Having scrap paper and pencils on hand is my go to. Even running online it’s nice to have and I find, if I don’t have it, I end up needing it.

…i’m tempted to say physical dice but in truth i have many sets and switch them out for each campaign, so my most-used accessory is probably my padded rolling tray, followed closely by my staedler stick eraser…

For d&d? 5e.tools’s DM screen on a laptop is excellent, it has an encounter tracker, calendar, dice roller, and I can pin whatever rules and statblocks I need this week.

Also a giant battle mat is really useful.

Can someone ping me in a bit so I can read more responses?

A wet erase map probably. Though I don’t know if that’s an ‘accessory’ since it’d be like saying dice, or notebooks are accessories they are so central to the whole thing.

I think one thing I really like since about last year is ‘origami’ miniatures i.e. miniatures folded out of paper, there’s just something that speaks to me when I put down a bunch of paper frogs or a paper dragon as a miniature. They are ‘abstract’ but honestly it’s not like it needs to be super detailed. Plus I don’t have to worry about it getting damaged or lost, plus I can give it to people, which if you are running a game for kids, you’ll want to bring more than just one paper dragon miniature.

As for supplements I quite like the Book of Challenges from 3.5e and WallyDM’s Journal of Puzzle Encounters both help me with just coming up with challenges and puzzles since I can page through it a bit then make a new puzzle/challenge.

Historically it would be either my 2nd edition Werewolf the Apocalypse book, Paladium Fantasy Core book, or WEG’s Star Wars d6 core book.

Currently my 5e.2024 PHB.

I find myself pulling in things from all over the place. Worlds Beyond Number has great generator tables to build adventures from, and Dangerous Destinations etc are great for scaffolding locations on the fly. I also use the interlinking utility of OneNote for my GM notes, which helps a lot in my sandbox games to remember who did what, where, why, etc.

I’m primarily playing Pathfinder 2 these days, so I make a lot of use out of digital resources like Pathbuilder and pf2easy.com. I also lean pretty heavily on Trilium for session prep and notes, but I’m a chronic over-preparer and struggle with improvising the world on the spot.

I use a lot of roll tables during prep. I have several of the Gamemaster’s Guide to ____ books on my shelf that I pull out whenever I’m wireframing a dungeon, and I have a lot of the Raging Swan pre-built settlements that I leaf through and drop into my world when the players need a town to come across.

I also find myself turning to GM advice books every few months, just to skim over things. Right now, So You Want to be a Game Master, Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering, and Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master (Eh? Ehhhhh?) seem to be the ones that end up on my desk. I can safely assure you, one of the advice sinks in, but I usually have my best streaks of sessions after reviewing things like these.

I also find myself returning to modules from 3.x. They were the ones I first played, and they’re (mostly) pretty easy to convert to PF2. We’re currently just wrapping up Forge of Fury – or we will, once I finish converting the Allip.

Lately, Discord seems the né the unifying tool among all my tables. I’m currently playing 2300AD, Firefly RPG, and Storycaster. So not really conventional games.

Shawn Tomkin’s Ironsworn series. Delve I regularly use for setting up point crawls. Ironsworn/Starforged/Sundered Isles have great collections of random tables, I use the book thematically most fitting for the situation at hand. The core tables of Action, Theme, Descriptor and Focus all get heavy use.

Kevin Crawford’s [SOMETHING] Without Number series have awesome tables as well. These however get more use when I need more detail. Prep stuff. Again most thematic book is picked first but I do have used Cites (cyberpunk) for fantasy cities.

When I want to create background for “medieval fantasy” characters I pick up Burning Wheel and burn something up. Through that I get a good selection of relevant skills to sue (for flavor)

Anything related to cosmos and mythology I say HELLO! to my growing collection of Glorantha material. From cult books to magic tomes and Atlases.

Monster tokens are probably one of my “unsung heroes” of gaming when it comes to travel; I know people (myself included) probably always go to with minis, but if i’m going to a convention, traveling for the holidays, etc. tossing a whole pile of tokens into a bag make for great addition. No particular brand, just whatever i’ve picked up over the years.

I don’t put much stock into generic gaming aids.

The worst single product for it is the 5E DM guide, because it has next to no useful information in it.

I think for digital gamin,g it has to be foundry. If there is a module for your game of choice, then it’s just better then Roll20. The Fabula Ultima module is pretty great.

Roll 20 is a honorable mention because the bar of entry to it is so damn low. It is a pile of jank though.

My graphics tablet is also a great too, I sometimes just sketch things for my group in real time. The same thing can be done with a whiteboard in your gaming room for physical games.

I keep going back to the Fate core and supplement books. They just have such good GM advice.

I have Archives of Nethys permanently open.

Playing PF2e mostly these days and the Archives of Nethys are my life raft. I would be utterly lost without them. That and Pathbuilder to help have a handy character sheet accessible for theory crafting or whatnot.

Otherwise, I use the compendium in Foundry to look up conditions or rules on the fly.

Although when I GM I use Notion for prep, Lazy Dungeon Master’s Guide for some guidance here and there, and just a lot of flying by the seat of my pants. :B