Dungeon Master Assistance

If you are like me, you probably have a lot of PDF files of D&D books, playing aids and modules, or adventures. To keep track of the ones that I have, I came up with this naming convention. When you sort a list of names it puts similar files together and helps you find the one you are looking for.

This is how I name my D&D PDF files.

1) VERSION – The first three digits represent the Dungeon & Dragon Version
ad – All D&D (not version specific)
0.0 – Original Dungeons and Dragons (OD&D) a small box set of three booklets published in 1974
0.5 – Basic Dungeons & Dragons (BD&D) 1977
1.0 – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) 1978
2.0 – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (AD&D2 or 2nd Ed) 1989
2.5 – Player’s Option manuals. technically still 2nd Edition (AD&D 2.5) 1995
3.0 – Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition (D&D3 or 3E) 2000
3.5 – Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5 (Revised 3rd Edition or D&D3.5) 2003
3.6 – Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (Paizo’s revised 3.5 Edition rule set) 2008-9
4.0 – Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (D&D4E) 2008
5.0 – Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D5E) 2014

2) SETTING – After a space, the next two upper case letters represent the campaign setting:
BL – Blackmoor
CR – Core Rules – For all settings
CS – Cultral/Historical Setting
DL – Dragonlance (situated on Krynn)
DM – Dragonmech, a steampunk/fantasy campaign setting
EB – Eberron, blends fantasy & technology
ER – World of Erde (the After Winder Dark Fantasy Campaign Setting)
FP – Freeport
FR – Forgotten Realms (situated on Abeir-Toril)
GE – General, for any setting.
GH – Greyhawk (situated on Oerth)
HW – Hollow World (a sub-setting of KW)
HY – Hyboria (the setting of Robert E. Howard’s Conan)
KR – Known Realm, the world of Aereth (Dungeon Crawl Classics)
KW – Known World (the first D&D campaign world A.K.A. “Mystara”)
LL – Lost World (old-school setting)
LM – Lankhmar (based on the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories)
MA – Mars
PA – Paizo’s “Pathfinder” world of Golarion
PL – Points of Light (default unnamed campaign setting for 4.0)
RL – Ravenloft (a Horror setting)
SA – Swashbuckling Adventures
SL – Scarred Lands
VI – Vikings
WD – Monte Cook’s World of Darkness
WI – Wilderlands of High Fantasy

3) TYPE– Immediately following the code for the setting is one or two lower case leters that indicate the type of content:
a    – Adventure or Module
ac    – Accessory
c    – Creatures (Monsters)
dm    – Dungeon Master’s reference or tools
e    – Extended (not offical) rules
f    – Feats
g    – General
i    – Items (Equipment, Magic Items, any kind of “stuff”)
m    – Map or Tile
p    – Prestige Classes
pl    – Players reference or tools
r    – Reference (not game specific)
s    – Sourcebook or Rulebook

4) MODULE NUMBER – If this is one of a set of books this is the module number (This is to keep sets listed together).

5) ADVENTURE LEVEL– For adventures only, the lowest level character that the adventure is designed for.  I put this number in parenthesis and I put a zero in front of single digit numbers (01, 02, 03 … etc.) to keep them sorted properly.

6) NAME OF THE BOOK

7) ORIGIONAL ELECTRONIC FORMAT – If the pdf file is in it’s origional electronic format (not a scan or conversion) [OEF] may be added to the end of the file name.

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Example:    3.5 FPa BEA4(03) – A Dreadful Dawn.pdf
“3.5”  Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5
 “FP”   Based in the Freeport campaign setting
  “a”  an Adventure
  ” BEA4″  Module number BEA4
   “(03)”  for LVL 3 characters
  “A Dreadful Dawn” the name of the adventure

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