The Ultimate Budget Gamemaster!

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I was talking to a friend from college the other night. He and I played 2nd Edition AD&D together in 1998... Man, 1998 was 23 years ago! I'm just letting that sink in... Anyway, 1998 was a great year. When my roommates and I weren't playing Baldur's Gate, Diablo, or Final Fantasy 7, we were sitting down to enjoy some serious AD&D. The hobby was still expensive back then, but most folks did not spend near as much as one does today. 

Anyway, it just so happens that my college friend, Jim, and I are both running games amidst this pandemic with the folks nearest to us, and we got to talking about the current cost of 5th edition adventures. 

During our phone conversation I got stuck on the idea that while a modern D&D 5e Adventure book is around $50.00, you're actually getting great value for your money. I repeated some of the points that Mike Shea often makes on the topic. I keep going back to that call in my mind, though. There are so many great free or cheap resources I could have told Jim about. Why didn't I? 

Well, Jim, this post is for you, and all those folks out there who want to get their kids, their neighbors, their roommates, their partners / spouses, or anyone into this game on the cheap. I'm going to break this into two main sections, free and cheap. 

Disclaimer: the free section is not completely free, assuming that you want dice and printed materials, but if you want your books on your digital tablet and your dice on your phone, it's completely free.

Now that we have that out of the way, on to glory! 

Mostly free

As I mentioned earlier, this section is not completely free, assuming that you want dice and printed materials, which means ink or toner and paper, but if you want your books on your digital tablet and your dice on your phone, this stuff is completely free.

Official D&D Rules

Wizards of the Coast (WotC from here on out) wants you to play D&D. They have done everything they can to bring down barriers to entry. Yes, the Players Handbook still retails for $49.95, but the basic core rules are absolutely free. You can download a pdf for print or to use in your favorite books app on the WotC website here:

• D&D Core Rulebook Free PDF

You can also get the Core Rules for free on the new D&D Beyond website and app in an easy to search, digital-friendly format.

• Basic Rules on D&D Beyond

Basic Fantasy OSR Rules

Basic Fantasy is an "old school" ruleset that uses the D20 SRD (Basically the open game license rules) to remake 1st edition Basic / Expert D&D into an updated easy-to-learn system. I'm mentioning it here because all of the rulesets, adventures, and expansions are 100% free. You can order Print on Demand copies from Amazon for $5.00 a book, but you can download them all for free from the Basic Fantasy web site. Further, if you have any experience in tabletop role playing, it would be very easy for you to adapt the free adventures to the official D&D rules linked above. For the most part, it's just a matter of swapping out monster stats for the ones in the core rulebook. 

Dysonlogos Blog

Basic Fantasy has a lot of full-blown adventures, but Dyson's Dodecahedron is a Hombrewer's heaven. My friend Jim is a creative guy with a great sense of humor, and he enjoys brewing up his own adventures. Even if you love this aspect of the game, we all get tapped out from time to time and just need a little creative nudge. Dyson has been gaming since 1979 in a variety of game systems, and his maps appear in official materials, such as Ghost's of Saltmarsh. 

The maps section of his blog has more city, country, and dungeon maps than you could ever play through in a lifetime, and most if not all of his posts have a little blurb about the place represented, including history, lore, and even some personalities. This site should be a part of every DM's toolkit. 

Dice, free and cheap...

If you want physical dice, and who doesn't, there are a couple of ways to get cheap dice. My favorite way, which leads to a whole hodgepodge of miss-matched dice, is to visit your friendly local game shop, and hit up the bargain dice bins. My local game shop has dice for a quarter each and sometimes cheaper. That supports a local business and gets you a really unique collection of dice. I think mismatched dice have a lot of charm are just fun to have and look at.  

If you want to give everyone at the table their own set of dice and you love things that match, you can head over to Amazon, and drop $9.99 for 5 sets with little pouches. Amazon has a lot of deals like this, and it's certainly a cheap way to get dice.

As far as free dice, if you have a phone, tablet, or computer you have access to dice. Just search your favorite app store for a dice app, or type ‘dice roller’ into Google search. Yeah, no kidding. This brings up an e-roller for four-sided, six-sided, eight-sided, 10-sided, 12-sided, and 20-sided dice. You can even add modifiers (like +3 or +5). 

Low cost complete system 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the D&D Essentials Kit is one of the best products WotC has ever put out period. It's cheap, $13 on Amazon, and about $16 at your friendly local game shop. The box also includes three DnD Beyond expansions for the Essentials kit. There is seriously more than a years worth of weekly play in this one box! At the pace my groups go, we could play nothing but the essentials kit for years to come. This super cheap box includes: 

• "The Dragon of Icespire Peak" is a brilliantly crafted Adventure that includes a number of random one-shots and hooks for further adventure.
• You get a basic rulebook that's designed to get new players making their first character in just a few easy steps and the blank character sheets you need to do so.
• There's a full set of rules for Running one-on-one adventures, including an assortment of sidekicks to help your player character.
• There's a full Dice set that includes two D20's for rolling with Advantage (a major part of the 5th Edition Rules set).
• It also comes with a 
• Color Map of the Sword Coast 
• A deck of condition, initiative, and magic item cards. 
• and more importantly, a Dungeon Master's Screen, which is something you will need.

That is really all you need, particularly if the folks that you're playing with decided they wanted to try D&D because they saw it on Stranger Things. In that case, they are probably not missing anything if you're running 100% theater of the mind. In fact, there's a lot to be said for the joy and simplicity of running Theater of The Mind Combat. That feel is what makes products like Necrotic Gnome's Old School Essentials so popular with lovers of original D&D. 

On the other hand, if they've watched Critical Role or Chaos Agents or something similar, they may be expecting a full Dwarven Forge set up with custom Miniatures. The problem is, that is very expensive. If you want a little kit for quick tactical combat I highly recommend the following low-cost, highly portable solutions. 

First, something I've mentioned here on the blog before, Sly Flourish's lazy DM Tokens. This is a little low-cost arts and crafts project. I made the two-sided version, and they so easy to pack up and travel with. 

Second, the Loke Little Book of Battlemats, is a super cheap and handy collection of terrain you can put in the little pocket of your purse or backpack. If you need to run a quick tactical encounter, whip out your little book of battlemats and your homemade tokens and you're good to go. 

Well that's all I've got for today... Good luck. Great Gaming. DFTBA.