Crafting Cards for DnD Campaigns

Recently, I’ve put effort into crafting various playing cards for the campaign I’m running. During the first session, I noticed a sense of confusion among the players about how to use their spells and what the spells actually do. I didn’t want to hand them an old, heavy book filled with hundreds of spells, especially since they’re just getting into fantasy roleplaying. Instead, I decided to create playing cards.

This isn’t an original idea—many DMs have done it before. WotC even sells spell cards, though without any art on them. Additionally, there are several artists on Etsy who sell print-and-play versions. However, none of the existing layouts really satisfied me.

I started researching modern designs for playing cards. Traditional designs tend to be more text-heavy, while newer designs often emphasize artwork. Of course, the approach can vary depending on the card’s purpose. For example:

Yield - Artwork emphasized

MTG - Traditional design

Designing Spell cards

So, I created a couple of versions. Unfortunately, DnD spell descriptions are quite long. I experimented with smaller font sizes, but they became unreadable once printed. While enlarging the card size was an option, I wanted to stick with the standard poker size. This way, players can easily hold them in their hands and quickly reference the information.

I also avoided overloading the cards with counters, tags, and other elements. Instead, I incorporated those details into the description text where possible or omitted them entirely. I chose not to include class information either. Here’s what the design process looked like:

I also generated the artwork using MidJourney. While it’s not ideal if you need highly accurate outcomes, it works well if you’re okay with general compositions and a consistent art style. Maintaining a cohesive art style is a challenge and could probably be its own blog post. That said, the examples below turned out to be quite appealing and understandable in terms of illustration:

For the first couple session I limited myself only on cantrips and first level spells. But I might continue since they worked well for my players.

Designing NPC Cards

Why stop at spells? I’ve also created NPC cards. I approached these differently since their main purpose is to showcase the artwork. They don’t require much information or explanatory text, just the NPC’s name, perhaps.

For these, I chose tarot-sized cards. Since players won’t be stacking them in their hands, the larger size allows them to better appreciate the artwork. While researching tarot card designs, I found that most were traditional and quite serious. Instead, I opted for a variety of really simple, modern designs.

DMing for the First Time

I ran my first DnD session as a dungeon master couple weeks ago. Everyone had a fun time really. There were 6 players. All of them were playing for the first time. Some of them didn't know what an RPG is even in the digital world. But they did cooperate, participate and had a good time together. Here are some reflection on this.

Player - character bond

We played Dragons of the Stromwreck Isle campaign. Which is a starter campaign that get players through 1 to 3 level. Which comes with ready to play characters, maps and adventures. Since my players are gonna roleplay for the first time I didn't think playing ready to play characters wasn't a good idea. I wanted them to bond with their character better so I let them create their own character. Which resulted better than I tought. Some of them came with a whole backstory about their family their origin. Some of them weren't sure about how should it go so lead the way a bit.

They did not have any trouble calling themselves by their character name. Most of them were able to react to the world exactly like how their character would. Of course I dont have a comparison on how would it be if there were ready play charaters but maybe I will run a one shot with ready to play character and see how will that turn out.

Better Motivations

Well in the original campaign characters were going to the isle for various of reasons. But those reasons were not really convincing to me. I mean "A letter tells there is lost knowledge in the observatory" ?? What is this letter, who sent this, who am I to go there to checkout lost knowledges. So first I let them to describe their characters to me and I come up with a prologue quest for each of them. Which starts at their hometown and leads them to the isle. Downside is I run these prologue quests as one on one sessions and let them meet on the ship that goes to the island. So now everyone has their own unique motivations and they all find it meaningful, but they dont have any purpose as a group. I don't know if this is necessarly a bad thing. Eventually they met eachother by "destiny" and helped eachother to survive zombies that attack them. So there must be a sense of feeling that they cant survive by themselves on that island.

I am really curious about if they will be able to bond as a group. I did some foreshadowing in each of their prologue quest. But clues are not meaningful by themselves they should share the knowledge with eachother and talk to NPCs about it to find the rest of the story.

learning Game mechanics

I spent a couple of weeks learning how Dungeons & Dragons works. As a game designer who has played digital RPGs my entire life, it wasn’t too difficult for me to grasp. However, my players didn’t do any research beforehand, so I explained the mechanics to them during their prologue mission. Despite this, I feel they are still struggling to use their features and spells effectively. I can see that they want to do something cool or meaningful with their spells, but they keep misusing them. I really dislike having to say, “That spell doesn’t work like that.” For our next session, I plan to send them a spell list and ask them to read through their spells. Since they’re beginners, I don’t want to overwhelm them by handing them a massive book and saying, “Learn this.” It feels cruel to expect that from someone who isn’t entirely sure what they’re getting into.

Going oldschool

We decided this as a group. Still if someone wants to bring a DnD Beyond account they are allowed to. But most of us really motivated on playing this pen and paper. I am aware that problems on learning the game mechanics and effectively using spells caused because of this. Well playing pen and paper doesn't directly causes this problem but effectively encourages it. But I have plans on this matter. I also see D&D as a crafting hobby. I really enjoy creating and printing maps, NPCs, and other materials. I’ll admit, another DM could probably prepare this campaign in half the time it’s taken me. But I value the time I spend crafting cards and printing maps just as much as the time we spend in sessions. With that in mind, I’ve decided to print poker-sized spell cards for our next session.

Let’s see how it goes!

Start of a Blogging Journey

Well, hi there 👋 This is my first entry at the start of my -hopefully long- blogging journey. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure why I’ve decided to start this blog, but something tells me it’s going to be a good experience.

My name is Cinar, I currently live in Izmir, Turkey. I work as a technical artist at a mobile game company. Generally what I do is creating visual effects, materials, shaders etc. On top of that, I ensure that our games remain optimized for target mobile devices, even with all those additions. I also develop tools to improve workflows and make life easier for the team, whether by optimizing pipelines or enhancing quality-of-life aspects for our projects.I actually want to write about the challenges I’ve faced and the solutions I’ve come up with, but I’m uncertain about the legal boundaries of discussing my work publicly. It’s something I’ll need to look into further.

Other than that I like to design and develop games. I did participate couple ludum dare challenges and published really small indies. Also thats how I get into the industry with no education in coding or game development at all I like to play board games and design board games. Mostly I am into lightweight ones. I’m particularly drawn to lightweight games, as they’re easy to get into and don’t demand long periods of focus. While I’ve tried a few heavyweight games and found them fun, they’re not always my cup of tea.

Recently, I’ve been diving into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. I’m currently running an entry-level campaign—Dragons of Stormwreck Isle—with my closest friends, and it turns out it’s just the kind of hobby I’ve been looking for. Also I am trying to be planned and organized as much as possible. Not too strict plans but I think one should know what should be expected from a day or a week. I also have a feeling on this blogging hobby will have a positive impact on this.

Lets go then!