Useful references I come back to often. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements, just things I actually think are helpful.
Official Rules and Reference Material
- D&D Basic Rules - the lightweight official rules reference.
- D&D Beyond - useful for character sheets, encounter references, and quick rules lookup.
- Systems Reference Document 5.1 - handy if you want a portable PDF reference.
Character Building and Lookup Tools
- 5e.tools - extremely fast lookup for spells, monsters, items, and rules text. Use normal table judgment.
- RPGBOT - useful class, subclass, spell, and rules breakdowns if you want a second opinion while building.
- Tabletop Builds - optimization-minded character analysis for players who enjoy system depth.
- Kobold Plus Fight Club - encounter-building utility for rough balancing and monster grouping.
Names, Generators, and DM Utility
- Donjon Random Generators - names, inns, treasure, dungeons, taverns, and a lot of other useful sparks.
- Fantasy Name Generators - useful when you suddenly need ten NPC names and your brain has stopped cooperating.
- Eigengrau’s Generator - town and settlement generator with a lot of connective tissue.
- Watabou - excellent procedural generators for cities, villages, and dungeons.
Maps, VTTs, and Online Play
- Owlbear Rodeo - probably my favorite low-friction tool for online maps and tokens.
- Roll20 - still widely used, especially if you want an all-in-one virtual tabletop.
- Foundry Virtual Tabletop - powerful if you want a more customizable online setup.
- Dungeon Scrawl - simple browser tool for sketching dungeon maps quickly.
- Inkarnate - good for world maps, region maps, and prettier presentation pieces.
Tokens, Portraits, and Visual Assets
- Hero Forge - good for visualizing a character even if you never print a mini.
- Token Stamp 2 - quick way to turn portraits into usable tokens.
- Forgotten Adventures - excellent assets if you like detailed map dressing.
- 2-Minute Tabletop - practical maps, tokens, and printable resources.
Music and Ambience
- Michael Ghelfi Studios - one of the best sources for tabletop ambience.
- Tabletop Audio - fast, useful soundscapes for towns, dungeons, battlefields, and travel.
- Bardify - fantasy session music and ambience playlists.
Learning the Game
- Handbooker Helper - short videos explaining core concepts for new players.
- Matt Colville - especially good for DMs thinking about encounter design, pacing, and table craft.
- Sly Flourish - practical DM advice with a strong bias toward prep that is actually useful.
- The Alexandrian - deeper essays on scenario design, mysteries, node structures, and running better adventures.
Actual Play and Inspiration
- Critical Role - obviously influential, though not a template every home game needs to imitate.
- Dimension 20 - a good example of high-energy, character-forward play.
- Worlds Beyond Number - strong long-form fantasy storytelling if that is your speed.
For Players Specifically
- Fast Character - useful for pregens or quick replacement characters.
- The Monsters Know What They’re Doing - technically DM-facing, but also great for players who want to think more tactically.
- The Homebrewery - useful if you want to format handouts, items, or campaign documents nicely.
A Small Caveat
Not every good tool is right for every table.
Some resources are great for inspiration but bad when treated like law. Some are excellent for lookup but sloppy about sourcing. Some are wonderful for optimization if your goal is understanding the system, and less wonderful if your goal is turning every campaign into an arms race.
So use what is useful, ignore what is not, and if something creates friction at the table, table norms win.