DragnaCarta posts
Posts: 243
Files: 80
DM's Toolkit Update | New Reference Sheets!
This month, folks on the Patreon Discord server voted to update the DM's Toolkit instead of hosting a new Discord workshop. As such, I've updated the Toolkit with six new reference sheets on core DMing theory and skills. These reference sheets include information on: building an adventure building combat encounters making dramatic questions planning a session running non-player characters running skill challengesYou can find these reference sheets at the top of the Bronze Rewards Masterp...
Patreon Discord Workshop #18 | Using Dramatic Questions
Using Dramatic Questions, October's Patreon-exclusive workshop on using and understanding player psychology, is now live on YouTube! Thank you to everyone who attended. All patrons can now view it at either the Copper or Bronze masterposts.Following a vote on the Discord server, I'll be skipping the November Patreon Discord Workshop and instead spending some time buffing up the DM's Toolkit, with a particular focus on creating a session prep walkthrough & checklist, creating a number...
Fangs For the Memories | A Vampire-Themed Content Pack (Part I)
Fangs For the Memories, a vampire-themed content pack featuring a vampiric NPC, a spooky location stat block, and two bloody random encounters, is now available on the Silver masterpost!(This content pack was also planned to include a vampire-themed side quest; however, due to health reasons, I wasn't able to finish the side quest in time for this release. As such, the side quest will be added to the content pack retroactively next week. Apologies for the delay, and thanks y'all for your...
How to DM | How to Run a Scene
My new video, How to DM: How to Run a Scene, is now live on YouTube!This is the first in a series of videos on DMing skills and theory that I plan to publish. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on it so I can make future videos even better!If you like the video, I'd also be very grateful it if you could share it with your friends or on social media—with my Twitter account gone, every like, comment, or share is deeply appreciated for helping the channel to succeed.Thanks so muc...
This Month's Discord Workshop
This month's Patreon Discord Workshop will be Make Them Care: Using Dramatic Questions to Tell Great Stories, and will be held on Sunday, October 30 at 5 PM Eastern.Looking forward to seeing y'all then!Dragna
Patreon Discord Workshop #17 | The Invisible Railroad
The Invisible Railroad, September's Patreon-exclusive workshop on using and understanding player psychology, is now live on YouTube! Thank you to everyone who attended. All patrons can now view it at either the Copper or Bronze masterposts.As always, don't forget to join the Patreon Discord to vote on and attend upcoming live workshops. Looking forward to seeing y'all for the October workshop!Thank you as always for your support.Cheers, Dragna
Homebrew Encounter | The Accursed Witch
When the characters find a strange cottage in the woods, can they heal its inhabitant of a terrible curse—or will they fall to the curse's evil instead?The Accursed Witch is a gothic horror encounter for characters of 7th or 8th level. Silver+ patrons can find it in the Silver Masterpost.I hope you enjoy this encounter, and thank you for your continued support!Cheers,Dragna
State of the Patreon | Fall 2022
A big thank-you to everyone who filled out my Fall 2022 Patreon Survey! Your feedback is absolutely invaluable to me as I work to make the Patreon the best it can be, and I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and support.A few quick points following the survey: The most popular content requests from Silver+ patrons were Gothic Horror random encounters, side-quests, one-shots, locations, and stat blocks, with random encounters rising somewhat above the others in popularity. Other popular content r...
Workshop #16 | Three-Phase Boss Monsters
The recording of the August 2022 Patreon Discord Workshop, Three-Phase Boss Monsters, is now live on YouTube! As always, you can find it linked in the Copper or Bronze masterposts.Enjoy!Cheers,Dragna
Dragna's Patreon Survey | Fall 2022
It's time for the Fall 2022 Patreon survey!This season's survey will take you less than five minutes to complete, and your feedback will be absolutely invaluable to me as I work to make the Patreon better (especially for Silver+ patrons—the homebrew content is going to be my top focus this fall).If you could take a minute to fill it out before this Sunday night, I'd be super grateful. Thank you again!Cheers,Dragna
One-Page One-Shot | What Granny Says
In this adventure, the characters must investigate the mystery of disappearing children in a small, suspicious village, and combat a fearsome annis hag with gruesome designs.What Granny Says is a folk horror one-shot adventure for four characters of 4th level or lower. Silver+ patrons can download it from the Silver masterpost.Thank you all for your patience on this one-shot! I'll be posting a Fall 2022 Patreon survey next week to try and get a better sense of how I can improve my homebrew c...
DM's Toolkit | Session Zero Questionnaire
Starting a new campaign? Organizing a new playgroup? Looking to check in with your players mid-adventure?It's never too late—or too early—to run a Session Zero for your players. You can find my new comprehensive Session Zero Questionnaire—including a DM Reference Sheet discussing which types of players may struggle to play together—in the DM's Toolkit section of the Bronze Masterpost.I hope this questionnaire helps you and your players play better games! Happy gaming, and thanks ...
Homebrew Encounters | Six Gothic Horror Encounters
This pack of six modular gothic horror encounters can be deployed in any spooky campaign. Use them as random encounters on the road, or adapt them as part of a side quest or larger adventure!Silver+ patrons can find the link to this encounter pack, which includes The Sickly Field, The Crashed Caravan, The Old Cemetery, The Sacred Memorial, The Isolated Chapel, and The Foul Orchard, in the Silver masterpost.Thank you as always for your continued support.Cheers,Dragna
Dragna's Den: Let's Design a Folk Horror One-Shot (Part II)
Last time on the Dragna’s Den newsletter, we started building What Granny Says, a folk horror one-shot adventure featuring an annis hag, a stolen infant, and far too many Wicker Man references.Today, we’re going to get a little bit closer to fleshing this adventure out, using our three-act structure template to do so.But first—let’s talk about memorability.Part II: The Adventure CastWhat makes an adventure great?It’s not the plot. It’s not the combat encounters. And it’s not the fl...
August 2022 Discord Workshop Announcement
Come one, come all to the August 2022 Patreon Discord Workshop!This month's workshop will be held on the Patreon Discord server this Sunday, August 21 at 1:00 PM Eastern, and will cover Three-Phase Boss Monsters: Why to Use Them & How to Make Them.Hope to see you there!Cheers,Dragna
DM's Toolkit | The Session Plan Template (Revised)
I've released a brand-new, revised version of the session plan template in the DM's Toolkit! Rebuilt to focus on the narrative of your session and adventure arc, rather than the nuts-and-bolts of your notes, it includes new sections for adventure concepts, narrative foreshadowing, dramatic questions, and more!As always, you can find it with the DM's Toolkit in the bronze masterpost. Hope you find it helpful!Cheers,Dragna
Homebrew Encounters | The Misled Mob & The Woodland Predator
Last week, I published a new experimental newsletter post that walked through my process for developing wilderness random encounters. This week, I'm excited to share the full writeups for both of the encounters developed in that post: The Misled Mob and The Woodland Predator.The Misled Mob is a homebrew roleplay encounter for characters of any level. Meanwhile, The Woodland Predator is a homebrew combat encounter for characters of third level. Silver-tier patrons and higher can download both...
Dragna's Den: Let's Design a Folk Horror One-Shot (Part I)
Let’s build a horror one-shot.But not just any horror one-shot: a folk horror one-shot.Today, we’re going to start a two-part process, using my three-act adventure-planning template and my forthcoming updated session-plan template (which you can catch a sneak preview of here) to design a folk-horror adventure.As a personal goal, I’d like to try and design an adventure that isn’t principally solvable by outright combat—so much the better to suit the Brothers’ Grimm aesthetic that this...
August Discord Workshop | Voting Now Open!
It's time to vote on this month's Discord workshop—head on over to the #announcements channel of the Patreon Discord server and vote now!This month's topic options are: Combat-a-Rama: Five Live Combat-Building Exercises Using the Combat Encounter Template & Challenge Ratings 2.0 Let's Build a Session!: Working Together to Prep the First Arc, Location & Session of a New Campaign Why Dragons Fly: How to Reverse-Engineer a Monster's Statblock to Create Challenging Combats Thre...
Dragna’s Den | Creating Better Random Encounters (Part I)
This is an experimental exclusive newsletter post for Silver+ patrons. If you like this and want to see more posts like this, let me know in the comments! You can also suggest and vote on potential future topics here.Random encounters in Dungeons & Dragons have a big problem: They fundamentally lack dramatic questions. Curse of Strahd is no exception.A “dramatic question” is, put simply, a narrative question that the protagonists (here, the PCs) are trying to answer. “Can our Heroes infilt...
The Shadow's Maw | Homebrew Encounter
When a cozy, yet abandoned inn in the mountains proves to be a lure for unwary travelers, can the player characters escape the clutches of the ever-hungry, reality-warping balhannoth—without falling into the webs of the ravenous phase spiders nearby?The Shadow's Maw is a homebrew combat encounter for characters of fifth, sixth, or seventh level. Silver-tier patrons and higher can download it from the Silver Masterpost.Enjoy, and expect more (belated) combat encounters to come out over the ...
Workshop #15 | Narrative Foreshadowing & Long-Term Plotting
The recording of the July 2022 Patreon Discord Workshop, Narrative Scaffolding: Using Seeds, Sprouts & Stalks to Plot a Long-Term Campaign, is now live on YouTube! As always, you can find it linked in the Copper or Bronze masterposts.Enjoy!Cheers, Dragna
Patreon Updates | July 2022
Hey folks, and I hope you're staying cool this summer!Things have definitely been hot over here—while I've been enjoying fiddling with Challenge Ratings 2.0 (look out for an announcement next week!), I've also got a few new projects that'll be released here soon. They'll include: a social encounter template for Bronze patrons two homebrew combat encounters for Silver patrons a pack of spooky wilderness encounters for Silver patronsI also plan to upload the July 2022 worksho...
DM's Toolkit | Combat Encounter Planning Template
I've added a new template to the DM's Toolkit: the Combat Encounter Planning Template! This template includes: Guided questions for refining the dramatic question(s) of your encounter, Step-by-step instructions on calibrating encounter difficulty, Lists of options for encounter composition and battlefield complexity, Helpful signposts for party-specific customization and monster tactics & more!Bronze patrons and above can find it linked in the Bronze Tier Masterpost alongside all other r...
Workshop VOD | Customized Campaigns
The recording of the June 2022 Patreon Discord Workshop, Customized Campaigns: How to Tailor Your Combats & Narrative To Your Players, is now live on YouTube! As always, you can find it linked in the Copper or Bronze masterposts.Thanks to all who came out for this workshop, and hope to see folks in the next one!Cheers,Dragna
PLAYTEST RELEASE | Challenge Ratings 2.0: A Simple System for Building Balanced 5E Encounters
The beta version of my comprehensive revision to encounter-building in 5e, titled Challenge Ratings 2.0: A Simple System for Building Balanced 5E Encounters, is now available for playtesting!If you've ever been frustrated or confused by 5e's encounter-building system or challenge ratings—this short, two-page document is the system for you.In addition to basic encounter-building and difficulty calibration, Challenge Ratings 2.0 covers: Multiclassing and subclass features Magic weapons, ...
Discord Workshop Today—Custom-Made Combats
Today (Saturday, June 18) at 1 PM Eastern time, join me on the Patreon Discord for a live workshop on Custom-Made Combats: How to Tailor Your Encounters & Adventures to Your Table!The first half of the workshop will deal with theory, and the second part will be an in-depth collaborative practical portion. We'll also review my new Combat Encounter Template, which will be released next week!Hope to see you there!Cheers,Dragna
Session Prep Video | The Tyrant's Wrath — Session 2
Some folks seemed to enjoy the first homebrew campaign session prep video I recorded, so I recorded a second one! As before, Silver+ patrons can find it linked in the Silver Masterpost.If you'd like to see more of this kind of thing, please let me know here or on the Discord!Cheers,Dragna
One-Page One-Shot | The Mind-Eaters
In this short adventure for five fifth-level characters, the characters have been invited to a banquet hosted by Lord Darius Pell, a relative of one of the characters. Lord Pell is a well-known scholar and collector, and rumor has it that he recently obtained an ancient and valuable tome.Yet when the characters discover that all in Lord Pell’s keep is not as it seems, can they uncover the imposters and stop their deadly plot before it’s too late?The Mind-Eaters is the next in a series of mon...
Session Prep Video | The Tyrant's Wrath — Session 1
I recently started a new homebrew campaign, and figured that it'd be a good opportunity to test-run some of the principles, templates, and reworks I've discussed here and elsewhere.Given that, I started to wonder—maybe other people would be interested in how I approach this process?I have no idea if that's true, but just as an experiment, I recorded a 45-minute video detailing my preparatory process for this new campaign and its first session. You can find the YouTube link under a ...
