Matthew Perkins posts
Posts: 73
Files: 344
Refund Policy
Here it is: I will refund anyone for any reason; no questions asked.Why?My only goal is to make sure your players have a rad time — I want them to think you're the best Dungeon Master ever. But when monetising this goal, fairness is important to me, which is why I am transparent about my earnings every year, and it's why I've structured this Patreon to provide overwhelming value.That means Silver Patrons have access to 35 PDFs, and Gold Patrons+ have access to an extra 7 PDFs. But ...
The Forge of Primordial Fire
Heyo!I'm making this PDF available to you a little early, because the video covering this portion of Storm King's Thunder isn't out yet and I want you to have something exciting for your next session. (If you're wondering why the video isn't out, it's because I haven't been able to speak properly for a month, but I'm hoping a few more weeks resting my voice will fix me up so I can film!)Thanks for a rad year :) I'm very excited to get stuck into making more D&...
Puzzle Time: Giants
Hello! Now that this SKT Chapter 4 video has been released, this PDF comes out of Early Access and is now available to you. Thank you!An ancient civilization, but with advanced challenges... Puzzles generally kind of suck, but they shouldn’t! When you need a brain break or an activity to shake up the session’s pace, puzzles and riddles are good tools to reach for, even if they feel anachronistic, belonging to an old-school tradition which doesn’t apply to modern games. The issue I personal...
Viewer call-ins!
Do you need direct help for your campaign? Have any burning questions you'd like my input on? Or maybe you've got a hot D&D take you'd like to challenge me about?Here's your opportunity: at least once per week, I'm opening up my livestream to Patron call-ins! And the first time we're attempting this starts in 24 hours!Here's what you need to know Call-ins are handled over Discord (matthewperkins.net/discord), so double-check your microphone settings, jump into the #wa...
Better Quest Hooks
It's all connected! There are over twenty official adventures in D&D, each exploring a different setting or theme — this one’s underwater, that one’s in Halloween land; you get the idea. But how can you connect these stories? When you’re deciding where to take your party after running the latest beginner adventure on the Isle of Storms, use this document as your guide.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already have access to at matthewp...
Patreon Shareholder's Report '22-'23
Those who are new here might not know, but every year I share how the finances are going for the channel. Your support is what makes this whole thing viable, so you should see where the money goes. Besides: I LOVE business, management and financial stuff, and some of you might be nerds of a similar persuasion, so let's jump into it. The Australian financial year is July 1 to June 30. All numbers listed are in AUD.But before all that, I want to drop some phenomenal news: I've moved into a...
Better Chases
Stop! Thief! Relive the adrenaline that James Bond experienced in the opening chase scene of Casino Royale, the parkour-fuelled District 13, or any chaotic predicament that Jackie Chan found himself in. When a chase scene breaks out it should be a thrilling and cinematic affair. Each frantic attempt to avoid an obstacle leads you either one step closer to escaping, catching your prey, or crashing and burning spectacularly.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other ...
Battle Companions: The Isle of Storms Expansion
Don't face the dragon alone! You want a mushroom dude on your team? A pack of kobolds? A dragon!?I've got you covered.NPCs are key to most elements of the story in Dragons of Stormwreck Isle and, as an introductory adventure, its players are often newcomers. The Battle Companion system is my tool to keep the players interacting with the relevant personalities rather than ignoring them, or worse, whacking them like loot piñatas. Here are Battle Companion conversions for every possible al...
Character Breakdown: The Townmaster
Hey everyone!I've moved this PDF out of early access and made it available to you. Apologies for the slow rollout of content recently, but I'm getting back into it now.Also: I have some great news! For Patrons, my new website lets you sort, search, and preview all the PDFs on the store page. When you click the "subscribe" button on any of these store pages, it just takes you to the corresponding post on Patreon, which you already have access to. It's way better for browsing t...
Legendary Arrows
Here's a little love for your party's archer. Eight legendary arrows, fletched from the feathers of harpies, phoenixes, sphynxes and other winged mythological creatures.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already have access to at matthewperkins.net/store.
Draconic Rituals
Dragons are beings of elemental power given physical form. They're primordial creatures who tether the tectonic energies roiling beneath ancient volcanoes and the unfathomable cosmic patterns in the sky. Each dragon is a living, breathing fulcrum around which the universe’s energies are balanced, so they are uniquely positioned to shift that balance in their favor through draconic rituals.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already have access...
The Shipwreck Scramble Minigame
Sometimes you need a break from standard D&D. The way through the cove of ruined sea vessels is not a quiet task, with each creak calling out to monsters that may lurk about. The party’s destination, the Dragon Rose, is across this field of shipwrecks. Does the party travel stealthily and quickly? Or do they risk looking for sunken treasure on their journey?This minigame of informed gambling makes the rudimentary act of sneaking dramatic—it allows the players to have a fun break from dense r...
Magical Mushrooms
How are potions made? Forget the octopus's garden; this is all about the MUSHROOM garden! Here is a botanical journey detailing EIGHT magical mushrooms, their historical and cultural context, and their medicinal properties when brewed into potions, poisons and oils.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already have access to at matthewperkins.net/store.
Relevant Encounters
Random encounters should not feel random. In a video game where it only takes a minute to resolve an encounter, it’s no issue. But for a TTRPG session that took a month of WhatsApp messages to get five adults in the same room, nobody wants a bad roll on a random encounter table to chew up a half-hour of precious game time.To respect every player’s time, a mindful TTRPG session should be a purposeful, curated experience, even when the Game Master decides to roll on a seemingly random table.Fo...
24-hour Time Tracker
How do you track time? Print this single-sided, fold along the lines indicated, and it should slot across the top of your DM screen. You can use the folded groove to hold a paperclip or some other hour indicator. The DM's side has a bunch of squares you can colour in to track your campaigns cycles, like daylight or tides. And if you open the file from Adobe Acrobat, the title is editable, so you can name the day whatever dramatic thing you pull from your imagination.If you like this PDF, ple...
Exploring Dragon Abbey
What should you do when the module give you an empty room? As your party explores this holy site in the Starter Set, use these tables and options to breathe life and variety into Dragon Abbey.Dragon Abbey sits atop a jagged cliff face, its crumbling stone walls standing as a sentinel, watching over the choppy waters below. Despite its dilapidated state, the abbey is still home to a small group of human monks and kobold caretakers, who can be seen tending to the grounds and pursuing their daily t...
Kobold Handouts
Kobolds are the best! I love these little goofballs. To endear your players to these friendly lizard lads, here are three handouts Kobolds might use to invite your players to dinner, a wedding or a funeral.The Kobold Funeral Notice is a two-part gag that starts with giving the players a wedding invitation from the kobolds. They'll love it. Players are always keen on weddings. However, the next time the players visit town, they're given a revised invitation to a funeral, because some evil...
Better Zombies
D&D Zombies suck! But this PDF is something I've wanted since I first started playing. I've always loved zombies in popular media, but hated zombies in 5th Edition. Why are the official D&D zombies so BORING? They don't bit, they don't run, they don't infect... so this PDF fixes all that with TWENTY zombie variants — it's a real treat and much closer to the way I'd like to use zombies in my game.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse oth...
Trauma Dice
Some adventures can leave scars. What consequences should the players face after a shipwreck? The answer is DRAMA and TRAUMA (but in a fun way). This is a custom hidden-roll mechanic for D&D that will shock your players and elevate the Starter Set, but it's applicable to any session.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already have access to at matthewperkins.net/store.
The Sinking Ship Challenge
Imagine this. The party are sailing to to the island late in a storm late at night. Imagine the white light of the full moon at their backs, the black ocean below, the roiling purple sky above, when a flash of arcane blue illuminates the faces of the party and crew, forcing them to rub spots out of their eyes.On a distant clifftop, the magical bridge of light that connects the lighthouse observatory flickers and fades as two dragons spiral and clash high above, blasting arcs of lightning into th...
Shipwreck Island Map
In some instances, tracking distances mile-by-mile, hour-by-hour is a frustrating bit of accounting the Dungeon Master could do without. But in a campaign with limited scope and just a few locations, you might as well give all this information directly to the players. So here's a little map handout to help your Starter Set players keep track of the distance between locations in the island themselves.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already ha...
Draconic Prologue Quests
“Wait, why are we here again?” That’s a question no Dungeon Master wants to hear. It means your adventure has a weak hook. To fix this, during your session zero character creation, you need a solid prologue quest to unify the party and point them in the right direction.In the new D&D Starter Set, what’s your party’s reason for adventuring? As written, the module provides each character with separate reasons for traveling to the island. The cleric is investigating visions of impending d...
Patreon Shareholder's Report '21-'22
Hello!Those who are new here might not know about this, but every year I share how the finances are going for the channel. Your support is what makes this whole thing viable, so you should see where the money goes. The Australian financial year is July 1 to June 30. All numbers listed are in AUD.------------------------------Reflecting on goals from '20-'21 Financial Year Spend more money Do more for Patreon Hit ten thousand subscribers Meet peopleI'm happy to say: I've accomplis...
Magical Dice: The Shadowglass Spindle
Hey!Because the related video has been published today (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJSvDShOGzw), you now have access to this rad PDF! Thank you!Game dice. Math rocks. These little beauties are intriguing. Just the look of them has been known to draw people from across the room.“What’s that, nerd? How do you play that?”The allure of game dice is strong. Players always want to touch them. They lay out their sets in rows and build polyhedral towers between combat turns. They swat away th...
Character Breakdown: Bart
The innkeeper has been badly beaten. This 5-page Q&A is your lifeline to roleplaying the innkeeper in the Lost Mines of Phandelver. Learn about his past as an adventurer, and roleplay his motivations consistently at the table. Did you know that Bart used to be an adventurer who helped chase the Wyvern out of Wyvern Tor? Or how about his elderly mother running a bakery back in the city?If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already have access to at mat...
LMOP Trading with the Spider
This will be the best session in your Starter Set campaign. This module is a step-by-step guide for running an important scene, in which the villain of our story parleys with the party for the Mysterious Puzzle Box. The goal of this scene is to ignite that all-important rivalry between the players and the villain. Before running this module, the party should have already met the villain in town, established a relationship and arranged to trade for the Mysterious Puzzle Box. While the player char...
Battle Companions: Companions of the Lost Mine
What if the Black Spider joins the party? You want the Nothic on your team? Sildar? The Owlbear!? I've got you covered.NPCs are key to most elements of the story in the Lost Mine of Phandelver and, as an introductory adventure, its players are often newcomers. The Battle Companion system is my tool to keep the players interacting with the relevant personalities rather than ignoring them, or worse, whacking them like loot piñatas. Here are Battle Companion conversions for every possible ally...
Better Backstories
A backstory should be a functional document. Players who fall into the trap of instead writing a short story are wasting their effort — who needs all this useless information about the character’s childhood, filmic descriptions and dense prose? Thankfully there’s a better way.The PDF provides scaffolding to the process of creative a character backstory, and additional pages for your character sheets. These extra sheets should help players structure their backstory in a way that gives the D...
Better Drinking Rules
“The world’s greatest roleplaying game” has no rules for being drunk. What a tragedy! We’re left to saddle our players with that onerous poisoned condition, as though a trip to the pub is no better than falling into a pit of vipers. Highs shouldn’t hurt so bad! This supplement brings a bit of joy back to your euphoria. Ditch the poisoned condition and try on some of these new mechanics for mind-altering substances in your fantasy setting.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testi...
Preserving Drama
How do you challenge an overpowered party? Did you accidentally give your D&D players a Wand of Power Word: Win? Is your Aarakocra player flying over all your dastardly lava obstacles? If you've got an overpowered character, or even a whole party of D&D munchkins, this PDF is for you.If you like this PDF, please leave a short testimonial below!Browse other PDFs you already have access to at matthewperkins.net/store.
