DM Advice | How and When to use Handouts in D&D

Aug 25

As you get into tabletop games, one little thing you will come to consider more and more, but that isn’t really included in rulebooks or the like, are handouts: The bits of paper that you can create and hand to your players to further enhance the game.

I personally really like using handouts, and often add them to my games. But I find that for a lot of people it doesn’t really even come to mind, or they simply don’t know where to start. So let me share some of my tips DM tricks with you.

There are three general reasons to use handouts:

Complicated Rules: If there is a section of play that makes use of extra rules (for example combat with certain ongoing effects), or rules your players are not very familiar with (for example underwater rules), it makes sense to give them a little cheat sheet. I find this very useful, as my players can more easily see what is going on and what their options are. It also saves me having to explain these extra rules over and over again.
Creating Overview: Sometimes there is a lot going on, for example with an investigation or a complicated (battle-)map. Handouts can help create more overview for the players in such a situation.
Increasing Fun & Immersion: Handouts don’t just have to be practical, mostly I enjoy making and using them because it adds something to the game. Instead of telling my PCs about a letter they receive, I can hand it to them and have them read it themselves. I can show them the notice hung on a tavern wall. Or physically put a puzzle in front of them to solve.

As you can see, handouts are very useful indeed! But as with everything, moderation is key. Using handouts for everything leads to overworked GMs and players exhaustedly shuffling through large stacks of papers. If a handout doesn’t actually enhance the gameplay and/or enjoyment of the moment: leave it be. For the places where it would form a good improvement, I have some further tips on how to make and use them.

First, we have the rules hand-outs. These are quite simple. You simply want to print the rules in question on a piece of paper. I find it useful to keep to RAW text as much as possible. It is formulated the way it is for a reason, to pre-empt and clarify interactions with other rules. However, not everything is always relevant to the situation at hand, and if you know this in advance you can save your players from having to sift through long paragraphs. In fact, the three guidelines I would give you are:

Keep it concise. You want your players to be able to quickly find the information they need. Use bullet points or tables where you can.
Keep it small. Obviously, make sure the handout is readable, but ideally, you want your players to be able to keep it next to their character sheets without it being a hassle.
Highlight the important stuff.

Second, the handouts used to create a better overview. These can differ greatly based on what you are trying to create an overview for. Really there are many uses for this, so I won’t be able to cover everything. Some general tips are the following:

If you are trying to convey different options for your players to choose from (places to go, NPC’s to talk to) pictures are always the preferable way to showcase this. What I always do is pick a simple clipart picture of a location, or a headshot for an NPC and then add the name of the place or person
underneath. Make sure that the pictures are visually distinct so the players can see what is what at a glance.
Another good practice is to have them as separate pieces of paper. That way players can move them around and order them as they wish. You can even remove the ones that are no longer relevant or add new options that the players have now discovered.
If you have the option, laminating pieces can sometimes be a good idea. This allows the players to make erasable notes with whiteboard markers. For environmental purposes, though, I would suggest only doing this if you think it is useful (Or perhaps use reusable sheets, Pokémon card sleeves area cheap and easy option).

Related Article: The Best Worldbuilding Tool for Dungeon Masters

The main instance for which I would advise using these types of handouts is investigations. Investigations can after all become very large and the players will get a lot of information thrown at them, not all of which is actually relevant. So it tends to be useful to provide the players with means of a good overview.

Of course, as always, the vibe you want to set is the main indicator of how you want to approach this. It all depends on your players and the feel of your campaign. You might want to stay more immersive, simply tell your players the information and expect them to keep on track. Of course this only really works if your players are good at taking notes. If you run a more casual campaign and/or have players that tend to lose track more often or have difficulty organising information, I would suggest helping them out with the methods described above.

Third, there are handouts added for fun. For these there are two elements: Visual and text. Or based on the handout, there might not even be text. If your handout involves text, the question of course always is how much text that should be. A good rule of thumb is to have it be the following:

The information the players absolutely need to find in this handout
A bit of flavor and/or something fun

A good example I can give of this is from an adventure I once ran where the players were investigating some underground catacombs that a bunch of kids had been using as their hideout. Now, the adventure as written did not include a way for the players to find out this last part, but I decided it would add some nice flavor (and explain some other things to them) if they could find this out organically. So I described to them a small alcove that was covered in messages written in chalk. Based on their checks three players got a handout that included a little snippet of what was written on the wall. One bit declared this place as their handout and had signatures from the kids scribbled under it, the other was marks for the scary story-telling-contest, and the last was a message that “Junia found the pretty ruby ring fair and square after being dared to explore the scary room, so she gets to keep it and everyone else should shut up about it.” Some useful information, a bit of flavour, and a bit of humour.

Finally, the visual aspect is pretty simple: Make it pretty. For the low-effort version, just putting the text on a parchment background already makes it a lot more flavourful and immersive than simple black-on-white. If you enjoy putting effort into these things: go nuts! If you have money to spare you can even commission people. You can even go beyond just handouts and into props! As long as you are still having fun and not overworking yourself of course.

I hope these tips were useful to you and can provide some good hand-holds for your hand-outs. Have fun!

Dara Yapp is an all-around geek and maker of pretty things; whether by sewing, painting miniatures, or creating worlds, stories, and adventures. You can support her and find links to her other works here: https://ko-fi.com/darawhyy

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