Making a DMs Guild Supplement

And So It Began

For a number of reasons, I haven’t released any new material on the DMs Guild since the last update to my Epic Gnomish Inventing. As 2018 approached its end, I began thinking about what I might put together for a new product that was both fun and useful. I really enjoyed creating Absurd Accouterments and Bracing Beverages, both collections of magic items that have been well received on the DMs Guild. I also like The WhatNot Shop as both a locale in my homebrew games and a fictional purveyor of the unique items I’ve created in my supplements.

This got me thinking that it might be time to do another items supplement. But what?

I really love the trinkets in the Player’s Handbook. I turn to that collection of 100 miscellaneous miscellany during character creation and for unusual rewards, purloined loot, or unexpected finds during the game. (See part 1 and part 2 of an earlier post on my blog for other ways I use trinkets in game.)

I also love the common magical items in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. The notion of there being a bunch of every-day magical items floating around out there really appeals to me. It makes a perfect kind of sense too. In a world where magic exists, there would no doubt be incredibly plain uses for it. Not everyone needs to hurl a fireball at a mass of zombies but everyone would certainly benefit from a pair of boots that eliminates foot odor.

Finally, of all the races in Dungeon’s and Dragons, gnomes are the most likely to gather random bits of everyday life into huge collections for study, for re-purposing, or just for fun. More importantly, a race so infused with magic would certainly see nothing “special” or ominous about its use. So, I believe gnomes would not hesitate to call upon the awesome force of the Weave to power an item whose only purpose is to open wine bottles with a bit of flare or to provide a jaunty tune while working. It’s simply part of the gnome life.

Given these basic notions, my next step became perfectly clear to me. I had to create a supplement that was a collection of trinkets and common magical items that any gnome, from the very plain to the very fancy, might have about their person. These items couldn’t be just any sort of odds-and-ends though. There had to be something gnomish about them. They had to be inspired by gnome life, religion, and culture. And so, the Common Curiosities and Trivial Trinkets supplement was born.

Content

I knew what I wanted to do, but I had so many other projects that required my immediate attention. So, I didn’t jump headlong into Common Curiosities and Trivial Trinkets. Instead, I set the idea as a background task in my brain to give myself a chance to mull over the possibilities without the pressure of needing to create actual content. Of course, I didn’t want to be caught unprepared should inspiration really demand its fair share of attention. I created a Google doc as a temporary repository for good ideas. I did this because I can access Google Docs from my phone, which meant I could access the repository regardless of where I might be should inspiration hit. This was a very valuable tool to have at my disposal.

I didn’t sit down to focus on this project until the ideas started to flow. That inspiration came from the gnome culture and mythology that has been published for 5e as of this writing, as well as from previous editions all the way back to the beginning of the game. (Whenever I found contradictions between editions, I fell back to 5e as the “ultimate” source of truth since this project was for 5e.)

It was very important to me that the trinkets were as unique as possible. I didn’t want to include multiple instances of the same item with only a minor, and mostly meaningless, difference. For example, I didn’t want to have a red crystal that vibrates in the rain, then a blue crystal that vibrates in the rain, then a green crystal that vibrates in the rain. DMs and players can make those changes on their own. The closest I came to overlapping, I feel, is with the necklace of goblin teeth and the necklace of Kobold claws. Though the components for each is different, they are still trophy necklaces. Their saving grace is that they can mean quite different things and affect a character’s backstory in quite different ways. I did, at least, place these in separate tables to limit duplication. 

As an interesting side note, in delving into both trinkets and common magic items at the same time, I found that many trinkets in the Player's Handbook could actually be common magic items. I made a decision to allow my trinkets collections to blur the line between the two in the same way. This blurring opened up a wider range of possibilities, in my mind, for common magic items but it also meant my task became just a little more difficult as some items I initially believed could be trinkets were a better fit as a common magic item and the other way around. I settled on going with my gut feeling as the final arbiter for which category an item belonged to.

Artwork

While I was busy writing up content, I began to consider the artwork. Artwork takes me a long time to create, especially since I’m not a professional artist. Moreover, I know that people buying materials from the DMs Guild often print those materials, and a graphics-heavy release consumes very expensive ink very quickly. I do provide a printer-friendly version of all my content. Still, as an independent creator I simply do not have the resources to produce the kind of art found in the WotC content without going into full Kickstarter mode.

I settled on highly stylized, simple graphics for the interior art similar to that which I created for my Epic Gnomish Inventing. I like these graphics because they can be applied as a background accent without disrupting the text. This reduces page count and makes it easier to maintain both a standard release and a printer-friendly release. I used Inkscape to create those graphics and exported them out as pdf files. I also have a set of “stains” that I used in this supplement to provide some character to certain pages. These are odd files. In both cases, the formats preserve transparency.

I always draw the cover art by hand. I like to evoke that vintage feeling of the editions from the late 70s and early 80s. I decided a long time ago that the items in all my equipment supplements would be described as being offered up by The WhatNot Shop. This is a fictional shop I’ve use in my Dungeons and Dragons homebrew campaigns. To evoke a shopping experience, I wanted every cover to show the same storefront but include different items in the windows so as to differentiate between each publication. To accommodate this, I long ago created a “template” that includes only the basic outline of the storefront (door, windows, and a few minor flourishes). For this supplement, I printed the template, drew in the items in the windows, and added some extra details to the structure. I then added color with color pencils. This analog version complete, I scanned it and then used GIMP to clean up the image. The final image was a jpg.

The graphics were all completed per the DMs Guild requirements. The DMs Guild maintains a set of standards you’re expected to follow regarding the resolution and other aspects of any images you include. These standards help to ensure your publication will “work” on whatever device your audience might use to read your work.

Layout

Once all of my content was written (and edited) to my liking and I had enough graphics, I started creating the final product. I used InDesign for this. I have a template I created specifically for DMs Guild submissions that includes a bunch of paragraph, character, table, and other styles. Styles are a very important tool to create and use in any kind of book layout project as they save time and sanity, two critical resources for most of us I’d suspect. I can write an entire post on the reasons why, but others have done that for me. Just google it.

I always wait until I’m satisfied with my content before I bring it into InDesign because InDesign is a layout tool, not a word processor. It’s not made for the kind of ad hoc changes you run into while you’re writing the content. Also, even when you do all the text flows correctly, edits can throw off the layout in unexpected ways, which causes more work.

After I finished bringing in the content and applying all the correct styles, I added the graphics, ran the book through preflight, and printed the pdf. The DMs Guild once again provides standards for these files that you must follow. They are pretty much consistent with requirements from other publishers. I used Distiller to create the PDF and then reviewed the file to ensure it was created correctly and had no errors. 

I mentioned earlier that I create two version: a standard version and a print-friendly version, I create the print-friendly version of a publication only after finishing the standard version. I did this by creating a whole new book project, relinking all the pages through the correct file structure, and pulling out any unneeded graphics. I left the cover art though. I then ran this second book through preflight, generated its pdf, and checked for errors. At this point in the process the files were pretty much ready. 

Publishing to the Guild

The final step is publishing to the DMs Guild. I won’t get into this step too much because the site already explains it. The most important part here is putting in a good description. Other than that, it’s mostly setting a few options, uploading the files, and waiting an hour or so to see my product on the Guild. This is the best part of the entire process.

Another part of publishing is the announcement! I do this on the usual social media suspects, including Twitter and Instagram. If you know of any good places, let me know. This part I admittedly I can use a little improvement with, but I’m learning! I can always use a signal boost too, so if you ever run across one of my announcements say hi and share! 

Conclusion

This post has given a high-level view of how I went about publishing my Common Curiosities and Trivial Trinkets supplement. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also hope I’ve helped one or two of you move closer toward publishing yourself. I wish you luck in that endeavor. In the meantime...go on over to the DMs Guild and pick up a copy of the supplement you’ve been reading so much about. 

Cheers!

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Also, check out my DMsGuild offerings:

• Epic Gnomish Inventing
  Rules supplement for creating gadgets.
• Gnome Concept Packages 1
  Collection of gnome-related backgrounds, feats, magic items, and more.
• Great House Servants
  Collection of backgrounds centered on the servants of a great house.
• Mildew's Revenge
  A first-level adventure.
• Random Plot Generator
  A tool for creating adventure prompts for one-shots and story arcs.
• The WhatNot Shop’s Absurd Accoutrements
  A collection of unusual magical items.
• The WhatNot Shop's Bracing Beverages
  A collection of strange potions.
• The WhatNot Shop's Common Curiosities and Trivial Trinkets
  A collection of common magic items and trinkets.
• The WhatNot Shop's Dastardly Doodads and Orc Oddities
  A collection of orc-themed common magic items and trinkets.