by David Gordon

by W. Eric Martin

by W. Eric Martin

In this co-operative, deck-crafting adventure board game, you play as Ham, Ronin, Malcom, and Lobos as they attempt to save the world! Each character has a special ability and their own deck with custom cards that fit their style of play.

On your turn, use the symbols on the cards in your hand to travel to new locations (some of which allow special actions), to defeat minions before they overrun a location (each of which has a limit), and to use Knuckles (the "fearless" mercenary bear) to scare off minions. When battling minions, you need to match their color(s) with the cards you play. Some minions will bite back, so keep an eye on your health as well.

For each minion defeated, you gain skills and money, and with enough skill points, you'll get free attacks. Spend your cash to buy attack cards and special cards at the Rat Market. Attack cards let you do more damage in battle, move, heal, and more. Special cards allow for combos, shared bonuses, and damage boosters. These upgrade cards are transparent, so if a symbol can fit on your card, you can slip that upgrade into the sleeve of a starting card to improve it for the rest of the game.

When you feel strong enough, go after the villain. The game includes four villains, each with a different starting health, special ability, and power-ups; villains power up when a location on the board is lost.

After each round, the villain moves one location closer to Mud Canyon. If you haven't brought the villain's health to 0 by the end of the last player's turn at Mud Canyon, your bacon is burnt.

by Oink Games Inc.

by W. Eric Martin

by Ron Sierra

by W. Eric Martin

by Adrian Yu

by W. Eric Martin

Each page has a 1-inch grid on it perfect for miniatures. Just print the page you want to use and you have a ready-to-go map. The tile battlemaps have been designed to work modularly. Most maps fit end to end. Connet the three tiles of one map to three tiles of another to make an extended map. You can place the maps side by side or top to bottom. So you can make endless combinations of rooms. If you would like to have two of the same room back to back, print off duplicates. You can also rotate the maps for increased variation.

These maps were drawn by hand, scanned and then digitally edited.

Happy Dungeoneering!

This is a Novice Ranked Horror One Shot adventure for SWADE.

This horror adventure can be set in any world the GM wants. The players should be students, staff, or relatives. They are mentioned as Mystery Club Members.

Graffiti Dreams

“Alright, students, enough is enough. The proliferation of graffiti someone or a group has been placing across campus is getting out of hand and making our lovely school look bad. We haven't figured out how you are entering the buildings after hours, but it will stop. Further, entering a student's dorm room and tagging your “art” can be considered criminal trespassing. Additionally, students who have been experiencing discomfort while looking at these graffiti tags should report to the campus supervisors or the on-campus medical staff. Keep our campus clean.”

Strange swirling graffiti patterns appear in the campus's darkest corners within
dorm rooms, libraries, and alleyways. Is it an artist making a point or something
more sinister?

This adventure utilizes Savage Worlds and Savage Worlds Horror Companion.

Setting Rules:

• Chase Combat, Foot and Bike
• Heroes Never Die

Welcome to Pigsnorts School of Magic, where the halls crave wizard blood, the wands sneeze glitter, and a klutzy kid with a possum-foot tattoo might just be the “Chosen One”—or so a chattering hat claims! In Larry Spotter: A Witch Girls Adventure Supplement, you’ll dive into a crumbling castle of chaos, armed with ridiculous spells like Glittero Dazzlus and brooms that hop more than they fly. Face off against a frilly-dressed dark lady stirring from her prison, dodge a potions teacher who hates everyone, and unravel mysteries as silly as they are sparkly. With random wands, quirky Traits, and a headmaster who naps through disasters, this is magical mayhem at its messiest. Grab your robe, shout your incantations, and join Larry’s crew—destiny’s calling, but it’s probably just detention again

For more of the series go to

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/2733/relentless-fiction/category/26836

Dead in the Dark – A Grimdark Survival Horror Module for Shadowdark RPG

Trapped in a forsaken manor deep within the Deadlands, the only thing between you and an endless tide of the undead is crumbling walls, dwindling supplies, and your own wits. Dead in the Dark is a brutal survival horror module inspired by Dawn of the Dead, where players must endure multiple nights of relentless undead assaults, scavenge for resources, and uncover a means of escape—if one even exists.

► Ideal for Levels 1-3, or 0-Level Gauntlet!
► Can scale Zombie Horde generator for higher level play! How long can you last?

This module features:
► A dynamic siege experience – Barricade doors, reinforce windows, and fight tooth and nail to survive the night.
► Exploration-driven horror – The Deadlands hold terrible secrets, hidden magic, and long-forgotten paths that might just lead to salvation.
► New monsters & magic items – Wield occult relics against the dead, but beware their curses.
►d100 tables for survival horror gameplay – Random events, desperate finds, and grisly fates.
► A hex map for open-ended play – Brave the nightmare beyond the manor… if you dare.
► Optional Level-0 Gauntlet Mode – Throw hapless survivors into the horror and see who (if anyone) makes it out alive.

The dead do not tire. The dead do not wait. Can you outlast the darkness?

RPG Potions Sheet (A4) – Dices N Ink

This sheet is perfect for tracking potions and drinks, adding depth and detail to your RPG journal. Easily record names, effects, and quantities to keep your inventory organized.

Key Features:

✅ A4 Size – Conveniently formatted for easy printing and seamless integration into your RPG journal.
✅ Print at Home – Instantly print as many sheets as you need to customize your adventure log.
✅ Customizable Journals – Part of a larger collection of RPG sheets designed to work together. Mix and match with other products from our store to create a personalized journal that fits your style.

Keep your potions organized and your adventures immersive! ????✨

This is an adventure for Cepheus Engine.

The recently discovered world of Yenia Prime lies on the border between the Sonora sector and unexplored space. The world has become somewhat of a mystery as a few of the primitive native tribes on that world have been discovered to wear ornamental stones consisting of rare minerals. What makes it confounding is that initial mining surveys of that world do not show any of these minerals as being present on this world.

The local natives only say that these stones were gifts from the gods. When asked where one might find similar stones the natives point to the sky.

A recent geographical and geological survey has indicated a few anomalies that exist on this world. There appears to be deep cavernous excavations on an island in a lake near one of the largest tribes of natives on Yenia Prime.

The Angel Mining Consortium has sent survey teams to this island which have, so far at any rate, not returned. The Consortium owns the mineral rights to this newly discovered world and is eager to begin extracting minerals of value to compensate for the money it spent bidding for rights to this world.

Exploitation rights of such worlds in the Sonora sector have been limited to an extent lately by the activists and agitators of the Sonoran Indigenous Peoples Association. These fruitcakes have been chaining themselves to mining vessels and committing acts of eco-terrorism to prevent mining operations of Angel and other mining concerns. They are desperately worried about the local natives on such worlds and the effects that mining has on their way of life.

Supervisor Sophia Tanaka contacts the travelers to discuss a business proposition. She needs someone to go visit the island and find the excavations on the island and explore them. She also wants to know what has become of the survey team that she already sent to this world. She offers CR 250,000. She also offers CR 10000 per surviving member of the Survey Team that is rescued.

A homebrew aimed at streamlining parts of the system, like character creation & Disciplines, created to allow my group to transition from other RPGs to my beloved Vampire. The design facilitates fast story-driven play, keeping all of Vampire's anguish, punk, humanity & loss themes.

Play-tested and decorated by my 3 gaming groups, of which I am (mostly) storyteller.

The Sorrowed Souls

A chance encounter with a sinister ritual sets the company on a path of horror. A young girl’s soul is stolen, trapped within a glowing blue crystal. A broken witch warns of countless lost, and as night falls, their soulless husks come clawing from the darkness - the empty remnants of the missing. A dying father’s plea leads them deeper into the mystery, to the ruins of an abbey where the shrouded ritualists lurk. Beneath the stone halls, a demonic entity stirs the spirits, feeding on the stolen souls. The company must destroy it, or become fuel for its endless hunger themselves.

The Sorrowed Souls is a 5th Edition compatible mystery/haunt for 4-6 players with an Average Company Level of 3 to 5. The adventure incorporates socialization and exploration with interesting combat elements as the company travels through desert canyons toward the three-level Abbey haunt. The multi-session adventure can stand alone or serve as a side exploration for your campaign.

What's Included in the zip file:
- The 35-page full-color PDF of the mini-campaign
- Full-color map pack of 28 maps - the day and night versions in both 150 and 300 dpi

This adventure is designed to provide a small look into the dangers found in the Desert Realm of Damaz.

Experience the full campaign with its unique magicks and wondrous locations in Sands of Fate - also available on DriveThruRPG! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/499012/sands-of-fate

Through the Moon Gate

As the Moon Gate Exploration Co. travel through the arched stone portal, they find themselves in unfamiliar lands filled with dangers and horrors untold. The terrain, towns, and even the creatures encountered therein may not resemble any that they have seen in their previous travels. Or they might seem much too familiar for their comfort. Regardless of the risks, exploration is their business, and the company sets forth to map yet another uncharted realm.

Enjoy this mini-exploration in the Desert Realm of Damaz!
~NamaStacy

Cities can be intriguing and dangerous places, and of all the locations

they hold nothing exemplifies these traits more than the alleys that

criss-cross their interior. Inside, shady characters lurk, backdoor deals take

place, and items are hidden from the light of day.

In this supplement you’ll find 100 items, events, and encounters to populate your city’s alleys. This table is system agnostic and written with a generic fantasy setting in mind making it great for a variety of systems (5e, Pathfinder, OSR). It can fit in other genres, but more may need to be done to tweak the results.

This is the final article in my adventure design series. Over a year ago, I put out a call on social media for ideas that people wanted me to include in the series. I guess my list of ideas (the previous 11 articles) was comprehensive enough because I only received one idea from Michael Morton, and his request was for me to write an article about node-based design when it comes to adventures.

Many articles have been written on this very in-depth topic. Because there are so many ideas packed into this single topic, I’m barely going to scratch the surface. Given that this is a high-level overview of how to approach node-based design, I’ll link off to other resources at the end of this article.

The Basics

At a high level, node-based design is breaking your story into distinct elements, locations, encounters, and/or NPCs the PCs will interact with. Each node represents a scene that plays out and leads to the next node (or set of nodes if the PCs have a decision to make). If you design a scene that has no “next steps” outcome for the PCs, then you need to circle back to your adventure design and figure out why the node is a dead end. After all, if it’s not the last node in the design, there needs to be forward movement in the storyline the PCs are following and telling along with you.

Why Node-Based Design?

This approach is highly effective when there is a powerful mystery element to the story. The PCs will start with one major question (the story hook) that will lead them down pathways between nodes that will open up more questions, answer some previous questions, and guide them to wanting to find answers for the new queries that have arisen. If, at any point, the PCs run out of questions to answer or mysterious elements to explore/discover, then they’ve missed something, information wasn’t presented properly, or the adventure’s design failed to expose those new questions to the party.

This approach can also be used when there are increasingly powerful and more organized opponents in the way. As obstacles increase in potency, the PCs will be working their way up the “food chain” of bosses and their mooks. The Night’s Black Agents approach of the Conspyramid is a great and classic example of how node-based design can be applied to a whole series of bosses, lieutenants, mooks, and other NPCs the party will encounter throughout the story.

Previous Article: Back to Front or Top to Bottom

When detailing your nodes, I suggest you start at the last node the PCs will encounter and work your way toward the opening scene (node). This will help you keep your ideas organized and allow you to place the proper clues. If you haven’t designed node #3, it is more difficult to put the proper clues in place in node #2 to guide the PCs to traverse to the proper node.

Also, if you have a bifurcating pathway through your nodes, this will allow you to properly sprinkle in the right clues and rumors to allow the PCs to make educated decisions about which pathway to follow through the nodes.

For more detailed information about designing “back to front,” check out this article in the series.

Previous Articles: The Meat of Each Node

My articles on Story Hooks, Thematic Environments, Thematic Bosses, Thematic Mooks, Supporting and Opposing NPCs, and Clues, Rumors, and Connective Tissue all apply on how to build each individual node. Many elements from one node can bleed to the next, or they can remain entirely distinct from one another. How you approach building each node is entirely up to you, but I recommend that the flow between themes in the nodes make sense to the players as they guide their characters between each node. Don’t suddenly jump from a romantic node to a horror-themed node unless the “logical exit” from the romance is somehow horrific in nature.

Railroad vs. Player Decisions

Many people view a single line of nodes as a railroad situation. This can be true, so be careful in how you present each node, each node’s exit, and what comes in the next node. Railroading, at its most base level, is removing or negating PC agency. If they can’t make decisions or their decisions always lead from A to B to C regardless of what they do, this is most likely railroading. This is why I recommend avoiding linear node-based design.

Instead, go with nodes that have multiple exits to allow for PC decisions to matter. Each set of clues can lead to decisions down different paths the PCs might want to take. Yes, this will increase the load on your adventure design efforts as you may create nodes that are never visited. That’s perfectly fine, but be aware of this. This awareness will prevent you from spending extraordinary time on nodes that might be skipped.

While I’m thinking about linear design and decisions, I do recommend that the first 2-4 nodes be linear in nature. This will allow for the story to gain momentum, be a guided experience, and get the players accustomed to their characters, your GMing style, each other player’s play styles, and so on. It lowers the mental effort needed from the players if they don’t have many decisions to make. Keep these nodes small and brief if possible, though.

Chokepoints

If you have a key node (remember nodes are scenes) that must happen during the course of the story, don’t allow the PCs to choose pathways that bypass this key node. Bring them back to what is called a “chokepoint” in the story. If node 5 can lead to one of nodes numbered 6, 7, or 8, but you need them to encounter something or someone in a latter node, then each of those three paths will focus in on bringing the PCs to the chokepoint, so they must pass through node 12 at a later time.

Floating Clues and Information

Another option to chokepoints is to “float” your clues or information. Don’t lock down information that is absolutely necessary to a single node or location. If the PCs happen to bypass or miss the vital node, then they will miss out on critical information that will play a part later in the game. An option is to “float” your clues, rumors, and information in a manner where they can be dropped into almost any logical node where the PCs are currently having a scene. This is akin to the “quantum ogre,” but it’s in the benefit of the party and the story to ensure the information they need will be encountered at the proper time.

Other Resources

Here are those resources I mentioned that I’d link to:

• The Alexandrian: Node-Based Scenario Design
• Halfway Station 3.0: Conspyramids and Vampyramids
• The Bardic Inquiry: I Tried Node-Based Design in my Mystery TTRPG Campaign, Here is What I Learned

Conclusion

I hope this brief overview of node-based design helped you out. Thanks to Michael for the suggestion. I would have never thought of this topic on my own!

Series Conclusion

I hope you had a great time in this year long exploration of adventure design. I learned quite a bit coming up with the detailed thoughts for each article, and I hope you learned along with me. This has been quite the experience for me, and I greatly enjoyed the entire process and adventure that we’ve gone on together.

This all started as I got to my man-child’s bus stop too early and had time to kill. This entire series almost leaped from my forehead fully formed in just a manner of seconds. Fortunately, I keep a pen, pencil, and notepad in my center console. I snagged the pen and paper and hastily scribbled down ideas. The funny thing is, I was still scratching out ideas when the bus arrived, and my son had to wait on me to finish capturing my thoughts before I drove him home. That’s okay. He knows I’m a writer and is used to waiting a little bit for me as I finish jotting notes that capture my ideas.

I generally don’t use published material for my games; I have always enjoyed running my material. From time to time and depending on the game, I find that the published material can either be better than what I think I can create (in the case of Dungeon Crawl Classics) or I don’t have a good feel for how the situation of the game should work, and I want to see how the publisher did it, so I can learn (as in the case of Triangle Agency). Last week, I needed to prep a published adventure for the first time in a while, and I thought we could talk about it. 

What is Prep?

I feel like prep is often misunderstood. When people lament about it on the Internet, they evoke images of reams of paper or a cascade of words in a document. Some bash it, saying that the OneTrueWay is to abolish prep. All of that is garbage. 

Prep is what you need to do to feel comfortable running the game and the story. 

Prep can take on many forms based on what it takes for you to feel comfortable. Prep is dependent on the person and the game. It is everything you need it to be. 

Regarding the misconceptions above, most people do not take an active role in streamlining their prep or have learned their prep from someone else. If that sounds like you, check out Never Unprepared and make prep your own. End stump. 

Published Adventures

We all know what a published adventure is, and most of us have used them at some point in the hobby. Nothing wrong with them; there are many great published adventures in the world. 

What a published adventure does for you is present you a story in the way of the game’s Situation. It is made for a generic group of characters and, in many cases, makes assumptions about who those characters may be. It can be a time-saver because someone has written the story and prepared maps or other components for you. 

There are some disadvantages. The first is that it was created for a generic group of characters, so it lacks any specificity to the characters in your game. Also, it was created external to you, meaning that your brain did not build this story from an idea through the prep, so you have to get the material into your head to understand what is going on. 

Quick note. Published adventures can come in a physical format (Book) or electronic format (PDF, VTT, etc). Some of the techniques I am going to mention work the same with both of these, using similar tools. Unless specified, you can use the advice below for either format. 

Prepping Published Adventures

Prepping published adventures requires three activities to make the material playable. These can be worked on at the same time or can be done separately, but they all need to be completed. 

Integration into your Group and Campaign

If the material you are running needs to be part of your campaign, you are going to have to do some writing to integrate this material. This can take the form of two activities:

• Bookending the story – You will need to create an on-ramp and an off-ramp for the story so that your characters can enter the story, and when they complete it, they can move to the next story. 
• Customizing the material – Depending on the game and your characters, you may need to do some editing of the material to make it fit your group. For example, if your group does not have a Cleric, but the published material requires one for an encounter, you will need to make a few edits to make that encounter work for your group. 

For bookending, I use whatever platform the rest of my campaign info is stored in. For me, that is OneNote. I will write my on-ramp and off-ramp material in OneNote and refer to it during the game. For any edits, if the edits are small, I may put a post-it note in the text with the edit, or if the edit is more substantial, then I will take it into OneNote and rewrite the scene. 

Load The Story Into Your Head

The next activity is to get the published story into your head. You need to have a broad understanding of the story in your head so that as you are reacting to the characters’ actions, you have an idea of the consequences of their actions on the greater story. 

When you write your own material, you are synthesizing it in your head organically, and by the time you have finished your prep, that material is loaded. For a published adventure, you need to upload the material. 

For that, you need to read, read, read. Reading the material will make you familiar with it. You don’t have to commit it to memory, but the better you understand it, the better you will be able to determine what to do when players take actions within the story. 

I typically do a surface read, where I don’t worry about memorizing anything but rather get a feel for the story, what it’s about, its structure, any twists, etc. Closer to game day, I do some deeper readings, making sure I understand how each encounter works, if there are any special rules, etc.

Create A Reference Document

The third activity is that you need to prepare the document to be a table reference. Here is a major shortcoming for published adventures. Published adventures come traditionally from a print publishing background – they are books. As such, they were laid out the way books are laid out, columns, paragraphs of texts, pages, minimization of white space, etc. That is great for reading. We are conditioned to read material that is formatted in such a way. 

When we are at the table, though, we need a reference document. We need something that we can scan in order to find information quickly. If we are in the middle of adjudicating a combat, or moving the spotlight between characters, or the dozen other things we do in the game, and we need to find that specific rule about the trap door in room 12 on floor three — what page, paragraph, and column is that in? 

This kind of searching can create dead air at your table and impact the flow of play, the tension of scenes, etc. Worse, if you can’t find the info you need you run the risk of skipping it or making a mistake and needing to do some ret-con to fix things later. 

Reference documents are sparse, with bullet points, simple facts, and white space to make the text less dense. It is a formatting that is conducive to scanning glances and quick lookups. Rarely is material published in this format. 

When you prep your own material, you develop your style of writing out the adventure. My prep in OneNote is written as a reference document to be used in the game. It heavily uses bullet points, simple tables, and headers. It contains the information germane for the scene. 

Sadly, I do not know of any publishers who want to create both the text version of the game and a reference document for play (hey…if you know one who does, shout them out in the comments, and let’s give them the duly deserved praise). 

So you need to do something to the published text to make it a reference document. For this, I typically use highlighters and different colors for different things (green for text to read out to the players, yellow for rules, etc). In more extreme cases, and when my time was far more plentiful, I would make my own reference document in OneNote, but those heady days are long gone.

To be fair, you don’t need to do this activity, you can rely on your ability to scan full text and find things in a timely manner or just commit the whole story to memory. For me, I do not like to memorize things, and I do not like the time it takes me to read through a document to find specific info. 

Read Twice…Highlight Once

Published Adventures are a great way to run stories for your group. You are purchasing the imagination and work of a team of people. To make it useful for your game, you need to integrate it and customize it for your group, become familiar with the story, and make a reference document to aid in running the story. Make no mistake, it’s prep, and it can be just as much prep as someone who is writing their own games. 

How do you prep published adventures? What are your tricks for making the published text into a reference document? 

To get your PCs to move from one scene to the next logical scene, you need a series of connective tissues. These can come in the form of clues, rumors, lies, truths, and red herrings. Each one of these serves their own purpose and come from a variety of sources. Some of these will come from evidence found via investigative efforts. Some of these will come from conversations with NPCs. Some of these might even be sourced by overheard conversations.

At the end of each scene, the PCs should have some hint as to where to move next. Without these hints (or strong suggestions), your adventure will grind to a halt. If the party has gained a piece of connective tissue, but they’ve forgotten about it or downplayed its significance, it’s perfectly fine to remind them of their discoveries without pointing to the next scene directly.

Clues

Clues are generally found through investigation of a scene. These can be notes or letters left behind from the NPCs that occupied the space before the PCs barged in and took over the space. These can also be symbology, left over magical efforts, evidence of past encounters at that location, or deliberate hints left for the PCs to follow.

Let me delve into evidence for a moment. This can be your typical crime scene things like blood splatter, murder weapons, footprints, fingerprints, DNA, and the like. However, make sure each piece of evidence narrows the mystery a little bit. Footprints can clearly mark that the shoe is of a certain size, perhaps of a certain make, and might be scarred or contaminated in a certain way to narrow suspects. Likewise, DNA samples can be easy to gather, but take an excruciatingly long time to analyze. In your games, it’s fine for the PCs to pull some strings or use some advanced technology (or magic) to expedite the analysis to keep the game moving forward.

Rumors

Rumors are bits of information nested in truth the PCs receive from NPCs. The rumors don’t have to be totally true, but they need to be mostly true. If a rumor is mostly false, this falls into the arena of a red herring (read below) and may cause the players to make improper decisions on their next steps. Rumors are generally verbal in nature and can be couched in their deliver with some doubt or hesitancy to clearly show that the NPC giving the information is not absolutely certain of the details.

Lies

There will be times the PCs encounter NPCs that don’t want the PCs to succeed. This will lead to the NPC in question delivering an outright lie to the PCs to get them off track. If you decide to employ this approach of lying to the PCs, make sure the pathway down the wrong information is resolved quickly and with the obvious truth. You don’t want to waste precious time at the table with the PCs following a lie.

Truths

There will be times that an NPC or a note or a missive or a clue found will be the absolute truth. Hang a lantern on these facts and do your best to impose upon the PCs that these are truths, not rumors or lies. However, don’t tip your hand and allow them to 100% know that this information is to be trusted in their heart. If the PCs know the truth of the matter to be absolutely true, then they will close all doors to other options. This is rarely something you want. You want to keep the story options open. Also, dropping a 100% known truth on the party might feel a little like railroading to the players. While this is not always true, this is a feeling you want to avoid.

Red Herrings

Don’t.

Just don’t.

Red herrings are intentionally misleading sets of information that push a character (or group) down the wrong path. While this is perfectly acceptable (and even rewarding) in literature and movies, this can backfire on your game. This is because in literature a single author has total control over what the characters do and how they react to red herrings. In your games, you have no control over how the PCs act/react to red herrings you throw their way. This can completely derail your adventure by having the players treat a red herring as a truth and chasing that trail to waste endless hours of your game time.

In short, don’t blatantly lie to your PCs with incorrect information. You clearly can have an NPC with motivations to do so lie to your characters, but there should be some hints that the NPC is untrustworthy.

Gentle Suggestions

Lastly, you can have a meta-game or “out of game” conversation between you (the GM) and the players to remind them of clues, hints, and rumors that they’ve encountered thus far. There are plenty of times the players will lose track of information you’ve given them. This is especially true if you have a game that’s heavy on investigation and clue gathering. You don’t have to be blunt about it, but something along the lines of, “You seem to recall that George the Snitch dropped you a note about his arch enemy. Do you remember what that note said?” If they do, great. If not, you can gently guide them in the right direction.

In a recent episode of Panda’s Talking Games, Senda and Phil discussed the best ways to handle known characters from established properties – your Han Solos and Scott Summers and Gandolfs, etc – at your table. The episode is fantastic (as always) and you should totally go check it out.

Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to talk about licensed TTRPG games from the other side of things when I sat down with two of the writers working on some of the biggest IPs in the TTRPG industry right now: Lydia Suen and Meric Moir have worked on properties as varied and diverse as Arkham Horror, Achtung! Cthulhu, Star Trek, The Expanse, and most recently Brotherwise Games and Dragonsteel Production’s Cosmere RPG, the game that brings together fantasy author Brandon Sanderson’s expansive universe of stories into a single game line and the game that raised over $2 million dollars within hours of its Kickstarter launch.

We talked for over an hour about wrangling such an impressive universe into a playable game, the power of fandoms, and what to do about canon at your table. The following is just some of our discussion.

Game Settings VS Licensed Property Settings

We start by talking a bit about process. Both Lydia and Meric have worked on a wide range of properties, and I wanted to know more about the similarities and differences when writing for a setting built for an RPG versus a setting that was a book or TV series before it was a game.

“Research is always the first step,” Lydia said.

“I don’t think you should work on a licensed IP if you don’t enjoy research,” she said. “Because you need to understand the setting in and out. I like to figure out what elements of the setting are based on real-world locations or cultures and what parts of the setting are very much their own creation because I want to understand all of those inspirations so I can build a better game.”

Meric added that when talking about game settings versus fiction settings, there’s a fair amount of research that goes into either, but that writing for settings that were originally created for games like D&D or writing for games that are based in history like Achtung! Cthulhu is easier because history books and game books are written in a way that’s meant to be referenced, but when writing for a game like Star Trek or a Sanderson novel, the setting information is mixed in with the narrative.

“A throwaway line in one book of the Cosmere can change something that you’ve spent months working on,” Meric said. “You have to find ways to turn those lines into something that’s digestible but also gameable.”

Meric pointed out that while writing for historical games gives you an abundance of material to draw upon, it can also be more emotionally taxing. “When I was working on the Vive La Resistance book for Achtung! Cthulhu, I had to take significant breaks in between coming up with what the Nazis were doing.”

When trying to distill a property as expansive as the Cosmere, it can be a daunting task to know where to focus your efforts. “You have to trust your instincts and lean into the parts of the setting that are interesting to you,” Lydia said. “Especially if there are parts of the setting that people haven’t seen much of yet. If you have an idea for how to bring them to the forefront, you should go for it.”

Loading the Canons

As Senda and Phil pointed out in their podcast, how closely you want to stick to canon is an important discussion to have at your table.

“It is so hard when you’re playing in worlds that have established canon and trying to make your own story that doesn’t feel like it’s exactly the canon but respects the canon,” Meric acknowledged.

“Yeah,” Lydia said. “You can’t just tell your usual D&D, Wednesday night game group, ‘Hey, can you just download these thousands of pages of novels into your brain by next week? Thanks!'”

For the Cosmere RPG, the game writers are constantly asking themselves, “What do people need to be able to play in this space?”

To that end, they created The Stormlight World Guide, which is a wide overview of the world of Roshar, the first location for the Cosmere RPG’s setting. It gives you details on lands and people that are only hinted at in the novel and gives players and GMs the opportunity to build their own stories within the canon without impeding on the ground the novels cover.

“We really wanted to make sure the Cosmere RPG was accessible to folks without needing to read the novels.”

That’s why they also have a section of the rulebook dedicated to canon and continuity that gives you ways of talking to your group about your game’s relationship to canon. That way, if you have a table full of Sanderson mega-fans who know all of the information inside and out and want to play a strictly canon game, you can. Or if you have folks who are new to the setting and don’t want to feel awkward because they don’t know the difference between sapphire wine and orange wine, then you can take a looser grip and riff on the setting in ways that allow you to play with minimal knowledge (or even make the setting completely your own thing)!

“Also,” Lydia made sure to state. “If there’s anything in the setting you don’t like or anything that makes people in your group uncomfortable, you can just leave it out completely.”

Interestingly enough, though, there is a completely 100% canon adventure coming out via the Kickstarter in the near future – Stonewalkers. Meric had the very cool opportunity to work on the adventure. The outline, originally written by Brandon Sanderson and Dan Well, was given to the team at Brotherwise with a beginning and an ending and about three pages of story beats. Then, the designers got to ask, “How do we turn this into a game?”

All of the locations and challenges in the adventure are canon to the Stormlight Archives. Lydia explained. “Even though the books are long, there’s still fun little lore nuggets that Brandon doesn’t have time to cover, so this adventure pulls some of those together in really interesting ways.”

And, of course, there’s handy advice for GMs who want to keep the story of Stonewalkers as canon as possible because, at the end of the day, players are going to be players. “We know diverging from canon is going to happen at your table. We give you the tools to either support that divergence or get your group back on track by the end.”

The Power of Fandom

Meric talked about going to the massive Brandon Sanderson convention he attended in December. “This was my first year at Dragonsteel Nexus,” he said. “I got to interact with a huge number of fans, and having hundreds of people reacting in real-time at these panels was really energizing.”

“It’s been cool while working on the Cosmere RPG,” Lydia said. “Because the fanbase has been very encouraging, and they see our team’s passion.” She went on to add, “I consider myself a fan, and I think that’s an important part of what helps me do my job well and helps me meet the needs of the primary audience—the fans.”

And, of course, it’s that fandom that closed out the successful Cosmere RPG Kickstarter campaign with over 52,000 backers collecting over $14 million, making it the most successful tabletop Kickstarter to date.

When those fans bring that all energy to the table — some pretty epic stories are bound to happen.

—

Lydia Suen is a thematic game designer with a background in developmental editing. She is best known for her work on the Cosmere RPG, Arkham Horror RPG, and Adventures in Rokugan. Lydia specializes in working with established IPs but also enjoys building settings and systems from scratch. Bold introspection, horror, and unfettered whimsy are hallmarks of her work.

Meric Moir is a digital marketing manager at an international engineering company, a MacEwan University graduate from the sadly defunct Professional Writing (PROW) program, and a constant storyteller and worldbuilder. He’s written TTRPG content for The Expanse RPG, Star Trek Adventures, Achtung! Cthulhu, and the Cosmere RPG, and he runs an actual play channel called Sky Hammer Press. Find him on BlueSky @skyhammerpress.bsky.social

When George from Three Sails Studios approached me with a beautiful-looking game that focuses on the exploration and research of magnificent creatures instead of battling them, I could not contain my excitement. That premise sounds incredible and we really don’t have enough non-combat-focused RPGs.

I created characters, read through the rules, and asked some questions to the creator, who quickly provided me with answers and gave me everything I needed to fully understand the system. I knew coming in that this would be a project that is still in the making, some things might change or aren’t fully finished, so that is something you should take into consideration from this review. Here I want to highlight the reasons why I believe this game to be cool to talk about and help fund. However, I will also talk about the things that I believe could need some polishing so you (the reader) know what you are getting into if you intend to buy a copy.

Mappa Mundi – An Exploration + Ecology RPG is a zero-combat RPG system focused on exploring and documenting a living world, parallel to our own, filled with monsters, creatures, and cultures that have been isolated for more than a century by cataclysmic environmental shifts. Created and designed by George Francis Bickers, with writing and development by Jeremy Blum and artwork by Joel Kilpatrick, Mappa Mundi is a collaborative storytelling game built on player agency and creativity, using an intuitive rules-lite system that mechanically invites players to shape the world around them at all stages of the game.

What makes Mappa Mundi stand apart?

Mappa Mundi is a game that wears its convictions on its sleeve. The rights of the environments, non-human persons, and cultures to determine their own existence, to exercise their own agency, and to be treated with respect are central to the experience of the game. The appeal to players and those running the game of approaching existential challenges through non-violence and respect has really hit home, and as the designer, I’ve gone to great efforts to ensure that players and tables feel that this world responds to them as they respond to it. The game poses players with a singular challenge: how do you help a world emerging from its near extinction without doing further harm to it? The responses to this challenge we’ve seen in our playtesting and from community feedback have been nothing short of beautiful. Mappa Mundi is a game that trusts its players, and that trust is paid back in dividends around the table. I hope you enjoy the experience yourself!

Mappa Mundi knows very well that most games focus mostly on combat and it goes in with a very different approach. In the same vein as Pokemon, you have the core games about trapping them and using them for battle, you have the Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Ranger games (sadly neither got to be a full long series) that have the player doing exploration and research. This game is exactly that. The fact that you don’t have combat doesn’t mean there won’t be any dangers or fail-state. In fact, you can’t even die in Mappa Mundi (unless the GM and player agree on it). However, the game looks for every encounter with these magnificent monsters to feel like a boss battle. The ground trembles, you must detect as many of the behaviors of the individual before it notices you and escapes, or feels intimidated by you and tries to confront your group in self-defense. The Mappa Mundi Institute doesn’t abide by causing damage to these individuals, so you better manage the situation with utmost care.

In a similar vein to when we are watching those documentaries of people trying to get close to a cheetah to catch the best camera angles and study them, Mappa Mundi has your characters put themselves into danger in a ton of different ways. These monsters are often linked to Fate (the magic of this world) that interacts with the environment as well. This grabs that research gathering and pushes the danger in it up to eleven!

The Three Phases

Most of the game revolves around the three phases. These can either last a few minutes or even be stretched out to entire sessions if you are going for a bigger, more interesting monster to research. The Research Phase has plenty of what we have already seen in other games, so it is the Journey and Encounter Phases that will show us more of what this game is mostly about.

Research Phase

The Research Phase involves the members of the Mappa Mundi Institute (the player characters) having to talk with the people who know about the creature they are tracking and may be causing a problem. Similar to when you are running a mystery, the research in this phase is all about gathering clues. These may have to do with the lands you will have to traverse to encounter the Monster, the flora and fauna you may find on the way, and any details that could be of use about the creature, allowing you to gather more information about it in the last of phases.

Similar to the most popular RPGs, this part of the game involves plenty of talking with NPCs, using skills, and rolling dice. There is not much structure to this phase apart from that, being closer to games like D&D and Pathfinder in the way you interact with the system. I believe this doesn’t take the players’ hands as much and allows for plenty of things and problem-solving to occur during it. However, that also means it will require more prepping to be done. During the research, depending on the bits of knowledge the players get, the GM will grab cards from the Journey Deck (a tarot-sized deck filled with landscape cards) and set them apart. Depending on how the skill goes, a card can achieve a side it will be in, thus affecting the player characters in the Journey Phase. By talking with one of the designers, I was told that the prep needed for your full three phases is choosing which monster they will find and which cards make sense for the player characters to find in this section depending on the encounter monster and the environments it moves in.

With the game leaning so much into a narrative game sort of approach, I was surprised to see it have binary ability checks that mostly rely on you passing a check or not, over things such as Powered by the Apocalypse Moves, for example. I feel the game could benefit from having skill checks that helped the story move forward and mechanize a bit more the roleplay elements. The way skills work (more on them below) does work around this problem a bit.

Journey Phase

Once the players feel they have enough knowledge about their travel, they begin their journey. This is when the cards the GM set aside come into play. If the player characters got an information piece about one of the biomes to travel correctly, you place the card in the deck rightwise. If they found a wrong piece of information or didn’t find anything about one of the biomes prepared to be on their way, you place it inverted.

While journeying, the GM will take out one of the previously chosen top cards from the deck and show it to the players on the side it was placed (rightwise or inverted). Depending on the side, you know how difficult traversing through that biome is going to be. All cards have a section in the book that tells you more about what they usually mean and more specific details about it depending on which region from the book setting you are playing in (the book provides different regions that take inspiration from different locations from Eurasia in general. There are many cultural consultants in the book, so I like to think that these locations were managed with a lot of care). After checking out the adventures being played in Actual Plays and the way they are written, it has me thinking that unless you are really good at coming up with things on the spot, you will also have to think as a GM of possible problems and things that occur if you get a reversed card.

During the Journey Phase, players and GMs will “shape” the world. This is a system that the game relies a lot on, which is pretty much a systemized way of having the players describe the surroundings and the things they encounter in each of the biomes they travel. This collaborative narration mechanic has everyone making each section more interesting, and you can’t step over other people’s shaping. You have to add to it. I believe that this is a style of play that doesn’t work for all TTRPG groups, but for those who do, it will be amazing. I know groups that prefer to have the GM detail everything they find and encounter; this will not work as much for them, especially because shaping doesn’t give you any mechanical benefit. However, as indicated by the creators, while the Narrator may intend a cliff to be very difficult to climb, a clever player can Shape handholds into it, thereby making it easier for everyone to climb. This makes it so there are some possible mechanical benefits to be obtained from it, and you as a GM will have to step up and make it so the players can’t ease their path as a landslide. So… again, with the right kind of players this works in a sublime way.

I do have a nitpick about the cards, which play a pretty important role in the game. Having them be tarot-sized and having a reverse side makes it weird that they are not used in the game mechanics as tarot cards are read. Instead of being used as a deck of tarot cards, they are used more as handouts for inspiration to the players. There is no randomness in them as regards the side they will be drawn on, or the order they come up in the game. That is mostly predetermined by the GM, chosen during the Research Phase.

Encounter Phase

Even though there can be some mini-encounter phases during the Journey Phase, like getting the research details from a bear of this region, the Encounter Phase is when you finally do get to meet the Monster. I felt a bit weird that the designers decided to name these creatures ‘Monsters’ when there is such a negative association with that word. However, after a chat with George, he let me know the following: The etymological root of the term Monster comes from Latin, monstrum, which means ‘divine omen (especially one indicating misfortune), portent, sign’ Given that our Monsters are manifestations of Fate, we consider them to be portents, signs, omens of Fate.

The Research and Journey phases before will shape what the Encounter Phase will be like. Judging from the adventures and streams, I could get that depending on the decisions taken while doing the Journey, you may not be able to find all Behaviors of a creature. This works in a similar manner to how in videogames you can get an S score or a C in a level if you don’t get to do it as optimally. It sort of gives a video-gamey element. But what is a Behaviour? This is what you come to get from a Monster, that is all the ways the Monster behaves, which strange properties they have, the way they mate, etc. You need to collect as many of these pieces of information via seeing them in action, graphing them out, collecting samples or whatever you can get. All Monsters have 8 Behaviors, some of them tiered at times, meaning you need to get a certain Behavior to unlock more. Characters can use their skills or interactions in order to capture these details. Interactions are specific skills you have in your class to gather the benefits.

Depending on the cards’ side you draw in the Journey Phase, you get how you will encounter the Monster in this phase. If most are inverted, the Monster has the Aggressive Posture. If most are rightwise, then it will have a Passive Posture. In addition to that, the Journey Phase can alter Threads, which is a tiered way to classify things in the game, but for this particular case, it is how you will encounter things in this phase. For example, if you take time to rest during the journey, a thread could get severed, meaning that an NPC you could have found to help you during the Encounter Phase is found dead instead of alive. Again, I believe this means you will have to do some extra preparation for the session in order to have these interesting things ready.

Layout

The book itself is quite big, filled with art, and with many quality-of-life choices. I REALLY like the way they handled the layout. However, I do have some notes about it.

The book is divided into colored sections. The rules, setting, character creation, etc., are all assigned different colors, which cover the borders of the book. This is fantastic in a physical product, as you can quickly find the section you are looking for by seeing the color from its side. The margins don’t take up much space, so they don’t affect the amount of content on the pages.

The fonts are really good choices, as well as font size, making it easy to read. However, there was a decision taken in which practicality was put over looks. The skills section for each class displays many skills that are all blocks of text. These were made so that if you have a physical book, you can get a spread view of all the ones from your class at once instead of having to flip through pages. While incredibly practical, it ends up looking like a huge chunk of text all together. Since the first time I saw it I told the creators about it – they know of it and have improved it. It’s a thing that might not be a problem for many, but I know it will scare some people off.

The rest of the book has a really good balance of art and text, making every page catchy and beautiful to flip through. I do think they nailed the layout. It is all about being concise and grouping stuff in a way that is very simple to read and find, such as having the rules all together in just 6 pages that you can get in three spread views.

Art

Just LOOK AT IT! It’s glorious, majestic even! If you told me the book only had the art in it, I would still buy it. Every single art piece displays a colorful, incredibly imaginative image. While I believe a few pieces that I am pretty sure are final could have been done differently to look better, most of them fill me with lots of ideas, and I believe that a book that goes all in to create a mechanic to have both players and GM improvise a world on the spot relies on its art to make it work.

As for the Monsters, even though I don’t have the art for most of them at the moment of writing this early review, they look impressive. I don’t know if they were taken from legends or out of the minds of the designers, but they give incredible Monster Hunter and Shadow of the Colossus vibes and that’s everything I want in a game of this style. Having to enter their habitat and research them already feels like it is going to be a lot of fun!

Character Mechanics

Classes and Skills

Character creation is pretty straightforward and with plenty of depth. The skills mechanic the game provides helps the players have something that the character is immediately so good at you don’t need a roll (most of the time). These are narrative abilities that intentionally have names that make it extremely easy for you as a player to immediately get what the skill is about. If in doubt, you can check the text out to get the details, but it is pretty straightforward. As you level up, you can get new skills from a skill tree section, similar to videogames. This adds plenty of replayability to create cool character builds, without it being so crunchy that one is the better choice, as these all are narrative skills. On top of the skills, the characters have abilities: Traversal, Observation, Deduction, and Exploration. These work just like the Kids on Bikes, Ryuutama, and similar games, having one die associated with an ability, that you roll to surpass a difficulty.

Character Development

The game offers many different ways your character can grow, aside from just having a Level. One very cool thing in fact is that the game rewards you more for failing than succeeding! 

When enough successes and failures have been accumulated, the player may upgrade that Ability’s die as long as they’ve done the following:
Succeed on a number of relevant Ability Checks equal to the number of faces on the new die (six times for D6, eight times for D8, etc.). Fail a number of relevant Ability Checks equal to half the number of faces on the new die (three times for D6, four times for D8, etc.)

On top of that, you can get expertise with certain things. These you get when you use your skills, making the skill used get points. This will later allow you to buy more skills within the branch being followed in the skill tree.

Lastly, a character may get specializations and endorsements. As your character grows, they may end up getting more specialized in something, having it increase in level. This way, you can finally end up with an endorsement as well, which is like a capstone specialization, granting you more cool stuff you can unlock.

There’s plenty of stuff to keep track of as you play, allowing you to improve your character in numerous ways. In essence, it feels video-gamey, which might be cool for some people and not that great for others. I personally do enjoy this much variety and would love to try out the different kinds of characters you can create within one same class, or Starting Licences, as the game names them. These are Archivist, Diviner, Fixer, and Guardian.

Injuries

The game of Mappa Mundi can’t kill your character. Nothing in the system can cause it. However, you may still get injuries, minor and severe, as well as fall unconscious. Unless you as a player want to retire your character, you can keep on playing them. Still, these injuries your character may receive, with the GM determining how big they are, have mechanical effects in the game, forcing to make certain decisions, and challenging players. For this very reason, the Journey Phase has a very good chance of hurting a character, which will cause you to think wisely about how to face the Monster during the Encounter Phase.

Not being able to die doesn’t mean you can’t get serious injuries that may complicate your gameplay.

Additional details

These things aren’t big enough to deserve a section of their own in the article, but I still wanted to showcase them because I think they are important:

• The game has ten different regions, which along with the monsters, take most of the pages of the book. These are detailed and filled with inspiration to create very different stories in each of them, taking inspiration from locations from our real-world Europe, Asia, and North Africa.
• Mapping and chronicling are vital in this game. The character sheet has plenty of space for characters to take notes of everything they find. If they do, the game rewards them by unlocking Behaviors from monsters and similar stuff. In addition to that, the game comes with blanked-out maps from all regions, for the players to map out and create their own version of the world.
• The difficulties for the ability checks are set by the GM, who is encouraged to use the die size the player is using when setting it. It is arbitrary, and unless impossible for the player character, the GM will determine a difficulty that the player character should be able to reach with the die they are using. 
• The game will launch with 4 pre-written adventures as tutorials, teaching players and the GM how to play before you create your own stories together. Some of these have already been streamed in Actual Plays, in case you want to see how the game is in action (see in KS page below).
• The game comes with a 70-card tarot deck. This is beautifully illustrated, showcasing a plethora of biomes the player characters can encounter, and includes one card for each of the game’s 30 Monsters.

Conclusion

Mappa Mundi is a perfect game for those looking to play something akin to Monster Hunter, Shadow of the Colossus, Pokemon Snap, or Pokemon Ranger, not focusing at all on combat and being very much about research and being awed by everyone’s descriptions at the table. This is not the kind of game for those looking to battle those huge monsters, those who want the GM to be the only one narrating and adding story elements, or those GMs who would rather improvise every session.

In addition to that, the gameplay style is very particular, which makes it in my opinion a weird choice if you are looking for a game that can fit a continuing plot. I know the many locations in the world have many factions, but I can’t say for sure if they can work as a rival BBEG or similar thing. Still, the game while finished may receive some last changes before release. This is what I have got from reading the rules so far.

If I had to give a personal recommendation, I feel this game would be much better appreciated physically over digitally, considering the way the layout works and how beautiful the art is.

GO BACK MAPPA MUNDI IN KICKSTARTER
IT’S ALREADY FUNDED!

https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CG_206_SplittingtheParty.mp3 Join Ang, Josh, and JT as they talk about the dreaded, forbidden topic of splitting the party! Is it good? Is it bad? Does it depend? They’ll talk about it all.

Links:

Authors Against Book Bans

Origins Game Fair

Tech at the Table

Tools for prepping

We spend a lot of time on GM game prepping, and comparatively little time talking about players prepping for games. I want to propose a method for players to prepare characters and the stories they want to tell in the next session or campaign.

Like a GM might prepare a session, players can also do things to prep their characters before a game session. Among these are reviewing what happened in the last session, coming to terms with recent changes, and updating their character.

How much time should you take with this character preparation? In general do not spend too much time on this unless you’re really inspired. If its a liner or GM driven adventure or module, you wont have to do much at all as the story is mostly ready for you to play. The opposite is true if you’re in a sandbox/PC driven campaign, because the PCs are the driving force for the game. Another major factor is spotlight and time management. This is a shared story and you shouldn’t plan so much that you take the spotlight away from other PCs or the GM’s story. Remember, most game sessions only last four hours or less so you only have time to make one or two points in a night.

• Review the Session
• Update the Character and Story
• Bring the Updates to the Table

Reviewing the Last Session

It is important to be engaged in the game while playing, because it not only makes the game more enjoyable in the moment, it helps you keep track of important moments that will help your play in the future. Reviewing allows you to understand the character’s place in the campaign. This process can include one or more of these: talking at the end of the game with the group, reviewing the game in your head, or reading over your notes.

Traditionally we sit around at the end of the game talking about the game. This is totally fine as it often captures the feelings of the game as the group decompresses. Modern game theory has formalized this into several approaches with names like Debriefing, Roses and Thorns, or Stars and Wishes. My favorite is Stars and Wishes: Stars give players and the game master positive feedback for their action, while Wishes let all players share their desires for future games. A strong round of Stars and Wishes gives you information about where the other players/GM want to take the story, allowing everyone to be on the same page, and should be applied when creating scenes in step three.

I am terrible at taking notes, so I embrace the mental playback step. This needs to be done as soon as you can since you are relying on your memory. It allows you to move the mind’s eye around like a camera, zooming in and out of the game, replaying scenes from different angles and points of view, allowing you to see things that resonate with you. While Stars and Wishes is a group activity, this is an individual activity where you focus on how you and your character saw events of last session. This helps with updating your character and in developing scenes for your story.

Taking notes while gaming is a skill a lot of us need to master, because it helps capture key details of the session. Note takers not only have access to last session’s activities, but a history of the previous sessions linked to people, places, and things. This allows you to center yourself in the story with more story details than just running through your mind. Even if you cannot take notes at the table there is often someone taking group notes, or even transcripts if you’re in a VTT that you can access. While a strong source of information, you have to review and use these notes or you are wasting a lot of energy.

Updating Your Character and Story

Putting these different methods together, you get a good view of where everyone’s character is going in the next session(s). Now it is time to update your character. Though we are all familiar with updating your stats, we also need to update story aspects: their motives, relationships, and their place in the setting.

This starts with the motivation of the character for both the mechanical and story updates. When updating a character, ask yourself about the character’s reason for the updates and how you can explain these in a story, not just out of character. By doing this you create a more complex character. Motivation is important to telling the story arc or where the character is going. Blowing up the GM’s enemy invasion fleet might save the world, but what does the character get out of it? Think about what the character wants out of the next few sessions and move them motivationally and mechanically towards that. You want to be a spy? Focus on the skills and events that get you there.

With the work on your character done, it is time to take a good look at their relationships. How did the session affect the relationships between the other party members and the NPCs? What is your character going to do about any changes? This is a chance to sketch out the drama you want to bring to the table while advancing your and your friend’s characters forward. You have advanced those spy skills, but where do you use them? If your group are on a trading starship, what spying are you doing? This is where you think about about those steps and scenes you need.

In character creation you often develop background stories for your character even if they are just mental sketches. When talking about campaign changes, it is about how the campaign changes or adds to these backgrounds. If these are significant changes then they need to be brought to the table.

Bringing it all to the Table

With the session review done and updates prepared it is time to bring the drama to the table and shine. To shine, like all stars, you need to prep the key points you want to bring to the session. Lots of people resist this type of prep, preferring to adlib the events at the table – but this is about prepping so you have room to adlib. Keep in mind even the best actors know the story and characters they are acting as, so the adlib is not out of place or character and they can add to, not distract from, the story. In the end you cannot adlib your character spying if all you’re doing is fixing engines, so be a proactive actor and help the GM get you where you need to be.

Yes, your character shines, but everyone should be working together to shine like a galaxy of stars at the table. You do not want to outshine others at the table, so you should help the GM with moving the spotlight to show fairness to each player.

Lets see how this works out through our space spy. Reviewing the last session, you realized with a little bit of work your character can become a great spy. You start by improving the mechanics you need for it. Some narrative help is needed, so you pull out from your background that your uncle has the Lord’s ear, and they can get you started. With two scenes in mind you tell the GM you need to talk to your uncle and the Lord. He agrees, reminding you that you need the other players’ help to get your character to the uncle and Lord.

Now you have to work in a scene where you talk to the other players’ characters. Then you have to travel to the two contacts. You have three scenes now, so you might have to split it up into two sessions, allowing other players including the GM to do their scenes. This opens up a lot of questions. Do the other characters just agree to your need, or do you have to cut a deal? Do you get there quickly or are you attacked by pirates along the way because the GM has plans too? You have to play to find out.

These three steps are all about taking the time to prepare you and your character to help tell the story in the next game session. Making this effort will help you take control of your character’s arc, and role playing will improve at the table because you are engaged in the story. This engagement enhances your story by allowing you to really explore the world through your character’s eyes.

I would love to hear how you bring your character to life at the table!

Before we begin, I wanted to let you know that our book for building and running awesome monsters, Forge of Foes, is now available as an audiobook narrated by Colby Elliot! Colby has narrated other Sly Flourish books and each recording is outstanding. Pick up the Audible version of Forge of Foes today!

Games that harken back to the old days of D&D – often called "OSR" games or "Old School Revival" or "Old School Renaissance" games bring up an idea from these hallowed times – player roles. The idea being that players take specific roles for the game outside of just playing their character.

These assigned roles – scribe, cartographer, quartermaster, and caller – offer great benefits to GMs, players, and the whole game. Old-school games embraced these roles once again – best articulated to me in the fantasy RPG Dolmenwood.

Like the best Lazy DM tools, assigning roles serves multiple purposes – they help players better connect to the in-game world, they keep players engaged in the game, they help GMs and players track events from session to session, and they build artifacts for the campaign that can be held onto long after the campaign has ended.

Here are some examples of roles we can ask players to pick up:

Scribe

The scribe is the official notetaker for the game with an intention of sharing these notes with other players and the GM. These game notes keep the notetaker engaged in the game (as do the rest of these roles and activities) and also bring solidity to the game overall. Events really feel like they happened when they're captured in notes. These notes also help the GM remember where things are headed and what stuff the players paid attention to. These notes also serve as a lasting record for the whole campaign at the end.

Scribes can share their notes in a shared file like a Notion notebook or a Google Doc or email them around to everyone. Even hand-written notes can be sent as images to the group. Ideally every player and the GM should have a copy and keep them together so they can have a full chronicle of the campaign.

Cartographer

Traversing a dungeon and drawing how it connects helps keep the group grounded in the events of the game. It lets players really explore the dungeon, knowing where they've been and what they've missed. Drawing maps helps them discover how the dungeon works. Drawing maps can be tricky, because often the player's version of a map doesn't match the GM's version but that's ok. One need not be an expert cartographer either. A stick and box chart works just fine. Drawing maps isn't as necessary if you're using a virtual tabletop but for in-person games or games where screenshots of rooms are shared, a player-drawn map can help everyone keep the layout of a dungeon in mind.

Quartermaster

Who's keeping track of the loot? Who's telling everyone the split of gold? Where's that all-important magic item again? The quartermaster keeps a full list, maybe even using double-entry bookkeeping to note what loot was picked up and who it was distributed to. Without a quartermaster, stuff gets lost. Even with a quartermaster, players should still keep track of their own loot and inventory – that's the second part of the double-entry bookkeeping.

Like the other artifacts of this job, a loot list is best if it's shared with the group. A spreadsheet in Google drive is a great way to share it but even a digital or handwritten list will do. Keep track of the date, the item, and who it went to. Ask the quartermaster to periodically remind everyone of unclaimed loot which their character might want to claim.

The Caller

The caller is a new role for me. The caller's job is to adjudicate choices of a group and give the GM a final determination. They are a facilitator for the group, asking people's opinions, taking votes, working through disagreements, and coming to an answer they can give to the GM.

This role, more than the others, requires a player who's able to facilitate choices – keeping in mind the players feelings as well as an in-world understanding of what's happening to the characters in the game. It's worth a conversation with the caller to understand the delicate nature of this skill. It's definitely a people-focused role to take but a powerful one when assigned.

Jobs with Multiple Benefits

Assigning these roles to your players serves many benefits. Each role helps solidify what's going on in the game. They keep players involved with the game and the world we're all sharing. They keep players busy and assigning roles gives them a responsibility to their fellow players. In a world filled with distractions, assigning player roles is a fantastic way to keep players engaged in the game we're playing.

Have a mid-campaign session zero and talk about these roles and how they can help all of you enjoy your games even more.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

• Mork Borg Bundle of Holding
• Potbellied Kobold Bundle of Holding
• Dungeon Crawl Classics Humble Bundle
• Secrets of Magic for Fateforge
• D&D 2025 Starter Set Info
• What WOTC Products Matter for the RPG Hobby?
• Sci Show on Science of Scheduling a D&D Game
• Bob World Builder on RPG Kickstarters
• RPGs I Want To Play
• The Retreat Action

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

• Mork Borg Bundle of Holding
• Potbellied Kobold Bundle of Holding
• DCC Megabundle Humble Bundle
• Fateforge Secrets of Magic Kickstarter
• D&D Starter Set Video Official
• D&D Starter Set Demo at New York Toy Faire
• EN World Thread
• Sci Show on Scheduling RPG Games
• Bob World Builder on Crowdfunding Historical Trends
• The Retreat Action

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

• How Does Fog Cloud Work with Advantage?
• The Eight Steps with Big Dungeons
• Players Forgetting Character Abilities
• Dealing with Players Whose Characters Run Ahead
• DM Screen on Small Table

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Two Bandits Talking About the Characters and The Sunless Stream – Dragon Empire Prep Session 16.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Increase combat difficulty by adding more monsters.
• Speed up combat by increasing damage and lowering hit points.
• Let boss monsters spread damage to minions or suck out their souls for temporary hit points.
• Expect and prepare for characters to focus on the boss in any boss encounter.
• Limit long rests when needed through nightmares, premonitions, and unholy auras. “You won't find a long rest until..."
• Build dynamic dungeons where multiple factions battle each other while the characters explore it. Let them hear the chaos and witness the aftermath in other chambers.
• Flavor chambers with murals, frescoes, and bas reliefs revealing secrets and clues.

Related Articles

• Two Different 5e Games at the Same Table
• Roleplaying Between Sessions
• Write One Page of Prep Notes

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

Build a list – or several lists – of the gods, factions, campaign icons, and historical figures of your campaign world. Roll on this list to flavor items, monuments, NPCs, or locations. Use these factions to flavor your world as your characters explore it.

Without the unique story and lore of our game world, one game can seem much like the others. Lore sets apart one campaign from another. It wraps the framework of our RPGs in tapestries depicting many worlds beyond this one.

Such rich lore can get away from us, though. We can feel like we have to fill three-ring binders with ancient histories, deep theologies, and interwoven political factions without knowing how this lore manifests in our game.

One lazy trick to manage this lore is to build a faction list. A faction list contains major individuals or groups that matter to the world and to the characters. Often this list includes gods, historical figures, major political factions, and world-changing icons.

Like Secrets and Clues, a faction list turn our world's lore to specific things the characters interact with during the game. Faction lists turns fuzzy concepts into a practical list we can use in the next game we run.

Here's an example faction list from the City of Arches:

1. Arazuun, Fallen Prince of Revvia
2. The Black Hand
3. Elvenya the Star's Song
4. The Archkeepers
5. God-queen Sett
6. The Hunger
7. Ibraxus of Choul
8. Karigulon the Dread Fang
9. Lady Straythe
10. The Lower Twelve
11. Mother Avanta
12. The Nameless King
13. Predalion, God of Travel and Trade
14. Sulin, Goddess of Light
15. The Three Sisters
16. Vithra the Serpent King
17. Vrys the Fallen
18. The World's End
19. Xereth – Oblivion's End
20. Xrake Fiendblood

Whenever the characters stumble across a monument in the Endless Warrens, I can roll on this list to flavor the monument. Maybe it's tied to the Hunger – the ancient elder evil lurking in the deep lake to the north. Maybe it has a connection to Oblivion's End or God-Queen Sett. Suddenly those static monuments become something more – something drawing characters into the history and world of the game.

For other example faction lists, see my 1d100 Eberron Factions or my 1d100 Forgotten Realms factions.

Mix your faction list with more general lists of random items, magic weapons, monuments, locations, NPCs, and more. Faction lists stack onto these other lists to make them something else.

If you want something more detailed, break out your faction list into separate groups: gods, political factions, historical figures, and big campaign icons. This separation lets you decide if you want a faction with an older or newer history – something that makes more sense for the location or object you're tying the faction to. If it doesn't matter, roll to see which table you roll on or build one big table containing everything when it doesn't matter.

To make your faction list even more useful, note what symbol or icon the faction uses. A noted symbol makes it easier to improvise what the characters see when they look at the object tied to the faction. That bloody defiled fountain of Saint Cuthbert can be identified because of the etching of Cuthbert's starburst on the side of it.

Whether running a published campaign setting or building your own setting – write a numbered list of factions you can roll on to inspire unique creations in the world. Use this list to flavor the specific objects or people the characters run into so that unique flavor is always in front of them.

Bathe the world in fantastic fiction.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

• City of Arches in Markdown and EPUB
• Blog of Holding Monster Manual 2024 Stats in the Creative Commons
• Challenge Rating Deep Dive

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

• City of Arches
• Blog of Holding 2025 Monster Manual on a Business Card
• What Does Challenge Rating Mean in D&D 5e?
• The Lazy Encounter Benchmark

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here is last week's question and answer.

• Fantastic Locations in Contemporary Worlds

Last week I also posted a YouTube video on the Shrine of Isis – Dragon Empire Prep Session 15.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Don’t be afraid to have out of game conversations about in-game character dynamics and relationships.
• Let players retreat from battles gone wrong, escaping with any downed characters but with a potential story loss.
• Run easy fights.
• Use tools that help you improvise during the game.
• Build battles first from what makes sense in the situation. Tune them for the fun of the game.
• Have the outcome of a TPK in mind when running hard battles. Where does the story go if the characters all drop?
• Write a list of ten to twenty factions you can roll on to flavor items, monuments, and encounters.

Related Articles

• Tie Characters to Factions
• Advanced Random Encounter Tricks
• Bathe Your World in Lore

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

When prepping my game using the eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, I like to narrow my prep down to one page of notes. Lately I write my notes in Obsidian and have a custom stylesheet to export it to PDF in a nice single-page two-column format. I print this page out for each game – whether playing online or not. I don't include things like annotated maps in my one-page of prep – I print those separately. Some GMs may be able to stay down to one page of notes with a map but I'm more comfortable with a page of notes and a page with an annotated map for most games.

But for my prep notes themselves – I stick to one page.

Why is a single page of prep notes ideal?

It's Easy to Reference

When you only have a single sheet of notes, it's easier to find the things you need when running your game like the proper names of NPCs, towns, political groups, locations, and other stuff. It's easier to reference your secrets and clues when they're all on a single page. You can skim your notes quickly just before a game when it's on a single sheet.

It Limits Your Prep

Overprep is a common problem with many game masters. GMs often find themselves prepping a lot of material – too much for one game. I think the drive to overprep comes from the nervousness of being creative in front of our friends. When GMs overprep, however, many lament that the material they prepped never gets used. Limiting prep to a single page helps break this cycle. The more comfortable you are when keeping your notes to a single page and seeing how your notes support you at your table, the more comfortable you'll be recognizing how little prep you need to run a fun game for your friends.

It Gives You a Structure

The eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master aren't the end-all be-all of RPG prep instructions. GM books rarely offer a clear structure for game prep because they know there are so many ways to do it. Return offers the eight steps, but I recognize that this structure isn't the only way to do it. Structure for prep, whatever system you prefer, is important. Focusing on a single sheet ensures you find a clear structure that fits on that page. Whatever your own steps, you only have one page to fill.

It Focuses You on What Matters

One page isn't a lot of room so something has to be cut. Maybe you don't put in entire custom monster stat blocks. Maybe you don't write long paragraphs of read-aloud text. Maybe you don't describe every room in a dungeon. You must choose what to put on a page and those choices help you focus on the things most important for your prep. Limiting prep often forces you to eliminate non-essential things so you have the things you really need.

It Takes Less Time

Not having enough time to prep a game is probably the second biggest reason GMs have trouble running games – the first being finding and maintaining a great RPG group. When you refine your system of prep down to a single sheet, it has the beneficial side effect of reducing the time you take to prep. Less prep means your prep fits easier into your life and lets you run more games.

It's Fun

There's something fun about the constraint of writing all your notes on a single sheet. It feels refined. It sharpens your blade. It makes you feel like you have what you need and sets a boundary on the game itself – it doesn't need to be any harder than what you have on that page. It's a good feeling.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

• Kobold Press Black Flag SRD in Markdown
• Creating and Adapting Monsters for Shadowdark
• Mike Mearls on Dungeon Craft
• How Bonus Actions Changed
• GM-Focused Products as Advanced Software for Advanced Users
• Experiences with the D&D 2025 Monster Manual Adult Black Dragon
• Legendary Resistance Alternatives
• The End of One D&D

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

• Kobold Press Black Flag SRD in Markdown
• Creating and Adapting Monsters for Shadowdark Kickstarter
• Mike Mearls on Dungeoncraft

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

• Running Frostmaiden with Shadowdark
• Additional Roles for Exploration
• Did I Negate Character Abilities and Take Away Player Agency?
• Should I Kill Shadowdark Characters with Big Backstory?
• Is Your YouTube Channel Dying?

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on The Top Tip for New GMs – Lazy GM Tip and The Red Portal Part 2 – Dragon Empire Prep Session 13.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Build scenes from locations, inhabitants, and situations.
• Be prepared for the characters to negotiate with even the worst villains.
• Assign a quartermaster to keep track of all loot and who received it. Have them share a spreadsheet.
• Give players additional roles like cartographer (mapper), quartermaster (loot tracker), scribe (note-taker), and caller (arbiter of choices).
• Be ready for characters to bypass combat encounters through subterfuge or negotiation.
• Use random tables during prep and play to shake up ideas and come up with unique situations.

Related Articles

• The Simplest Way to Annotate a Map
• Using the Lazy DM's Eight Steps At the Table
• Focus Extra Prep Time on the Characters

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

I have two great reads for you today. The first is the chapbook Adventure Crucible – Building Stronger Scenarios for Any RPG by Robin Laws. This book inspired my series on adventure types, starting with Dungeon Crawls. You can find links to the others at the top of that article.

The second great read is a blog post from the Arcane Library called How to Design Exciting D&D Encounters. This article came at me from the Arcane Library newsletter – subscribe here.

Both pieces cover ways to ensure scenes and adventures in our RPGs excite our players and both cover one particular element we do well to consider – offering choices.

Choices are true actions of the characters in our RPGs. Characters can only make meaningful choices if there are other options they could choose but decide to skip. The more narrow this range of choices becomes, the more boring the game might become. When a character has three to five possible options in a turn during a battle – all of them viable – they feel empowered. If they only have one thing they can do ("I hit it with my sword") that's not much of a choice.

One reason combat takes such a prominent place in fantasy d20 RPGs is because combat choices are typically clear. Different attacks, different movement options, different bonus actions, different spells, different abilities – all these possible actions offer choices to players. They're intellectually stimulating.

Consider including such intellectually stimulating choices in all scenes. The characters go to town and meet an important NPC. The NPC tells them about the dangerous cave outside of town in which local treasure seekers sought a powerful idol but never returned. Will you brave adventurers go in there and seek it out? What choice is there? Sure? What the hell else are we going to do?

That's no choice.

But now our heroes come to town and meet with the local adventurers' guildmaster. "Hey, I have three jobs for you. Pick one. Pick another when you're done with that one. The last job we'll farm out to some other group." That doesn't sound particularly stimulating but it offers a choice. It matters which quest they pick and which they leave behind.

The characters come into town and meet a priest who wants to tell them about the marriage of the gods Rava and Volund. Ok, great. We'll sit here and hear all about these gods. That's not a choice. That's exposition.

Instead, a dwarf merchant is pissed off at the heretical priest's statements about this "marriage" between Rava and Volund and threatens to have his mercenaries beat the priest if the priest doesn't shut up. And that priest just can't shut up. What do the characters do? Who do they side with? What happens next?

That's a choice. That choice builds an interesting scene.

Whether your scene is delving through a dungeon, negotiating with a local thieves' guild leader, researching old magic in an arcane library, or fighting a horde of undead – ask yourself what choices you leave open for the characters and their players. Are there options here? Are they viable? You don't need to define each and every single choice but there should be some range of possible choices and players can certainly come up with their own.

Otherwise all we've done is offer a single path in which we spew forth our own narrative while our players sit back bored in their chairs.

Noting Choices During Prep

Consider identifying potential choices when prepping your game, perhaps during step 3, the "scenes" step, of the eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. When you jot down a quick description of the scene, maybe meeting the hag Lady Bloodnails in the dragon's grotto, ask yourself what options exist for the characters. Can they negotiate with her? Can they fight her? Can they sneak around her or learn something else about her from her environment? What can they do here? Three options are usually good. You don't always need an option. Maybe fighting Ourivax the Sallowsworn is really what everyone wants to do. But you don't want a series of scenes that all just lead to the next. Think about what options the characters can choose from and jot them down next to your short scene description.

So the next time you're prepping your game, ask yourself: what choices do you offer in each scene you intend to run in your next session?

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video. Lots of deep dives into the new D&D 2025 Monster Manual!

• Hexploration Decks
• Mike on EN World and Kobold Press Podcasts
• All Three D&D 2024 Core Books are Released
• 2025 Monster Manual is the Most Important DM-Focused D&D 2024 Book
• Is the 2025 Monster Manual Better than the 2014 MM?
• Is the D&D 2025 MM the Best 5e Monster Book?
• Could It Have Been Better? Of Course.
• 2025 Monster Manual Monsters Hit at Their Challenge Rating
• Other Designers on the 2025 Monster Manual Monster Math
• D&D 2025 Monster Manual Compared to Forge of Foes
• 2025 Monster Manual Effects Don't Negatively Impact Damage Anymore
• 2025 Monster Manual Vampire
• 2025 Monster Manual Requires Looking Up Spells
• 2025 Monster Manual Cultist Fanatic
• The Language of the 2025 Monster Manual
• 2025 Monster Manual Has No Orcs, Drow, or Duergar
• 2025 Monster Manual Static Initiative Scores
• 2025 Monster Manual Crappy Treasure "Tables"
• 2025 Monster Manual Crappy Ability Score Tables
• 2025 Monster Manual Awesome Contextual Random Tables
• 2025 Monster Manual Alphabetically Sorted Most of the Time
• 2025 Monster Manual What Else Is Missing?
• 2025 Monster Manual Day 1 Errata
• 2025 Monster Manual Final Thoughts

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

• BackerKit: Hexploration Decks by Inkwell Ideas
• Mike on Morrus's Unofficial Tabletop Podcast (YouTube – MM starts at 1:18:00)
• Mike on Morrus's Unofficial Tabletop Podcast (Podcast Recording)
• Mike on Kobold Chat Talking About Doom Points
• Paul Hughes on 2025 Monster Manual on a Business Card
• Alphastream YouTube Monster Manual Analysis
• Bob World Builder on the Monster Manual

Last week I also posted a YouTube video on The Red Portal Part 1 – Dragon Empire Prep Session 12.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• When it works for pacing, have minions flee or die when their bosses drop.
• Let some bosses suck the life out of minions for temporary hit points.
• Show players how many legendary resistances or doom points a villain has so they can see their progress at eliminating them.
• Give yourself a good 60 to 90 minutes to run a big boss fight.
• Add interactive terrain and monuments to big boss battles.
• Add 25% more HP to a boss for each extra character above four.
• Add roleplay or exploration scenes before a big boss fight where the characters can reduce the forces they have to fight.

Related Articles

• Are Actual Play Games Hurting Home-Game GMs?
• Making the Most of the Monster Manual
• Rolling Lots of D20s? Assume One Quarter Succeeds

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

If you're really into this hobby, like I am, it's extremely easy to get caught up in all the big news, scandals, conversations, and controversies that surround this (and any) big hobby. Gods know, I do.

It's important to remember that, when we think about reading and running RPGs, we're talking about a handful of books, dice, paper or digital tools, and the friends we have around our table to enjoy a fun game.

When the D&D 2024 books came out, I spent a lot of brain power on it. I watched and read everything I could. I talked with friends, RPG colleagues, patrons of Sly Flourish, and other fellow fans. I analyzed and hypothesized. I tested theories. I talked about it a lot on my talk show.

In the end, I can hold all three D&D core books in my hands. That's the entirety of the game – three hardcover books I can stuff into a backpack. That's it. Right there. That's the whole game.

We know the game is bigger than just the books themselves. RPGs mean a whole lot to many of us. I think RPGs save lives. When I'm sitting at the table playing games with my friends, it hits all of the most important parts of my life – relaxing and spending time with friends and loved ones together creating tales of high adventure.

That's why we get so focused on all the RPG news, debates, ideas, and attention applied to this amazing game. RPGs really matter to us.

But RPGs are also just a game.

RPGs are built from the books we use at our table, or load up online, once a week or so and spend a few hours away from the rest of our lives to enjoy some time in a world we all share in our minds together.

The zeitgeist surrounding the RPG hobby really doesn't matter that much. New products show up – some good and some bad. Some products we bring to the table. Others we skip. We and our friends decide what we want to play and how we want to play it. None of the rest of it actually impacts us directly.

It's easy to forget that, for each of us, the game at our own table is the only one that really matters. I forget this all the time. I spend hours on Discord or EN World debating the hobby, the products, the business, and all the rest, almost forgetting that I have a group coming over tomorrow night and maybe it's worth spending more of that time thinking about how to draw their characters into the game.

It can be fun to dive into news and discussions surrounding the larger RPG hobby but remember that the larger hobby doesn't dictate what happens at your table – you do.

Focus on the next game you're going to run for your friends around the table.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

I was away at Winter Fantasy last week so there was no Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast). Maybe take a look at previous episodes you missed!

Last week I posted a YouTube video on The Best Large Language Model for your RPG – Your Own Brain.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Puzzles and riddles are like tapping out songs with your finger. They’re totally obvious to you and no one else has any idea what you’re talking about.
• Have at least two ways to get past a puzzle.
• How did the creator of a puzzle door use it themselves? Why did they lock their door with a Sudoku?
• Let players roll all their dice even if you know it’s a fatal blow. Don’t take away their fun with the math rocks.
• If you love your players and their character does 52 damage, tell them the monster had only 51 hit points left. If you don’t love them, tell them their foe only had four.
• Let players use character shenanigans during skill challenges. Don’t force them to just make ability checks the whole time.
• Add beneficial and detrimental environmental effects to get characters moving around the battlefield.

Related Articles

• Being a Good Steward of the TTRPG Hobby
• How to Survive a Digital D&D Future
• Find Local Players for Tabletop RPGs

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

A friend passed me a post where someone described how their child, a GM, got feedback from their players stating "I think Matt Mercer would have done it differently".

This comment fired up a common question I've seen discussed for years now:

Are high production liveplay games like Critical Role and Dimension 20 building false expectations among players?

Probably not.

I have three main points on this topic:

1. There still aren't enough GMs for all the players who want to play.
2. Players generally enjoy the games they're playing in.
3. Only your game and the expectations of your own players matter.

Let's start by examining points 1 and 2.

Feedback from 100,000 Players

Whatever people's expectations for a game, there continues to be too few GMs for the players who want to play games.

I asked David Christ at Baldman Games about this topic. Dave has facilitated tens of thousands of games run by hundreds of GMs at hundreds of conventions for decades. He gets surveys on each of these games – over one hundred thousand of them – and had two main points towards this conversation:

• He still has too few GMs to run all the games players want to play.
• Satisfaction scores given by players about the games he manages average 92%.

These games aren't just hard-core Adventurer's League games either where there's a fixed group of players who play AL differently than everyone else plays D&D. Most players, Dave states, are new to D&D.

Organized play adventures are almost the exact opposite of Actual Play games like Critical Role and Dimension 20. GMs usually don't know the players or their characters. Players often don't know each other. GMs often run multiple games a day which can be exhausting. GMs are limited in what table props they can use because they have to travel with them. The environment is far from the incredible million-dollar studios of actual plays – often a fold-out table in a big area with dozens of other tables.

And still, there are more players who want to play games than GMs able to run them and still their satisfaction with their games is high.

Only Your Game Matters

Now on to point 3.

No one put you in charge of ensuring that players across the world all have the right expectations for any given game and that GMs are sheltered from criticism stemming from expectations garnered from actual play shows. Your job is only to run great games for the players you have around your own table.

It doesn't matter that Baldman Games has a hundred thousand surveys with a 92% satisfaction rate. Only the satisfaction of your players matters.

That, of course, doesn't mean your players won't have false expectations based on actual play, but you only have to worry about them, not the entire hobby.

So how do you manage these expectations?

Talk to Your Players

Ask them what they want in the game. Ask them what they hope for. Ask them about their characters – their goals, their motivations, what magic items they're excited for. Use campfire tales and stars and wishes to get feedback throughout your campaign.

If their drives and expectations go beyond what you can provide – talk to them about it. Let them know what you're capable of. Let them know if you're likely not to hit on every thread of their character's backstory. Set these expectations during your session zero.

Listen to them too. Maybe there are things they want that you can bring into your game. It's not just a matter of telling players how it's going to be. Use that feedback to steer your game as well as manage their expectations about what you can provide.

It's Probably Not the Problem You Think It Is

I suspect the anxiety GMs feel to perform at the level actual play shows is self generated more than brought on by actual players. Most players just want to play. As long as you're not railroading their characters or being a jerk, your game is likely to be fine. Follow the top tips for GMs and things should go well.

Enjoy your time at the table with your friends sharing some laughs and fun tales of high adventure.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

• Horizons Magazine
• Alphastream on 2025 D&D Monster Manual Math
• D&D at Madison Square Garden
• Mike Mearls and Ray Winninger on the Past and Future of D&D 5e
• 2025 Monster Manual Initial Thoughts
• D&D 2025 Monster Manual Lich
• Avoid Getting Caught in the Zeitgeist
• Talk Show and Patreon Q&A Databases

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

• Horizons Magazine
• Alphastream on 2025 D&D Monster Manual Math
• Ray Winninger and Mike Mearls on Past and Future of D&D 5e
• Printable Heroes

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

• What D&D Classes and Features Do I Ban?
• Making Flat Paper Character Minis
• Dealing with Agency-Stealing Effects like Stun
• Basic Rules or 5.1 SRD for New Players

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Instant Monsters for 5e & D&D and Ziggurat of Thoth-Hermes – Dragon Empire Prep Session 11.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Use long rests to ask players about their characters' backstories.
• Mix up easy combat encounters, hard combat encounters, and NPC roleplaying scenes.
• Introduce enough gods to keep your world unique but not so many your players can't keep up.
• Fill large locations with several factions – each of which might be allies or enemies of the characters.
• Mix multiple random encounters to build unique scenes.
• Roll a d6 for hostility and distance during random encounters. The lower the number the closer and less hostile they are.
• Bait dangerous situations with shiny treasure.

Related Articles

• Offer Choices in Every Scene
• Find Local Players for Tabletop RPGs
• Two Different 5e Games at the Same Table

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

When we sit down to play a 5e game at our table, we're actually playing two different games with two different sets of rules, sometimes from totally different publishers.

Players play one game – with a focus on their characters and the rich mechanics surrounding them. GMs play another game – with a focus on monsters, treasure, scenes, situations, world building, and more.

These two games mesh together on a shared and agreed-upon baseline of rules. We can change both sides of the game significantly and still play a fun game at our table.

The easiest example of GMs playing a different game is when gamemasters use a different monster book than the default monster book for our chosen 5e system (likely D&D but possibly Tales of the Valiant or Level Up Advanced 5e). Switching monster books is common. We can use 5e monsters from lots of different publishers, including building and improvising our own. We can use simple and straightforward stat blocks like those in the Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault or crunchy tactical monsters like the stat blocks in Flee Mortals. Even with vastly different design philosophies, these monster sources still work with other 5e systems.

It's not a huge revelation to note that GMs are playing one type of game at the table and players another type. But when we think of it this way, it opens further possibilities to change up and customize our game – getting back the modular feeling that 5e's designers intended in the 2012 to 2014 playtest of D&D Next.

There are many ways we can shake up the game on the GM's side such as

• including the journey rules from Uncharted Journeys.
• using safe havens and "supply" from A5e's Trials and Treasure.
• using doom points from Tales of the Valiant.
• giving out spells from Deep Magic 1 or 2 as special rewards, single-use magic items, or strange powers for monsters.

Likewise, we can talk to our players about changing things on the player-side of the game by

• selecting a different core sourcebook for character options such as D&D 2014, D&D 2024, the Tales of the Valiant Player's Guide, or the Level Up Advanced 5e Adventurer's Guide.
• offering multiple flavors of 5e on the player's side in the same game! It seems impossible but I'm doing it right now and it works just fine.
• replacing inspiration with ToV's "luck" system.
• allowing character options from books like Kobold Press's Tome of Heroes.

It's trickier to mess with the game on the player's side because changes we make there affect everyone and are permanent unless we pull them back. On the GM side, we can change things all the time. If we don't like how our change worked, we can throw it out and never use it again.

Thinking Differently About the Game We Play

Thinking of our game as a series of components – with a separate game being played on the player side and GM side – gives us lots of interesting ways to tweak and change things to fit the style of game we enjoy.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

• Weapons of Lore by Jeff Stevens
• Gate Pass Gazette by EN World Publishing
• Mike on Kobold Press Talking Doom Points
• Ray Winninger Interview with Stan! on YouTube
• No Roll20 Tales of the Valiant Character Builder
• Thoughts from the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo
• RPG Communities on Independent Spaces

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

• Weapons of Lore Kickstarter
• Gate Pass Gazette Annual 2024
• Mike on KP talking Doom Points and Monster Vault 2
• Ray Winninger EN World Discussion
• Ray Winninger on Stan!'s Show
• Stan!'s 50 Years YouTube Playlist
• Bring On the Discourse – Yochai Gal
• EN World
• forums.rpg.net
• Mastodon — dice.camp
• Mastodon — chirp.enworld.org
• Mastodon — mastodon.social
• Bluesky
• My Blueskky Starter Pack
• TTRPG Blogs
• RPG Blogroll
• ttrpg.network
• Top Rated RPG Podcasts

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

• Can I Submit Your Book to Adobe's AI Tool?

Last week I also posted a YouTube video on Blood Magic – Dragon Empire Prep Session 10.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Call on individual characters during online games.
• Clarify options and ask for decisions from each player.
• Assign a “caller” who gets consensus from the group.
• Assign roles to players including scribe (game notes), cartographer (mapping), quartermaster (loot tracking), and caller (choice consensus).
• Ensure each scene has choices and options for the characters’ to take.
• Have characters describe their new features to the group on leveling up.
• Keep narrative descriptions brief and focus quickly on the options in front of the characters.

Related Articles

• 2024 RPG Gift Guide
• What Is 5e?
• My Favorite TTRPG Products of 2023

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

A while back I wrote about Gems of the DMG in which I captured what I thought were the most notable sections of a book typically ignored or vilified among 5e D&D DMs. I think it's an underrated book but it's certainly a flawed book.

Now, with the new 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide in hand, we can look for similar notable sections of this book.

I have good news. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is well organized and does a great job introducing new dungeon masters to the craft of running D&D games. That was its primary goal and I think it meets this goal.

But how much do we want to use the 2024 DMG at the table? How often will we refer back to it? What parts of the book should DMs, new and old, keep in mind to help us prepare and run our games?

Let's dig in.

First, a DM's Trick

Before we go in, I have a trick I really love. Use little adhesive tabs to mark your favorite and most-used sections so you can reference them easily at the table. Tabs run a couple of bucks at a drug store and make all your books far more table usable. Work from back-to-front, putting tabs along the edge opposite of the spine starting low and working up. This way, by the end, you have neatly organized tabs running from the top to the bottom. If you don't get anything else from this article – tab your books!

Notable Sections of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide

Ok, let's have a look at the 2024 DMG sections we're most likely to reference.

Dungeons – Page 65. A nice big list of dungeon quirks that can help fire up your imagination for the dungeons you want to prepare for your game. I wish there were more dungeon-focused tables, frankly. I feel like the 2024 DMG is missing tables to help inspire DMs to build out lots of different kinds of dungeons.

Running Mobs – Page 82. This section includes good information for running a large number of monsters. It has a cool table telling you how many monsters in a group succeed on a given attack roll or saving throw target number. This section also includes a table to determine how many targets are likely in an area when running theater of the mind style battles which I appreciate. It's only missing a way to handle hit points for lots of monsters other than letting low HP enemies just die. I use my own idea for pooling damage when running a lot of monsters. We offer other ways to handle lots of monsters in the Lazy DM's Companion and Forge of Foes that I think work better but this section works fine.

Common Names – Page 85. Everyone needs a good list of names and here they are in the DMG. Bookmark this page.

Poisons – Page 90. Poisons can be used in lots of different ways in your game. Heroes can acquire them. Bad guys can use them against your heroes. Traps can be poisoned with exotic poisons. It's a good section to remember.

Settlements – Page 93. These two pages offer lots of tables to help you build out settlements. I always love a good tavern name generator.

Supernatural Gifts – Page 98. It's easy to focus on tangible magic items but cool supernatural gifts and charms are a great way for the characters to be blessed by monuments or the will of the gods. Some effects permanent while others are temporary so they offer some good flexibility.

Traps – Page 100. These four pages of traps give you good models you can reskin into hundreds of different tailored traps for the lairs into which our heroes adventure. It includes specific traps with ranges for different levels and a trap-building table to build your own traps.

Adventure Situations – Page 107. Four tables offer ten to twenty different adventure situations for the four tiers of play. These tables are great when you need a quick sidequest or adventure idea and help us understand the types of adventures appropriate for characters at different levels.

Common Map Symbols – Page 109. Get out your Pathfinder Flip Mat or Chessex Battle Map and practice these simple and common map symbols to help you draw out awesome maps for your game. I wish they had included more of Chris Perkins's Map Fu article here.

Adventure Hooks – Page 111. Good tables describing the way characters can learn of the adventures they might undertake. These hooks are also good ways to reveal secrets and clues when needed.

XP Budget Per Character. This table to help you build and understand the threats of combat encounters is much improved over the convoluted two-dial system in the 2014 DMG. I would have preferred a system based on challenge rating that you can keep in your head instead of an experience-based table you must continually refer to and do a bunch of math with. Luckily, I offer such a CR-based encounter building system.

Monster Behaviors – Page 116. Good tables for monster hostility, personality, and relationships to shake up your random encounters. Too bad there aren't any random encounter tables in the book. Another big miss if you ask me.

Random Treasure Hoard – Page 121. An excellent and simple table built for session-based treasure hoards. Nothing fancy here and no tables to break out hoards into gold, bars, gems, jewelry and the like but enough to tell you how much gold you expect so you can break it out yourself. I love the simplicity.

Planar Adventure Situations – Page 179. I love these fantastic adventure hooks. While we often think of planar adventures as high-level adventures, some of these situations can work at mid-levels too.

Tour of the Multiverse – Page 180. The multiverse section of the 2024 DMG is about 30 pages long and this, along with the Greyhawk section on page 143, is where you can really dive into the lore of D&D. It's common to think you only care about this stuff when the characters are plane-hopping but this sort of lore can flavor dungeons and monsters at any level of play. It's worth the time to read through this whole section to fill your head with awesome D&D lore you can spout out during your games in all sorts of ways. Don't skip it.

Magic Item Special Features – Page 222. The 2014 DMG had this table too and I used it all the time. The creator and history tables are fantastic for any magic item. Who made the item? What is special about it? You can use these tables to flavor single-use magic items, trinkets, permanent magic items, and all sorts of other things. These tables are super-valuable. Keep them bookmarked.

Random Magic Items – Page 326. These tables are common in any good gamemaster's guide but always worth mentioning. Mixing up random magic items along with items tailored for the characters is the easiest and best way I've found to make players happy and make your game exciting. These tables break things up well and are easy to roll on to find interesting items for your characters. I wish they didn't mix consumable items and permanent items together. Sometimes I want to offer one without the other.

Maps – Page 365. I love Dyson maps for many reasons and I'm extremely happy to see a good pile of them at the end of the DMG. There are fifteen maps in here covering a wide range of common locations you find in D&D. These maps are fantastic for improvising adventure locations when time is tight. They include:

• Multi-level Crypt
• Small campsite
• Small village
• Ruined temple / Dragon's Lair
• Dungeon hideout
• Farmstead
• Keep
• Manor
• Mine
• Roadside inn
• Ship
• Spooky house
• Underdark warren
• Volcanic caves
• Wizards tower

A Useful Book to Have At Your Side

Often the trickiest part of using the Dungeon Master's Guide is knowing what's inside. When you have the time, maybe once or twice a year, go through it and remind yourself what you have. Mark it with adhesive tabs so you can easily reference useful bits while you prep and run your games.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

I was at the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo the previous weekend so I didn't have any YouTube videos or podcasts this week.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Give players a way to hack the dungeon such as secret passages, puzzle bypasses, and ways to get the jump on bad guys.
• Set up a goal and a situation and let the story unfold during the game.
• Avoid a series of hard combat encounters in a row.
• Improvise combat encounters by what makes sense in the story and then what is the most fun for the game.
• Tell the story of a location through the discoveries in each chamber.
• Layer histories in your dungeons. What was it before? What is it now?
• Modify dungeons as you play should they overstay their welcome. Cut off hallways. Collapse chambers. Move things around.

Related Articles

• Gems of the D&D Dungeon Master's Guide
• Award Treasure and Magic Items in 5e
• Random Tables of the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

When you need to adjudicate a whole bunch of checks — say rolling two dozen saving throws for a bunch of skeletons hit with Turn Undead — simplify the situation by assuming one quarter succeeds.

This quick rule-of-thumb is part of the Running Hordes section of the Lazy DM's Companion but it's a good tool to keep in our toolbox for lots of situations. Sometimes you need to roll a bunch of attack rolls against a single character. Sometimes you need to roll a big pile of ability checks. Sometimes you need a big group to make a bunch of saving throws.

Assume one quarter succeeds.

You can slide this scale up or down depending on the situation. If the creatures making the checks have advantage, assume half succeeds. If they're at disadvantage, assume it's one on ten. This calculation also works if the target number the roller would have to shoot for is particularly high or low. Keep the math easy.

If you want to add some variance, subtract three from the number of successes and add 1d6. This change shakes things up and shows players that there's some variance to the result instead of what feels like an arbitrary number.

This "one quarter succeeds" guideline is based on the idea that the creatures making the check need to roll a 16 or better to succeed. It assumes these creatures are generally weaker than the character they're attacking or the spell they're saving against. It's a skeleton (+4 to hit) versus an armored paladin (AC 20). Many times this guideline is in the favor of the characters (and the players) which makes it easier to accept.

Assuming one quarter succeeds lets you abstract lots of dice rolling and get back into the fiction and action in the world. Instead of rolling two dozen saving throws you get to say:

"Eighteen of the twenty four skeletons surrounding you are destroyed as your waves of radiant light turn them to dust! The remaining six claw forward and attack!"

If you're looking for more tricks for running hordes of monsters against the characters, check out Running Hordes: The Lazy Way to Run Lots of D&D Monsters.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

• Monster Vault 2 by Kobold Press
• Crit Happens iOS Dice Roller
• Free5e
• Sly Flourish Newsletter Adventure Generator and One-Page 5e
• 2025 Monster Manual Videos
• What Do I Want From WOTC After the Monster Manual?
• When and How to Fudge Your Game

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

• Monster Vault 2 Kickstarter by Kobold Press
• Crit Happens iOS Dice Roller
• Free5e Kickstarter

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

• Monster Dials for Non-5e Games
• Alternative Initiative Options

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Distance, Reaction, and Activity Rolls for Random Encounters and The Puzzle box – Dragon Empire Prep Session 9.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

• Choose monsters that fit the story and environment. Wrap them in historical lore.
• Swarm characters with lots of one- or two-hit low CR monsters. Let players enjoy their big area blasts.
• Include big brutes in battles who are intended to be banished or controlled.
• Give magic weapons or suits of armor a cool name, theme, history, and daily-use spell effect.
• Let mechanists and artificers understand how magical artifacts and arcane machines operate.
• Roll on behalf of characters attempting to detect traps so they don't know if they failed or if there was never a trap to begin with.
• Include several ways for characters to traverse a dungeon – vertical chutes, deep cracks, collapsed elevators, and so on.

Related Articles

• Free Dice Roller
• Let Characters Automatically Succeed Sometimes
• Lazy Monster Damage – Subtract 3, Add 1d6

Get More from Sly Flourish

• Articles
• Newsletter
• Bookstore
• Patreon
• Podcast
• YouTube

Buy Sly Flourish's Books

• City of Arches
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Lazy DM's Companion
• Lazy DM's Workbook
• Forge of Foes
• Fantastic Lairs
• Ruins of the Grendleroot
• Fantastic Adventures
• Fantastic Locations

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.