D&D 5E Essential DM Reading List

[M.T. Black]

these are really fantastic additions for adventure writing! Thank you! I feel like a gap in our overall list is still advise on running published adventures, are you aware on any good material on that?

Mike Shea has written a few things on that. I'll see if I can find anything good.

 

[paradisebunny]

Just for ease of Reading the List compiled from all the previous posts:

Essential DM Reading List
Index Card RPG Encounter Design
Index Card RPG Adventure Design
Lazy DM Encounter Benchmark
Monster Manual on an Business Card
Story Beats
8 Steps of the Lazy DM
Awarding Magic Items RPGbot.net
Lazy DM Wilderness Travel
Pointcrawls for Cities and Overland Travel
Theater of the Mind
How to write Adventures that don't suck
Let's Play: Creating a Fun and Inclusive Game for All by Amanda Hamon-Kunz (from Kobold Guide to Gamemastering)
Seth Skorkowsky on running horror.
Matt Colville's politics series.
Just Three Hexes.
Jaquays'ing the dungeon. One. Two. Three. Four.
Node-Based Design.
Three-Clue Rule.
Prep Situations, Not Plots.
Understanding 5e D&D Skills
Players Self-Assigning Rolls
Robins Laws of Good Game Mastering (whole book, but is quite short)
Thinking Outside the Boxed Text
Bryce Lynch's Adventure Design Tips Summarized and Explained
On Writing Adventures
Locale and Plot
On the Oracular Power of Dice
Potential Energy: How to Write Engaging Adventures

 

[Baron Opal II]

Matt Colville's politics series

Does he naturally just talk that fast? I have to slow it to 0.75 to understand him (which is too slow...)

I would also add late 19th and turn of the 20th Century adventure fiction. Melville spent a lot of time sailing and on whaling boats. London lived in the Yukon and was a war correspondent. It can give you a feel of what wilderness adventures would comprise and what challenges were faced.

 

[overgeeked]

Does he naturally just talk that fast? I have to slow it to 0.75 to understand him (which is too slow...)

You can read the transcript if he’s too fast for you.