We’re pulling out all the maker stops today with Skeleton Key Games, Norse Foundry, EC3D Designs, DungeonInfluence, and even a lil’ Hirst Arts all lending a helping hand to build this quick one-shot DnD encounter.

Once again let’s start with the mission at hand. Several children have started to disappear from town including the local blacksmith’s child. The town crier reads the terrible news in the village square and the party sees a distraught mother being consoled by her husband (the resident smithy).

The players have established a bit of rep and afterward, the dwarven smithy approaches them and offers up a deal: “return my firstborn son dead or alive and I will deliver you a rare lucky coin with a unique power (but more on that later).”

The local mayor has already given the party a lead: a creepy old woman deep in the woods is rumored to be the culprit (and a witch) but no one dared venture into the haunted forest and confront her…until now! Besides, what adventuring party doesn’t want to be in good favor with a skilled blacksmith?

Now let’s review our encounter checklist:

• Mission: missing dwarven child
• Main Character Mini & Face Card
• Scatter Terrain
• Magic Coin Reward

Good news – we’ve got all the right maker tools here to put this mission scene together fairly quickly.

For starters, we picked up the immensely handy Townsfolk Dossier Deck by Skeleton Key Games and pulled out a fab dwarven face card: Krufer Promentory.

Next up, we printed and painted this dwarven miniature from EC3D Designs Everyday Folk Kickstarter. Since the model sculpt was support-free, we ran him off our Prusa Mini FDM printer with ease. Then resident painter, Kimmy Utah, put down a few purdy colors to finish it off. For extra flair, we utilized a couple of Hirst Arts fieldstone blocks to craft a cool, makeshift anvil.

Lastly, we utilized a brilliant magic item idea by the talented Mr. Anthony at DungeonInfluence on Instagram. He posts all sorts of cool game hooks, useful NPCs, DM tips, and unique locations on his channel. It’s a must-follow.

The magic item reward will be a simple coin that our blacksmith forged but also enchanted after a sorceress bartered for his hammer services. Once per session, the player can flip it. Heads grants them advantage on a roll, while tails gives them disadvantage. Anthony comes up with cool ideas like this alllll the time.

And for the game prop, Norse Foundry has these addicting Mystery Coin packs that are made using a metal alloy (so they have some heft) and come 10 random coins in a pack. We just love ’em and they make great stocking stuffers. One of these coins will be perfect to pass out to a player upon successful completion of the mission.

But look how easy that was, guys! Just like that, you have all the fun, engaging pieces you need for another DnD one-shot encounter! Let the mission shenanigans commence!

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Skeleton Key Games is getting a lot of magical buzz lately for their slick oversized spell scroll line but today we’re going to spread the good word about their great line of Dossier Decks and how fun n easy they can make encounter building.

First, let’s start with a brief recap for those who missed our Terrain Tuesday post from yesterday! DM Ben is in the process of building a fun side mission encounter where the party group meanders over to the village square job board and realizes a certain gnome tinkerer needs help obtaining some rather rare spell components for his budding list of inventions. In exchange for these special ingredients, he’s going to provide the group with a portal device that works…well, to be honest…most of the time.

DM Ben then explained that when it comes to NPC town encounters, he often utilizes a simple 3-step approach that allows for a faster, yet meaningful gameboard presentation:

1. Grab an 8×8 piece of terrain for the floor.
2. Select the right scatter terrain piece.
3. Create a memorable NPC.

Smart but simple for all those busy Dungeon Masters out there, right? So now that we have our memorable scatter terrain piece complete, it’s time to develop our gnome NPC!

We’re very pro face cards when it comes to characters in our DnD games. Not sure how it goes for your game groups, but our players have terrible memories so these cards really, really come in handy. Even better, the group can slip a piece of paper for the back of the card sleeve and throw down some quick notes/keywords as the encounter unfolds (which saves silly back-and-forth time and puts less pressure on the DM).

Now you have two tasks here:  (1) pick a mini from your collection or print a new one and (2) find the right face card. The order doesn’t matter. Sometimes you have your heart set on the mini and other times, the face card leaps out of the deck and speaks to you first. What’s cool about these Dossier Decks is they can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you because they include a portrait card, a traits card and even a mission card (which can all be used interchangeably from the deck). Awesome, right?!

Now we already have our side mission set here but the Skeleton Key Games gnome face card was exactly what we needed. For our NPC mini, we went with a classic: the gnome trickster from Wizkids Blood Wars set. Naturally our face card and miniature don’t need to match perfectly…we just want them to complement one another.

Look how slick our new encounter is now though!

1. Dwarven Forge floor tile
2. STL Miniatures scatter terrain piece
3. Skeleton Key Games NPC merchant card
4. Wizkids gnome tricker miniature

DM Ben simply plops down all these wonderful pieces on his game board to kick off the encounter and the party will quickly be immersed in a gnome tinkerer’s clockwork shop…eager to hear about the mission and reward at hand! In a word: “Magnificent.”

The post WIP Wednesday: A Gnomish Dossier appeared first on 3DRPG.