Guide to Tools, PDFs and Tables for D&D 5E and DM's Guild

Looking at pdf and book titles for Dungeons and Dragons on the web and DM's Guild.

Disclaimer. I'm an affiliate for DM's Guild and I also create a lot of products with random tables on DM's Guild..

Starting Points

Random tables have long been part of D&D and this continues for D&D 5e from 2014 and the latest 2024 version.

The DM's Guild is the D&D Marketplace for digital content created by the community.

The tools here are specific to D&D, and many to 5e in particular.

There is a Spelljammer section in the Space Fantasy /Science Fantasy titles guide.

There is also a D&D Mega-Guide for Generator Tools.

Nov 2025: Merged in tools from D&D Mega-guide; Oct 2024: Made 5e only, added city section; July 2024: Split solo into two sections

Major Titles

Some of the larger, more well known random titles of D&D 5e

Nerzugal's Dungeon Master Toolkit by Steven Williams is a monster of a PWYW title with 114 pages including magic item enchantment tables. The sequel, Dungeon Master Toolkit 2, is also hefty, with random encounter tables.
Detailing the planes of D&D, with random tables for each, is The Infinite Staircase from Oliver Darkshire.
A Pay What You Want option is Random Encounters Expanded by Benjamin Campbell with 76 pages of statted encounters, with options for different environments.
Bringing together many encounter tables is Collected Encounters from Duncan Thomson (me), with over 22 terrains and 7 planar terrains.

5E D&D Solo Titles

A place to start is Solo Adventurer's Toolbox from 5E Solo Gamebooks. Encounters for wilderness, urban and dungeon, random generation of dungeons, wilderness terrain, merchants and other scenarios for solo D&D. There is also The Solo Adventurer’s Toolbox Part Two: The Toolbox Expanded
From Guilherme Bento is the Solo Adventurer's Guide - D&D Solo Engine, a guide on how to play solo but in less than 25 pages.
Avalon's Solo Adventure System from Avalon Game Company is a system for playing a party of adventurers solo using 5e.
D&D Solo Adventure: Tables Of Doom also from 5E Solo Gamebooks has random tables to generate monsters, traps, clues, loot and other elements for solo adventures.
For something different, First Blush from Jonathan Ball and Beth Ball offers a pay-what-you-want one-on-one adventure, also suitable for solo play

Free and Pay What You Want Options

If you like pdfs and random tables then there are some free and pay what you want options. And where you find one you might find more. Also see Dungeon Master Toolkit mentioned above.

100 Fantasy Drugs from Official Dndspeak has many substances illegal in most planes of reality. And 100 Urban Encounters for places to include them.
For peaceful random encounter tables DungeonsandDjinn has 100 Non-Combat Random Encounters (Forest). Along with similar titles for Road, Urban, Coastal, the North, Underwater and Jungle.
Random encounters is also dealth with by Clan Crafter Hralding with 50 Non-Combat Desert Encounters and 50 Non-Combat Arctic Encounters
Taverns are important for D&D, with Inns & Taverns by Lifestyle by Michael J Winegar helping out with 9 categories of establishment and five more tables to flesh them out. Random Events for Country Side Travel is also useful for travel.
More encounters with Fifty Forest Encounters from Forest Bird RPGs. And also A Hundred Encounters for Cities and Towns, Fifty Encounters for the High Waves and Salty Seas, Fifty Encounters for Grasslands and Plains, Fifty Encounters in the Icy Wastes and Fifty Encounters for Dungeons and the Underdark.

Characters

Some titles focus on the player characters, building them or customising for them.

Characters start with names, and one of the best known places is Fantasy Name Generators, which has names by DnD race. You can find them on one page with Kassoon. For a character in a hurry then Fast Character gives a full character sheet. You can specify race, class, level and more.

D&D characters need trinkets so go to the 5e Trinket Generator at donjon. I've built a D&D trinket gen with themes at Chaos Gen. Pets are a source of fun for many groups and there is a guide for pet generators or I have a D&D pet tool at Chaos Gen.

For Characters during a campaign, you might go carousing generator at donjon, find yourself running a business (also donjon) or wandering what to spend gold pieces on at Chaos Gen.

Some characters can be customised by class. Plot Hooks by character class at D&D Flavor Generators (example is for a fighter). For Bards here's a random quip generator or a musical instrument generator. If you feel a song coming on look at 100 Bard Songs. For Clerics how about a local random god to follow. For Druids there are 100 druidic treasures. Fighters might benefit from a Nickname. Monks could have their own martial arts style. For Paladins maybe a local random god to follow. For higher levels there is are 100+ paladin magic items. For Rangers fantasy name generators has a host of pets scroll to the bottom to find them all. Rogues like tricks and gear so 100 magic items for a rogue will be of interest. For Sorcerers of a wild bent there are extra wild surges. For Warlocks there are some patron contract tables and a witch/warlock name generator. For Wizards there are spellbooks or more spellbooks

Then there are some decent digital titles too...

For characters you can add personality traits according to your character stats with Ability Traits by Andrea Maffia and Simone Rossi Tisbeni
Find some Trinkets with Loot The Room: 100 New Trinkets by Chris Bissette
For encounters around the characters try Character Focused Random Events for the City by Michael J Winegar, a pay-what-you-want. And Character Focused Random Events for Towns.
For companions try 100 Pets and Familiars by Casey Willis, a pwyw title. And also 100 Bards Songs from the same author.
The Random Mount Generator by Aaron Gentry and Grim Press has tables for generating unique mounts for characters.

Dungeons and Treasure

Dungeons and traps go hand-in-hand for the older style of D&D. Starting off is a generator using the tables from the Dungeon Master's Guide at Chartopia. At donjon has a dungeon map and dungeon room generator. And a trap generators which gives 10 traps each time with filters for level and danger, plus a treasure generator by CR. OMGM has a trap generator with details of trigger, save DC, how to spot the trap or the trigger. If your players favour convenience then try the 5E Magic Shop or a second version which includes description and location.

If you like doors then the Incredible World of Doors and Locks by Martin Devico has many random tables in addition to many ways to make use of that dungeon classic.
For random doors try Deadly Dungeon Doors by Glen Cooper and Dreadful Dungeons, with random tables for materials, sizes, traps and other variations.
The Deck of Multitudinous Things by Sadie Lowry and Amber Litke provides a story-based approach to Deck of Many Things supported by random tables
For fifty potions there is 50 Potions, Oils and Elixirs by Jennifer Adcock, tied together with a d100 table.
Loot and Fortune by Matthew Jarmak is pay-what-you-want with themed treasure tables and art objects.

Adventures

Adventurers need adventures to explore and challenge them. There are some powered by random tables! For interesting quests try 100 Quests involving Toolkits from Dnd Speak. Similar ones include 100 City Quests and 100 Morally Ambiguous Side Quests. If you're looking for one shots for dnd at Chaos Gen (one of mine) is D&D One Shots generator, with a couple themes to choose from. 7 Tools also has a Quest Generator, where the details can be further generated / expanded.

If you are looking for combat encounters start with Donjon's elegant encounter generator. I've got a 5e Encounter Generator from Chaos Gen with options for combat and non-combat and gives extras like location and activity. Dnd speak has a whole list of d100 encounter tables. Then 7Tools has an Encounter Generator with Challenge, environment and encounter type. Plus a Monster Generator for something unique.

A re-usable one-shots customised with random tables with The Contract by Lucas Zellers. And another one with Town Musicians of Bremen.
The Caverns of Chaos: Puzzles, Riddles, Tricks & Traps by The Goblin Leg Gang is a customisable adventure with random trap tables, puzzles and riddles.
For a short adventure all on random tables, try The Ghost Fields (by Me) with themes of Forst, Wolves, Gloom and Spirits. Spider Woods and Isle of the Oracles are similar titles.

City and Waterdeep Titles

Titles to help a D&D 5e adventure or campaign set in a city such as Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate or Greyhawk City.

The City Handbook by Anthony Vardakas (of Dungeon Influence) has random tables of settlement basics, names, politics, rulers and events. Plus a few ready to use settlements.
Waterdeep: City Encounters from various authors has encounters with random tables for them by ward.
Then there are rumours with Strange Tidings: 20,000+ Rumours by Chris Bissette
For inns and taverns, So You Walk Into a Tavern... by Marco Giulio Fossti and Marco Bertini covers how it looks, staff, customers and events.

Ravenloft and Strahd Titles

One of the first themed adventures for dark fantasy was Ravenloft, which grew into a setting and has returned for fifth edition with Van Richten. Another resource for Ravenloft is the Guide for Horror.

You might want some Goth sounding vampire names at springhole or spooky trinkets at Chaos Gen. For new ideas try 100 new darklords and domains. At chartopia there is collection of tables from Curse of Strahd,

Encounters with the Dark Powers - Ravenloft by Christian Zeuch and Matthew Wulf has a d20 table of detailed adventures with battle maps. By the same duo is Encounters in Barovia, with the same format.
There is Ravenloft Tables: Random Tables for Your Gothic Horror Games from Sharang Biswas
Carl Huber has Barovia Random Encounters on the Old Svalich Road - Curse of Strahd, with 20 detailed encouters for Curse of Strahd.
100 Shadowfell Trinkets and Pocket Finds from Stephen Hart and the Grinning Frog has all your spooky trinket needs.
Strahd Random Tables Bundle (by me) brings together several spooky and Ravenloft-themed titles. Strahd Encounter Tables is the Ravenloft-specific one.

Theros

Start with names from the Ancient Greek-ish Name Generator at springhole.net

Names are so important for characters and fantasy name generators has a whole page of Magic: the Gathering names useful for Theros. Of note are those for gorgons, sphinxes and giants

For Humans there are Ancient Greek names and MTG-themed names.
For Centaurs there are general centaur names and more MTG themed ones.
For Leonin there is a cat-person ideas generator
For Minotaurs you have MTG-themed names , greek-influenced names and ones from various fantasy sources. There is also a pair of horns generator and a minotaur characters idea tool
For Satyrs there is a satyr and fauns name generator
For Tritons there are MTG merfolk names. Also with a bit of adaption a mer-tails generator could work

Omens and oracles are a big part of life with the gods. Prophecies are all around, with prophecies with the option of scrambling the words, several short ones or character foretellings (one of mine). There is a name generator for prophets too.

Also covered are superstitions, omens & portents, riddles and a riddle maker (no answers though).

Seas and islands are a big part of Theros and there is a separate guide on Sea Tools. Masks are prominent in Thoros lore and there is a costume masks generator, replacing modern materials with wood, ceramic or metal.

and I've got a Theros Trinkets Generator

For PDFs

Trinkets of Theros is a pdf with 100 trinkets on DM's Guild
Gray Merchant of Asphodel has loot and merchant tables
Lastly Encounters in Theros has random tables for City, Wilderness, Mountain and Watery environments.
Last is my own Trinkets of Theros of 80 trinkets with Creation Tables for hundreds more.

Other Titles

Things that don't fit in the other categories.

The NPC Generator at Donjon creates several at once. NPC tool at TotalPartyKill gives stats, skills and personality traits. The NPC generator at negatherium also has detailed appearance, personality and an adventure hook as well as a basic stat block. The NPC Generator at 7Tools lets you choose from many heritages, generating character details that tie into the other generators of the site. DND Speak also has d100 tables of shopkeepers and merchants, interesting pirates and hosts for a night's stay. The Quick NPC Generator(one of mine) at Chaos Gen gives name, physical trait and a bit of personality. OMGM has a great NPC Generator.

For a D&D Tavern, OMGM has an Inn Generator with several filters.

The NPC Handbook from Anthony Vardakas is pay-what-you-want and has many random tables for creating your D&D NPCs.
For Eberron there is Eberron Events in Sharn and the Five Nations by Michael J Winegar
For travel encounters, Travel Skill Challenges & Non-Combat Encounters from Thom Martin has options outside of combat for grasslands, hills and forests
Trinkets from the Fair Folk by Matt Scoggan is a pay-what-you-want with 100 trinkets for the Feywild.
100 Magical Herbs and Plants from Official Dndspeak has what you need for foraging gone interesting. From the same author is 100 Interesting Trinkets, 100 Riddles and Their Answers.