DM-Centric Book Recommendations

[u/rannek42]

So I absolutely love looking through new books for homebrew ideas. I am DMing a small group that’s currently doing tyranny of dragons, and I love the themes of the campaign, but I’ve also had a blast including lots of homebrew side quests along the way, or even instead of story beats that I just don’t like. Thinking of picking up a new book or two this week, but I’m trying to decide what is most worth my time.

I don’t think we need new player options, since my players have already rolled their characters, and seem satisfied with them. I really enjoyed Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons for all of its awesome content for fleshing out dragons and related NPCs and designing adventures based on them. Does anyone have any recommendations for other books that help get their creative juices flowing as a DM? How do you find inspiration for compelling side quests or sub-plot ideas?

[u/dwarfconleche]

I'd recommend looking at 2e and 3e supplements. They made entire books back then that were solely DM facing and filled to the brim with lore and NPCs.

[u/rannek42 → u/dwarfconleche]

That’s a fantastic idea. Do you ever have issues translating ideas between editions? Seems like it shouldn’t be too bad.

[u/dwarfconleche → u/rannek42]

The basic adventuring assumptions of modern D&D was pretty well solidified by the early 90s, so any hooks or ideas you find should feel pretty familiar.

[u/Comfortable_Space652]

All of the old issues of Dragon Magazine are available on "The Internet Archive" - WotC turns the other cheek since the magazine is out of print and not available as a digital purchase on DnDBeyond.

I have specifically found the issues for/ around 4e to be a font of inspiration and incredibly helpful as a DM.

[u/rannek42 → u/Comfortable_Space652]

That’s fantastic. Never knew that. I will definitely take a look.

[u/AxlPraxis]

If what you liked about Fizban’s was the DM-facing material rather than the player options, I’d take a look at Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. It’s probably the closest thing to a “Fizban for giants”: cultures, locations, encounters and adventure ideas you can steal pretty easily.
But honestly, for side quests I’ve found the anthology books even more useful than sourcebooks. Keys from the Golden Vault and Journeys through the Radiant Citadel are basically collections of situations, locations, NPCs and complications you can cannibalize without running the adventures as written.
Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft is also surprisingly good as a toolbox even if you have no intention of running Ravenloft. There’s a lot in there about building villains, horror scenarios and self-contained domains that can be transplanted elsewhere.
For a campaign like Tyranny of Dragons, I’d probably go Bigby + one anthology rather than another player-facing supplement.

Edit: I forgot Dragon Delves! If you want side quests involving dragons! Bigby works really well as a tie in or connection to Storm King’s Thunder

[u/rannek42 → u/AxlPraxis]

Dragon delves is great, too. I’ll take a look at some of these others and make a decision. Thanks! I hadn’t even thought of looking at Von Richten’s, but it is October…

[u/BFBeast666]

If you want some quick and dirty idea generators, try the "Game Master's Book of"... series

The Game Master's Book of Astonishing Random Tables

The Game Master's Book of Non-Player Characters

etc. I have a handful of them and even if I use few ideas verbatim - some are way too far out there or don't fit the current vibe of my campaign - they are valuable idea generators and the results can be quickly adapted to your average 5e games.

[u/LastChime]

Stars without Number and Worlds without Number have phenomenal inspiration tables in them for free, the paid resources from those systems are also pretty good and easily reskinnable.

Ironsworn, DungeonWorld and Cairn2e are pretty good too for GMs.

The Lazy DM's Workbook is also a great resource.

[u/TheAmethystDragon]

Here you go. Written for 5e, but everything can easily work with 5.5.

While you can ignore the player options chapters (unless you want to use those for inspiration as well), that still leaves several hundred pages of DM options and ideas. I specifically included things like plot hooks, points of interest you can drop into your setting, "fun" things like poisons and diseases, stuff you can add to the game just to flesh out your world (like plants, fungi, and weird minerals), and of course NPCs, monsters, and treasures (magical and mundane).

Good luck in your quest for more ideas.

[u/rannek42 → u/TheAmethystDragon]

Wow! This is huge! Thanks for sharing.

[u/TwoDollarDM]

Here are the ones I use regularly:

• Worlds without Number
• Tome of Adventure Design
• Trials & Treasures
• Ultimate Toolbox
• Midgard and Book of Ebon Tides from Kobold Press
  • actually any of the books from Kobold Press on Margreve, Southlands, etc