You’ve already put so much work into the story, characters, and world of your game, so let’s make sure that your players can enjoy it to the fullest! In this article, I’m going to share some tips on upgrading your D&D setup, tips that I actively use in my own games. We’ll talk through simple immersion ideas such as sound and lightning, to more upscale ones such as scents, drawings, and even food! We’ll also cover how to immerse your players in your story’s world, engage with the game’s mechanics, and keep your players in the moment. As a note, this article all assumes you’ve got a basic set-up; character sheets, Dungeon Master screen, and standard battle map (if not, go get those)!

Modifying your physical playspace to fit your game can do wonders for immersion and can really help make your sessions feel extra special! Here are some of my favourite tactics when setting up a D&D table:

• Scent – I love using candles, oil diffusers, and incense to make the space smell nice. It’s an easy element to overlook but scent can really help ground your players and communicate that they’re entering a different world! Definitely check if anyone has asthma, medical conditions, or simply certain preferences beforehand, as some incense and candles won’t be suitable. 
• Decoration – A few nice visuals can really help to set the tone. I like to pick three or four items to sit around my DM screen (e.g. flowers, cool miniatures, figurines, home décor etc.). I often use a tablecloth, place coasters, and put a few of my fantasy themed collectables around the room. Your decor doesn’t need to be extensive or expensive but making it clear that you’ve thought about it and put in a little effort can really make a big impact.
• Lighting – Colour changing light bulbs can really add to the atmosphere, especially during an intense battle. Most discount and hardware stores offer pretty good LED bulbs these days, many of which can be controlled through your phone.  If you want to combo lighting and scent, some oil diffusers change colour – use them as a centrepiece!

• Sound – Music is always a must for me. There are plenty of playlists on Spotify and YouTube that are built especially for Dungeons and Dragons, and I highly recommend having a few to flick between depending on the mood. From the clinking of coins slipping from your grasp, or the rattle of centuries-old skeletons just awakened, to whimsical forest notes as you travel the land, sound is one of the biggest ways you can increase the ambiance of a D&D game. If you want, you could even set up a board for sound effects  to get really fancy.
• Resource Trackers – If my characters have small items they regularly interact with, why not try recreating them in real life? The Dungeon Master for a campaign I’m currently playing in casts resin gems that our party uses as currency. Having a physical bag of gems to pay for food and gear is unique and pulls you into the world! As a Dungeon Master, I’ll hand out Inspiration in the form of plastic diamonds (found at my local Discount Store). Getting something physical can make your players feel special and helps them remember to use it (no more realising you have inspiration right after a battle ends).
• Personalised Documents – I like to make physical documents when I can, usually printed onto Newsprint Paper (which I get from my local office supply store). My players have maps, newspaper articles (often featuring them), star charts, and wanted notices. A wizard in my game learns new spells when he finds a rare book and so has a list of all the books he’s looking for. Whenever he collects another, he can physically check it off the fancylist he has. Most of these are super easy to make! There are newspaper generators, map makers, and editable wanted posters all over the internet. I recommend Canva as a free and easy website for putting together nice-looking documents.

My final tip when choosing immersive devices is to make sure they reflect your game. When I ran Curse of Strahd, a gothic horror campaign (which I’d greatly recommend), I would play spooky classical music, light black candles, and lay the party’s Tarroka cards around my screen. In my current, bubbly magical campaign, I decorate with bright flowers and play Pokémon music. Think about the atmosphere of your story and let that inform your decorative choices. 

Keeping track of the story AND the mechanics can get complicated, so having some good management tools can be game changing! Below are a few I use on the regular:

• Initiative Cards – Make a little strip of paper, fold it in half, and place it over the top of your DM screen. On the side facing your players, just write a character’s name, but on the side facing you, write a few of the characters’ stats (e.g. speed, ac, passive perception). Not only are these an easy way to check some character numbers at a glance, but they can also be moved around at the beginning of a battle to show both you and your players the initiative order!

• Generators – I have a few tables printed out to help me generate traits and voices for NPCs. When you’re stuck for ideas, a dice roll can help. A sassy, kleptomaniac, centaur who has a deep, nasal voice? Sounds good to me!
• Player Storage – I have a spot on my bookshelf set aside for my players to leave their resources at the end of each session. Character sheets, miniatures, and documents usually stay at my house. This way, no one forgets their stuff and I can check stats if I ever need them for planning. One of my DM friends has a little box for each player to keep their stuff in, which helps for storing in-game currency and keeping the game table nice and organised during play. If you insist on going digital, I cannot stress the ease of use having a shared note-taking application like Notion has on campaigns!
• Summaries – Remembering the details of a game can be tough, especially if there are significant gaps between sessions. I like to take notes during gameplay and, once a session is done, write them into a summary for my players to look back at before we next get together. This stops the slog of “wait, what did we do last time?” and lets us get right down to playing.
• Discord Server – I have a Discord server for each game I run and have found it a super-effective way to coordinate my games. I like to have one channel for chatting and organising sessions, one where my players put any evidence and lore they find, and another where I upload my session summaries. I also have a private channel for each player, where I can discuss any lore specific to their character with them. This helps to keep all game discussion centralised to one easy-to-navigate location.
• NPC Character Art – I like to have little pictures of each of my major NPCs in front of me during a session (sourced from Pinterest, google, or just drawn!). Seeing what an NPC looks like helps me get into character quickly, for both voice and personality. Sharing this with your players as well keeps a unified mental image of the character, which can be helpful when describing interactions.

• Battle Maps – There are plenty of new map builders and generators popping up all the time! Drawing a battle layout on the fly is quick and easy but having a detailed map can help build immersion and make interpreting a scene a lot easier. Proper maps can help communicate depth, distance, and material, all of which will factor into how your players interact with the space. If you’re less insistent on the rules-as-written combat angle of D&D, or your party loves to go off-track from what you’ve prepared, why not look into a simple whiteboard where you can draw rough maps
• Distributing NPC’s – Sometimes our party has a few extra NPC’s tagging along for the ride, and when I’m already throwing hordes of orcs and demons into combat, even more fully built characters can be a lot to manage. When appropriate, I like to hand out NPC sheets for my players to run. It makes my job easier, helps the game run more efficiently, and it lets my players try their hand at a new character or playstyle they aren’t familiar with!
• One-Shot Mini’s – I have a handful of miniatures (all playable races), that are each painted a solid colour (then shaded and dry-brushed). I hand these out to my players for one-shots or use them for NPCs. The easily identifiable colours make running battles easier while still allowing my players to use a nicely painted mini! If your playgroup is already into painting, why not have your “Session 0” be a day where you also paint your miniatures!

Note: Good Games Top Ryde has an awesome painting station for those interested! Paints and brushes are available – $5 for 3 hours, or $10 all day, 7 days a week.

• Just-in-case Binder – My campaign binder is full of just-in-case pages, and yours should as well! I have lists of tavern and magic item prices, basic stat blocks, every npc my party has encountered, travel times, and more. If I ever get thrown a question out of nowhere (“How long it would take a bugbear, riding a warhorse, carrying 50 gold worth of ball bearings to travel from Gadwall to Grebe?”) I have all the info I need to calculate it in no time. Or, you can rule-of-cool it and figure it out on the fly.
• Cards and Flowcharts – Managing all your abilities in a fast-paced battle can be tough, which is why I find Spell and Ability Cards super helpful! They’re an easy way to remember what you have prepared and are an efficient way to access the rules without taking up too much space. I also love making ability flowcharts! Identify a character, NPC, or enemy’s key abilities and put together a flowchart of possible courses of action. Refer to these during a battle to help cut down on decision making time and keep your fights feeling intense!

Keeping the table focused for a whole session is difficult, as attention will inevitably wander, but there are a few tactics you can employ to help. Giving a player something small to divert their attention momentarily can help them recharge their focus and return to the game more grounded. These can be especially useful if they’re tangentially related to the session! I like to think of them as manageable distractions.

• Food – You’ve gotta recharge the brain and stomach during a long session, and eating something can give a nice little sensory boost to re-engage people’s attention! Usually if games are in the evenings, I like to coordinate dinner beforehand (i.e. everyone brings their own or we decide beforehand what we’d like to order in) so we don’t eat (pun intended) into game time.
• Breaks – Breaks can help immensely with engagement. Even if it’s something you enjoy, focusing for multiple hours can be difficult, especially with battles where you have down-time between turns. Having breaks to refill drinks, take bathroom breaks, or go for a walk around the block can help recenter you and your players.
• Starting Summary – While I’m usually more than aware of what’s happened in previous sessions, I like to ask my players to summarise it for me. Reflecting on what’s happened in the game so far helps to acclimatise your players to the space, bring them back into the game world, and get them thinking in game terms again. Plus, your players may be incentivised to pay attention and take notes if they know you’re going to ask for a summary next time!
• Drawing/Notebooks – I myself struggle with distraction sometimes, and for me, drawing is a good solution. I don’t need to actively think in order to draw but the activity helps to keep me grounded at the table. And as an extension of this, I highly encourage keeping a character notebook! Notes, maps, and drawings can all be compiled in one book for easy storage and navigation. Plus, it will make a nice memento of the story and character at the end of a campaign. My favourite game featured my goblin monk, Fishbone (who was illiterate). Rather than taking traditional notes, I would draw whatever happened in the story in my in-character notebook. I treasure those drawings immensely and remember that game more clearly than any other. Might we recommend this lovely Campaign Notes Book by Sphinx Stationery?

• Buffer Time – I like to have a section of time dedicated to chat at the beginning of a session. D&D sessions are often the main time when a group of friends will hangout and so people will want to catch up and talk. That being said, if you don’t get the game started, chat could probably continue deep into the night. Setting a call time and a session start time can let the chatters know when to arrive if they want to talk, and gives you pre-established boundary to cut off conversation and start game-play. Plus, giving your players designated chat time before-hand can help cut down on tangents mid-session!
• Player Map – I give my players a basic world map at the beginning of games, but as they explore they tend to find things that haven’t been mapped yet. Encouraging your players to make their own maps gives them something to work on during sessions that isn’t distracting enough to completely steal their attention, and gives them incentive to pay attention to where they go in-game.
• Fidget Toys – Some people need physical stimuli to remain mentally engaged, and, as memed as they are, fidget toys fulfil that need well. If your players often end up fiddling with their dice, dedicated fidget toys might be a less intrusive alternative; no more dice stacks collapsing all over the table.

When you’re diving into an elaborate campaign, or running a brilliant one-shot, having your table set-up be considered as part of your story can add a whole new dimension to your sessions.You don’t need to apply all these tips if they don’t work for you, but with a few touches here and there can go a long way to making your game extraordinary!

Good Journey, Adventurer!

– Alyshia