DM Walk-Away Kit

by Mike Shea on 6 February 2012

They finally found you. After years of tracking you down, the Company uncovered your secret lair and plan to take you down...tonight! But you got a tip and you're on the way out the door. You have your belt of gold krugerrands, your Sig-Sauer P226, and your emergency cyanide capsule. But what about your DM Kit? What if you find yourself hiding out in Terre Haute, Indiana with five nerds starving for some D&D?

Today we'll talk about all the components you might want to carry in that D&D DM Walk-Away kit, whether it's for a convention or for a quick trip to a friend's house. This is a perfect kit to fit easily into your luggage and let you run many a D&D 4e game.

The DM Kit Checklist

• 1 Gamemastery Flip Map
• 1 D&D Starter Set poster map
• 1 pack of color dry erase markers
• 2 large retractable dry-erase markers
• 4 sets of dice
• 6 level 1 pregen characters (7 meg PDF) in sheet protectors
• 6 PC miniatures to match your pre-gen characters. The Pathfinder Heroes minis are a good start or go with Troll and Toad minis.
• 1 copy D&D Beginner Set DM Book
• 1 set of D&D monster tokens also from the beginner set
• 40 3x5 cards
• 1 set of colored hair ties
• 1 copy of the DM Cheat Sheet in a sheet protector
• 1 large flexible and durable portfolio to hold all that stuff.

Most of the actual D&D materials in this pack comes from the D&D Starter Set. Though of limited use in a home campaign, the box comes with a lot of materials useful for a walk-away DM kit. The poster map is an excellent resource, as are the PC and monster tokens. The DM book includes enough rules to keep a game going and enough monsters to let you build out a few small adventures. It even has a spare set of dice.

If you want a better dry-erase flip map and some stand-up cardboard tokens, the Pathfinder Beginner Box contains both of these. They're great for a walk-around kit and stand-up tokens are nicer than the flat ones in the starter pack. Unless you play Pathfinder, though, you won't get much else from the box.

Dry-erase markers are great for writing on the plastic sleeves of character sheets or on the dry-erase poster map. The thick black retractable markers last for a long long time while the colored ones let you draw out a bit more detail on the flip map.

3x5 cards are a DM's ultimate tool for tracking initiative, handing out secret notes, outlining a short adventure, keeping track of NPCs, or a variety of other purposes. Always have a small stack on-hand.

Colored hair-ties, available for a few bucks at Walgreens, work perfectly for tracking bloodied creatures and other status effects. They're very light-weight which is important for our kit.

If this article was helpful, take a look at Sly Flourish's Dungeon Master Tips and Running Epic Tier D&D Games. You can also bookmark and use this Amazon link for your Amazon purchases.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.