5 Unexpected Things to improve your DnD night

Yes, I could have made the obvious “levelling up your game” joke in the title, but it seemed a bit too on the nose, ya know?

Anyway, you’ve got the dice, books, character sheets, some tiles, a DM screen that frankly takes up
too much of the table, and (of course) snacks. But aside from the obvious luxury upgrades like
bespoke miniatures, deluxe gaming tables and gourmet snacks, what other items might improve
your game? Things that you never even thought of…

I’m far from the first person to suggest it (and it’s not ideal for every player/table), but Jenga can be
a great way to add tension to mechanical resolution. Dice rolls resolve instantaneously, but a Jenga
tower provides extended tension, followed by a release. How much of a risk does a character want
to take? How quickly must they accomplish a dangerous task, without running out of time or
screwing up? Instead of rolling to sneak up on the BBEG, let the rogue get 5 feet closer for every
layer they add before the tower falls…

The principle draw of this item is obvious: the journal comes with 365 prompts for character
information. As well as using it as a daily journal, there’s more possibilities. The writing prompts are
quite versatile and can be used to foster interactions between players. Even if you use several per
session, it’s a resource that’s going to last months.

There’s a second, albeit expensive, brilliance to this book if you ensure each player has a copy: it
encourages all sorts of players to write things down. There’s often one player who takes a lot of
notes, but having dedicated journals helps spread this around. Got someone who enjoys running the
maths on spells and damage? Get them to make their notes in the journal. Wizard’s IC spell book is
an actual book? Now their OC spell book is one too. This lets all the players do their own thing, but
still share a common method for keeping track of the PC’s shared history.

A quick one for when you have new players. Yes, it’s nice when a player gets their first set of fancy
cool-looking dice, but for absolute beginners don’t give them a matched set. A set in all different
colours will significantly speed up the game because the DM can go “the red one” rather than “the
pentagonal trapezohedron, no the other pentagonal trapezohedron”

This one is a bit of luxury (and also not THAT surprising an inclusion). Yes, it can be quite expensive
to get all the packs and yes, the full spell lists for classes are always changing and yes, it is
information already contained elsewhere BUT they really are useful. If checking rules and remembering what spells a character has memorized regularly slows down your game, then these come highly recommended.

There are two neat bonus things about cards I should add: one, lots of different companies do lots of
different decks, from lenticular cards with little animations on them, to new spells and expanded
options. Two, having an established format of spellcard in your game makes it much easier for
players and DMs to write their own spells. Wizard finds a weird scroll? Just hand them a slip of paper
with the homebrew spell and they can add it to their cards.

Coming out of leftfield, get yourself a cheap chess set. Chess sets are great for combat: for less than
a tenner you get 32 basic ‘miniatures’ that can represent all sorts of enemies – mooks, evil queens,
priestly clerics etc. They come in two colours giving you both allies and enemies. Because you also
get multiples of many pieces, you can have one represent a character on the map and another on
the initiative track (a word of caution, your players will squabble over who gets to be the Black
Knight). If it’s also a combi draughts and/or backgammon set, you get even more little tokens to do
stuff with.

You also get the board, which can double as a map grid for any square rooms you might be in, and
that’s before we even think about building chess-themed puzzles, traps, or contests...
Finally, because (dragon) chess exists in universe, a chess set can give players something quiet to do
in character while the DM focusses on other PCs.

This isn’t something you can buy, but it IS something you should have. Safety tools are there to help
everyone have a good time by making sure that the game stays ‘in-bounds’ in both topic and tone.
There are many ways to do these, from dedicated processes like X-Cards, to less formal “what I don’t
want this game to feature” chats. Talk to your players and find one that suits the group. Far better to
spend a short time on Safety Tools than to unexpectedly stumble into a bad emotional situation.

That’s five (six) things that will make your D&D better. Personally, I’ve used all of these at some
point or another (though never all in one game). Hopefully there’s something on that list to suit your
game, and your budget, or maybe you’ve already got one or two of them somewhere (commence
rummaging in a cupboard for that Jenga set you think you remember having).