Sly Flourish
- -
- VideoRunning Travel Scenes in 5e
Travel scenes can be hard to run. Like downtime, travel scenes can lack structure, not offer any meaningful actions to the characters, and not offer any interesting choices to players.
Some GMs run a travel montage – describing what happens and asking for checks to survive in the wilderness. Others hand-wave the whole thing. "After three weeks of grueling travel, you reach Castle Kaverice".
For more on this topic, Ginny Di has an excellent video digging into interesting travel encounters.
Pointcrawls offer an alternative – turning travel into an almost dungeon-crawl-like experience with locations and paths instead of chambers and hallways. Sometimes, though, we don't need anything as complicated as a network of routes and locations. There's one main road, the characters are on it, and off they go.
How can we make these journeys meaningful? One way is to run encounters during the journey.
Some GMs roll random encounters right at the table. Sometimes they're fun – particularly of the GM is good at improvising such encounters and making them relevant. Other times they're a drag. Instead, consider rolling random encounters during prep to build interesting and relevant encounters the players might enjoy more. Here's how:
Develop a Location
Where does the encounter take place? What makes this location interesting? Random tables help. You might use the random monument tables in the Lazy DM's Workbook and the Lazy DM's Companion to build out interesting central monuments for travel scenes. Roll a bunch of times until you get one you like. Build your encounter around that monument and use the monument itself as a vehicle for secrets and clues, giving the characters discoveries relevant to their drives and goals.
Add Some Creatures
Fill out the location with creatures. Maybe they're monsters. Maybe they're nice people. Maybe a mix of both. Maybe roll on a random monster table a couple of times and mix two encounters together. This is a great way to make an encounter rich and deep. Not every encounter should be just one or more hostile monsters. Sometimes they're just friendly travelers or wary lizardfolk. Combat isn't always the goal.
Want tools to improvise creatures on the spot? Check out Forge of Foes!
Build a Situation
What's happening at this location? Maybe a monster already passed through and the characters can follow its trail (or not). Maybe the characters witness one group fighting another or stumble on one group who just defeated another. Maybe it's just an argument between a dwarf merchant and an acolyte of a god the dwarf hates.
Offer Choices
These situations should offer meaningful choices. Do the characters defend one group against another? Do they get involved in a heated argument? Do they track a monster to its lair?
Players want to make choices and have their characters do things, not just listen to you describe the journey. Get the players involved as fast as you can. Are there meaningful choices in the situation you developed above? If not, keep building.
Add a Reward
Ensure the characters are rewarded for their choices. Maybe they find a random magic item or some well-needed gold. Maybe the characters learn valuable information or a treasure map. What do the characters earn for their effort?
Chain Travel Encounters Together with Routes
Returning to pointcrawls, we can connect such encounter locations with routes. If we have the time and it makes sense, offer multiple routes with useful information to help the characters choose their route. Do they want to take the well-traveled but longer route or the shorter but more dangerous route? Offer useful options to help them decide which route to take.
Consider adding secret routes as well. Maybe a surviving goblin from a goblinoid ambushing party shows the characters a secret shortcut through the nearby mountains. Maybe the characters find and activate a fey gate taking them along a shadowy road cutting a long journey into a short one that has a strange toll.
One Encounter Between Major Locations
We probably don't want too many encounters during a journey. One works well between every two major locations the characters visit. This single encounter can give the players a good feeling for the path they took in the same way Weathertop highlights the fellowship's journey from Bree to Rivendell in Lord of the Rings.
One Option of Many
Encounters like these are only one way we might make travel more interesting during our 5e games. Campfire tales offer another in which the players describe what their characters are thinking and feeling while resting underneath the stars. Player-driven travel montages like those in 13th Age hand the story over to the players to describe what happens along a journey. Or we might simply handwave the boring parts and get back to the interesting parts of the story.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Reusing Secrets and Clues and Empire of the Ghouls Part 3 – the Blood Marriage.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Trying Out House Rules
- Dials for Magic Items
- Physical Tools for Online Play
- Gods for your Homebrew Campaign
- Alternatives to Notion
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Use a mix of theater of the mind, drawn maps, printed maps, and 3d terrain for various types of combat. Don't force any one approach all the time.
- Keep the tools on hand to help you improvise during the game.
- Ask yourself how you can hook each character into the next session. What's in it for them specifically?
- Run homebrew adventures in published campaign settings – get the best of both worlds.
- Borrow liberally from published material. Take what works for your game. Dump the rest.
- Modify published adventures to fit what you and your friends enjoy at the table.
- "That's what the adventure says" is as bad as "that's what my character would do".
Related Articles
- Three Things to Do While Traveling
- Single Encounters for Overland Travel
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Build Cities Around the Characters
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: June 5, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoCreating Villains
Villains often drive the story of our RPG. They frame the situations in which the characters find themselves. Good villains drive the game forward, building momentum and reacting to the characters actions.
Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master talks about building villains in chapter 16 on "building a lazy campaign". Return uses the term "fronts" from Powered by the Apocalypse". A front, like a weather front or the front line of an army, is a force moving the story in a particular direction. It's a nice term that includes drivers outside of conscious foes. The burning sun of Athas in Dark Sun could be considered a front.
But the lingo can be hard to grasp, so I'm moving to the term "villains". You're free to use whatever term best suits you. I recognize that villain can be an alien moon, a series of earthquakes, or the deadly sun of Athas. But most of the time, a villain is a sentient entity thwarting the region or world in a way the characters do not like.
Building Villains
There's a series of simple questions Lazy DMs can use to build villains and fill them out enough to drive our campaigns but not so much that we overprep.
Who Are They?
Who's this villain? What are they called? Are they a powerful blue dragon sorcerer? A vampire lord? A world-devouring lich? A beholder crime lord? Get a basic idea who your villain is before answering the rest of the questions.
If you're stuck looking for a villain, the Lazy DM's Companion includes a villain generator on page 21. You can also find a random list of villains and motivations in chapter 3 and 4 of the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide. Or steal villains from popular fiction.
A villain can be a monster, a powerful undead entity, a cult-leader, or a selfish wizard. It can just be someone who wants to watch the world burn. Most important – villains act against the goals and desires of the characters.
What Do They Want?
What drives your villain? What's their goal and desire? The Lazy DM's Companion includes twenty possible villainous motivations but you can often come up with your own. Do they seek power? Do they seek wealth? Do they seek destruction?
Good villains have understandable motivations. Magneto knows what happens if the world is left to its own devices hunting muntants. Often the best villainous motivations make sense but are done in the wrong way. Killmonger isn't wrong; he's just an asshole.
These villainous motivations help in several ways. They guide the villain's actions. They guide the villain's reactions once the characters start mucking up their plans. They guide how villains roleplay with the characters. These motivations might even cause the villain to change perspectives when it turns out their drive isn't antithetical to that of the characters.
What Quests do Villains Undertake to Achieve Their Goals?
Our final question asks what they're doing about it. How are they trying to achieve their goal? What quests are they going on? Villainous quests move their plots forward. Good villains don't sit around waiting for the characters to come and kill them. They're doing stuff. They're sending lackeys to accomplish things. They've sent heralds far and wide.
Choose three quests for your villain leading toward the villain's goal. These quests should be resilient. Villains shouldn't rely on a single branch of their quest to succeed in their goal.
Choose Three Villains
For a nice rich campaign, develop three villains using the steps above. Each villain has an identity, a goal, and three quests they undertake to accomplish their goal. Three villains create a rich tapestry of movement, actions, and reactions as the characters get involved in thwarting these quests. Sometimes villains work together. Other times they're independent. As one villain goes down, another villain might stand up in its place.
Building Campaigns from Villains and Characters
Three villains, with goals and quests, give the characters an evolving and dynamic world. Things are going on. Situations are changing. During your prep, instead of trying to figure out what's going to happen next, ask yourself "what are my villains up to?" and see where the question leads.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos:
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Maps - Is D&D an Incomplete Product?
- Maps - No Great Single Solution for In-Person Play
- Maps - What Does D&D Recommend for New DMs?
- Maps - A Big Digital Display
- Maps - The Pathfinder Basic Flip Mat
- Maps - Big Sheets of 1" Gridded Poster Paper
- Maps - Print "Blueprint" Maps for Cheap.
- Maps - Use Cloth for a Fog of War
- Maps - Print Individual Rooms on Normal Paper
- Maps - Mixing Different Types
- JP Coovert's Drawing Dungeons Booklet
- Maps - Theater of the Mind and Abstract Maps
- Maps - Try Lots of Options
- The Works of JP Coovert
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Find music that inspires your game – both during prep and play.
- Offer chances for villainous redemption.
- Offer multiple paths for long-distance travel.
- Keep quick build monster stats on hand. Whip up a simple stat block when you cant be bothered to look up a monster in a book.
- Give custom monsters one or two notable abilities based on their fiction.
- Give every magic item a name and a cool ability.
- Spells are encapsulated mechanics you can tie to monsters or magic items.
Related Articles
- Build Resilient and Evolving Villainous Plots
- Building Villains Like Pro-Wrestlers
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Quests for Villains
- How to Protect Your Villains
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: May 29, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoHow Many Encounters Per Day in D&D?
How many encounters should you run in a typical adventuring day?
As many or as few as make sense for the story and the situation in the world.
The Dungeon Master's Guide describes the "Adventuring Day" in chapter 3 on page 84 and begins with the following passage:
"Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day." (emphasis mine)
Many DMs think this means characters should face six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. That's not the case. The guideline above intends to show you how many they can handle but the actual number of encounters can vary as much as makes sense for the story.
If you want to see a video on this topic, check out How Many Encounters per D&D Adventuring Day?
What Makes Sense for the Story?
The question "what makes sense in the story?" is powerful GMing. We can ask it all throughout our time prepping our D&D games. Which monsters should we include? What treasure should we include? What ability challenges should we include? What DC should we select?
What makes sense in the story?
Which monsters make sense? How many? Which pieces of lore make sense to reveal? How hard should the DC be given how hard this situation is in the story? How would the NPCs react to the characters if they were real?
"What makes sense for the story" is incredibly useful. It pushes us into a story-focused direction when planning out our game.
How Many Encounters Per Day?
The same question holds true for encounters per day. How many encounters will the characters face? Who knows. Will they even use combat to defeat those encounters? Will they sneak by? Let's play to find out!
Forcing characters to face six to eight medium to hard combat encounters per day pushes us out of the story and into a series of interlinked encounters of which the only intended solution is combat.
How often should the characters be able to rest?
What makes sense in the story?
Are they in a safe place where they're likely not to be interrupted? Are they in the middle of a wraith-infested hell-hole? What makes sense for their current situation?
Are your characters facing enough combat encounters before a full rest? Don't worry about it. Worry about the story. Build interesting situations for the characters to get involved in. Let the characters navigate situations as they come up in the game in ways that make sense given the story. Maybe they sneak by. Maybe they talk their way out. Maybe they fight like a pack of angry barbed devils.
What to Do Instead
What do you do instead of preparing six to eight encounters an adventuring day? Focus on giving yourself the material you need to share the story as it makes sense in the world and as it entertains you and your players. Use your eight steps to prepare what you need for the session. Use your dials of monster difficulty and your upward and downward beats to help you manage pacing.
Worry less about the mechanics of the game and the balance of combat. Focus on prepping the components of your game that lead to an interesting story and let the story evolve in ways you can't predict.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Prepping Session 23 of Scarlet Citadel.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Crown of the Oathbreaker Physical Book
- The Lazy GM's Resource Document in the Creative Commons
- Lazy Solo 5e generator on Perchance
- Developers! Help Open5e!
- Will WOTC Use Open5e?
- Playing Five RPGs in Three Days
- Playing Dungeon World at 1d4 Con
- Playing Pathfinder 2 at 1d4 Con
- Playing Call of Cthulhu at 1d4 Con
- Playing Dungeon Crawl Classics at 1d4 Con
- Playing My Friend's New RPG at 1d4 Con
- Players Questioning the GM's Logic
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Remembering Campaign-Specific Rules
- Is the DM the Storyteller or the Referee? Neither!
- Running 45 Minute Battles with No Tweaking
- Reigning in Wanderlust in an Island Hopping Campaign
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Mix factions in a single location.
- Mix random and hand-selected magic items.
- Print rooms of a big dungeon on single sheets of paper. Show each one as discovered.
- Check in player when dorking with their backstory. Make sure they're cool with your ideas.
- Have a big dinner or pot luck with your group an hour before the game.
- Celebrate player birthdays.
- Add interactive objects into big combat encounters. Have improvisational tools for the effects.
- When going into a dungeon, ask about lighting and positioning. Remind them of the limitations of darkvision (disadvantage on perception checks, -5 on passive Perception).
Related Articles
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Describe your GM Style
- Running Travel Scenes in 5e
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Converting Adventures Between Systems
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: May 22, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoUsing Maps for In-Person Games
Broccoli, a Patron of Sly Flourish, asks:
Do you have any tips on preparing and using maps for in-person games?
After fifty years of different approaches there is no perfect solution for preparing and using maps at in-person games. Instead, there are many different popular solutions. These include:
- Hand-drawn maps on paper, dry-erase, or wet-erase mats
- Published laminated battle maps
- Terrain tiles
- Professionally printed poster maps
- Large digital displays
- 3d tabletop terrain (either 3d printed or purchased)
You can read more on these different types of battle maps in my Battle Map Comparisons article.
Each of these solutions come with tradeoffs including:
- Cost
- Time
- Space
- Quality
- Flexibility
With these tradeoffs in mind, here are some best practices for using maps for in-person games.
Draw Maps Ahead of Time
I'm a huge fan of the Pathfinder Basic Flip Mat for drawing maps right at the table, but when drawing maps ahead of time, nothing beats drawing maps on big sheets of paper. Drawing maps this way takes time time and requires particular tools but it's relatively cheap, doesn't take up a lot of space, and provides great results when you need a detailed map for your game.
Choose the Right Paper
If you're drawing maps ahead of time, try drawing them on big sheets of paper with a 1 inch grid. Big pads of 1" graph paper provide the best value. These come 27 inches by 34 inches and provide over 2,000 square inches per dollar – way better than gaming paper and likely better than even cheap wrapping paper. I like drawing with big sharpies but they bleed through so put a spare sheet underneath before you start drawing.
Learn Your Drawing Style
Practice your style and symbology when drawing maps. Seek techniques that help you draw maps quickly and also capture the details of the environment. Consider these excellent resources:
- Chris Perkins's 2012 Map Fu article. Chris shows useful shapes and design ideas for drawing maps. Ten years after its original publication, this remains the best article I've found for drawing maps.
- The Dyson Logos map key. A key of simple and evocative symbols for fantasy maps. Print out the key and keep it handy when drawing your own maps.
- JP Coovert's Dungeon Mapping Video and Drawing Dungeons book. JP shows how to draw a map and keep the symbology simple but evocative. His style took 90 minutes to draw in his video but you can save time skipping the painting of negative space.
Print Poster-sized Maps as Blueprints
Some local print shops offer large-format black-and-white "blueprint" or "architecture plan" printouts perfect for black and white maps like DysonLogos. These are much cheaper than color maps and look great. You'll need to spend time in an image editor scaling your map to the right size but the result is a big well-drawn map you can drop right onto your table. Here's an article on scaling maps using Gimp. If you can fit the map into 24" by 36" it'll be much easier to use than a 36" by 48" map. Blueprint maps like this run $5 to $10 and save a lot of time drawing things out.
If professional printing isn't an option, you can use tools like Adobe Acrobat to print big maps across multiple sheets of regular-sized printer paper and then cut and paste them together. Again, you'll need to spend time properly sizing the map in an image editor before you print it.
Get a Big Acrylic Sheet for your Table
One of my favorite tools for in-person GMing is a big sheet of acrylic on top of my gaming table. The acrylic sheet provides a perfectly flat, dry-erasable surface that feels awesome with miniatures. You can put maps, handouts, pictures, cheat-sheets, or other flat props under the surface and draw on top of it with dry erase markers. A couple globs of sticky-tack (another incredibly useful GM aid) keeps the sheet from sliding around. You can usually pick up a 36" by 48" sheet for about $30 at a local hardware store, Home Depot, or other home improvement store. It's an excellent investment that lasts for years.
Revealing Maps
If you draw maps ahead of time, you'll need some way to hide what the characters haven't yet found. Cover the parts not yet revealed with sheets of paper or cloth. Sticky tack or heavy objects, like glass tumblers, keep these sheets in place so they don't fly around the table every time someone moves.
Mixing Theater of the Mind and Gridded Maps
Be open to running theater of the mind or abstract combat options along with your tabletop maps. Consider using smaller maps of larger dungeons and use bigger detailed battle maps when terrain and positioning really matters. The laziest map to draw is the one you don't draw at all.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a YouTube videos on how to Add 2,000 5e monsters in Owlbear Rodeo 2.0 with the Clash plugin.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Organizing an big RPG Club and Community
- Building Mythic Monsters
- Action-Oriented Monsters in Forge of Foes?
- Playing In Person after 30 Years Away
- Lazy Gamemaster's Guide?
- Does Curse of Strahd Take a Lot of Work to Fix? No
- Needing to Take a Break?
- Top Tips for New and Experienced GMs
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Offer options with different gameplay styles. Let the players choose between combat, exploration, and roleplaying.
- Let the players see the world through the trained eyes of their characters.
- Get your player's permission before revealing earthshaking secrets about their character.
- Pay attention to which characters haven't gotten a good magic item in a while.
- Print individual rooms of a big dungeon. Piece them together like a puzzle during your game.
- Print pictures of monsters and NPCs. Pass them around during your game.
- Offer to run scenes offline for players who miss a session.
Related Articles
- The Only Dungeon Map You'll Ever Need
- Love Letter to the Pathfinder Flip Mat
- Battle Map Comparisons
- Kitbashing Dungeons
- A Simpler Checklist for Jaquays-style Dungeon Maps
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: May 15, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoOrganizing Digital RPG Materials
One effective way to organize digital RPG material is by making a directory structure of "RPGs", then by system, followed by publisher (if needed), and finally, by product. It should look something like this:
/RPGs/5e/Sly Flourish/lazy_dms_companion.pdf
Skip the publisher if there's only one publisher for the system.
/RPGs/Shadowdark/Shadowdark_RPG_V1.pdf
How do You Do It?
Often on the Sly Flourish Patreon I get asked how best to store digital materials — mostly PDFs of RPG products. I didn't have a very effective system so I put up a YouTube post on the topic to find out what systems others use to store digital files.
Many don't have an organized process, which can work just fine if you have a good desktop search (see below). A few mentioned the directory structure above and, after switching to it, I love it.
"RPGs", System, Publisher, Product
Create a set of directories starting with "RPGs", followed by game system, publisher, and product.
Here's an example:
- /RPGs/system/publisher/product.pdf
and here are some examples:
- /RPGs/5e/Kobold Press/scarlet_citadel.pdf
- /RPGs/13th Age/13th_age.pdf
- /RPGs/Numenera/weird_discoveries.pdf
- /RPGs/Independent Publishers/knave_1.0.pdf (for companies that produce basically one product)
You don't have to include a publisher subdirectory unless many different companies write for one system. This is only 5e for me. I also have a /RPGs/5e/DM's Guild/ directory holding all my single-publication DM's Guild products. Both my /RPGs/ directory and /RPGs/5e/ directories have "Independent Publisher" directories with PDFs of publishers who only produced a single product.
This system is flexible enough to hold lots of products and simple enough to help you find what you want when you want it.
One organizational trick is to sort directories by "last opened". You're more likely to look for the same files often and sorting by last opened means the files you need are often at the top.
I spent a few hours reorganizing my PDFs this way and love it, but it probably wasn't worth it. How come?
Because we can use our desktop search.
Use Your Desktop Search
Sorting through piles of files in a directory isn't ideal when we already know what we want. Instead, both Macs and PCs have a desktop search built in. I'm on a Mac so I use Spotlight for search. It never worked particularly well until I spent the time to learn some tricks for it.
It's definitely worth the time to learn how to customize the search tool of your computer. For example, you'll want to:
- Limit searches to just PDF. On a Mac, you do this by typing "kind:pdf" in your search query. In Windows 10, type "type:pdf" to limit the search to PDFs.
- Limit which directories your computer indexes. On a Mac, you can find this under your system settings for Spotlight and its privacy settings to turn off directories you don't want to search. In Windows 10, search for "indexing options" where you can limit indexed locations. Here's more on limiting directories on Windows
- Limit which types of files and data you want to search. On a Mac, this is under the system settings for Spotlight. Uncheck the stuff you don't want returned. The "indexing options" on Windows 10 described previously lets you limit which filetypes are indexed.
- Open the file's directory. Figure out how to open the directory containing the result instead of the result itself. On a Mac you do this by holding the command key down when you double-click the file. On a Windows machine, right-click on the file once you found it in search and click "open file location" in the context menu.
Spending a few minutes learning how to customize and use your desktop search tool saves a lot of time when hunting down RPG PDFs. It's worth the time to learn how.
Don't Overdo It
Don't spend too much time worrying about PDF organization. You can waste a lot of time renaming files, moving them around, and organizing stuff that really doesn't need to be organized. Keep your system simple. Keep it flexible. Focus your time on preparing and running awesome games for your friends.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Designing Interactive Monuments and Prepping Scarlet Citadel Session 23.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Owen KC Stevens Bundles on DriveThruRPG
- Owlbear Rodel 2.0 Official Release in July
- Kobold Press Tales of the Valiant Monsters Playtest
- 2024 D&D Players Handbook Playtest 5
- Mass Effect Style Preludes and Wars
- Tuning the Lazy Encounter Bechmark
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Chat GPT and AI For Adventure Generation
- Running Ship Battles in Light of Xaryxis
- Character Grabbing the Wrong Hook
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Monsters don't always behave optimally. Chaos affects both sides.
- Run waves of monsters in big boss fights.
- Run some super-hard battles and let the characters get away with lots of shenanigans.
- Let the characters (and players) get a glimpse of the environment in which they're going to engage in a big boss battle.
- Keep track of what magic items the characters have. Know who's due for another one.
- Give the characters their opportunity to shine when they've prepared something really fun.
- Think through the eyes of your villains. There's a time to fight and a time to run.
Related Articles
- Describe your GM Style
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Identify Good D&D Adventures and Products
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Converting Adventures Between Systems
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: May 8, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoBuild from the Characters Outwards
The characters are the heroes of the worlds we create together. They're the focus of our lens. The world outside of their view doesn't yet exist — except for the villains and their own quests.
It's hard to keep this in mind when we're building our world. We're driven to write sprawling histories, wide geographies, deep religious sects, and vast cities.
In the eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, step one is to focus on the characters. Who are they? What are their names? What do they want? Where did they come from?
This is deliberately the first step we do. It puts them first in our minds as we prep the rest of our next session.
But we can take this character-first approach to anything we build in our games. Which religions should we fill out? Those tied closest to the characters as either their own domains or those domains they oppose. What elements should we focus on when building a city? Those of most likely interest to the characters, their classes, and their backgrounds. What sort of monuments might they run into out in the wilds? Those with a connection to the characters history, heritage, religion, or the villains they chase. What magic items should we drop in to the game? Those that provide use or interest to the characters.
We can use random tables to guide such things, but the results from such rolls can inspire us to build something interesting to the characters — something expanding the scope of the world through their own eyes.
What sorts of things can we focus around the characters and their players?
Everything.
What type of strong start might draw them into the larger story?
What scenes move their story forward?
What secrets might interest them to discover?
What NPCs would they enjoy interacting with?
What monsters might they enjoy fighting?
What locations might they enjoy exploring?
What items and rewards suit their characters?
There's a flip side to this. Players engage well with new things to discover, new religions, new histories, new stories and folklore, new NPCs and villains. In this way, we want to think two horizons out. We can still keep the characters in mind as our own world unfolds around them, feeling real to them as they learn its history and see it alive around them. As GMs, we keep the horizon line always moving outward, just beyond what the characters can see so they know there's a world out there even if it isn't right in front of them.
It's a delicate balance between building for the characters and building a larger world.
It's also why we love being GMs.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Prepping Scarlet Citadel Session 22 and Using Dwarven Forge in Virtual Tabletops.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- The Lazy GM's Resource Document
- Darrington Press Roleplaying Games
- Chris Perkins on the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide
- Cubicle 7 on C7D20 Open Licensing
- More D&D Creator Summit Accounts
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Running High Level 5e Games
- Pointing Out Magic Items to Characters
- Tying Together Independent Published Adventures
- 5e Cross Compatibility Among Publishers
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Introduce lasting, non-mechanical flaws for failed stress checks—ink-bleeding eyes, odd limps, etc.
- Show what came before — slain creatures, broken weapons, warning signs.
- Give characters reasons to get out of the doorway and into the room.
- Reward high perception checks by giving the characters the jump on hidden enemies.
- Use ambivalent undead as secret-revealing NPCs in the darkest dungeons.
- Let players discover secret passages to the boss's main sanctum.
- Set up situations to give characters a chance to catch sentries off-guard.
Related Articles
- How Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four.
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Describe your GM Style
- Spiral Campaign and World Building in D&D
- Build Cities Around the Characters
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: May 1, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoBuild Your World with Immersive Daydreaming
Our imagination is an amazing gift. With a little focus and some fine tuning of our environment, we can use it to build fantastic worlds we and our players can enjoy for the rest of our lives. What can we do to further the creation of worlds in the depths of our imagination?
I've written about this topic in chapters 25 an 26 of [Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master] and in a few Sly Flourish articles including:
- Playing D&D Anywhere
- Creative Mind Exercises for D&D
- Develping your DM Brain Attic
- Going There
- Immerse Yourself in D&D
Focusing Your Thinking
It's not enough to tell ourselves to simply "think about our game" without any structure to the thought. Many GMs over the past half-century discussed how much of their game came from pondering their game while in the shower, out for a walk, stuck in traffic, at a boring meeting, or otherwise stuck in a moment in time where their only distraction was one that came from their own heads.
If we want to truly benefit from our amazing skull-bound universe-simulators some structure to our thought process can help. We need first to take conscious stock of our intentions — we want to focus our thinking on our game and our world. This involves two steps: setting up our environment and focusing our thought.
Setting Up our Environment
First, we must set up the right environment for our universe-building work. Here are some ideas:
- Remove higher-function distractions. This includes smartphones, computers, audiobooks, and other distractions that force us to listen or read.
- Add low-function noise. White noise, instrumental music, or the sounds of nature helps us avoid the distraction of pure silence. I'm a huge fan of video game soundtracks but, in particular, I find the music of Siddhartha Barnhoorn to really let my mind wander.
Some great activities in which we can engage in such active daydreaming include:
- Taking a walk (my favorite)
- Exercising
- Going for a drive
- Lying in bed listening to music
- Going to sleep
It should come as no surprise that all of these should be done away from our smartphones. Don't worry, the world can live without us for thirty minutes.
Focusing our Thoughts
With our environment set we can focus our daydreaming by asking ourselves specific questions. I like to think of this as brain-work. What are we going to work on during our next thought-session? Sometimes this can be higher-order questions like "what three ideas do I want to bring to my next game?" but sometimes it can be true immersive daydreaming with a prompt like "What is my villain seeing right now? What actions are they taking? What conversation are they having with their underlings?".
Here are some potential prompts for your focused brain-gaming:
- What does my fantastic location look like if I were walking through it? What would I see?
- What mosaics or frescoes would I see on the walls of this ancient crypt?
- What does a day in the life of my villain look like? What would I be doing were I them?
- What does this fantastic monument look like? What would it be like to look up at a 40 foot high floating obelisk hanging over a pit of bestial bones?
- What do the characters look like as they sit around a campfire on the hills overlooking the untraveled valley below?
- What do each of the characters look like and what do I think they'd be doing during a long rest?
- What would this particular magic item look like? Who forged it? What history does it have? What hands previously wielded it?
- Before this location turned into a ruin, who inhabited it? What did they do with it? What did that look like? What remains of this former use?
- What would it really be like to face a twelve-foot-tall helmed ogre wielding a two-hundred-pound spiked mace? What would it look like, to face two dozen ancient animated skeletons?
Thinking First Person
One interesting way to fill in details of our focused daydreaming is to think in first person. What would it be like if we were really there. Not everyone can do this, a phenomenon called aphantasia affects about one in twenty according to current research. For those afflicted, this idea of thinking in first person — focusing on images specifically — is difficult to impossible. Not being a scientist in the field, I have little help to offer but potentially focusing on abstract questions without the visuals might still focus our minds in ways to build out our games.
For those of us able to build images in our head, the simulation grows ever more detailed. What does it feel like? What the smell in the air? What would we hear?
Questions to Avoid
When we're using immersive daydreaming to build our world and thinking about our game, there are a few directions our thoughts might go that we want to avoid. These include:
- What are the characters going to do?
- Where are the characters going to go?
- What choice will the characters make?
- What direction is the story going to take?
- What is the result of the situation in which the characters find themselves?
We're not writing a novel. We're setting up a world for the characters to explore but we are not those characters. Our players are. We can set the stage, set the environment, and set out the NPCs but we should avoid assuming what the characters will do and what direction they will head. We'll find that out when we actually run it our game.
Giving Ourselves Time and Space to Go to Other Worlds
This process of structured daydreaming can do wonders for our D&D game. It lets us imagine the world with all of our senses. It lets us go there. Give yourself the time, space, and environment to use our amazing gift of imagination to build out amazing worlds we and our players can explore together.
Special thanks to Lilia for conversations on this topic.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Scarlet Citadel Session 21 and Using "Pause for a Minute".
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Regnum Rattus - The Rats in the Cellar
- Iskandar Explorer's Journal Volume 1
- Blood and Doom
- Three Books Released to the Creative Commons
- What's Changed over 13 Years of Lazy DMing?
- More Material to the Creative Commons
- What Does 5e Backward Compatibility Mean?
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Dealing with Non-Heroic Heroes
- Convincing a DM to Run Online Games
- Initiation Quests to Get Into a Cult
- Challenging Tier 4 Characters
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Give characters something to do in every scene.
- Let players name interesting NPCs.
- Use third-party spells as features of magic items.
- Offer multiple paths when traveling overland.
- Provide a graceful way to flee from combat.
- Use narrative ability checks when fleeing or chasing enemies.
- Include interesting non-combatant NPCs in dungeons or hostile regions.
Related Articles
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Creative Mind Exercises for D&D
- Describe your GM Style
- Spiral Campaign and World Building in D&D
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: April 24, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoHow Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four.
5e works with as few as one player and one DM up to maybe seven players and one DM on the high side. Larger groups aren't unheard of but I imagine they look quite a bit different than what we normally expect from D&D. The Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook don't offer guidance on an ideal number of players so I'll give it to you now:
Four
Four players hits a near perfect balance of player and character synergy while still giving each character enough time in the spotlight. Most D&D published adventures work well with four players.
Four also ensures the characters aren't overpowered. With each character added to a group, the synergy of those characters increases non-linearly. A group's total power is greater than the sum of the number of characters. It becomes harder to challenge groups with more than four characters. Difficult battles can sometimes be complete cakewalks. And this gets worse the more characters you have.
Four characters often ensures every role is covered. You'll want to make sure the group has one character willing to stand toe-to-toe with monsters and another able to heal but beyond that, players can choose whatever classes they want.
Of course, there's another answer to the ideal number of players:
Whatever number you get to run your game.
What happens when this number is higher or lower than four?
Fewer Than Four
It's possible, and even great fun, to run with fewer than four players. One-on-one games are not only possible, they're a unique style of wonderfully fun. The same is true with two or three players. You have to be careful with combat since the non-linear math for group power works in reverse — the fewer characters, the higher the risk — non-linearly. You can always off-set this increased risk by letting one or more of the players run sidekick characters, either from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, the D&D Essentials Kit or a simplified player characters. We've talked before about balancing combat for one-on-one play.
More Than Four
Sometimes circumstances make it difficult to run with only four characters. Groups of friends don't fit perfectly into groups of four and there are always more people who want to play than GMs willing to run games. Five characters is close enough to four to be a fine way to play. Six can work too but, at least for me, it's right on the edge of chaos. Seven and above is, in my opinion, madness.
When selecting players for your group, having one or two players "on call" can ensure you have enough to play a game. That said, since playing with three is possible, a maximum of five players, including your on-call players, may work just fine.
If your roster of players is beginning to get to seven or more, consider splitting them into separate groups or running a West Marches style game.
While a perfect group of four players isn't always possible, keep the number in our mind as you build out a roster of players and shape your regular games. With the perfect set of of players at our table, there's no telling how awesome our shared stories will be.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Kobold Press's Black Flag is Tales of the Valiant
- The ORC Open Gaming License Draft Released
- Thirteenth Age Humble Bundle
- D&D Summit Writeups by Others
- D&D Summit Top Three Observations for D&D DMs
- Looking Into the D&D Summit Organization, Missteps, and Recommendations for Next Time
- D&D Summit 2024 Core Book Updates
- The Format of Planescape
- Thoughts on a D&D Beyond Marketplace
- Other News from the D&D Summit
In addition to the Talk Show, I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Preparing Scarlet Citadel Session 20 and The Most Important D&D Game.
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Give the characters a chance to plan a strategy for a big complex combat encounter.
- Give characters the option to skip random encounters. Let the monsters wander right by.
- Lean in on the characters' cool abilities. Put in monsters intended to take in those powerful abilities.
- Mix up treasure with random rolls and items selected for the characters.
- What are your three villains doing right now?
- Focus on your next session.
- Don't forget how simple this game is. Don't let the vastness of possibility overwhelm you.
Related Articles
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Describe your GM Style
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- The Near Perfect RPG Session
- Running One-on-One D&D Games
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: April 17, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoSpiral Campaign and World Building in D&D
Often DMs and designers build worlds from the outside in. The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide describes worldbuilding through gods, religious organizations, the cosmos and planes, and the geography of the world. The world, and the campaign you build within it, starts big — from the universe inward.
But there's another way — a lazier way — spiral campaign development. I describe spiral campaign development in chapter 16 of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master but we'll dig into the topic even more in this article.
For a video on this topic, see my Spiral Campaign Development in D&D YouTube video. A previous article Thinking Two Horizons Out also touched on this subject.
What's the Campaign's Theme?
When engaging in spiral campaign development, we start by thinking about the campaign's central theme, mission, or goal. What's this campaign about? The shorter this is, the better. Ideally one sentence. Maybe even just one word.
If we look at the hardcover 5e adventures from Wizards of the Coast here are some examples:
- Help Ten Towns survive the endless night.
- End the soul destroying engine in Chult.
- Stop the rise of the elemental cults.
- Escape the underdark.
- Restore the Ordening.
- Stop Tiamat's rise.
- Save Elturel.
- Kill Strahd.
Sometimes these themes change. Sometimes we start with one theme and switch to another. For Descent into Avernus we might start with "hunt down the cults threatening Elturel" and then switch to "save Elturel" once it's sucked into hell.
A campaign theme helps you and your players understand the focus of the campaign. It lets players know what kind of characters to build and it lets you know what sorts of adventures to prepare.
What Makes Your World Unique?
The campaign's central tenants, often described during a session zero, make your campaign and your world unique. I often refer to these as the "six truths." There doesn't have to be six. There can be three. More than seven is probably too many.
Even though these truths may be big in scale, they matter to the characters right now. They tell your players what the world is like for them and what sort of characters navigate that world. They tell the players what makes this world and this campaign unique among those they've seen or played.
Example questions that might define these "truths" include:
- What major war is going on in the region?
- What dark force is rising and what are the repercussions of this?
- What changes your world from the default considerations of D&D? Are the gods silent or dead? Does magic come from a different source? Is magic extremely rare or extremely common?
- What is the theme and feeling of your campaign? Is it wondrous and whimsical? Is it dark and dismal? Is it apocalyptic? Is it beautiful?
Clarify the theme in these "truths." Let the players know what they're getting into.
Spiraling Down to the Characters
Next, laser in on the characters and what's around them right in the beginning of their adventures or campaign in this world. Instead of answering questions about gods, pantheons, planes of existence, government structures, world geography and all the rest — focus on the following questions and ideas:
- Where do the characters start physically? Where does the campaign begin? Build a small town or settlement.
- What makes this town or settlement unique? Pick one fantastic feature of the town. Maybe it's a big stone hand sticking out of the ground.
- What locations exist in this town or settlement that the characters (and players) likely want to visit? Pick one per character.
- Which NPCs likely engage with the characters? Which NPCs likely matter to the characters in the first session? Pick three.
- What villains are in play in this area? What do they want? What quests are they on themselves? What friction do they cause? Pick three.
- What adventure locations are nearby? What ruined watchtower sits atop a nearby hill? What shunned ruin lies just outside of town? What's hidden in the old sewers beneath the town? Pick three such locations.
- What quests can the characters pick up? Write up three.
You'll notice these questions feel like building an adventure, not a campaign world, but that's what matters. The larger world and the larger campaign is interesting but only in small pieces revealed to the characters as they explore the world around them. You don't need to know every god in the pantheon — just those tied to the characters or to their enemies. Fill out the rest as the characters go on their adventures.
Reinforcing the Characters Motivation
As part of your spiral campaign development, and during your session zero, ensure you reinforce the motivation for the characters. Why are they there? Why group together? Why go on adventures? Make sure this motivation is crystal clear and spelled out early so players have a good reason for their characters to engage in dangerous adventures. Reinforce this motivation often.
A Focus on the Characters and Your Next Game
The whole philosophy of spiral campaign development is a clear focus on the characters, what they're doing, what they're going to do, and what the world around them is like. This isn't the end-all be-all of building a campaign. It's a start. Your world can be vast, deep, and old but the way you expose that to the characters, and their players, is through gameplay. It's during the game that the characters learn about the planes of existence, the old gods, the wars that tore apart the world, the lost species, and all the rest. They learn it one line at a time while delving deep into the old dungeons, caverns, keeps, and temples in the earth.
Focus on your characters and focus on the next adventure you're going to run. Let the world build out from there.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a YouTube video on [prepping Scarlet Citadel episode ] and Sharing your RPG PDFs with Players Safely and legally.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- D&D Direct Announcements
- D&D 3D Virtual Tabletop First Look
- More Announcements from D&D Direct
- The D&D Virtual Summit
- PlayDnD and D&D Beyond 1st Level Pregens
- Cubicle 7's Design Goals for C7D20
- Shadow of the Weird Wizard Ancestries
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Getting Better at Being a DM
- Using Random Tables for Prep or At The Table?
- Using D&D For Facing with Real Life Issues
- Too Many NPCs as Upward Beats in a Dungeon Crawl
- Getting Through Lots of Story in Shorter Sessions
- Running Online With Some Players At Same Location
- How's Dungeon 23 Working Out?
- Dealing With High Passive Insight
- Offering Three Plus Infinite Choices
- Building Shorter Campaigns for 8 to 12 Sessions
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Don't forget the simplicity of this hobby. It's friends around a table rolling dice and having some laughs. Don't let the game psyche you out.
- Think about secrets from the points of view of the characters. Which of them are most likely to reveal the secret?
- Grab what the players bring to the table and run with it.
- Keep a handful of your favorite monster stat blocks handy. Use them liberally.
- Scenes are built from fantastic features, interesting NPCs, cool monsters, intriguing secrets, and eye-opening treasure.
- Roll randomly for treasure during prep but select items you know the players are interested in.
- Set up situations. Let the players choose their approach.
Related Articles
- Tying Characters to a Campaign's Theme
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Converting Adventures Between Systems
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Writing a One-Page Campaign Guide
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: April 10, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoConverting Adventures Between Systems
With all of the great RPGs out there, sometimes we want to run an adventure or campaign from one system but with the mechanics of another. Maybe that awesome 5e adventure sounds like it'd be fun in Fantasy AGE or the Cypher system. Maybe that Pathfinder 2 adventure would work well in D&D.
How do we convert adventures or campaign worlds from one system to another? The answer might be easier than you think.
When we first think of such an endeavor, we think about converting all the mechanics of the adventure over to our system of choice but we don't usually need to do that. Instead, use the mechanics of your RPG system of choice and overlay the lore and fiction of the adventure.
Don't worry about the specific details of difficulty checks, monster statistics, or other mechanical bits from the adventure or campaign. Focus on the intention of the adventure and use the mechanics from your chosen RPG system.
Ensure the Theme Fits
Certain types of adventures or campaigns don't fit well with certain RPG systems. A Call of Cthulhu adventure isn't likely to work well with vanilla 5e rules — one being a game of gothic horror and the other a game of high fantasy. It's often best if the theme and genre of the adventure fits the themes and genre of the RPG system you choose. High action adventures work well with high action RPGs, for example. Are the heroes from your chosen RPG powerful and empowered or are their lives risky and fleeting? Consider the theme of the adventure or campaign and ensure that theme fits the style of the RPG you want ot use.
That said, story-focused RPGs like Dungeon World or Fate Condensed work well with more mechanical adventures because the theme still fits. It's more of a problem when the intended feeling of an RPG doesn't fit the feeling of the adventure or campaign.
Understanding Challenges and Action Resolution
It's important to know how your RPG of choice handles resolutions like skill or ability checks. How are actions resolved? How do the characters accomplish things? What is the range of difficulty and how do you change it?
Then look at the adventure or campaign and understand how it expects to handle challenges like this. It's important to understand the underlying system of an adventure or campaign so you know what the actual difficulty of a DC 18 check is compared to a DC 12. Once you understand the ranges of challenges, you can abstract such types of checks into bins of difficulty like "easy", "medium", and "hard". Then convert those difficulty bins over to your new RPG of choice.
For example, if you wanted to play a D&D 5e adventure using Fate Condensed, you can take D&D's difficulty class range of 10 (easy) to 25 (very hard) and lay it over Fate's adjective ladder of -4 to +8. Thus, a DC 14 in a D&D adventure is probably about a +2 in Fate Condensed.
Reskinning Monsters
Many times our chosen adventures and campaigns have a big bunch of monsters in them. Instead of painstakingly converting monsters from one system to another, rip out the ones in the adventure or campaign and replace them with monsters from the RPG you're using. When they aren't a perfect match, reskin the closest monster in your RPG to the one described in the book. Reskinning once again proves to be an invaluable lazy DM tool.
Make Life Easy On Yourself
We GMs often take the hard path. I don't know why, but we feel like it's cheating when we find things too easy. What really matters is running a fun game for our friends — not how accurately we stayed within the lines of a published adventure or campaign. When it comes to converting an adventure or campaign to an RPG of your choice, take the easy path. Rip out the adventure's mechanics and replace them with those from your RPG. Take a break. You deserve it.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Final Week of Forge of Foes
- Appearance on D&D Beyond Twitch Stream
- Forge of Foes Interview on EN World
- The Resilience and Antifragility of Tabletop RPGs
- What can WOTC Do for the RPG Community?
- Before the Storm D&D Intro on D&D Beyond
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Avoiding Bioessentialism in 5e RPGs
- Low Fantasy Survival Horror in 5e
- Dealing with Lots of Overpowered Tag Along NPCs
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Let characters manipulate magical monuments in combat recklessly as a bonus action, potentially suffering damage on a failed attempt.
- Give as clear description of the situation that you can. Avoid gotchas.
- See the world, NPCs, locations, situations, and items through the eyes of the characters. What do they see?
- Let NPCs recognize characters and their reputations.
- Describe points of interest likely to interest the characters and their specific backgrounds and interests.
- Build puzzles or riddles that show off a characters' skills and approaches.
- Use random tables to fuel your prep. Build your ideas off of the results.
Related Articles
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Spiral Campaign and World Building in D&D
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Describe your GM Style
- Multiple Solutions to a Single Problem
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: April 3, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoMultiple Solutions to a Single Problem
We're on the last week of the Forge of Foes Kickstarter! If you haven't yet checked out the 30 page free preview and pledged to get the book, now is the time! If you're as excited about the project as we are, please share this link wherever you think you can help get the word out:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/the-lazy-dms-forge-of-foes-for-5e?ref=e3rd14
Forge of Foes is built to address a lot of hard parts of running monsters in our 5e games. Many times these problems don't have one single solution. If they did, we'd be using that one and it wouldn't be much of a problem anymore. But some things are hard. How do you balance encounters? How do you design encounters? How should you modify monsters? How do you choose monsters? How do you run great boss battles? What parts of a monster can you modify during play and when should you? How do you run dozens to hundreds of monsters in a single battle?
There's no one perfect solution to the problems above, so we offer multiple. In Forge of Foes you'll find multiple solutions to these common problems. We don't just offer one way to run hordes of monsters — we offer three ways of both managing damage done to monsters in a horde and handling a horde's dice rolls. You pick and choose the tools that work best for running hordes at your own table.
We have entire chapters looking at problems from different angles. Do you choose monsters based on the story or build a story around cool monsters? We talk about both approaches.
This idea of having multiple approaches to a single problem doesn't just define how we write about the topic in Forge of Foes — it's also how you can think about your own GMing toolbox. We each have so many ways we can run our games. There are so many ways we can build and develop NPCs, run scenes and situations, spice up encounters, build magic items, and share the story of the game at our table. There's often no single right solution. There are many right solutions for different circumstances.
When you're putting together your own toolbox of GMing processes and ideas, don't feel like you must have only one solution for each problem. Keep a wide range of tools — choosing the best one at the moment to share our fantastic tales with our friends.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Forge of Foes Material Going to Creative Commons
- General-Use Stat Blocks for 5e in Forge of Foes
- Shadow of the Weird Wizard Kickstarter June 2023
- Arcane Library Adventures for 5e
- Kobold Press Black Flag Playtest 2
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Why Make a Book About Building Monsters?
- Playing D&D with Small Children or Obstructive Pets
- Helping Players Synergize Character Creation
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Ask your players to take notes. Refer to their notes during your recap.
- Write down one cool character-focused event for each character in your next session.
- Ask players for a loose wishlist of magic items every few levels.
- Give magic items a unique name and history.
- What is the history of your fantastic location? What happened here before?
- Offer choices. Ensure the characters have something to do.
- Leave mysteries unanswered.
- Spotlight character traits and backgrounds through the eyes and actions of the NPCs.
Related Articles
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Use Static Initiative for Monsters
- Describe your GM Style
- Converting Adventures Between Systems
- Build from the Characters Outwards
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: March 27, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoUse Static Initiative for Monsters
There are lots of little lazy tricks we can use to streamline our 5e RPGs. I'm a big fan of using static monster damage for example. I find anything to help speed up and streamline the game worthwhile.
Forge of Foes (currently on Kickstarter!) is packed with tips and tricks for running awesome 5e monsters. Some tips offer fast and dirty tricks for streamlining your game. The book also has lots of tools and advice for adding detail, changing up tactics, and building big and engaging encounters. If you're a tactically-focused GM, you'll find as much to love in Forge of Foes as those who prefer the simple tricks to speed things up. Take a look at the free preview and back it on the Forge of Foes Kickstarter page!
One trick I've been using, which shows up in the "Lazy Tricks for Running Monsters" chapter of Forge of Foes, is static initiative for monsters. I started doing this a year or so ago and I really like it.
For a video on this topic, check out my Use Static Initiative for D&D 5e Monsters YouTube video.
With static initiative, you skip rolling initiative for monsters and instead give monsters an initiative of 10 + their dexterity modifier. If you want to group different types of monsters together, use the best dex mod of the group, or split them up with their own static initiative scores if you want.
Want an even easier way? Just make it 12.
There are some big advantages to static initiative. First, it saves you the time of rolling initiative. If someone else at the table is managing initiative for you (another lazy trick I really love), tell them the monsters have an initiative of 12. Like static monster damage, it's fast and it's easy.
Static initiative also puts monsters in the middle of the initiative order. This ensures the characters don't destroy half the monsters before they ever get a chance to act. Acting in the middle of initiative gives monsters a small but valuable edge, especially at higher levels.
Also, in my experience, players don't tend to care. In years of doing this for multiple groups, I've not had a player even mention it. I'm sure they know it's going on, but it just doesn't matter to them. Beating the monsters' initiative matters to them but when they know it's a static number of 12, they now have a reasonable number to beat.
You'll still have circumstances where all of the characters go before the monsters. That's fine. But it won't be because the monsters rolled low. It'll be because all of the players rolled high and that's cool and fun.
If you're more of a tactical DM who likes all the nuances of 5 foot squares, prefers rolling for monster damage, runs lots of different types of monsters in a battle, or likes rolling individual initiative for every monster in a battle — you can still do so. You might keep this idea on hand and use it for some of your battles where speed is more important than detail and tactical accuracy. Battles with less consequential outcomes or battles against easier opponents might benefit from static initiative. If you're like me, though, you might end up using it all the time.
So, to speed up your game and balance things out a little bit, try using a static initiative score of "12" for your monsters. It'll surprise you how much it streamlines your game.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Forge of Foes Kickstarter Continues
- Radiant Citadel Nominated for a Nebula
- Tome of Beasts 1 Revisited
- Campaign Builder - Cities and Towns by Kobold Press
- D&D Community Update
- D&D Content Creator's Summit
- How Can Wizards be a Stronger Positive Force in the RPG Community?
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Modifying NPCs with Species Traits
- The Challenge of Discovering Secrets
- Integrating In Disconnected Characters
- Using Dice for Other Things In-World
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Put big decisions towards the end of the game so you know where things are heading next.
- Always consider what the characters can do in any given scene.
- End just before a big battle and you have a strong and meaty start to your next game.
- Aim for four players at your game. It's the ideal mix of character synergy and focus.
- Build fantastic locations. You have an unlimited special effects budget.
- Instead of rolling monster initiative, just give them a static score of 12.
- Ask your players to take notes. Refer to their notes during your recap.
Related Articles
- Simpler Initiative Options
- Multiple Solutions to a Single Problem
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- The Case for Static Monster Damage
- 13 Tips to Speed Up D&D Combat
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: March 20, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoBuild a Quick Monster with the Forge of Foes
The Lazy DM's Forge of Foes is live on Kickstarter right now! Back the awesome 128 page book of guidance, tools, tips, and tricks for building, customizing, and running awesome monsters for your 5e RPGs. Check it out and download the jam-packed 30 page preview absolutely free.
The Lazy DM's Forge of Foes lets you actually build monsters faster than you can find most monsters in your various monster books. Forge of Foes gives you the tools to stat out a monster at any CR in under a minute then fill it out with custom abilities in just a minute or two more. It's fast enough that you can improvise a monster right at the table. I know because I've done so.
Today we're going to look at an example I used in my own game — the dwarven flesh cultist built for my Empire of the Ghouls campaign.
For a video on this topic, see my Build Quick D&D Monsters with the Forge of Foes YouTube Video.
To build our dwarven flesh cultist, we're going to use the Forge of Foes sample PDF and the "quick monster builder" on page 4.
Choose a Concept and Challenge Rating
The first thing we do is start with a quick concept. Dwarven flesh cultists are nasty cultists who eat the flesh of other humanoids and follow the Creed of All Flesh. They're no pushovers, attacking with whatever nasty cannibalistic weapons they have on hand and filled with the unholy strength of the Creed of All Flesh (a mask of the ghoul-god Vardesain from the Midgard setting).
Given it's story, we're going to give our dwarven flesh cultist a challenge rating of 3. This one challenge number gives us most of what we need to build it out.
With that challenge rating in mind, we write down the base statistics we need found on the "Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating" table on page 6 of the sample. Here's what we get:
- Dwarven Flesh Cultist (CR 3)
- AC / DC 13
- HP 65
- Primary Ability Bonus: +5
- Damage per Round: 23
- Attacks and Damage: 2 x 12 (2d8 + 3)
With just that we're ready to go and it took about 30 seconds. We can improvise almost everything else when we run our flesh cultist at the table.
Here are some important things to note. First, the AC / DC number represents both the AC of the monster and as the monster's primary DC when forcing any sort of saving throw against a character.
The same is true for the primary ability bonus. It serves as the monster's attack bonus, their very best saving throw (if they're proficient in such a save), and skill bonus for their best skills. We can think of this number as the very top of their potential saving throws and skill checks.
Determining Saving Throws — the Lazy Way
What about it's other abilities or saving throws? Make them up. There's no simple curve for saving throws based on CR other than their highest possible one (the proficient ability bonus above). High CR monsters often still have lousy saving throws in some areas and many monsters have no proficient saves at all.
So we make up monster saving throws based on what we think makes sense for the monster right when we need them.
Here's a really lazy trick for you. Don't bother figuring out a monster's abilities and saving throws until you need them during the game. Often they never come into play. When a monster does need to make a saving throw — say a Wisdom saving throw — roll the dice first and see what the roll is. If it's really low or really high, it doesn't matter what the bonus is. They've already either succeeded or failed. Only if the roll is somewhere in the middle do you bother to determine a creature's saving throw bonus and you do so by asking yourself what sort of save the monster would have in that ability from -2 to a maximum of their proficient ability bonus.
Let's say a wizard casts a DC 14 Hypnotic Pattern on our dwarven flesh cultist. We roll a Wisdom save and the die is a 12. That's in the middle enough that we probably want to think about whether they failed. If it were a 5 or a 17, we wouldn't bother to figure out the bonus. But it's a 12, so we need to know if a bonus would have helped it.
So we go back to the monster's story. Based on our story of the dwarven flesh cultist, do we think them particularly wise? Not really. So we give them a +0. A 12 would then still fail and the flesh cultist is indeed affected by the hypnotic pattern.
This concept of "going back to the story of the monster" is a totally different way of thinking about our monsters but a great one for improvising monsters right at the table. Get comfortable with it and it'll take you far.
Customize Armor Class
Sometimes the baseline AC of a creature at a particular CR doesn't make sense based on its story. We can raise or lower a monster's AC however it makes sense for the story of the monster. I like to keep in mind that a non-dexterous creature wearing leather armor is an AC of 11 and a knight in full plate with a shield is an AC of 20.
If our flesh cultists wore heavy armor we might increase their AC to 17. If we want to keep it from being too much of a pain to kill, we can reduce their hits points in exchange. Don't worry too much about the mathematical rigor of such a shift. In the end it really doesn't matter.
For the story of our dwarven flesh cultists, though, an AC of 13 makes sense so we'll stick to that.
Improvising Attacks
We have most of the stats we need, but what about the details of their attacks? Like much of what we've done so far, we improvise them. Let's make them creepy by giving the flesh cultists bloody curved disemboweling blades, heavy meat-tenderizer mauls, and big chopping cleavers. This is all just flavor. The attack and damage are already in our stats. A flesh cultist might hack twice with a big cleaver for +5 to hit and 12 (2d8+3) slashing damage. Improvise the damage type along with the damage.
If you want to flavor it a bit more, you can split the damage type. Maybe the flesh cleaver inflicts 7 (1d8+3) slashing damage + 4 (1d8) necrotic damage because of their connection to the Creed of All Flesh. We can take the damage dice in the damage equation included in our quick monster stats table and split it among different damage types.
It's almost always worth including some sort of ranged attack. Maybe the flesh cultists can throw barbed harpoons. We use the same damage equations we would use otherwise or we can lower it a bit if we want based on what we think about the story of the flesh cultist.
Filling Out our Flesh Cultist with Powers
We can go with what we have but for more fun, let's give them some extra powers and abilities. Forge of Foes and the free sample include a bunch of "monster type templates". One trick is that we don't have to stick to only the monster type template that fits our monster's type. We can steal powers and abilities from any of these to fit our creature's theme.
Maybe our flesh cultist can throw out a fleshy barbed tendril Hellraiser-style by using the Aberration's "Grasping Tentacles" ability. Maybe we grab the beast's "Empowered by Carnage" power or the Monstrocity's "Devour Ally" power or the undead's "Stench of Death" trait. There's a lot to choose from if we want to customize our cultist.
If none of those feel right we can jump right to our "Common Monster Powers" list. Think of these like feats for bad guys. Choose one that makes sense for the monster you're building. Our flesh cultist might benefit from any of these:
- Delights in Suffering
- Frenzy
- Goes Down Fighting
- Refuse to Surrender
You can customize any of these powers to fit the theme of whatever monster you build.
Don't to overboard with these powers. Usually one special power is enough for a typical monster.
For our flesh cultist, we're going to use the Hellraiser-style barbed tendril and give it the ability to pull the target towards the cultist as well as restrain them. Fun!
A Final Look at our Flesh Cultist
In the end of our experiment, we have a fleshed out flesh cultist that looks like this:
- Dwarven Flesh Cultist (CR 3)
- AC 13
- HP 65
- Primary Ability Bonus +5
- ATTACKS
- Multiattack. The dwarven flesh cultist can attack with two meat cleaver attacks. It can replace one of these attacks with a barbed fleshy tendril.
- Meat Cleaver. +5 to hit; 7 (1d8+3) slashing damage and 4 (1d8) necrotic damage.
- Barbed Fleshy Tendril.: +5 to hit; 30 ft., 7 (1d8+3) piercing damage and 4 (1d8) necrotic damage. The creature must succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or be pulled adjacent to the Dwarven Flesh Cultist and is grappled and restrained (escape DC 13).
That's a solid and really fun stat block to run.
What do you want to build next?
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- How to Handle Maps for Exploration
- Teaching New Systems to Players
- Taking Notes while Running a Game
- Helping Players Balance Character Types and Skills
- Not Offering Custom Lineage or Variant Humans -- Is that Wrong?
- Accomidating a Players's Spirit Being In Your Game
- Overwhelmed by Midgard Lore
- Dealing with Shopping Sessions
- Balancing Encounters in High Magic Item Campaigns
- Adopting the Eight Steps to Gumshoe Games
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- What's the coolest part of the next session you're going to run?
- Print or share overland maps, NPC art, and captured letters as handouts to your players.
- Build monsters on the fly with the Forge of Foes quick monster builder!
- Embrace 5e adventures, character supplements, and monster books from many publishers.
- Understand how the species and backgrounds of the characters tie them to the world.
- Let the characters get away with shenanigans.
- Add monsters intended to be crowd controlled.
Related Articles
- Multiple Solutions to a Single Problem
- Improvise D&D Monster Abilities
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- D&D 5e Numbers to Keep In Your Head
- Use Static Initiative for Monsters
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: March 13, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoTwenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Read a sourcebook, campaign book, or world book.
- Read some third-party campaign books.
- Think about what your villains are doing right now.
- Watch a movie or show with great characters and fantastic locations.
- Read a fun fantasy novel.
- Listen to an audiobook and practice your voices.
- Call a friend and chat about their game.
- Fill your campaign's geography with little-known dungeons and lairs.
- Come up with three fun sidequests.
- Read a monster book seeking fun lairs and encounters.
- Read the descriptions of the characters' race, class, and background.
- Write down a personalized quest for each character.
- Find evocative art for your campaign.
- Share an experience from your last game with fellow DMs.
- Update your campaign journal.
- Write down a character-focused summary of your previous game to deliver at the beginning of your next one.
- Make a cool handout.
- Write and email short flash fiction to your players showing the movement of the world.
- Find music to build a great soundtrack for your game.
- Flesh out the details of NPCs the characters know and love.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
The Lazy DM's Forge of Foes is live on Kickstarter! Back it today and grab the 30 page sample PDF!
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Forge of Foes Kickstarter This Wednesday!
- Arcana of the Ancients Bundle of Holding
- Mastering Dungeons on Shadow of the Demon Lord
- New One D&D Playtest
- Iskandar Player's Handbook
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Co-DMing Two Groups in the Same Campaign Adventure
- Managing and Referencing So Many Monster Books
- Updates to the 5e Artisenal Monster Database in Notion
- Worldbuilding Book recommendations
- Sharing RPG PDFs with Google Drive
- Running D&D for a 5 year Old
- Getting Players to Be More Tactical
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Never forget. The number one goal of an RPG is to get together and share some laughs and tales of high adventure with your friends.
- Your friends love you. You're game will be great.
- Stack multiple encounters together. Mix in roleplaying and exploration.
- Monsters often aren't tactical masterminds. Play them dumb.
- Provoke opportunity attacks.
- Keep tools on hand to improvise monster statistics at the table.
- Keep a handful of basic monster powers you can drop in when you need them.
Related Articles
- Multiple Solutions to a Single Problem
- Converting Adventures Between Systems
- Describe your GM Style
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Use Static Initiative for Monsters
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: March 6, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoDescribe your GM Style
Fengh, a Patreon of Sly Flourish asks:
"How do I describe my style of play to players I don't really know?"
This is a fantastic question.
Just as we should try to define the characteristics we look for in our ideal players (recognizing that our ideal players aren't necessarily everyone's ideal players), I think it makes sense that we, as GM, describe our style in a way that clarifies to potential players how we're different from other GMs.
When I describe my own GM style to new potential players, I clarify the following:
- I'm a GM who focuses mostly on the evolving story of the game itself.
- I play either online or in-person.
- I run a mix of abstract and "theater of the mind" combat styles. I'm not a tactical GM who focuses on the 5 foot grid. Half or more of battles are in theater of the mind (this immediately filters out a lot of players which is fine).
- I use Discord, D&D Beyond, and Owlbear Rodeo. I don't use Roll 20 (this also filters out a lot of players).
- I'm a loosy-goosy GM. I don't hang on too tight to the story, the characters' story, the rules, or just about anything else.
- I make mistakes but keep rolling on. If a player is looking for a tight cohesive narrative arc, I might not be able to provide that.
In many ways I try to think about my style of GMing and how it would turn players off. Instead of selling myself as a GM, I'm happy for them to recognize how I might not be a good fit before we start.
If I'm looking for a GM, I'd probably look at the following criteria:
- Are they a tactical or story-focused GM?
- Do they consider themselves a "killer" GM?
- Is everything on a grid or do they run some combat in the Theater of the Mind?
- Do they consider themselves opponents or fans of the characters?
- What parts of the game do they enjoy most?
- What bugs them?
- Where do they spend most of their prep time?
Of course, nothing works better than running a one-shot or a short number of games with potential players and GMs to see if things gel.
Friend and Sly Flourish Patreon Rangdo offered up this Same Page Tool which discusses how players and the GM can work together to build the style of game they're all interested in. It's another good source to think about your style and how you might describe it to potential players.
How do you describe yourself as a GM?
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on the Preview of Forge of Foes and Scarlet Citadel Prep for Session 16.
Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics
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. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Forge of Foes Kickstarter Coming March 1st
- Valikan Clans by Ghostfire Gaming
- Kobold Press Black Flag Playtest 1
- Demiplane 5e Nexus and the Future of Digital 5e Tools
- Level Up Advanced 5e Trials and Treasure by EN World Publishing
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
RPG Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
- Steer the game towards the decisions and actions of the characters.
- For each scene you plan, write down a few things your specific characters might do in the scene.
- Show the results of the characters' actions.
- Not all dark magic items are cursed.
- Let the characters take a specific part in a larger war or military campaign.
- Shake up stereotypes.
- Run phased battles. Lots of minions followed by some big bruisers followed by a boss.
- Share art, either printed or shared online.
Related Articles
- Twenty Things to Do Instead of Checking Social Media
- Multiple Solutions to a Single Problem
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- How Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four.
- Converting Adventures Between Systems
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: February 27, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoThe Near Perfect RPG Session
Thinking back over the games you've run, which ones do you consider your near perfect games? Which ones hit just about every mark? What was it that made them near-perfect?
We're avoiding "perfect" games because often our self-defeating attitudes won't let us pick any game as perfect. But near perfect? We've had a few of those.
What criteria define a near-perfect game? Only you get to decide. Write down your own list and see what you come up with.
Here's my own list of criteria for a near-perfect game:
- The players are all engaged most of the time.
- Players walk away excited by what happened and excited for what happens next.
- The characters have agency to make meaningful choices.
- Every character had an opportunity to shine both mechanically and in the story.
- The pacing of the game was spot on and the game ended on time.
- When the story and direction of the game goes in an interesting direction no one could have predicted.
What Brings You the Most Fun?
A Reddit thread entitled "What part of GMing gives you the greatest pleasure?" covered similar ground to this question. The top comments offer comparable results to our near-perfect-game criteria. These included:
- When the players are so in the moment that THEIR emotions rise to the front.
- When finally revealing a big secret or plot twist.
- When a player wants to talk about the campaign even outside of the session.
- When the players "live" in the world by interacting with NPC's when they don't have to.
- When we GMs get to shut our mouths since the players are so engaged in talking to each other in character.
- When something happens we didn’t plan or expect.
- The table wide cheer that goes up on a natural 20 or when a hard enemy goes down.
There's some common ground in these top comments and my own list. It leads us to the practical question for this thought exercise:
What can we do to pave the path for a near perfect game?
How can we focus our preparation towards a near perfect game?
It's important to consider that a near-perfect game relies as much on the players, maybe even more on the players, than it does for DMs. We must also consider that some players may love a game that others didn't care for. That's ok, we can still pave the path. How?
Prepare to Improvise
I think the greatest fun during a D&D game comes when the game takes a turn no one expected. We can prepare for this by focusing our preparation to support improvisation. This means having what we need to react as things change. Here are a few things we can do (some of which will be very familiar):
- Write out one-line secrets, clues, bits of history, and other lore the characters can discover anywhere.
- Prepare interesting locations, populate them with NPCs, plan some goals, and set up situations. Let the players choose their course.
- Have a list of monsters the characters might encounter anywhere.
- Have a handful of locations ready to run should the characters go somewhere you didn't expect.
- Be prepared to build NPCs quickly and easily depending on which NPCs catch the characters' attention. At least with a list of random names.
- Know what your villains are doing and how they'll react as things change. Get into the heads of your villains.
Focus on the Characters
Players love their characters. A character is the focal point and interface between a player and the world. The more time you spend understanding the characters, both mechanically and in their own story, the more you can draw the players into the game through their characters. Here's a few things we can do:
- Read up on each character's story.
- During downtime and rests, ask the players what their characters think of the current situation and how it reflects on their past.
- Ask the players what mechanics they love about their character. Write it down.
- Build encounters that show off those well-loved mechanics.
How will you prepare what you need to set the stage for a near-perfect game?
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Scarlet Citadel Session 14 – Lazy GM Prep and Designing Vampires for MCDM's Flee Mortals.
Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- Pathfinder 2 Humble Bundles
- Kobold Press Worlds Humble Bundle
- What's Normal in the Post OGL Fiasco RPG Hobby?
- Keys from the Golden Vault Free Adventure
- Raiders of the Serpent Sea by Arcanum Worlds
- Kibbles Compendium of Legends and Legacies
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Lazy Encounter Benchmark for Solo and Legendary Monsters
- Players Making Choices Against a Chracter's Alignment
- Converting Monsters Across RPG Systems? Reskin!
- Worried About Making Mistakes with Big Published Adventures
- Free to Use Dungeons of Fate?
D&D Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:
- Develop locations, fill them with inhabitants, give the characters a goal or two, and enjoy how the game unfolds.
- Let the characters of missing players handle secondary activities off-screen. Maybe they’re keeping the get-away clear or maybe they’re transferring useful information from a high tower.
- Build encounters from what makes sense in the story. Worry about difficulty only if you may inadvertently kill all the characters.
- Guards are guards whatever level the characters are. Just because the characters are 7th level doesn’t mean all the guards turned into veterans.
- Your 5e game is your own. There’s nothing “official” and nothing “third party”. Use any 5e material you want to make your game awesome.
- Have a backup plan if your favorite digital tools fall apart or start to suck. Relying on only one platform puts your joy of the hobby at risk.
- Enemies don’t always act optimally. They can be as confused as the characters are.
Related Articles
- How Many Players are Ideal for a D&D 5e Group? Four.
- Build from the Characters Outwards
- Running Travel Scenes in 5e
- Reach Satisfying Campaign Conclusions
- Describe your GM Style
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: February 13, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoWhat 5e in the Creative Commons Means to You
On 27 January 2023 Wizards of the Coast released the 5.1 System Resource Document, a 400 page PDF of the core rules, races, classes, monsters, and magic items for D&D 5th edition, under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This means that, by simply crediting Wizards of the Coast in a product, you can legally use any of the material in that document, including making derivative works from the material in that document. Forever.
Download your own copy of the 5e SRD with the Creative Commons license. Save it to your computer. Back it up. And it's yours. Forever.
This is an incredible step in the Open Gaming License saga — one of the craziest months in the hobby of roleplaying games.
But what does the release of the 5e SRD into the Creative Commons mean for us dungeon masters and game masters?
A lot.
It means RPG publishers can use and build off of material in the 5e SRD to make anything they want and make it compatible with 5e. It means 5e became an RPG system separate from Wizards of the Coast. It means publishers can write 5e compatible systems, supplements, adventures, class options, monster books, and more — forever. And, unlike the attempted "deauthorization" of the Open Game License, WOTC can't take it back. The Creative Commons license isn't owned by Wizards of the Coast and it's been in use in various industries for decades. All of Wikipedia, for example, uses a Creative Commons license. It ensures content owners can share their work and know it can always be shared thereafter.
And now that's happened with 5e.
We've already seen tons of awesome 5e products over the past eight years. Huge adventures, awesome monster books, tons of character options, deep campaign worlds — there's more 5e material than we can ever use in our lifetimes and now far more to come.
An open 5e SRD means there's no limit to the amount of quality 5e material we may see in the future. No one company can stand in the way.
The 5e SRD in the Creative Commons means D&D is safe and secure. No matter what path Wizards of the Coast takes with D&D, we always have 5e. Not just because we have the physical books, which alone can last beyond our own lives, but because anyone can write, publish, and sell new 5e material — forever.
Whatever direction WOTC takes with One D&D, it's only one option we can choose to accept or not. Maybe we move to One D&D and keep using the rest of our 5e material. Maybe we take a few ideas from One D&D as house rules for our existing 5e games. We get to choose what we want based on the merits of those products.
And One D&D is only one path forward. Kobold Press announced their own 5e compatible RPG codenamed Project Black Flag as did Cubicle 7 with C7D20. We already have Level Up Advanced 5e which is likewise moving to an independent publishing license (I'm hoping it's Creative Commons as well!) and opening up their content to other 5e publishers.
This means we don't have to choose a single 5e system. We can treat each 5e system as extended sets of house rules from which to pluck our own preferred rules for our group and our game.
It also means should WOTC decide to pull their support for Roll 20, Fantasy Grounds, or Foundry; we'll have three other compatible 5e systems on those platforms.
There's also something extremely powerful about being able to write derivative works from the 5e SRD. It's this idea that let Necrotic Games write Old School Essentials — a classic D&D BX-compatible game written from the bones of the 3.5 SRD. They reverse engineered common D&D terms and concepts like the six attributes, armor class, and build an updated clone of the oldest version of the game without fear that WOTC might sue them. They did so under the original OGL but now anyone can do it with this CC-released SRD without fear that WOTC tries to "deauthorize" it again.
Being able to use the material in the SRD is great. Being able to write derivative works off of it is limitless.
5e is its own RPG now. It's own platform from which thousands of products can spring. It's an RPG independent of any one publisher.
What does the 5e SRD under a CC mean for us game masters? It means 5e is ours. Forever.
Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- WOTC Releases 5e Into the Creative Commons
- What Does Trust Mean with Wizards of the Coast?
- Lazy RPG Podcast Awarded Best Talk Show Podcast by EN World
- Oracle Character Generator Deck by Nord Games
- Zobeck Clockwork City by Kobold Press
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Running Rich and Dynamic Combat Encounters
- Not Exposing a Movie-Based Adventure Plot
- Building a Villain or Monster from a PC
- How Many Rounds Should Encounters Go?
- Other RPGs I'm Running This Year?
- Finishing Writing One-Shot Adventures
- Balancing the Action Economy with Big Solo Monsters
D&D Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:
- When running a heist-style adventure: clarify the goal, give them useful information through recon, understand the typical behavior of the inhabitants, be ready for a complication.
- When playing online, call on individual players instead of asking the whole group.
- Know which decisions require a unanimous decision and which can be made by the majority.
- Show pictures of NPCs.
- Have friendly NPCs help the characters off-screen instead of becoming tag-along NPCs.
- Act how the NPCs would act.
- Underground sewers and caves are a great way to infiltrate a fortified castle or keep.
Related Articles
- Feedback to WOTC on the OGL 1.2 Draft
- You, Me, and the D&D Open Game License
- Notable 5e Products
- Top Ten Notable 5e Products for 2022
- A D&D 4th Edition DM's Guide to 5th Edition
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: February 6, 2023 - 6:00 am - VideoSeven Fantastic Tools to Play RPGs Online
More people than ever play RPGs online. Over the past few years the suite of tools to play RPGs has grown and improved as well. Today we're going to look at one "stack" of tools to run awesome games online. There are many such stacks, and some tools containing almost all of the features below in a single tool. This stack doesn't contain the most popular tools you can find but I recommend it none the less. It's a fantastic suite for the lazy dungeon master.
Game Prep: Notion
I've been using Notion for more than two years now and love it for campaign planning. If you've used Microsoft OneNote, this will seem familiar. Notion lets you set up a suite of interlinked pages with text, pictures, and other embedded items organized however you want to organize it. I've built a Notion template for Lazy DM prep and have used it for more than three hundred game sessions and I continue to love it. You can read my article on using Notion for Campaign Prep for more details.
If you're looking for something less commercial, less locked-in and more expandible; check out Obsidian. It's equally popular for RPG campaign prep.
Communications: Discord
Discord is an extremely common platform for communications with text, audio, and video. Over the past few years its audio and video functions greatly improved. You can set up a server for your game, with an audio and video "room" for the actual game and text channels for things like dice rolls, sharing pictures, and keeping a persistent game log. I have a Discord server you can clone to create your own RPG-focused Discord server and an article describing how to use Discord for online D&D games for more information.
Virtual Tabletop: Owlbear Rodeo
You can go far just sharing pictures of maps or art over Discord but if you want to actually move tokens around a map, Owlbear Rodeo is my favorite virtual tabletop. It's extremely lightweight with no game rules built into the platform. It's fast enough that I can prep a map in the middle of a game. It doesn't have the heavyweight features of bigger VTTs like Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, or Roll 20; but you and your players will love the speed and ease of use. Here's an article about using Owlbear Rodeo and a video on Owlbear Rodeo and how I set up all of Castle Ravenloft in Owlbear Rodeo in ten minutes.
Maps: Dyson Logos
As a lazy DM, I always recommend finding a good map instead of making your own. If you ever need a dungeon or overland map, my favorite maps are those by Dyson of Dysonlogos. There's over a thousand maps, mostly dungeons but some overland maps, we can repurpose for so many different locations. I've used them for Eberron, Midgard, Forgotten Realms, and Numenera. Because they're lightweight on theme, you can easily reskin them. The same map can be used for an ancient tomb or the ruins of an old tech power generator. Dyson maps, of course, work very well in Owlbear Rodeo.
Tokens: Token Stamp
Google's image search mixed with Token Stamp by RollAdvantage lets you build virtual tabletop tokens for just about anything in a few seconds. I often use it to build tokens in the middle of the game when I need one. I'm able to google for an image, take a screen shot, import it into Token Stamp, dump out the token, and import it into Owlbear Rodeo in about a minute.
Making custom tokens in Token Stamp lets you pick a particular style you like and stick with it. I, myself, like big face-focused tokens instead of full-body shots that are harder to recognize. Token Stamp lets me stay with that style whatever monster I need.
Music Sharing: Kenku.fm
A good musical backdrop can add a lot of atmosphere to a game but sharing music online can be tricky. The fine people at Owlbear Rodeo built a music sharing application called Kenku.FM. With Kenku you can share music through Discord as though it's another member of your audio channel. Setting it up is tricky, requiring that you set up your own Kenku bot in Discord to allow the streaming. The folks at Kenku have a good instruction page to walk you through the process. You'll want to warn your players that they can control the volume level of the Kenku service themselves by right-clicking the Kenku member of the audio channel and setting their own preferred volume.
Kenku lets you stream anything you can find over the web including Tabletop Audio, YouTube, and others. If you can hear it over the web, you can stream it to Discord.
For an advanced trick, let one of your players manage the Kenku service and DJ your game for you.
Rules and PDF Sharing - Google Drive
If you're playing D&D, [D&D Beyond] is the most likely way you'll want to share material with your players. However, if you're using third party material or playing other RPGs, there's a great way to legally share PDFs with your players using Google Drive. Upload the PDF you want to share to Google Drive and share it specifically with your friends in your group identified as "viewers". Before you exit the window, click the little gear icon on the upper right corner of the share window and un-check the option for "Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print, and copy". This way your players can view the PDF through Google Drive but can't download their own copy or print it out. It's the digital equivalent of handing a book around a table and far safer (and more legal) than sharing the PDF directly with your friends. Here's more about restricting sharing on Google Drive.
Build Your Own Stack
The above tools are my own personal and recommended stack of software but it's far from the only one. Each of us can decide which tools serve us best. Choose the tools that help you and your friends enjoy the most of this game we love so much.
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on the Cure to the OGL Blues and Scarlet Citadel Session 12 – Lazy GM Prep.
Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- OGL 1.2 Feedback and Suggestions
- The Industry Responds to the attempted OGL 1.0a Deauthorization
- Rebranding the Lazy RPG Talk Show
- I'm Here For You Whatever RPG You Play
- Curing the OGL Blues
- Deep Magic 2
- Two Huge Bundles of Holding and Humble Bundles
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Keeping Your Games on Track
- Running Games for Seven Players
- Introducing Lots of NPCs at Once
- Fueling Creativity
- Identifying Relics and Single-Use Magic Items
- Improving Representation in Older Material
D&D Tips
Each week I think about what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:
- Occasionally run big multi-wave battles where the characters defend a ruined keep or fortified town or some defensible position.
- Add a starving vampire trapped in an oubliette and see how the characters respond.
- Bathe monuments in interesting lore, religions, and histories of the region.
- Ask your players what character options they're excited to use.
- Let any player (and yourself) use "pause for a minute" to break character and clarify things as players around the table.
- Write down page numbers in your prep notes.
- Use a mixture of theater of the mind, abstract combat, and big tactical encounters. Don't limit yourself to just one style of combat.
Related Articles
- Owlbear Rodeo: A Simple D&D Virtual Tabletop
- Two Years Playing D&D Online
- Shared Experiences Playing D&D Online
- Play D&D Over Discord
- Tools of the Lazy Dungeon Master
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: January 30, 2023 - 6:00 am - Top Ten Notable 5e Products for 2022
Over on the Lazy D&D Talk Show I spotlight 5e products — primarily third party products but also those published by Wizards of the Coast.
Looking back, here are the top ten 5e products that caught my attention over 2022. This is just my view, of course. There are many products I never got a chance to look at and many products you may love more than the ones I outline below. Like everything I produce, hang on to this list with a loose grip.
These are also listed in alphabetical order — not in order by quality or preference.
Crown of the Oathbreaker by Elderbrain
Elderbrain, the publisher of Crown of the Oathbreaker used a survey of over 2,000 respondents to guide the construction of this massive 917 page hardcover and PDF adventure book. Both versions include extra digital books with player options, location gazetteers, maps, and more. It's a dark fantasy adventure with a focus on twisted histories of former noble families, fallen celestials, and other grim figures. The art is fantastic and the layout is excellent. A steal at $25 digitally and $75 for a digital and physical version.
Dungeons of Drakkenheim by the Dungeon Dudes and Ghostfire Gaming
A collaboration between the Dungeon Dudes and Ghostfire Gaming, Dungeons of Drakkenheim is an excellent campaign adventure for dungeon masters by dungeon masters. It's built by DMs who know what DMs need to run the campaign. The story is a mixture of dark political intrigue and horror-themed dungeon delving — definitely a dark fantasty focused adventure. The quality of the book is excellent with grim artwork, a solid design, and lots of accessories should you choose to buy them and run it.
GMs Miscellany Dungeon Dressing for 5e by Raging Swan Press
Raging Swan puts out amazing books of inspirational tables and tools to help us fill out our fantasy RPGs. The GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing for 5e is the 5e version of the more system-agnostic Dungeon Dressing book but includes pre-rolled 5e-compatible treasure parcels and other 5e focused material. It's an excellent book from an excellent publisher and well worth a DM's money to help fuel ideas for future adventures.
Level Up 5e Monstrous Menagerie
A drop-in replacement for the standard Monster Manual, the Monstrous Menagerie is one of the three core books of the Level Up Advanced 5e RPG system. Developed by Paul Hughes of the Blog of Holding, the mathematics behind the monsters in the Menagerie is top-notch — far better balanced than what you'll find in the Monster Manual. The monster design leans towards complexity, so if you prefer simpler monsters, this might not be for you. Advancements like epic monsters gives you true powerhouse boss monsters sure to put your heroes on their toes. This book is absolutely packed with awesome monsters and gets my personal award for best 5e product of 2022 even though it came out in late 2021.
Path of the Planebreaker by Monte Cook Games
Monte Cook Games's take on worlds like Planescape and, to a smaller degree, Spelljammer; Path of the Planebreaker gives us a high-fantasy sourcebook with dozens of worlds the characters can explore along the path of a multi-planar moon crashing through the cosmos. Monte Cook Games's products are always exceptionally produced with amazing high-fantasy artwork, an excellent physical design and layout, and a wonderful approach towards indexing and cross-referencing that I wish every book included. My only complaint is that 5e design, both for monsters and magic items isn't MCG's strength. Often monster design is head-scratchingly bad and requires a lot of work if you want to use it. Easier is taking their story concepts and wrapping them around monster stat blocks from other producers. Regardless, Path of the Planebreaker is an awesome book with an awesome theme and one I highly recommend.
Planegea by Atlas Games
A massive 380 page sourcebook set in the stone age, Planegea shows us how far we can take 5e's design into campaigns and worlds beyond those published by Wizards of the Coast alone. Another "for GMs by GMs" sourcebook, Planegea includes awesome reskins of existing classes and races, a wonderful awe-inspiring setting, and tremendous artwork and design. If you're looking for a very different setting in which to run your 5e games, definitely give Planegea a look.
Southlands Worldbook by Kobold Press
Set in the south of Kobold Press's massive Midgard setting, the 300+ page Southlands Worldbook includes ancient tombs, powerful villains, old gods, detailed cities of intrigue, and vast histories. With a clear inspiration from our real-world middle east and Africa, three cultural consultants helped steer the Southlands Worldbook from potentially problematic topics such as racism and colonialism. The book's descriptions of slavery, however, warrant a solid discussion during a session zero. The Southlands Worldbook is an awesome spotlight and deep dive into a major region of Midgard — one that can lead to years of campaigns and adventures.
Tal-Dorei Reborn by Darrington Press
The latest refresh of the Tal-Dorei setting popularized by Critical Role, Tal-Dorei Reborn is an amazing and beautiful sourcebook of Matt Mercer's fantastic setting. The nearly 300 page sourcebook is packed with incredible artwork and a modern world design ripe for adventures. Clearly this book appeals more towards fans of Critical Role. It's a wonderful gift for a Critter whether or not they play D&D but for DMs it offers a wealth of ideas to either harvest into your own world or a whole world you yourself can set your adventures.
Tome of Beasts 3 by Kobold Press
Probably my favorite monster book to date, Tome of Beasts 3 is packed with fantastic monsters using the latest 5e design style of Monsters of the Multiverse. Unlike Multiverse, high challenge monsters in Tome of Beasts 3 have real teeth to challenge high level characters. A new set of NPC stat blocks offers tremendous reskinning potential and the rest of the 418 page book is packed with more than 400 monsters to drop into your 5e game and scare even the most grizzled veterans who can describe every feature of a shambling mound.
Venture Maidens Campaign Guide
Written by Celeste Conowich and developed for the Venture Maidens liveplay game, the Venture Maidens campaign guide builds a high fantasy world of epic quests in a land where the borders of the world grow thin. The Venture Maidens Campaign Sourcebook includes all new character creation and mechanics for following the epic quests held in the hearts of our heroic characters. The book expands out into some excellent gamemaster suggestions sure to improve any game. It's a beautiful book encapsulating a wonderful realm of high fantasy and the heroes who walk within it.
Tremendous Books Bringing Life to D&D for Years to Come
Looking over these ten books I'm amazed by the amount of material we have for this game we love. Though we sit less than two years away from a new version of the game, we still have tons of settings, campaigns, and monsters to fill out our 5e games as long as we want them to run. Because may of these books focus on settings and campaigns, we can be sure to find value in them regardless of which system we choose to run.
Pick up one of these books, sit back, and fall into another world.
Related Articles
- Notable 5e Products
- What 5e in the Creative Commons Means to You
- You, Me, and the D&D Open Game License
- A DM's Reading List
- Wolfgang Baur on Worldbuilding
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: January 23, 2023 - 6:00 am - Feedback to WOTC on the OGL 1.2 Draft
Wizards of the Coast released a new draft of their "Open" Gaming License version 1.2 including releasing the core mechanics of the original 5e System Resource Document version 5.1 under a Creative Commons license. That's pretty great but it's still not as good as what we had and expected to keep with the OGL 1.0a.
Today they opened a survey for feedback and now is our opportunity to provide that feedback.
Most of us aren't lawyers or have any background (or interest) in contracts like this. So I've talked to a lot of people, including lawyers, to try to get a consensus of these licenses and the feedback we can provide to WOTC.
Thus, here's the feedback I plan to provide:
Don't attempt to "deauthorize" the OGL 1.0a. The best way to begin to repair the D&D brand is to not attempt to "deauthorize" the OGL 1.0a. It's not even clear it's legal to do so and it certainly goes against WOTC's original intent of the agreement we shared. WOTC's using a one-word loophole in ways several attorneys say is questionable or even unlawful.
Further, "deauthorizing" the OGL 1.0a has tremendous downstream consequences for publishers who trusted WOTC and used the OGL to share their own material downstream. If the OGL 1.0a is deauthorized, it means they can't share the material they intended to through the OGL 1.0a.
Don't attempt to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a.
Release lists of the names of species, spells, magic items, and monsters in the 5.1 SRD under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. WOTC releasing anything under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 is a huge step forward. It's a well used and well trusted license. In WOTC's OGL 1.2 draft they state their plan to release the core mechanics of 5e except for classes, species, monsters, magic items, and spells.
Include the lists of names of species, monsters, magic items, and spells. This is very likely material we could use anyway under copyright law but it helps if we know that WOTC agreed. Releasing these lists under the CC BY 4.0 helps considerably when writing 5e compatible adventures and campaigns.
Even better? Release the entire 5.1 SRD under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.
Use independent third party arbitration for hateful content. There's no way WOTC should have the sole right to decide what is hateful content. WOTC themselves had trouble with this within the past four months. There's no way WOTC should have full authority over what is hateful and no way that a licensed publisher should have no recourse to defend themselves. The world also changes. Material considered obscene years ago is now embraced and vice versa. This is such a complicated topic it's probably best removed completely.
Add "Royalty Free". The current draft OGL 1.2 does not describe itself as a "royalty free" license. The license should declare itself to be "royalty free".
Make it Truly Irrevocable. As written, the OGL 1.2 redefines irrevocable to mean that the license can't be revoked when applied to a product but not that the license itself can't be revoked. This license, on its own and applied to their system resource documents, should be irrevocable. This is the whole reason we're in this problem to begin with. I, for one, never want to have this conversation again.
Rewrite the termination clause. As written, the termination clause in the OGL 1.2 is far too wide. Who determines if a licensee has infringed on WOTC's intellectual property? How is that arbitrated? This whole statement over-reaches and can be used by WOTC to penalize just about any creator if they want to.
Rewrite the severability clause. As written, the severability clause in 9(d) almost certainly gives WOTC the ability to invalidate the license. Given that WOTC intends to attempt to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a on a technicality, I have no faith WOTC won't try it again here.
State that if any provision is ruled illegal or unenforceable, the remainder of the license's provisions remain in effect. Also if the agreement or any provision is ruled illegal or unenforceable in a specific jurisdiction (e.g. country or state) the license and those provisions remain in effect for all other jurisdictions where they have not been ruled illegal or unenforceable.
Other feedback:
Section 3(a) - Strike language prohibiting creators from seeking injunctive relief.
Section 6(e) - Strike or rewrite to account for international laws. A creator in the US can't be expected to abide by laws in other countries and vice versa.
Section 7(b)(ii) - Expand time to cure to 180 days and better define what actions are sufficient to cure a breach.
Not Covering the VTT Stuff
This feedback doesn't cover the VTT policies described in the OGL 1.2 draft which are significant. See the feedback provided by Foundry for a better understanding of how this affects virtual tabletops.
Related Articles
- You, Me, and the D&D Open Game License
- What 5e in the Creative Commons Means to You
- Dnd Tip Tweet Archive
- What I'd Love from the Next Iteration of D&D
- Random Trap Generator
Get More from Sly Flourish
- Read more Sly Flourish articles
- Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Watch Sly Flourish's YouTube videos
- Subscribe to Sly Flourish's Podcast
- Support Sly Flourish on Patreon
Buy Sly Flourish's Books
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- The Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Fantastic Lairs
- Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.
Read more »Source: Sly Flourish | Published: January 20, 2023 - 6:00 am