Prep the session and run the fight in one place, so game night is spent playing.
Full access for 14 days, no charge.
You’re still the DM. DMForge does the bookkeeping; you tell the story.
Six tabs are open: two stat blocks, a half-built dungeon, the NPC you started last Tuesday and a map you sketched after midnight. The encounter math won’t come out right. Your notes live in three different apps. And you still don’t know what happens if the party turns left instead of right.
DMForge puts the prep in one place and handles the bookkeeping at the table, so tomorrow night goes to the game.
Choose a tone, a world and your party, then steer each turn of the story or let it run. You get three acts and nine quests, each with an objective, a twist, a location, a cast and an encounter, with secrets sealed until you need them. Run the whole arc, or lift one quest into the game you already have.
Initiative, hit points, conditions, concentration and death saves are tracked for you, with every stat block a click away and a suggested action for each foe. Let it roll for the monsters, or roll everything at the table and use it to keep order. Undo anything. Put the Player View on the TV and players see how hurt a foe looks, never its numbers.
Set the terrain, the time of day and the difficulty. You get foes balanced to your party, not a hypothetical group of four level-fives, with their motives and tactics for the DM, ready to send straight into combat. Not every encounter needs swords: ask for NPCs only, or a social or puzzle encounter.
Pick the ground, the realm and the size. Every room comes numbered, with read-aloud text, sensory details, traps, loot, skill checks and DM tips. Reveal rooms as the party explores, share a player-safe copy, or export the whole map to PDF.
650+ monsters and 350+ named NPCs, each with a portrait and a complete stat block. Filter by CR, type and environment, pin your favorites, and drag creatures into an encounter.
About 200 painted locations, each with lore, hooks, NPCs and traps. Take one detail or the whole scene.
Ask a rules question in plain English. 2014 and 2024 answers, side by side.
Campaign notes, read-aloud text and handouts in one place. Search it, share a page with your players, export it to PDF.
A name and a quirk for the innkeeper, loot by party tier, dice with advantage built in. One click each.
Your players’ heroes, sheets and parties in one place. Build heroes by hand, or let the hero forge write the backstory and paint the portrait.
Most DMs run on a patchwork: one site for stat blocks, another for encounters, a notes app, a random generator from a forum thread, and a combat spreadsheet. DMForge puts it in one place.
| What you’re juggling now | In DMForge |
|---|---|
| A spreadsheet for initiative and hit points | Combat Tracker |
| Tabs of monster stat blocks | Creature Codex |
| Encounter math on a calculator | Encounter Generator, balanced to your party |
| A blank page the night before | Campaign Builder: nine quests with hooks and twists |
| Notes in three different apps | DM’s Journal |
| A rules argument at the table | Rules Translator, 2014 and 2024 side by side |
And it’s deliberately not a virtual tabletop. No grid to set up, no tokens to push, and your players roll real dice. Just the prep-and-run toolkit for DMs who’d rather play.
An example fight, one step at a time. Follow the pointer.
or $49.99 a year (2 months free)
Full access for 14 days, no charge.
Start your 14 daysOn day 15 your account is frozen until you subscribe. Nothing is ever deleted.
About $1.15 a game night if you play weekly.
DMForge is a toolkit for Dungeon Masters running D&D. It puts campaign building, maps, encounters and a combat tracker in one place, with a 650+ monster Creature Codex, a rules lookup and quick table tools.
Any. DMForge works for whatever D&D game you run: the prep, the fight, the notes and the table tools don’t depend on an edition. The rules and monsters built in are fifth edition.
No. DMForge is for the person running the game. Players bring their dice and nothing else: no account, nothing to install.
Yes. Build fights by hand from the Codex, keep your world in the Journal and add heroes yourself. If you use the Campaign Builder, Let me steer lets you write your own beats.
When you choose to. Invite players who have a DMForge account to a seat in your party, then share a journal page, a scene, or a map with its secrets taken out. It shows on their game page, next to their hero sheet.
A web browser on a laptop or tablet beside your screen, with nothing to install. Player View opens as a second window, ready for a TV.
No. When you ask, the forges draft a starting point: a campaign outline, a map with its rooms, a hero’s story. You decide what reaches the table. The Codex, the Journal and the table tools draft nothing; they keep the books.