as well as extra dice rolling trays my additional accessories for giving out gold or other things and we also have some containers of miniatures the ones that I'm keeping up here are again the most prominent ones for the campaign I'm running currently I'm running out of the abyss so these are full of under dark monsters and creatures we also have all of my other miniatures away in handy little plastic bins all of my large miniatures in much larger bins we have a separate one for dragons and then all of the other large minis and then all of my smaller minis are separated as best as I could by type so we have them broken into these different categories and each container is labeled for easy access if you're wondering about all the boxes off to the side here they are full of unpainted minis that I still need to get to there's a lot of them as well you can get lots of other cool accessories like spell effects so you can place right at the table or spell templates that you can use these particular spell templates as well as these beautiful flight pieces and combat risers these are all made by axe and shield now a lot of these additional accessories are not essential for you to play Dungeons and Dragons I also have a pretty big collection of dwarven Forge that I used to make my maps but I also have a lot of other tools to make quicker Maps or easier maps and there are a lot more affordable options as well now mod you myself have dedicated a lot of time to building our collections and gathering materials to improve our Dungeons & Dragons games just because you don't have all the things that we've shown doesn't mean that you're not ready to play a game at your home table however we do hope that this video has highlighted some of the things that we find essential and some of the things that we just find really fun to have and that sparks your interest and your creativity to bring your table to life and be prepared for your next game being organized at the table helps you stay prepared and on top of the game when inspiration strikes and you have a new idea if you have ready access to a monster stat block ready access to another set of dice or a tool that you need to keep track of something and most importantly a really good notebook and a pencil it means that you're prepared for all of the different scenarios that can come up at the table in play when you are the master of the world you want to make sure that you have the world at your fingertips so this has been a look at our dungeon master setups that we use at our tables for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition if you have any essential equipment or gear or accessories that you absolutely require at your table tell us about them in the comments below the videos that we create on our Channel are made possible thanks to the generosity of our patreon supporters if you're enjoying our videos please consider checking us out as well on patreon and becoming a part of our community by following the links in the description below don't forget to check out our live play in the worlds of Drakon time which airs Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. Eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscore dudes you can find all the previous episodes of those shows right up over here and we have plenty more great tips and tricks for Dungeon Master's running D&D Fivey right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 225,132

Rating: 4.9347858 out of 5

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: iCUV5TJHOr4

Length: 19min 39sec (1179 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020