Two handouts that should make your life easier
GM screens can be useful tools. They are covered in somewhat useful information, and you can use them to shield your rolls and your miniatures. That said, there are some things that a GM’s screen doesn’t cover. Have you ever been in a game where this happens? :
DM: The blacksmith, a grimy dwarf with a long scar on his face, smiles as he hands you the newly forged sword.
Player: Cool, what’s his name?
DM: Um… (looking around the room), Table…Tablemen…yeah…his name is Tablemen.
Player: Did you just look at the table and name him Tablemen?
DM: Um…roll initiative.
Sound familiar? How about this one?
DM: With a flourish of your sword, you slay the last orc in chamber. What would you like to do?
Player: We search the orcs and the chamber for treasure.
DM: Um… (scrambles for a DMG)…you find something, I’ll roll it later.
Player: But, we could find something that would be useful in the rest of the dungeon.
DM: Fine. (Game comes to a halt for the next ten minutes and any momentum is lost)
These are scenarios that I have encountered multiple times, both as a player and as a GM. In an attempt to prevent scenes like these from happening in the future I have created two handouts that should help. The first is a sheet of names for each of the standard fantasy races(26 names per gender, per race). The second is a list of treasure in order of challenge rating (three entries per CR, 1st-20th).
These handouts aren’t meant to be used during the planning phase of your adventure (you would go through the treasure and names quickly), instead reserve them for those instances when your players ask you the name of an NPC you didn’t deem important enough to warrant a name, and for those time when your players wander into an encounter you didn’t expect (and therefore didn’t roll treasure for).
I hope you find them useful. Print them out, paper clip them inside your GM screen, and never be caught off guard again.
-Andy
Boccob's Blessed Blog 
July 31, 2010 at 9:32 am
I would love some feedback on the handouts. Are they useful? If not, what needs to be changed? What kinds of handouts would you like to see in the future?
August 1, 2010 at 4:48 pm
These two lists are a great addition to any DM’s stack of books, nothing like a premade quick reference for getting back to the game asap.
Possible fixes/additions: Adding in some names for the primary races of 4E (I know you don’t play fourth edition but there are only a couple different core races to add names for and this would help the list span more of 3.5 as well.) Also, adding page numbers for the treasure if people need stats or clarification — some players may mix up item specifics from time to time, having the page number on hand couldn’t hurt.
4.5/5 for this entry, great job.
August 1, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Those are two great points. Thank you very much. That is exactly the feedback I’m looking for.
February 28, 2011 at 12:05 pm
[…] Students (and players) can tell when you’ve thrown a game together at the last second. It really hurts the game experience because it puts your players closer to reality, while the purpose of role-playing is to immerse yourself in a secondary world and lose yourself for a few hours. One thing that I find that helps with campaign planning is to keep a log of all the happening in the night’s adventure. Keep a list of people and places that players interact with. You will be amazed at how many adventure hooks the players will create for you. (The guy they picked a fight with at the tavern, the person whose pocket they picked, the loved ones of the monster or npc they killed. Etc) While occasionally it is fun to play a session on the fly, more often than not you’ll want a series of possibilities open, and unless you run a pre-planned world, you’ll need to sit down and prep. (Note: We ran an article a while back that provided prep-time reducing handouts for the DM, a list of NPC names by race, and a list of treasures by encounter level. Both can be found here.) […]