January – March 2025 Patreon Q&A

Sure! That sounds cool. The hard part is that, unlike BG3, you can't test it before you run it. Make sure you have some fallbacks if things aren't working quite right. It's really hard to know how this sort of thing is going to work out and you typically only have one chance. Good luck! Have your hands on the dials!

One session usually isn't enough. I'd say maybe eight to twelve sessions to have a real feeling? Obviously that can change. I have opinions on systems I've played only once. There's no law about how much you have to play a game to get a feeling for it. But for some systems, I know it'll take time for me to truly understand it. I'm excited for Shadow of the Weird Wizard and I know it might take 20 sessions to really get a feeling for the whole game. And, at that point, I'm probably done for a while. So yeah, it depends. Sometimes I have a decent feeling for a game after a session or two. Othertimes I have to run a bunch of sessions to really formulate a whole point of view. Some systems might seem great and then I see the little warts much later. The more complex the system, the longer I have to run it to really see how it plays out. That's why I don't yet have a strong opinion about D&D 2024. It has so many moving parts and one spell can change the whole game so I have to play it for a while to see.

Flavor! Every ogre is unique. New names, new appearances, new weapons, new factions they're allied to, new gods or demons they worship. An ogre might be the same as any other ogre to your players but not to their characters. How you describe the ogre and what else you wrap them in makes them unique. I try to avoid giving the name of a monster and instead describing the monster as though it's the first time the characters have ever seen them. Mechanics can stay the same but how you describe monsters in the narrative can change every time you put them on the map.

You might think of splitting the campaign up into new storylines that *do* excite you. Think of a 1st to 12th level game as two campaigns, a first to 5th and a 5th to 11th or so. Then a big climax at 12. Consider taking that excitement you have for a new campaign and push it into a new chapter for your *existing* campaign – just one that starts a little later. It's still not quite the same as a whole new campaign but it might get your creative juices flowing enough to keep your interest.

I think a general alignment can help with a faction. Who's the lawful good faction? Neutral good? Chaotic neutral? Obviously a central NPC point of contact for the faction is important. Rules for interaction – how will the character meet with this faction? I don't think you need too much to run a faction and leaving blanks gives you an opportunity to fill it out as you go. Also, villainous factions are good to fill out even though you know the characters aren't going to join them. Children of Ibraxus, Knights of the Nameless King, the Scarlet Brotherhood, the Aurum, etc.

Yeah, this is a tough problem when it happens. I've had a similar situation with one player investigating a whole map using arcane eye. If you know enough about the dungeon and what's going on, you can try to summarize it as much as possible. You can also give out a general summary and then summarize each room as the group gets there. Skipping forward as much as possible feels like the best way to handle it. I don't know what negotiation you can have with the players to avoid such a beneficial approach while also explaining how boring it might be. I think the best approach is to reveal as much as possible as quickly as possible and get them to the decision point where everyone else can be involved.

Hi Alex! I'd say the following books have enough useful material to be worth it for just about any fantasy RPG: - Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master (system agnostic) - The Lazy DM's Companion (about 80% system agnostic and some great random tables) - City of Arches (pretty system agnostic) - Fantastic Locations (completely agnostic) - Fantastic Adventures (easily converted) - Ruings of the Grendleroot (easily converted) I'd say these books either have too much 5e material or Shadowdark itself has what you need already: - The Lazy DM's Workbook - Fantastic Lairs (heavily 5e inspired). Hope that helps!

I think we're better served by reading RPG books and using random tables to fire off our own ideas than using generative AI to do it. I wrote more about it here: https://slyflourish.com/best_llm.html Your own mileage may vary, of course. If you find it useful, who am I to tell you it's not? I'm no expert in dealing with ADHD but I've heard from some folks with ADHD that the eight steps is a great framework to keep them focused on what they need to run a game. Keep thing simple and focus on what you need to run the next game you're going to run. Hope that helps!

I like to start characters at the same level as the one who died so they don't lose too much. You can mix levels together but depending on how you level, they might be permanently behind. I think character death is enough of a detrement that you don't have to also penalize them by having them start at a lower level. Same with new players joining in or players missing sessions and coming back – just have them level along with everyone else.

I don't think I'd change anything other than ensuring you have a lot of extra characters to give them if (or when) their character dies. Also, let them know up front that the game can be deadly but they'll get a new character as they go. You can also maximize hit points so it's not quite so lethal.

Hi Corey! I wrote up my best advice for getting started in this industry in the following article: https://mikeshea.net/how_to_make_it_in_the_rpg_industry.html Good luck!!

Put your characters first and build factions that work well for them – both protaginist and antagonist factions. Like the rest of spiral development, it helps to build factions (gods, icons, political groups, cults, organizations, etc) based on the characters and the theme of the campaign you're running. If you need inspiration, look at the factions from other published settings and see what you think will work well. Eberron, for example, has a ton of great factions: https://slyflourish.com/1d100_eberron_factions.html

The rumor is that WOTC is still interested in doing this because it helps them get other publishers to write D&D 2024 compatible material and then they can harvest the top-selling products for D&D Beyond. I reached out to the D&D Creator Laiason team but heard no word back. As far as making new content, there's a lot you can do without needing the 5.2 SRD. Only if you're copying actual text out of the 2024 books would I worry about it. Otherwise, most of the terms and mechanics and general compatibility works with the older 5.1 SRD. But yeah, it really depends on what you're making.

I'd probably work with them to build a relatively simple character build. Avoid fancy feats and subclasses if you can. Starting at a higher level is tough but not impossible. Hopefully they pick it up without too much trouble.

I start with the fiction but then usually explain the mechanics. In combat, given how vital the action economy is, players aren't willing to risk having to figure out how to use all the interactive objects in the battle. It's more efficient to just do the stuff you know you can do. Thus, I think it's worth describing in the fiction what's going on and then how it works mechanically so they know what new "moves" they have given the environment.

I think that's a fine way to go. I treat perception and passive perception as a sort of Spider Man danger sense. They might know something's off and worth doing a deeper investigation but they don't know what or how. I wrote about this more here: https://slyflourish.com/passive_perception.html It's worth recognizing what passive perception is valuable for – moving on quickly. Without passive perception, players might feel obligated to mention every little thing they do all the time. Every floor tile must be poked with a 31 foot pole. Every idol must be scrutinized from a safe distance. Passive perception is intended to help skip a lot of the tedium of constantly checking by letting players know there's a floor to their characters' checks. I think it's worth a conversation with your group about what perception notices, what it does not, and what they need to do to still work with the world around them without just relying on a check.

Since this happens before you roll, it would replace both rolls. There's no advantage or disadvantage consideration. If you have disadvantage, you can replace the roll with the portent. That's how I'd read it anyway. I'm not a rules expert =)

We'll see! I think characters have a lot of damage mitigation features to off-set this. I've been moaning in our discord server that Circle of Power became a spell for wizards, bards, and clerics now when it used to just be for 17th level paladins. It's going to be a year or so before we know for sure.

Dealing with the in-world economy in D&D and 5e games has been challenging for a lot of people. There are a few ways people have handled it: - Reduce the amount of money earned, as you mention. - Give the characters a greater quest to use their money for some big public good like rebuilding a city or building some fantastic machine the world needs. - Give them a home base to spend their money on. Bastions were supposed to do this but they can actually *earn* money which isn't great. - Buy from a random selection of magic items. You can always increase the costs from the recommended costs (and I recommend you do). Those are just a few quick ideas. There are lots of products from 5e publishers that offer things to spend money on. In City of Arches and Uncovered Secrets 2 (available on your patreon reward page) I have a list of fantastic features to add to a home base that cost a lot of money.

Sly Flourish is the name of a rogue power from D&D 4e! I actually was looking for website domains to write DM advice for 4e D&D DMs and tried a few and that was like the second one. It could very well have been Tide of Iron!

I've used the eight steps with a lot of different RPGs and I think it holds up very well. Sometimes some of the steps will be slightly different. You might not need a treasure step. A monster step might be different. Only in very improvisational games like Blades in the Dark did I have trouble. I think the eight steps will work fine for The One Ring. Give it a shot and see what works for you!

Hi John! In short, the lazy encounter benchmark still works fine. I did a deeper analysis here: https://slyflourish.com/2024_dmg_encounter_building_versus_the_lazy_benchmark.html In short, the more monsters an encounter has, the more the 2024 DMG guidelines increase the challenge over the benchmark. The fewer monsters an encounter has, the more the 2024 DMG descreases the threat compared to the benchmark. In my experience, though, if you use the lazy encounter benchmark with the higher-challenge option (3/4 of character levels at tier 3 and 1:1 CR to character levels at tier 4) battles will remain very challenging. Keep in mind the benchmark is just a benchmark. It's not a hard rule. You're not intended to use it like a budget. It's there to tell you when you're getting into the red zone on an encounter. That's all. Flee Mortals, Tales of the Valiant, and A5e all use systems similar to the Lazy Encounter Benchmark. TOV in particular is using it pretty much exactly because I wrote those guidelines too =) In short, the Lazy Encounter Benchmark should continue to work just fine.

Yeah, it can be tough with a wide open hex crawl. I think the best approach would be considering the aperature of your lens. At a high level you can jot down big locations like "Tower of Sett" or "Ruins of Ourivax" or "Sundered Keep of Grayon" without necessarily filling in the details. Then, when the characters decide to go to one of those – that's when you fill in the details with a map, chamber locations, and inhabitants. The key is insuring the players give you their decisions with enough time to prepare their journey. Even in a hex crawl, you can ask them which of three nearby adventure locations they want to visit at the *end* of a session so you know what to prepare for the next one. I don't run West Marches style games but my understanding is that this is how they work: the players tell the GM where they want to go and then the GM prepares that location. The social contract is that the players won't surprise the GM with a location. If you *do* find yourself in a situation where the characters are wandering into areas you haven't prepared, it's time to fall back to random lists and let them inspire your encounters. These lists might include: - Monuments – big state backdrops for an encounter. - Inhabitants – who's there? Maybe roll twice and collide two encounters together. - Factions – what worldly factions does the monument or inhabitants represent? - Conditions – what is the state of the location? - Effect – What strange effect is going on at the location? The Lazy DM's Companion contains a bunch of tables for things like this.

I tend to keep secrets to things the characters can learn about in the next game – not something they might or likely will learn about in the far future. I wouldn't put down secrets you don't want to reveal. The whole point is to give you thinks you *can* reveal. For those bigger campaign secrets, just keep them floating around in your head. If they're really cool, you'll remember them and, if not, they might change as the game changes anyway. So yeah, my big rule for secrets is: A secret is something the characters might learn in the next session. That helps me focus them down.

No, that's the fun! They have to go with the vague prophecy from whoever's giving the prophecy (usually Madame Eva) and then try to figure it out from there. Some astute players recognize some of the locations. Others wander about until they hopefully find something before Strahd shows up.

A two-word rule for all of these is "wing it". If you really have trouble, the Shadowdark Discord server has a lot of folks willing to offer suggestions. I'd set stealth and hiding the same way as any other difficulty using the standard difficulty ladder. There's no passive perception and no real stealth checks. I let the players figure out what the magic items are without worrying about identifying them. It's up to you how much they learn about it while investigating it. XP is the same way, you have to gauge how valuable you think it is to the characters and tie it to that. I ended up giving a fair bit of experience away at higher levels but they were discovering some powerful stuff. My other house rules: - There's no stabilizing at 0 hit points. You either have 1 hit point or you're dying. - Spellcasters get to succeed once on a spell before they lose the spell on a failed check. They still have to roll the check but they don't lose the spell until it's been successfully cast at least once. - Characters start with one luck point at the beginning of the session. They cannot use a luck point to change an enemy's roll. Characters can share luck points among themselves. Shadowdark isn't a super-clean and super-tight rule system. It is much more like the old days where edge cases were determined by the GM. That's something we have to get used to when coming from 5e to Shadowdark. Good luck!

I think I like A5e's treasure generation the best. I still use the Lazy Treasure Generator in our patreon random generator: https://slyflourish.com/random_generators/sf-random-generator.html It's not quite like the systems in any of the books but its easy to use and offers up good ideas for treasure. Trials and Treasure has a great system and their own online tool for rolling treasure: https://a5e.tools/node/2282 I have an article for a lazy treasure system that breaks down to the following: ## Tier 1 (1st to 4th level) Treasure Parcel - 400 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - Two uncommon consumables - One uncommon permanent item ## Tier 2 (5th to 10th level) Treasure Parcel - 4,000 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - Two uncommon or rare consumables - One uncommon or rare permanent item ## Tier 3 (11th to 16th level) Treasure Parcel - 30,000 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - uncommon, rare, or very rare consumables - One uncommon, rare, or very rare permanent item ## Tier 4 (17th to 20th level) Treasure Parcel - 200,000 gp worth of coin, gems, jewels, and art - Two rare, very rare, or legendary consumables - One rare, very rare, or legendary permanent item ## Using These Parcels - Add a parcel to your prep notes for each session. - Choose the parcel's tier based on the challenges faced by the characters. - Award roughly two parcels each character level. If you have five or six characters, add one extra parcel per level. - Customize gems, jewelry, and art objects, subtracting their value from the gold value listed. 5e gamemaster guides often include lists of gems, jewels, and artwork you can roll on or choose from. Or just make them up. - Roll on your favorite 5e random tables for permanent or consumable magic items by rarity. - Instead of random permanent magic items, add character-focused magic items you choose or based on your players' wish lists. - Include one common magic item per parcel if desired. - Customize art objects and magic items with species, factions, conditions, or secrets and clues. - Include consumable magic items with single-use spell effects. - Tie daily-use spells to permanent magical weapons and armor to give them a unique flavor.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by intractable things. But if we're talking about things in an area that the characters might interact with, here are some thoughts: - Statues to investigate. - Books, scrolls, or carvings to read. - Different paths to take. - Powered or infused objects to interact with, like channeling energy from a summoning circle. - Traps to find, or even turn on one's enemies. - Objects to move around for better cover. Those are just a few. I'm not sure if that's answering your question.

I don't see why not! I think, depending on your level of conversion, you can run a lot of a published adventure with just about any system. I'm sure there are edge-cases where an adventure is really built around a particular system but given how sometimes we just take a published adventure as inspiration anyway, I think conversion isn't too terrible. 4e was about as different a system as any. One trick would be to ask yourself if you could play Keep on the Shadowfell with either D&D 2nd edition or D&D 2014, or D&D 2024. https://www.dmsguild.com/product/110212/H1-Keep-on-the-Shadowfell--QuickStart-Rules-4e The format of the adventure is very different from current adventures – a big focus on tactical combat in various chambers – but you can take a lot from it, reskin a lot, and probably run it pretty close to the original. If you can do that, I think you can do it with just about any adventure. The real question is how much do you want to take?

Yes! I have two articles in the queue with the gems of both the A5e Trails and Treasure book and the TOV GMG. I don't know when I'll publish them so I posted them here so you can read the current drafts: https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/best_of_gmg_and_tnt.zip

It's really complicated to do and it is one area where an LLM helped out significantly since I was mixing together like four different programming languages and formats: shell scripting, LaTeX, and automator. It's sort of a "here you go, good luck" sort of offer. Other than the documentation on the Github page, I can't really offer other advice but folks on the Sly Flourish discord server might be able to better help if you reach out to them. I will say that I've since switched to using Obsidian and a stylesheet which is much easier than using automator to convert notes over. https://github.com/mshea/obsidian_toolbox/blob/main/two_column_print_to_pdf.md Good luck!

Yeah! Those sorts of things are great. I'm always on the lookout for ideas I don't have to write down or look up. There's a careful balance between making a monster too hard when it *has* legendary resistances available or too easy if it loses those abilities when it loses legendary resistance. You sort of want a monster to have an arc and if its too weak either in the beginning or the end, it loses that arc. I haven't found a perfect way of managing that arc so legendary resistance or Dreadful Blessings are my current best approach. I'll check out Legendary Eminences! Thanks for passsing it along!

I'm so glad you like it! I wrote both the talk show database and the Patreon Q&A database to help me find old topics when they come back around again. It makes me very happy to offer them to you folks as well – even in a downloadable form so you don't have to worry about me taking them down!

It sounds awesome! I don't know if I have any special advice for it. I'd probably treat it just like a business only with its own set of special rituals and mantras. There are a lot of real-world pseudo-cults built around commercial enterprises. Strange lingo, ranks, rituals, outfits, that sort of thing. Look at pyramid schemes and self-help stuff for some good examples.

Hi Chris! Called shots don't really come up often in my game but I think I'd handle them the same way I handle Cinematic Advantage: https://slyflourish.com/cinematic_advantage.html Basically, i'd make a deal with the player. They want to do some sort of special effect. What is the effect? Is it reasonable to do? If so, what's the cost? How *hard* is it to do? An easy one is trading advantage for disadvantage or granting advantage on a successful skill check. If they want to disable an ogre, you can tell them they get disadvantage on their attack but the next attack the ogre makes is at disadvantage as well. Advantage and disadvantage are great lazy GM tools to help you make deals with players for special stuff in game. Hope that helps!

I think you can certainly house rule to use simpler descriptions of the spells. One thing 5e tries to do is help you grow into spells as you level by focusing on what you've learned or prepared. It can be a lot for a cleric but its not as bad for a wizard. Some of that learning what spells do is part of the fun and drive towards system mastery that keeps 5e popular. But there's no reason you can't simplify things. You can also check out how spells are described in Old School Essentials which is a little closer to the core of D&D than Shadowdark is. https://github.com/Obsidian-TTRPG-Community/Old-School-Essentials-Markdown Good luck!

The Shadowdark community over on Discord came up with a monster stat by CR table for Shadowdark. Here it is on Itch.io https://mattdietrich.itch.io/guide-to-shadowdark-monster-statistics Also, there's a new Shadowdark monster creation Kickstarter going on now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaelputlack/creating-monsters-for-shadowdark I'd definitely check that out. I'd also say that maybe 50% of the material in Forge of Foes can work with Shadowdark since it isn't 5e specific but more advice on how to run monsters.

I'm seeing a lot of discussion on the hide action. I don't yet know exactly how I'll be running it in my game or whether I'll change from how I typically have been running it. Here are some interesting discussions on it: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/52099/roleplaying-games/dd-2024-hiding-invisibility https://www.enworld.org/threads/thoughts-on-stealth-and-d-d2024.711669/page-2#post-9589424 I have some thoughts about *intent* before I'd worry about coming up with hard rules. - A creature that wants to hide has to behind at least three-quarters cover from whoever they're hiding from and succeed a DC 15 stealth check. - If the creature steps out into the line of sight of an undistracted creature – the creature sees them. - The hidden creature remains hidden from distracted creatures (like a creature in combat with another creature) as long as their stealth result is higher than the creature's passive Perception. I might change some of that but, for the most part, I think that works towards the intention which is that a rogue should be able to hide during combat using cunning action and still run up and backstab someone. But I'm still pondering it and hoping the larger RPG 5e community comes up with an elegant fix.

I'd probably add Justin Alexander's "So You Want to Be a Dungeon Master" to the list, but I admit I haven't combed over the whole thing. Many people find a lot of value in it. I think grabbing some of the ideas of old school roleplaying games can help: - Old School Essentials - Dolmenwood - Shadowdark We now have new gamemaster's guides worth reading: - The 2024 D&D Dungeon Master's Guide - Tales of the Valiant's Gamemaster's Guide Robin Laws wrote Adventure Crucible: Building Stronger Scenarios for Any RPG. That's a good one. I haven't kept up with all the Kobold Guides books that came out. They may have some new ones I've missed. If I had to pick just one to add to the list I'd go with Adventure Crucible. It's a quick read and offers some really interesting perspectives. It was the catalyst for a series of articles I wrote about adventure types: https://slyflourish.com/running_dungeon_crawls.html Those are the ones that jump out to me! I should update that article!

Think about the hags motivations and how they might align with the characters instead of being against them. Maybe the hag wants something the characters are willing to give and the hag has something they can give in return. One fun thing to do is dig through books of spells from other publishers like Kobold Press's Deep Magic volume 1 and 2 and pick out some weird spells the characters have never seen or heard of before. I did this for the three hags in Tomb of Annihilation and my players still talk about those spells. You can find those spells on Open5e if you don't want to pick up the books.

Hi thePooka! I don't know of a great resource for understanding the ins and outs of factions. Many campaign sourcebooks include factions to some degree. One big example are the Dragonmarked houses of Eberron. I wouldn't overthink them too much, though. A faction is a group of individuals with a clear goal. You can think of a faction like a character or a front – they have motivations, histories, goals, and behaviors. But the people in those factions can change. You can run into different members in different places. There can be political in-fighting. Factions work as both allies and enemies of the characters. The characters might be working for the Golden Knights in the City of Arches to thwart the Children of Ibraxus. You can talk more about them with folks on Discord but again, don't overthink it. You don't need a twenty page document outlining every aspect of a faction. A name, a symbol, and some motivations and goals will do.

Here’s an official Sly Flourish Lazy DM challenge for you! Come up with ten beneficial elements to a combat situation for ranged attackers. Then come up with ten detrimental effects for ranged attackers. It’s a great mental exercise! Here are some ideas to help get you primed. Benefits - High-ground areas that give the attacker advantage on attacks but takes an ability check to reach. - Ancient monuments that, when you stand next to them, add some lightning damage to attacks. - Rubble behind which a ranged attacker gets light cover. Detriments - Thin fog that causes disadvantage on attacks if you’re further away than 30 feet from your target. - Shaky ground that can knock you prone and drive you into the sharp slate rocks at your feet. - Lightning donut storm that blasts those further away than 30 feet from the center of the battle area. Now come up with your own ideas! It’s fun!

I think a good value is 50% up or down. The monster may have half the stated hit points or 1.5x the stated hit points. That’s probably pretty close to what it would be if it had hit dice given a moderate constitution bonus. I can tell you as a 5e designer who has talked to many other 5e designers — hit dice were always abstract and calculated just to get to whatever hit point value we wanted to reach. There’s not a lot of good science there.

Hi Michael! I think writing out item characteristics on an index card and giving the player the index card can work. If you’re lazy, you can have them write it out. I’ve also pasted the text of a magic item into a Discord channel so players can see it and write it down in their own notes however they do so. Both of those work best for me. You can also assign a player the role of Quartermaster — they’re in charge of keeping track of treasure acquired, what it does, and who it goes to. This creates a sort of double-entry bookkeeping so things don’t get lost. As for identifying magic items, I think the core rules work pretty well. A character can identify an items properties by spending a short rest with the item or casting the identify spell. Sometimes I have a character instantly learn about a magic item just on contact, particularly single-use magic items of lower power. Higher-power ones might require further identification. To me, the general rules are a good default and you can always change how things are identified or not based on the specific item, what makes sense for the story, and what’s fun in the game.

That’s a really hard question because, as you say, all three have their merits so I don’t think the decision I’m going to make is the right one for everyone but if I had to, I’d get the Tales of the Valiant Trials and Treasure guide, especially if I had the Monstrous Mangerie as well since the two books go so well together. Next I’d probably get the Tales of the Valiant Gamemaster’s Guide. Finally the D&D 2024 DMG. For me, the order has a lot to do with the tools a book gives me that I can continually use at my table. All of them are missing something and some of them are better at one thing than the others. All have good value to them. But yeah, I’d probably go with A5E’s Trials and Treasure.

It can be worth having a conversation with your GM and, if there’s a good way to do it, with your fellow players and pick up some online play etiquette ideas. Ginny Di ad a great video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-5M6JXzKzE I also wrote an article about calling on individual players which helps a lot. You or the GM can ask for players to keep table banter in a text chat channel so that those talking are talking about game stuff and not over talking over one another. https://slyflourish.com/calling_on_players.html Hopefully that gives you a few suggestions!

Hi Sam! I answered some of this in my response to Christopher S. just below. Overall I think myself and my players felt like combat maneuvers were too complex for the benefit they provided. I think both Tales of the Valiant’s weapon properties and D&D 2024’s weapon masteries are generally superior in both their simplicity and effectiveness. A5e’s combat maneuvers weren’t really overpowered that I saw - not any more overpowered than other stuff characters can do, but they were too tweaky for our liking.

Yes! I intended to do a segment on the Talk Show going over it and probably will. I think A5E’s player-focused material is too crunchy and too much for me and my group. We have a group that started as A5e but then opened up to other 5e versions as well. About half of them switched to D&D 2024 and enjoy that better I think. An example are weapon masteries versus the A5e martial maneuvers. One of them is a half a page in the PHB. The other is like 80 pages in the Adventurer’s Guide? My players felt like many of the maneuvers were traps — moves that really didn’t offer something useful compared to the others. Skill specialization was interesting but also sort of fiddly and did add a lot to the bonus without changing DCs. I think the idea of a proficiency die does the same thing but it’s much simpler since it *replaces* proficiency instead of adding to it. There are lots of aspects we didn’t even get into like armor durability, masterwork weapons and armor, and other aspects. I just can’t keep up with it all. So yeah, if someone out there thinks vanilla 5e isn’t crunchy enough, I’d recommend it, but I don’t think it’s really for me. There are many other aspects I love about A5e and plan to use in the future but I’m not as crazy about the Adventurer’s Guide.

Hi there! I hope you won’t give up on looking for a group, either in person or online. Sometimes it just takes finding the right discord server or the right in-world circumstances to find the right people for a group. I haven’t done a lot of solo play. I loved thousand year old vampire and the few games of Ironsworn I played. I recommend them if you want to take a look. They also have good instructions for solo play. Shadowdark also has the Solodark guides which are a fun way to play a more old-school style game solo. I haven’t played those yet but they look fun. I don’t think you quite need the 8 steps of Return for a solo game since you don’t really do the same style of prep. So much of the game is improvised, which I think is the fun part of playing it. Anyway, I hope those leads help and I hope you can find a group to play in! It’s worth the effort.

That's a tough one! For the City of Arches, I've had some of their backgrounds connect to events that occurred in the past in the City of Arches. Another way to do it is bring in NPCs from the same world that they came from. It could also be previous times where the same connections existed between worlds that brought the characters in. You could also run sidequests where they have to go back to their original world so they get a chance to face who they were, meet previous characters, and the like. It's also a good question to ask players outside of the game to see how interested they are in bringing in those backgrounds. Some may really like the idea. Others might not care.

I've only just now looked at it but it looks good! Lots of detail focused right around the characters. I tend not to build out worlds with my players like this – I just do that myself and give them enough info to build characters for the area – but I dig it. Of course, I'd put in some fronts and conflicts to spurn towards adventure. Local Evil Boss does that, it looks like. So yeah, it's good! It's a good spiral campaign notebook.

Hi Chad! It depends on the book. Lately I've been writing them in Word using my Patreon product template so that I can easily export them to PDFs and get them to you guys to take a look at first. I've done this since the Lazy DM's Companion. Once the book is ready for editing, we convert it to a normal Word doc with styles so that it can be easily imported into InDesign, which Scott uses for layout. Since Scott does both layout *and* editing, it makes it easy to make changes in layout for smaller things but we usually stay in Word until we know what the book is really going to be like. Any big changes should be done before it goes into InDesign. Then we export InDesign into a couple of PDFs – one for PDF distribution and one for the print proof. Once the print proof is off to the printer, I'll get an InDesign export into HTML to convert to ePub and Markdown. This takes some time because a lot of formatting gets screwed up in any sort of automatic conversion so I do it by hand. In the end we have four versions: - PDF for digital distribution. - Markdown - ePub - Hardcover

Good question and I don't think there's a fantastic answer yet. None of the recent books will probably be perfect – even with names – since the TOV Monster Vault and A5e Menagerie can't have certain monsters like mind flayers, beholders, or githyanki. Likewise the 2025 Monster Manual moved some monsters to new names. There's a list in the back of which ones changed and only a handful changed to a different spot in the book. it's too early to say which book is the best one. I really like the design in the TOV Monster Vault but I'd probably try out the 2025 Monster Manual for a while and see how that does. The good news is that all three of them are really good so I don't kow if you're going to be underserved by any of them.

I understand. I hope it turns around. Our whole business is impacted by this and we certainly didn't want it.

Hi Hussain! I think you can increase the pace of leveling and get things on track pretty well. Level them up at significant milestones that are a little shorter than whatever the adventure typically offers. The problem with too many magic items is that those magic items are there for the rest of the campaign. If they're not *too* powerful, you're probably ok, but if you use them to boost up 3rd level characters to the equivalant of 5th level characters, you'll be dealing with those powerful magic items for the rest of the campaign. Instead, I'd find ways to level them up a little faster. It's also possible to, as you seem to already be doing, tweak the dials to keep things on track. Adventures aren't typically written so tightly that two levels matters but you never know. Hope that helps!!

Hi Graham! I really have no insight into their strategy but I recommend sending them feedback through email, Discord, and any other venue where you can reach out to them to tell them the sort of product you want. I'd be surprised if they didn't have a new player's guide with a bunch of new subclasses in it – their own version of Xanathar's Guide or whatever. I know they have some origins in PDFs you can pick up for cheap. KP makes a lot of books, with several of them in production at once, so I wouldn't say that because they're working on a new Magreve book that they're not also working on a new player's guide. But I have no insight. I tend to learn about their projects the same time as you and sometimes they reach out to me to help out on one of them. But I am mostly on the outside looking in.

I'm going to sound like a broken record but I think Shadowdark can work really well for short adventures. You can run short dungeons in an hour with characters already built using pregens. You could run longer dungeons in a series of sessions too if you end up with the same players. I'd focus on three to five rooms of a dungeon for an hour with Shadowdark and see how it goes. Keep the story pretty lean. Cut to the meat of the adventure. Dragonbane might be another system to look at. I haven't run it myself but I've heard it can work well for shorter sessions. Your plan to stick to four players is a good one but expect to get more interested players so perhaps recruit other GMs willing to run games too. Good luck!

I haven't given "So You Want To Be A Gamemaster" a deep read yet but I do think the two approaches can be complementary. As you say, things like the three-clue rule (which is a nice solid idea in JA's approach) and secrets and clues can work well together. JA's approach does take a more overarching view of things than mine does where I want to start at the bottom up – a focus on the next game you have to run – and his top down looking at the campaign, the arcs, and the sessions. Both are totally valid but I don't have great advice on merging the two together.

I have an article I'm working on about character-focused secrets which can work really well because you *know* the character will be there. Recently, in my own eight-step planning for a session, I'll write one secret out for each character as I review the characters in step 1. Usually these secrets are *separate* from the ten secrets I put together for the rest of the session. Character-driven and character-focused secrets are totally valid and a good way to ensure you have the characters in mind during your prep. The one thing I'd mention is that these character-driven secrets should be something the players don't know yet. If they already know it, it isn't something you can reveal during the game as a new piece of info. More here: https://slyflourish.com/types_of_secrets.html Hope that helps!

Hi Nate! I summarized my views on Shadowdark after my 13 month campaign here: https://slyflourish.com/delving_into_shadowdark.html I don't have any special tips for running longer campaigns other than to keep your quests and patrons separate enough from the characters that if a new character comes in, you can tie them to an existing patron and their quests. This ensures you don't have the problem of characters dying and new characters popping in in the middle of a dungeon with no motivation to be there. I found that the micro-settings in the Cursed Scroll books were great to let my imagination run wild and fill in the blanks as the campaign continued. But don't try to make it epic all at once. Focus on your next game, follow the steps if you use them, and just run a fun game for your friends one session to the next. Let the story flow from the sessions you run.

Oh there so many cool things I wrote up for Kobold Press's Monster Vault 2 on this including how to bring in doom points based on high-beats or low-beats in a situation or scene. You can totally do that. Trying to think of doom points as a beat mechanic is pretty interesting. If the characters are failing at something, you gain doom points (which doesn't affect them right then). But then you can use doom points to complicate the situation if they're having too easy a time – either in or out of combat. I really need to try this out in my game. You can hear me talk more about it with Kendo on the KP channel: https://youtu.be/7mjPvKRgNII?si=DrFZj7q39FgsrKhi&t=1837

I think GMs often hold their cards too close and I think it's fine for a GM to offer suggestions. This gets back to "players only understand half of what a GM is describing". Because players aren't picking up everything going on, it helps when the GM offers things up. As a player, you can ask for suggestions from the GM too, recognizing that you might not be seeing anything. "Do you have any suggestions? I'm not sure I understand the whole situation. What sorts of things can I do?" That seems like a reasonable question for a player to ask.

Welcome to the hobby, BT! I wouldn't overthink the session. It's easy to try to make it something really fantastic but then overdo it and make it too complex for new players. Characters delving into a small dungeon to accomplish some goal is sort of the purity of D&D (assuming you're playing D&D or another fantasy RPG). Regarding single sessions, these links might help: https://youtu.be/JM1MdKNm2eA?t=2858s https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=1807 https://slyflourish.com/sf_patreon_files_898123050001223/qa/?id=137 When running a single-session adventure, have some flexibility to remove stuff from the middle and keep track of time so you're ready to pull stuff out if needed. Too often I see one-shot games where GMs hang on to the boring middle and then have to cut things short at the end. It's a common problem. Regarding treasure, give them actual treasure. The fact that they may not use it in a future session doesn't remove the joy of getting it in the first place. Treasure is cool. You can also drop some treasure into the *middle* of the adventure so they can use it during that session. Good luck!

Yes! Bandits and mercenaries come to mind. Secret societies can also be pretty cult-like in behavior but not in belief. Secret societies might have no theological or demonic connection at all – they're based on secret power structures in society. They depose kings, shift economies, and engage in other nasty underhanded political, social, and economic unrest. Mercenaries fit in well because they're all about the almightly platinum coin and work for any evil villain. Bandits, of course, are simply unlawful brigands. In all three cases, however, it helps if some of them are redeemable. Sometimes they break away from the order to which they belong and become useful allies to the characters.

Thats awesome! I admit, I often skip the "review the characters" step but every time I weave it back in, I usually get great stuff from it. "hey, that exiled mage of Kartan? She was your special lady friend!"

Hi Kaique! I don't use a GM screen and I tend to just not worry about it. Sometimes they peek over and see something they shouldn't but it's rare enough that I don't worry about it. I also roll dice in the open so that's never a problem. Sometimes I'll cup my hand over a die roll I don't want them to see (like whether they succeeded on trap detection). Othertimes I'll literaly keep my notes close to my chest so they can't see what I'm looking at. Try it out and see how it goes. Adjust as needed.

UPDATE - ran the session yesterday and the player was incredibly good about the dragon taking her baby back. Very proud of him as he’s only 11/12. I decided to give the whole party a magical dragonmark which gives them resistance to cold damage, and silver dragons will see them as friends and allies.

The question of whether I think it is ok is itself an interesting one because whatever I think of it shouldn't ever matter to you and whether it works well for your game. And, regardless, in this circumstance, I think it's absolutely ok. Whatever works for you works great. I don't see any reason this would cause problems beyond it being extra work for you. If you're happy to do it, I think thats great. I think Matt Coleville recommended handing out quest cards for this sort of thing and I think that works perfectly. So yeah, I think it's just great and you always get to decide what works for you. Sure, it's always good to get other opinions – but what matters most is what works for you and your group. Have fun!

In the case of dungeons with lots of rooms, I only focus on the one to three interesting features of any given room – often just one. I dont build scenes for every chamber – only the ones that I know are a big part of the story. Otherwise, they go to a room and I piece together a scene at the moment from NPCs, monsters, secrets, and so forth. I don't make a big list of rooms in my "scenes" section. I find this helps me improvise scenes as the characters explore the dungeon however and whatever path they take. Here are some articles that might help: https://slyflourish.com/simplest_way_to_annotate_a_map.html https://slyflourish.com/use_dysonlogos.html

Yes! This is one of my favorite obscure questions about 5e! My understanding, and the way we play it at our table, is that if two creatures cannot see eachother, all advantage and disadvantage is wiped clean. Likewise, any ability that requires seeing a creature is unavailable. It doesn't matter who is inside or who is outside of a heavily obscured area. The results are the same. Some players and GMs feel that the caster or person *outside* the heavily obscured area should have some sort of advantage, but I don't think so. It doesn't make things useless, however. A fog cloud still ensures the following: - All advantage and disadvantage is wiped clean. This can be helpful if enemies would have had advantage. - All characters can move freely without worrying about provoking opportunity attacks. - Any need to *see* a target cannot work. This includes things like fireball – something I didn't know until I played Baldur's Gate 3. I'll tell you the most powerful way to use a spell like Fog Cloud – on a Beholder!

I do it a couple of ways. First, I try to focus on the main villains and what they're up to. For me, that's part of the world building and the world moving as the characters interact with it. As I think about the villains, what they want, and what they're doing; those results can fall into secrets and clues the characters discover. For more historical aspects of the world, I too put those in secrets and clues the characters might learn. I don't have to tell them about *every* god in the Southlands, but maybe the two or three they might learn about while searching the Pit of Unending Thirst in the ruined city of Kukkutarma. I find that this narrowing down of the world into the tiny bite-sized pieces the characters might learn about in the next session saves me time and helps me stay focused on the game at the table. There's more about villains and secrets in both Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and the Lazy DM's Companion. Hope that helps!

I think that can work but you don't want the players to feel like there's no good choice and they'll always be punished. If you can make it clear before they choose a quest that likely the other group will accomplish the other part, I think that can work. It's a delicate balance but if you're keeping the players' feelings in mind as you do it, that's a good first step. I do the same thing in my City of Arches Key of Worlds scenario – the players get one of the two blackfire weapons but the cult gets the other. The players ignight one of the braziers, but the cult ignights the other. That's ok. They're not losing ground but they have rivals moving as they move.

I don't think there's any reason you can't do both. Some secrets you might give out liberally – particularly those that move the story forward. Others you might hold closer, like interesting bits of history not vital to the story but interesting should they figure them out. Locations of legendary artifacts. That sort of thing. You can certainly use secrets as rewards and I don't think that changes how you'd put them together in your notes. I don't think it changes the 8 steps. Some other reading: https://slyflourish.com/secrets_serve_you.html https://slyflourish.com/revealing_secrets.html

You may notice those articles are quite old. I don't really use puzzles in my games anymore. I think navigating the situation in the game and in the world is its own sort of puzzle. I might introduce some sort of key-type puzzle for unlocking doors but not much else. I find puzzles take too much time to set up for too little entertainment value in the game.

Hi Jacques! Here's the list I recommend these days: https://slyflourish.com/lazy_dm_tools.html

There's probably a way to do a mix of both. You can both remind them of things they have and let other things go. You might remind them of the importance of checking their sheet and help them perhaps better organize things so they're at hand. Some GMs hand out index cards with new powers, spells, or magic items as they hand them out.

"You are what you do" is how I approach this. Instead of a group being kill-on-sight because of *who they are*, they're kill on sight for the faction they support, the idiology they support, or the actions they've done. It's on my mind for other reasons but the Pinkertons in Deadwood are one such faction. They weren't born Pinkertons – they decided to join them and do what they do. In the old west, nasty mercenary companies could work well. Evil cults of course. Brigands who destroy villages. Focus on their actions as a group instead of some larger ethnic or societal connection. Even still, it's fun to have turncoats from this group. Members who realize they're doing horrible shit can be great allies.

I think there are a few potential things you might consider. First, its probably worth having a conversation offline with the player in question about them running off on their own and saying that it's something you and others don't appreciate. Conversations like that are hard no matter what but they're harder in the moment and harder in front of other people. One-on-one either physically or video / voice is the best way in my experience. Don't be judgmental – address the problem, not the character of your friend. Second, and probably after this has happened, you can implement a "pause for a minute" rule that lets players break character to address the game outside of the game. You, as the GM, can invoke it yourself. For example: "Pause for a minute, are the rest of you as players ok if Jack's character runs off on his own? No? Jack, can you have your character stay with the group?" That's a bit on the nose for this situation, of course, which is why it's probably better to handle this before you put something like this in place, but it can help. Hope that helps!

You can have an out-of-game conversation with them about this, of course, explaining that their character isn't them and to really fall into the shoes of their characters. This usually happens as players play a few different characters. You can also ask a series of leading questions to help them see that their character is different than they are: - What does your character want? - Where does your character come from? - When your mind wanders back to your history, what do you see? Addressing the characters instead of the players can also help them fall into their character a bit. As an extreme option, you might run this as a shorter campaign and then switch to a new one so they can see what it's like to play a different character. You can, during your session zero, ask them the questions above to help them build a character different than they are.

I usually like to bring some options to the table and if I have one I prefer, I push for that option. I don't want to run stuff I don't want to run so I bring what I want to the table. If you really have a few options and you're just as eager to go with any of them as any other, you can bring them forward and give your pitch. But I'd come with a focused set of options instead of an open conversation. You're running the game. You get to decide what you want to run.

Hi Alex! If you haven't done one, I would consider having a nice epilogue with a "One Year Later" montage: https://slyflourish.com/ending_campaigns.html You can even do it after the campaign is done. However the final battle went, this is still my favorite way to end a campaign and my players find it really satisfying.

Woo, a fun meta-question! I am not seeing a drop in views like others are but I didn't have these big explosions in views that they did. I don't know how focused this is on their channels versus a whole problem with D&D and YouTube overall. I always keep in mind that YouTube is a vulnerability in the Sly Flourish empire. About 40% of new patrons come from YouTube, for exmaple, and if they start to lower the number of people who see my videos, that number will go down. That's ok, though. I wrote Sly Flourish long before I ever posted YouTube videos and I have many other platforms to write. It just means less people may find me who don't already know about me. So no, I don't know how it will affect me or whether this specific thing is a real problem or not. Myself and other RPG video creators are all looking at it together to see how it affects us, but YouTube isn't my only focus. If you want to help the situation: - Go directly to your subscriptions tab in YouTube so you see all the videos your video producers post. - Tell your friends about your favorite channels and videos on other platforms.

I always recommend the "spiral campaign development" method described in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master in Chapter 16. More here: https://slyflourish.com/spiral_campaign_building.html https://slyflourish.com/thinking_two_horizons_out.html

I do sometimes roll on random tables during a game – particularly for Shadowdark. But I try to focus on the tables that bring the biggest impact to the game. Instead of rolling on six tables for an NPC, I might only roll on two. For an overland encounter, I might roll: 1. The location, feature, or monument where the encounter occurs. 2. A faction roll to flavor the scene with a particular faction (wolves of Unduluk instead of just wolves) 3. The encounter itself. Who is there? 4. Roll for hostility 5. Roll for distance And go with that. If I want to have an encounter that already occurred, Ill roll up a location and then two encounters to see what happened previously. I can usually roll a bunch of rolls like this without much difficulty at the table but you can always pre-roll some encounters during your prep and have them ready. Also, don't sweat taking the time. Not everything needs to happen right away. Tell your players you need five minutes. They'll understand.

That's a tough one! I would consider focusing down on three factions, eliminating the ones who aren't really doing very much and the ones the players aren't really paying attention to. You can also reduce the factions down to just the NPCs the characters are interacting with that are part of that faction. At that point it matters less what the whole faction is doing and more about what the NPC is doing. You can also just run with it! Keep your eye on the next game and ask how the factions moved around between sessions. Write down what you need to write down and enjoy the intrigue!

I think I'd have another out-of-game conversation with them and explain that the world can be really deadly or not. I think the potential for character death is an important part of Shadowdark, moreso than other fantasy RPGs. Then I would let it happen and see how it goes...

This gets right in there with players driving to remove the tension from a battle that needs tension. For me, the right way to do this is to telegraph what capabilities monsters have to circumvent saving throws up front. Tell them if it has something like that and how many. Make legendary resistances clear. Put them out in front of the players and explain how they work before the battle begins. The worst part of a battle like this is when the player is *surprised* to have their big thing fail. The other way to do something like this is have the ability work for one round until they're able to recover at the beginning of their next turn so the hold still works and drops them out of the sky for a bunch of damage but next turn they shatter the hold and get up. Above all, though, talk to your players about it. Even if this worked out how it worked out for the game you ran, you can talk to them about how you'll do this in the future.

I usually pair characters together with one person aiding the other to give them advantage on the check. You can still describe in the narrative how they go about the job to help their friend or which one accomplishes what based on what they do. If you want more roles, Level Up Advanced 5e's Trials and Treasure has a whole bunch of alternate roles beyond just four.