April – June 2026 Patreon Q&A
Welcome to the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for April, May, and June 2026!
Ask your monthly RPG-related question in the comments below!
Every Friday morning I answer every question on this post and some questions make it to the Lazy RPG Talk Show. Don't be upset if your question doesn't make it to the show – only a handful do.
As you consider your question for the month, please
search the SF Patreon Q&A database, the Lazy RPG Talk Show Topic Database, the Sly Flourish website, and the Sly Flourish YouTube Channel to see if I've done an article or video on your topic previously.
focus your question on tabletop RPGs.
stick to one question each month.
keep your question brief. I love your stories but I get overwhelmed.
Comments (147)
Thank you for the great questions this quarter! Please post new questions to the new thread!
Hi, Mike! I have a question about encouraging player-to-player roleplay. In my games, it feels like each player expects me to bring elements from their character's background into the campaign (NPCs, plot hooks, old relationships, etc), and that is fine, as I'm the GM. But I'd love for the players themselves to become more interested in each other's characters and backgrounds. Do you have any techniques for encouraging players to naturally ask each other questions, share stories, or create roleplaying scenes based on each other's backstories, instead of relying on the GM to be the main source of those moments? I'd love to foster more curiosity and interaction between the characters themselves. Thanks!
Sometimes this falls to the players to figure out and get excited about. I might try "campfire tales" to see if you can get the characters talking to one another. https://slyflourish.com/campfire_talk.html You can use some group facilitation techniques like asking what one character things about another character during roleplay scenes. "How does Threx feel about what Wyvona just said?" See if it works, but I wouldn't force it. Somtimes players just aren't into it quite as much. It's very player and group dependent.
Hi Mike! How are you? I’m DMing mid level d&d for the first time (5 level 8 characters) and so there’s lots of tools the players now have for combat encounters (the classics like sentinel/polearm mastery, repelling blasts, confusion etc). I’m struggling to make big set piece encounters an appropriate challenge. I had one last session which I was really excited for, but worried it would result in tpk, but it ended up being pretty easy (but long) and my one of my players even commented that there never really felt like there was any threat (the rogue never even took part in the combat!). It’s really knocked my excitement and motivation for future sessions. It’s not that I don’t love seeing my players do cool stuff and I am on their side, but I also want there to be a real challenge when it needs to be and every time I try it feels like it falls a bit flat. Going back in the database, I know you’re not a massive monster tactics gym, but do you have any new lazy techniques for ensuring encounters will be challenging when they need to be, like always use the most damaging ability immediately? Not sure you’ll have anything new, and perhaps all I really need is a pep talk!
Boost that damage! Damage is the biggest way to clarify a threat. Also consider using Dreadful Blessings whenever you have a boss monster on the table. Ensure you're using modern 5e monsters like those in the Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault or the D&D 2025 Monster Manual. Standard D&D 2014 monsters just don't do enough damage. You can also up the damage of any monster to 7 to 10 damage per CR to make them more dangerous without making your battles take longer. In my experience with 5e, the biggest determiniation of threat is damage output. Next is breaking past lock-down effects which Dreadful Blessings can help you manage: https://slyflourish.com/dials_of_monster_difficulty.html https://slyflourish.com/dreaded_blessings.html
Hi Mike, I recently learned that Darrington Press CGL license prohibits third party creators selling their products on a VTT that is licensed for Daggerheart. For instance, Fantasy Grounds, Foundry, Alchemy, and Roll20 have licenses to sell Daggerheart. But no third party creator can sell their product on those platforms. This seems egregious, especially from a company like Darrington Press. WoTC turned to Creative Commons. This Darrington License is terrible to prevent third party creators from selling their products. My question is, why is there no OGL-like scandal for Darrington Press? They are significantly worse than WoTC when it comes to licensing.
The Darrington Press CGL does indeed suck, and it's a real shame considering all the influences the game had from other games with more open licenses. There are two big reasons this isn't an OGL-level scandal though: First, they didn't *change* their license from one thing to another. That was the OGL mess. WOTC tried to violate their own contract – acting in bad faith on the contract they themselves created 20 years after having published it in the first place. DP isn't doing that. In fact, they've been opening up little bits of it. Second, Daggerheart isn't the top of the food chain of RPGs and D&D was. There were hundreds of RPGs that built themselves off of the bones of D&D and had explicit permission to do so until they didn't. It's critical that the core mechanics of D&D (not just 5e but D&D overall) are in the CC because it's WOTC's explicit agreement that they're not going to go after anyone for using hit points, armor class, the six ability scores, the skill list, and all those spells and monsters. Daggerheart isn't in that position. We can always make a Daggerheart-like-game using common roleplay mechanics because we know that D&D's core mechanics from the past 52 years are released in the CC.
Hi Mike, How do you manage Secrets & Clues in a mystery style game? I'm planning to run a mystery-themed campaign set in Zobeck. I want to start with the adventure, "Everyone Lies” from the Zobeck sourcebook. The style of the adventure is based on finding NPC's at certain locations, then there is a bunch of boxed text to read to the players describing the interaction or discovery. I thought this type of adventure was perfect for using the Eight Steps, but I think the Secrets and Clues need to be connected to NPC's or locations in order to make the adventure flow. How would you recommend using the Eight Steps for this kind of adventure? Appreciate you! Thanks, Graham D
I can't speak to that adventure in particular but I can offer thoughts on running investigations and mysteries from Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster! - In investigation and mysteries, the characters investigate clues, meet NPCs, and explore locations focused around a central mystery. • Investigations and mysteries often form spontaneously during other adventures rather than being planned out ahead of time. • Investigations and mysteries work well by giving the players lots of potential paths of investigation, piecing together clues as they go. • Focus your prep on secrets and clues, NPCs, and locations when preparing investigations and mysteries. Build layers of secrets the characters peel back to learn the truth as they go. • Balance the amount of information the characters discover during their investigations to maintain a fun pace – enough to keep them moving forward but not so much that they uncover the plot too early. - Don’t force the story, bury useful information too deeply, put secret villains into the spotlight too early, or offer too many red herrings. Ensure you include some fun combat encounters to keep your more action-focused players happy. I think secrets and clues can work fine almost as-is for investiations and mysteries. You might still want to break things out from the specifics in the adventure in case the characters go a direction the adventure didn't expect.
How do you use maps with a hybrid group? My group has some players in person and some online and when using a map, we often have one person as a "camera man" using their phone in discord and zooming in on the action but they dont get to participate otherwise. How do you use maps for both in-person and online players?
That's about the best way I've found. We put a camera on the map and use Discord so they can see what's happening on the table. I have a little tripod for my phone at my home game and we can put the phone above the table in the chandalier above the table at my remote game.
Hi Mike, our party just finished a campaign and the group will be joined by another player and his character. And we'll have about three months of in-game down time. We'll do some social scenes to wrap up some stuff and the players will probably want to build a keep, do some crafting and training. How do you handle downtime between campaign/ adventures?
I'll grab this straight from the summary of the Downtime chapter of Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster! - Downtime sessions follow the characters as they return from their adventures and conduct longer-term activities. - Downtime activities can vary in duration but a several days often works best as a time scale. - Clarify what downtime activities the characters might engage in and solicit their ideas. Tailor downtime activities for their character and the current situation in the campaign. - Let players know ahead of time that they’ll be going into a downtime session so they can think about what they want their characters to do ahead of the session. - Focus preparation on the characters, secrets and clues, and NPCs the characters might meet during their activities. If it’s right for the timing and pacing of the session, include a combat encounter to add some action. - Run downtime sessions by asking each character what they do and clarify their activities. Keep things moving. - Avoid spending too much time on any one character. Ensure it’s clear what activities characters might engage in. Not all players love the slower pace of downtime sessions.
Hi Mike, regarding your discussion of persuasion checks in the last show, what do think of the approach that Stonetop takes? In Stonetop a successful check grants the player the insight of what would persuade their target. (given either by the GM or a player if they were targeted) Leaving the persuasion itself to roleplay but still giving PCs with related stats a huge boon.
Sounds really cool! I haven't checked out Stonetop so I can't speak with any authority but sure, that sounds like a cool way to do it.
Question: New Hire Hypothetical You work at a TTRPG company and you need to hire someone to help you design, write, and create a new adventure for your own or an existing TTRPG. You only got two applications. Both with a relevant college degree and internship. Both have been playing and GMing TTRPGs for some number of years, and is why they took the opportunity to make this career shift. And for the most part their resumes are good and pretty comparable. Applicant A has a creative writing degree with a focus on novels, and with an internship in novel editing and layout. Applicant B has a game design degree with a focus on level and environment design, with an internship in Quality Assurance, level testing, and play testing. Which do you hire and why? Part 2. You have decided to hire both of the above applicants. But one of them you have noticed as been struggling. Their performance has been fine but not astounding. They have had to unlearn things, redo work, and you have had to take some time to teach them the way you want it done. Their work and performance improves. A few months into the job, the company has a spot open for a new project and accepting new ideas. You tell both applicants they can take a week or two to come up with a prototype to show everyone for potentially the next project. Applicant A comes back with some looking like a large linear adventure path, similar to something like PF2e: Rise of the Rune Lords, or DND5e: Vecna Eve of Ruin. Applicant B comes back with at best a 10 page zine or a trifold pamphlet, similar to a Shadowdark one page adventure or curse scroll, or Limenal Horror: The Chair, or Mothership: Vibe-chete. Which idea do you accept?
That's three questions in two days! You're cut off! This is really a better question for Shawn Merwin over on Mastering Dungeons. They think about this stuff all the time. I'd probably go with the game design-focused person first because creative writing itself isn't the hard part about building a good adventure and I've seen a lot of creative writers who just write and write without any connection to what the game needs. For part two, I'd go with the zine. I think that serves folks better.
Hey Sly! Long time fan and supporter :) I was wondering to what degree and how you would go about applying the 8 Steps in between campaigns, in preparation for the future I am a firm believer of leaving blanks for the players to fill and only planning one session ahead of the players, but sometimes I find myself in a hiatus between campaigns and wanting to prep some useful "raw materials" to be used in future campaigns. How can I use this time and energy now to set myself up for success later?
I think there are other areas where we can best spend our time in between campaigns. Some of them include factions, adventure locations, important NPCs, villains and their quests, visible or discoverable history, pantheons, and other deeper and richer elements of the game. I also like putting together tools to help me run the game when it comes time to run it: faction lists, lists of historical figures, treasure generators, and other elements I think I might need to help prep and run games in the future. What I don't prepare are plots or arcs. I don't know what path the characters will want to follow so I don't plan a story arc which I think is a big difference from a lot of GMs.
Your recent overview of Nimble made me ask a question (disguised as a Hot Take?): Although the 8 Steps can be used with any RPG system, are there specific systems that are better (Shadowdark, Nimble) or worse (Draw Steel, 5e) from a lazy prep perspective? And perhaps there are appropriate trade-offs in this regard (ex: Draw Steel's elaborate set piece battles)? Love to hear your thoughts...
I haven't used the eight steps with Draw Steel (or played Draw Steel at all really), but in my experience, the eight steps work well with just about every RPG I played. I think this is because the steps focus on in-world things instead of any sort of mechancial or process focus. Each of the steps makes sense regardless of the RPG you play – mostly. The only one I really had trouble with was Blades in the Dark because the elements of the game at the table shift the story so much, it was hard to put a finger down on what might happen during prep. Even with elaborate set-piece battles, you can still break things up or outline them using the eight steps. I have set-piece battles in my own games and they work fine.
Should social and exploration encounters have as much rules as combat encounters? Thoughts on giving mechanics, rules, and procedures to other parts of the game besides combat. I feel the their is an attempt to codify things like social encounters and exploration. Either in newer TTRPGs or homebrew rules on YouTube. For example bringing back strict dungeon turns to 5e, and negotiations like in draw steel. Another example is skill challenges and montages. I’ll see pushback on this in the comments and reviews, complaining that it’s “too gamey and like a board game” and that “you can just roleplay your way out of it with maybe a singular roll” my counter argument to that is these rules are no different than how combat has codified with procedures and rules. And we find it weird that combat can’t just be resolved in a single roll. When you really boil down to it, combat is just a series of skill checks and clocks, with abstract concepts that we call attack rolls, HP, and other combat abilities. what these new rules for other scenarios in hobby are really trying to is make it so that there is more agency, and satisfying choices that we tend to spend 300-400 pages in our books.
I don't think they need more rules. I think combat needs less rules =) I think different groups and GMs will find the types of systems they like but I definitely lean towards a less mechanics-driven focus. Games like Shadowdark and other folk-heroic games depend more on how the characters interact with the world, avoiding skill checks completely and only using ability checks when there's a real random need for such a thing. I think adding something like clocks to handle more complex situations is fine but I'm also good with handling it in the world as it comes up. It's not *wrong* to want more mechanics for such things but I don't think it's wrong to not want them either.
Hi Mike, I'm curious how you handle player absences in the fiction of the game. Example - a session ends on a cliffhanger partway through a dungeon crawl - next session, one of the players involved is missing. Assuming everyone's happy to continue the game, how do you handle their character? My group typically hand-waves the absence with something silly. Right now I'm running a more grounded game and I'd prefer options that make more sense, I've tried auto-piloting characters, keeping them passive and out of danger. That's okay, but... I feel it could go wrong at some point. I'm sure there's no right answer - but, interested in how you and others handle this. Cheers!
I just let them fade into the background. Your players understand why it's happening. If there's a reasonable explanation for them to go off-screen, go with that. Otherwise you can just let them fade away and come back later. I think keeping them in the world and scene when the player isn't there just adds further complications.
Hey Mike! Congrats on joining the D&D Community Advisory Group! It’s awesome to see WotC taking a step toward listening to your feedback. I know you might not be able to answer this, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway. Do you think there’s any chance the Artificer class (and maybe the Psion class from last year’s UA) will ever find its way into the SRD? Could this Advisory Group suggest that WotC occasionally updates the SRD content? And on a personal note, do you agree this would be a good move, or do you see any downsides to it? Cheers!
I can't talk about the specific conversations taking place inside the advsiory group but if you want to know the sort of stuff I bring to them, you can guess from the stuff I talk about on the show or on EN World or other places. I think there's always a chance they release the artificer in the SRD. I couldn't weigh how heavy that chance is. They haven't given any public indication of doing so. We know they're aware of the drive for further SRD expansions – mostly in releasing the promised 3.5 SRD in the CC. I do think the artificer should be released in the CC. They've basically made it a core class since Xanathar's Guide and now they're including artificer subclasses in supplemental books that require *another* supplemental book to use. It's not great.
Hi Mike! I am GMing a forged in the dark game soon-ish. Since you run a campaign in Blades in the dark, what is your experience in building a "last stand" situation for the game conclusion? Since most situations are resolved with one roll, how can I make sure that all the PCs can have a contribution to the last scene of the game? Progress clocks are one tool, but I am curious to know if you have recommendations on how to spotlight every PCs in a narrative-first system like this, please.
I haven't really run a scene like that in our BitD campaign. I ran it pretty much as I ran every other scene and situation in the game. I do think a bigger and more complicated situation can be fun. I don't know that I'd try to wire things so each character gets their big contribution – let them figure that out based on how the fiction of the session plays out. Just make sure to give each player their opportunity and see where they take it.
Hello! As my current 5e campaign is getting close to wrapping up, the excitement of planning a new campaign and what changes I want to make is upon me! I've also been running a simultaneous Dragonbane campaign with a different group and I am quite enjoying. Something I have noticed about Dragonbane that I thought I would like but has proven a bit fiddly in practice is the cost of resting. In 5e, the cost of resting is so low it might as well be 0 unless there is a specific time pressure to an ongoing quest. Dragonbane has a higher cost for rations / resting relative to 5e, but with the hunting and foraging rules I have found that it's still effectively guaranteed the group can rest just fine for as long as they want, there a just more die rolls. I don't necessarily want the cost of resting to just be more in game time, but rather I would like it to be a short but interesting decision with a clear cost / benefit. Resting now is good because it gets us our PC resources back but bad because it costs us X. I had the following idea and am curious if you have any thoughts / ideas for this. I have used the following simplified XP system for years now in my 5e games to great success. Players start at 0 XP. Each session they gain between 1-5 XP as decided by me based on what they accomplished that session (its usually at least 3 XP). When they get to 10 XP, they level up and then XP resets to 0. It gives me great control over the pacing of the game like milestones while also being very transparent to the players. So, I was thinking that in order to gain the benefits of a long rest the player would need to spend 1 XP. They could still sleep normally, but unless they spend 1 XP they wouldn't restore HP, spell slots, etc. The ratio might need some tweaking, but I was thinking basically a very small XP cost would be all it would take to add an interesting decision around when to rest instead of looking to do it after every encounter if possible. I add time pressures sometimes, but I don't want to have to contrive a new reason after every encounter why they can't rest. Have you tried or heard of something like this before? Any pitfalls I might have failed to consider?
That sounds like a system that might work. Talk about it with your players and see how they feel about it. I've taken a more fiction-focused approach of basically saying that you can't take a long rest in a dangerous place unless I make it clear that they can. In Dragonbane, when I ran it, the players and I enjoyed the stories of foraging and camping even if they didn't make things more dangerous but I would also make it clear when they could and could not take a shift rest (we never dug the names of the rest in Dragonbane). Your more mechanical approach of subtracting an XP for a rest does give players more control over whether they want to rest or not. Of course, you might give the a rest for "free" when you think it fits. Anyway, I'd recommend talking to them about it and trying things out. You can always adjust as needed.
Hi Mike, Here’s how I’m reading the monster manual: Goblins are chaotic little green guys, they’re not very smart but they’re CRAZY! Kobolds are chaotic little dragon guys, they’re not very smart but they’re CRAZY! Gnolls are chaotic little dog guys, they’re not very smart but they’re CRAZY! I’m being a bit cheeky, but it feels hard to differentiate the various bags of hit points in my game. I know there’s bits of mechanics that make them different in combat, but I’d like to know how you make them interesting and unique in the story and the fiction.
It depends on which monster manual you're talking about. The D&D 2014 Monster Manual was pretty bad about this – not just oversimplifing monsters but the whole bio-essentialism of it. Scott Gray, Teos Abadia, and I talked about this in our anti-colonialization chapter of Forge of Foes. There are lots of little tricks to help get around the boring depictions of other sentient species along with the subtext of "othering". An easy one is "you are what you do" and "you are what you believe". Orcs of Gruumch might be complete dicks but Orcs of Torm? They're good folk. Whenever I like to drop in a species that might be in for the bad guys, I like to include the same species but with a different background or point of view or direction. Not all goblins are black-hearted little thieves. Some believe in the value of fair trade. Not all orcs are violent brutish beasts. Some are noble protectors of the people. So I tend to focus more on factions than species. Gods, organizations, historical groups.
Hi Mike, loved your tips, suggestions and best practices regarding DM/GM note taking at the table. I'd love to use your principles and techniques for in-session note taking as a player at the table, as well. Recommendations for player note taking at the table (physical/analog notebooking)? The more detailed and granular, the better. Thanks so much in advance.
I don't have fantastic advice here but I'd say don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Taking *any* notes is great. It's a great way to stay engaged in the game, help your friends who might miss something, help the GM see what you're recollecting – there are so many advantages for taking notes. I'd say make sure to note what other characters are doing and the main story elements. Names are big ones. Proper names of people, places, factions, and so on. I always have a hard time remembering those and having notes for them would be fantastic. If you have a way to share your notes with the GM and other players, that's a huge benefit too.
Hey Mike, have you heard of people taking TTRPG games to schools for the blind? Seems like it would be a lot of fun for the kids/ adults? Thanks!
I have a friend who is blind who sees RPGs as a fantastic form of entertainment. I haven't heard of programs for schools for the blind but I see no reason it wouldn't work!
I remember you saying in the past that you are not a huge fan of PbtA style systems like Blades in Dark. How come? What are your reasons why? The way you describe how you run your sessions, very open, player driven and improvised on various levels. To me, that’s what PbtA style is all about. Playing to find out, and no prep/low prep style games, take each session one at a time. Which I feel is much of your philosophy with the lazy dungeon master. What it’s because you like games either crunchy combat mechanics. Id recommend trying many of the Magpie games like Avatar legends, Root RPG and their latest Temeraire the RPG. Again repeating the question: how come you say you don’t prefer PbtA style games when I, as a third party observer, feel like it would best suit your play style?
I love PbtA games and I love Blades in the Dark. My issue particularly with Blades was the complications of characters, crews, locations, and other elements that seemed to add a lot of complexity I wasn't expecting. There's a *lot* of material to absorb for Blades and I wasn't ready for it. But I definitely love PbtA games. In playing Daggerheart recently, I wished it was more like PbtA. I still respect the hell out of Blades in the Dark but I didn't find it easy to prep and run for my style.
Hi Mike! I am running a West Marches campaign with Shadowdark, but I believe this relates to travel in many campaign styles. Considering a core concept of WM is exploration and finding locations for next week, I struggle with pacing random encounters to be exciting, tantalizing for the future, and, critically, not detract from the stated goal of the session. A single location or combat can take 30-60 minutes, we may roll or discover more than one, and we typically run 3-4 hours in a 3-8 room one page dungeon (by the way, love using your Ravenloft trick “the boss WILL find you at 9pm” to keep things moving). I’ve considered a more narrative travel approach but I feel that it may remove too much player agency. I bet the western reaches will have some advice, but I’m curious: Do you have any advice on pacing random encounters to maximize impact and minimize time bleed?
if your intention is getting through a whole adventure in a single session, that can be tough. You'll want to strip out things that don't get to the adventure. I don't run traditional west-marches style games so I don't know the best approach. You could just skip the travel and start at whatever location they intended to explore so you can reasonably get through the material in the session. Timing your adventures and sessions is a larger harder problem for more open-ended games like this. For my own home games, I don't have to worry. I know we'll have another session later so if they end right before a boss fight (as I did this past Wednesday) that works out fine. For more stand-alone sessions, thoguh, that might be a bigger issue. Smaller dungeons with fewer rooms might give you more time for a bit of exploration before they reach their location. If you allot an hour of your session to the beginning of the session and the travel scene and then use the rest of the session for your dungeon crawl, you might have a better handle on what you can cover from one session to the next. If you have the benefit of knowing that the same group will be there the next session, you can spread your west marches arc across multiple sessions and give yourself more time to let the game flow how it flows.
Aloha, Mike!
Hello!
Hey, Mike. Congrats on being chosen for the WotC advisory board position. I can think of no one else to better represent us GMs, you so obviously care about the hobby and making it as strong as possible for everyone, so kudos, sir. My question is this: do you plan to market the fact you are on that advisory board in relation to your own material? You have the awesome new Kickstarter coming soon (can't wait!), and I was wondering if you've given thought to using your position on the board as a tool to help further your own material. Thanks again for all you do for GMs!
Hello! I do not plan on marketing my participation in the advisory panel. I don't really plan on talking about it on the show or anywhere else. Maybe it's a benefit but maybe not. I was mostly worried about being able to disclose the fact that I'm on such a board and that they're compensating me for the effort. Being able to be honest with you about this hobby is more important to me than trying to propel myself off of being on the board. It doesn't hurt to have the URL to my website on the list of advisory board members. There was a big leap for one day but then it went back to normal. That's fine too.
Hi Mike, happy Friday! (June question) When running a long term campaign in a game like D&D 5E or ToV, do you think of your campaign as having arcs similar to the tiers of play as defined in the D&D’24 PHB? I know that you use the spiral campaign method, and that will determine a lot of how you approach the game, but do you think in advance “tier 1 might have these beats, tier 2 could be about this, etc. and if the players go off in a totally different direction then I’ll adapt as needed or change my ‘plans’ completely”? (‘Plans’ just meaning very loose ideas about potential outcomes based on the setup of the world and campaign) Or, do you try to put such thoughts about the future possibilities of the campaign and its “arcs” out of your head completely so that you don’t risk unduly influencing the options available to the players?
I do it pretty much as you describe. I have loose arcs in mind but those arcs change significantly depending on what the characters do and how the circumstances change in the world. I might have big loose plans or beats but sometimes those go out the window. My Dragon Empire game has a huge arc right now to recover a bunch of gold they dumped into Evermaw like eight months ago. That arc never would have happened if they hadn't done that in the first place. I think having a loose idea where a campaign might go is fine but I wouldn't put a lot of detail in it and I'd be willing to throw it all away when something new happens in the campaign.
You like pdfs a lot. I hate them. How do you make them fun to read? Desktop only? Gaming desktop for some pdfs? ChatGPT to convert them a few pages at a time? (Or pricey Clawdbot to do it in bulk?) What's your setup? I'm honestly enjoying dndbeyond, avoiding GenAI, and letting my pdfs rot in the cloud. There's a lot of valuable ideas in pdfs that I'm missing out on, though.
PDFs are a terrible format for digital books – absolutely. Unfortunately they've become the expected standard for digital RPG products. The main reason is that they're very easy to make from a production standpoint. Publishers have to lay their books out for print and taking that layout and turning it into a PDF is pretty trivial. Harder is formatting a book for digital devices. EPUB is my preferred format for this but there's no easy way to take a PDF and turn it into an EPUB. It takes hours of skilled work and, so far, I haven't seen LLMs do a good job at this. They either screw up the formatting or they change the text – neither of which works. These difficulties are because RPG PDFs often have complex layout that isn't linear from the way a machine looks at it. Columns, art, sidebars, tables – all of these elements end up breaking up the stream of text. I hand-make all the EPUB versions of my books but I don't think many people use them. It's a shame. While D&D Beyond gives you a nice mobile-friendly version of the books, EPUB does the same thing but in a format you can download, save, and own. WOTC could easily publish EPUBs if they wanted to given that they've already gone through the trouble of formatting books for the web – it's the same format underneath, HTML. There's some basic formatting one can do to turn a PDF into text. Tools like PDF to Text and pandoc can help, but they'll only get you so far. Microsoft came up with a tool but some patrons who tried it out didn't find it very good. I've been using my own PDF search tool to index PDFs and turn them into mobile-friendly text. It's far from perfect but it's a decent way to read PDFs on a mobile phone, errors and all: https://github.com/mshea/pdf_search But yeah, good digital RPG files is still a hard problem.
Hey Mike! In an upcoming session, I have a big battle that's going to happen. (From the 4e Harkenwold module). The events of the battle itself will be mostly cinematic, based on allies the party has recruited. What are some good ideas of things the party can do on a smaller scale to help influence the battle, other than just several waves of enemies?
Hi there! I like to have a list of quests the characters might accomplish that tie to the larger battle going on. How they do on these missions can alter various parts of the battle. I wouldn't tie a big fancy system to it – some sort of battle point system – which is often an instinct some GMs follow. Instead, see what happens as the characters accomplish their quests and see how it changes the larger battle going on. Here's a list of quests like this. Customize them to fit the specifics of the battle you have. 1. Kill enemy leaders 2. Defend a watchtower 3. Rescue prisoners 4. Take out lieutenants 5. Steal enemy plans 6. Defend a keep 7. Sabotage machines 8. Open a drawbridge 9. Deliver intelligence 10. Detonate a bomb 11. Forge alliances 12. Seize a commander 13. Defend a choke point 14. Awaken a monster 15. Steal enemy treasure 16. Retrieve a spy 17. Uncover a weapon 18. Protect refugees 19. Destroy a bridge 20. Scout positions
Do you have any advice on handling a negotiation where bandits, mid fight, realize they don't stand a chance against the party and try to talk themselves put of being killed. The bandits have valuable information for the party. Would you use mechanics, improvise it all or a mix of both?
I prefer getting into the heads of the NPCs and acting as they would act. I'll roll a die sometimes if I'm unsure but I'm not 100% bound to the idea of a morale check for such things. I'd lean first towards what makes sense given the situation. Bandits getting their asses kicked are likely to surrender. They're often cowards to begin with so it makes sense. Other creatures might be more ore less likely to surrender when overwhelmed. Undead probably don't care. Kobold backstabbers might run even more frequently. You can always roll a D6 to help you determine when or how but if you know the answer, you can just go with that. https://slyflourish.com/oracle_die.html
I've been using a modified version of the 8 Steps for almost 4 years now, and I believe I've got them dialed in. However, one place I struggle is with Secrets and Clues. I come up with a list of ten items + one additional secret or clue specific to each PC (what they know because...) every prep session, and I add them to my notes. The PCs generally get the info specific to them, but I find myself improving other bits of lore, seeding hints to current events/missions, foreshadowing things to come, etc. instead of using the info I prepped. While the info I improvise generally works okay, it's often inferior to the stuff I've prepped - it's more generic or more trope-y. I'd love to hear your thoughts and any recommends to adjust this issue. Thanks much for all of the great content and confidence you've given us over the years; both are immeasurable.
I think the act of coming up with secrets and clues helps wire our brains around the lore of our world so even if we're not reciting the secrets right off the page, we're able to take the nuggets of information in them and build new secrets on the fly easier than if we didn't have them at all. I don't think we need go through every secret we have when we run – I typically use about half the secrets I write down and I can't even count the amount of other secrets or lore I throw out there. As far as using the secrets you have, take a little time during the game to read through them again so you're refreshed and you might have another opportunity to bring them to the table. Always remember, secrets serve you. You owe them nothing. If your game is working well and you're happy, you need not worry about how well you're using them or not. https://slyflourish.com/secrets_serve_you.html
Have you read and reviewed The Game Master's Guide to Collaborative Campaign Design? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I'm trying it with my new campaign, and the resulting options are so incredibly prolific that I find it almost overwhelming. Still, I'm excited for what I can learn from it to become a better GM. https://a.co/d/0dfqWmoM
I've heard a lot about it but I've never read it. Sorry!
I have been using your cheat sheets for years and find them very useful. Any chance you are planning an updated cheat sheet for DnD 2024/5.5e?
I don't have a plan to update the sheet for D&D 2024. I don't know that it really needs it. Does it?
What insights could you share about the playtesting process for TTRPGs? I am curious about the process at both the professional level, and how an amateur creator could go about it in a meaningful way. What kinds of things that happen in professional playtesting could be implemented by a small creator? I'm sure the size of the pool of playtesters available to the pros is not something an amateur could achieve (there's only so many friends and family an individual creator could conceivably call on) , but maybe there's other factors that's not out of reach?
I don't know that I'd consider my process any sort of standard, so keep that in mind. I expect other pubishers have a more streamlined and rigid process for playtesting. I'd probably group playtesting into a few categories: No playtesting at all. Personal playtesting with one group. Playtesting with multiple groups. And playtests by other testers and groups. The types of products you're making help you decide which levels of playtesting you need. Campaign settings might not need very much. I ran a lot of City of Arches adventures and got a lot of feedback but I didn't have to playtest it like we did for Fantastic Lairs or Ruins of the Grendleroot. Adventures need a good deal of playtesting if you really want them to shine. Ideally being run by other GMs for other groups. What sort of feedback you receive and how you receive it helps too. I like to send a form to playtesters with specific questions for things I wanted to test and then take general comments at the end. This helps focus feedback around more practical and uniform things you want to test (difficulty, timing, stuff like that). MCDM has an incredible playtesting setup with actual paid playtesters. You might ask them how that works.
Hey Mike! I'm running Draw Steel currently and ran into an issue. I love cults, for lots of the same reasons you do, but I don't want to just use the same boring old D&D cults since Draw Steel has its own unique setting, but it didn't come with a big list of weird cults I could use. Any advice for generating some weird cults I can throw into my version of Orden? Thanks and love the show.
One trick is that *anyone* can be a cultist. You don't have to use just the cultist stat block, you can use the stat block of any sentient creature. They just happen to follow whatever creed the cult follows. It could be hobgoblins or other NPCs or ogres and giants or whatever. Cults are more than just wavy daggers and curses – any sentient creature can be a cult!
Hey Mike, How can I improve on initiative? In my game this week, the barbarian was squared up against the bandit lord, each threatening the other. He says, "I head butt him." I said, "Awesome! Roll initiative and make an unarmed strike." He said, "Oh, if it's going to be my turn, then I guess I'll just hit him with my hammer instead." I was sad. :( How do you let somebody initiate combat in a cool way... without a) giving one side free turns or b) having the low dex player who started the fight finding everybody dead before he gets to throw his punch? (It's also not that fun having an ambush monster try to grab the players, only to be ganked before it even gets a turn. There's got to be a Sly Flourish secret for this.)
Initiative really is there to show the reaction times of opponents so just because someone initaites combat it doesn't mean they get to go first. The other side could just be faster. Even with dex bonuses included, the D20 is a big wide die with a lot of outcomes on it so a good dex or bad dex isn't that much of a swing. Maybe 20% at the most? If you want someone to get off something like this you could say that they complete the headbutt which gives the attacker disadvantage on their initiative or on their first attack or something like that. That's better than one side getting an entire round of free attacks. I think we should be free to give monsters or the characters one free turn (not a full free round) and then jump into combat as well. But if there's a likelihood of both sides knowing combat is coming, I'd just stick to initiative as normal.
A bit of context: I'm doing a serie of One Shots with 5 players. I've asked them what they prefered between me doing the characters or them and it pretty much went toward me doing it, which i didn't mind since it would fit the scenarios. I made the sheets in DnD beyond and, as expected, their tool is not the best one when exporting to pdf. So now i'm writing the sheet by hands, looking at what DnD beyond gives me and all that and it takes so much time, which made me wonder how much is needed for one shots. They are level 5 so they, based on what the 2024 PHB suggest, they should have lots of gold and all that. Considering they'll only do few games, i felt like the inventory wasn't fully usefull, as i would just say that we assume they bought the thing. I havent develop the background and personality of the characters at all, which is kind of obviously something i should ignore. Anyway, my question, which will sound like multiple question but hopefully it's structurally one: Did you ever found yourself in this situation, and if so (or not), what would be your do and dont do?
I haven't been put in the situation of having to build characters for the players outside of one-shot games and level 5 can be pretty meaty. I'd probably stick to whatever DDB outputs and then make things like spell sheets for the spellcasters. As far as gear goes, I'd give them an uncommon magic item that fits their character and likely any normal gear they might want plus a couple of healing potions. I don't think a lot is needed for a one-shot or short campaign. You can also look around and see if anyone has made good 5th level D&D 2024 pregens and use those. Sometimes there are some good ones about but I haven't seen any for D&D 2024 yet.
Hey Mike, I love putting tough moral choices in my games (like in Mothership or Delta Green), but I’ve hit a wall in my dark fantasy D&D campaign. The party is split 50/50 on a massive decision involving a holy character and a warlock debating the future of the gods. They’re paralyzed, likely because staying true to their conflicting characters makes a consensus impossible. What are your thoughts on handling moral dilemmas in TTRPGs, and how do you avoid this kind of player stalemate?
It can be tough! Sometimes players really don't want a hard moral choice like this. I think sometimes its good to break out of character and talk to the players about where they want this situation to end up so, as players, they're ok with how things go even if their characters are not. And maybe it's time for the GM to nudge things into one little direction so folks can be generally happy and interested in the outcome. Maybe pull back the currtain a bit and tell them what some of the reprodussions, or lack theref, would be so they can make a more informed decision.
Listening to your most recent talk show, it occurs to me that I've heard you mention before that your favorite 5e monster book is the 2025 one. I don't have that yet but I will. I seem to recall that your previous favorite was the Level Up A5e Monstrous Menagerie. I think what you liked about that was not only the good, strong monsters but also all of the extra tables provided. That book provided stuff like: - Legends and Lore - Encounter combos for various aggregate CR levels from easier to harder - Signs - Behavior - Names - Treasure - and so forth. My question is this: what makes the 2025 book stand out over the Level Up one? Is it just that the monsters in the WoTC book are that much better or is there something else I should be looking for?
For me there are a few things that make the 2025 D&D Monster Manual stand out over the Level Up Advanced 5e Trials and Treasure book: - Simplified monsters - More monsters (I believe, A5e had a lot, that's for sure) - Harder hitting monsters. I think the actual monster design in the 2025 Monster Manual is stronger than A5e but it's missing all of those other things you mention: treasure parcels, ecologies, what other monsters they tend to group with, knowledge checks, names, all of that. I think it's a close call and I was happy running with the A5e Monstrous Menagerie for years. It wasn't hard for me to add a bit of damage and things held up just fine. But there was also an extra element of complexity that didn't serve me as well as the 2025 Monster Manual. It's not a clear winner across the board. I'm using the Tales of the Valiant monster vault in my current Tales of the Valiant game and not having any trouble with it either. All three are really strong books. But if I'm picking one over the others, it's the 2025 Monster Manual for me.
Hi Mike, short question: am I the a-hole? Long version: I recently went on mega dungeon month to back a project from a well established publisher. The digital tier only included the book pdf, no separate JPGs for the maps, and no add-on map pack. When I asked about it, they said I could upgrade to the vtt tier for digital maps (but not the game system to run it), or the boxed set for paper maps. I don't know if I'm overreacting, but maps are a pretty important part of a mega dungeon, and I'd rather not deal with doing a bunch of copy/paste jobs out of the pdf. You've had some pretty fair insights in past about balancing costs to publishers against value to consumer, is there something I'm missing? I've never published a book before, but I can't imagine any significant extra cost to supplying digital maps to go with the book.
You're not the asshole. Some publishers (myself included) include VTT-usable maps in digital purchases of their books. Others do not. I'm pretty sure I know which publisher you're talking about and yeah, it's a bummer they don't include them. I don't know the economics of it, really. I don't think we're leaving money on the table by including VTT maps in our digital bundles. I also don't think companies who put out their material in bespoke VTT versions see a lot of money from those integrations either. We sure didn't. There's no extra cost in including VTT-compatible maps. It's just another potential revenue stream for them but it's a bummer if the publisher isn't meeting people's expectations. Honestly, I'd tell them. Reach out to them on discord and let them know you think that should be something they include. These publishers listen.
Hey Mike, New patreon here. I played 1e back in the late 70s and very early 80s and then got distracted by other things. Im back playing again in my late 50s and having fun with Shadowdark. I really appreciate all of your content and Youtube posts, they have helped me get back up to speed! BTW, I went to a Barnes and Noble today and asked where the DnD books went and they said they had to put them behind the counter because so many people were stealing them! this is a very upscale part of town so its very interesting to say the least. Sounds like there is still strong interest in TTRPGs, lol.
My local Barnes and Noble hasn't had to hide the D&D stuff yet – it's still on the shelves – but it's good to hear there's so much interest in it! It's a missed opportunity for WOTC to not put free versions of the game out there so kids don't have to steal it but can just go play. Free RPG day sorts of things to get people into the hobby. It is a great time for the hobby though! Lots of fantastic games to play and people interested in playing them.
Your method to make Ravenloft and the Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur into 4-hour one shots has proven invaluable to help run public games. I'm looking to grow Dragonbane in my local groups and I wondered do you have a favored Dragonbane one shot that fits the same mold?
I haven't really looked at doing a Dragonbane one-shot the same way but you could. I'd probably look at the two starter adventures they have – the tower one and Rittermound and add a timer. In Rittermound, it could be the coming of the wight which is really dangerous for intro characters. The tower might be collapsing and require a timer. Those could work.
Hello Mike! I added some of Wild Beyond the Witchlight into my ongoing campaign, and the players really enjoyed the Fey stuff. I however have no solid handle on how to run it, outside of the Witchlight stuff. Ravenloft I can run forever. Tricksy fey stuff… I just don’t know. Any thoughts on how to run Fey themed adventures?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of missing material into what makes the fey realms really work. You could look at other supplements for other systems that handle it. Unfortunately Kobold Press has never really done a summerlands book but you can look at Book of Ebon Tides for some ideas to riff off of. Robert Schwalb has some fey-themed material for Shadow of the Demon Lord you could use too. Digging into your Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is good too. And probably Dolmenwood could get you more info too. I think a feature of Fey-themed campaigns are: - the vast age that goes beyond the age of mortals - the whimsical nature of the inhabitants - the constant struggle between seelie and unseelie fey - the darkness hiding behind the croquet matches and walks in the park Hope that helps!
Hi Mike! I have a question about dials. I’ve had a few situations where the party just completely wipes out a huge boss or combat encounter, and I want them to feel good about it, but I also don’t want them to feel underwhelmed or unchallenged. Do you think it’s okay to throw in an impromptu wave of combatants, or is that too forced? It feels like that, too, takes away from player agency.
I think so. You can turn up the monster dial to throw more monsters in. This is why I like waves of combatants for big challenging encounters. You can tune the encounter on the fly by the number of monsters and size of the monsters who show up next based on what happened before.
Reposting from Discord chat here: This is a question for folks who have used a Campaign Frame for any system. What are the minimum components needed to make it useful as a campaign frame?
I love this question! I'm not sure the campaign frames in Daggerheart really give me what I need. Not in the same way I think the material in Cursed Scroll does for Shadowdark. I need some solidity to the location being discussed. I need factions and gods and other things to make this setting unique. I try to focus on this for City of Arches and my upcoming City of Blades. Here's my list. - The main theme - The "truths" - Adventure locations - Gods - Factions - Villains - History I think we can abbreviate a lot of that for a solid campaign frame. Sometimes I think the campaign frames in Daggerheart focus too much on theme and not enough on the here and how - the people and places the characters are going to interact with.
Hey Mike! I’m planning on running a campaign in Sigil, and man, the City of Doors is MASSIVE. What modifications, if any, would you make to your spiral campaign development approach for a large, complex setting like this? It seems like some of the cool factor of running adventures in Sigil is the size of the setting - the plethora of factions, points of interest, and NPCs with which the players get to interact. I’d like to make the world feel big to my players, but I also don’t want them to feel like they’re drowning in worldbuilding. As always, thanks for everything you do!
I'd focus it like I'd focus any large city. Think of a handful of notable locations tied to the interests of the characters and the story of the campaign you're going to tell. Fill out the details of those places, or get the details from whatever Planescape sourcebook you're going to use. Planescape is wild and weird but not otherwise different from Waterdeep or Baldur's Gate or Ptolus or the City of Arches in how we approach it. Narrow things down to the specific locations you think will come up in your game and highlight those. Good luck!
Thank you for your Lazy GM Prep series and your Eberron factions list, I've stolen liberally from them! I'm running a game in my favorite published campaign setting, Eberron. In session zero my players chose to work for Prince Oargev, the leader of the people of Cyre, who lost their homeland in the Mourning. My question is about what caused the Mourning and why, or more broadly, what caused a Great Event in a campaign world that directly touches the characters' lives. Do you let those questions remain unanswered? Do you make learning and dealing with that part of the situations in the campaign? My players generally like to be told and shown more as opposed to being asked to open-endedly drive the story.
I think they mystery of the Mourning is something worth eventually revealing recognizing that each table (and their associated fork of the world) might have a different answer. In my own Second Mourning campaign, it was a creature they had summoned who caused it, I believe. Some kind of otherworldly horror. They tried to summon it again but beat it back before it could cause the destruction it caused. If I were you, I'd do my "list of ten" brainstorming. What are ten things you think might have caused the mourning? Which of those is the coolest? Go with that. I'd probably define it realatively early without telling the players and then let them discover it. Keep it too fuzzy and things might not make sense. What ten things do you think might have caused the Mourning?
Alternative leveling systems. An end to the infamous bane, to all 5e and Daggerheart GMs, the end of session question “do we level up yet?” “What gets rewarded, gets repeated.” “What gets measured, gets managed” Thoughts on alternative leveling and progression systems and their advantages and disadvantages. As from the quote above, how you reward your players and how you go about getting those rewards is often what your game cares about. For example check out heroic deeds, with their diagenetic ability progression where you do certain things in the game to gain certain abilities, Dragonbane or land of Eem, with their series of end of session questions (do you do x this session, gain an experience point or level up). In OSE, ODND, and OSR you level up or progression from getting treasure and magical items. in more trad games like DND 3 thru 5, pathfinder, draw steel, etc you get xp for fighting and killing monsters. Issues with this you can create the classic murderhobo and the game and game master is encouraged to make “balanced” combats where you mostly just fight. in 5.5, daggheart, and nimble for example there is the vague milestone system with not much guidance on when or where to give your PCs a level. Creating a sense for the players that we should appeal to the GM plots and story, and not giving too much agency to the players.
I don't think about it too hard and I prefer milestone leveling based on events in the game like finishing a big quest, acquiring a powerful item, or otherwise reaching a big accomplishment. These milestones can come about organically during play – when the characters choose a certain path you can make it clear that when they complete that path they'll reach the next level. That way the players still have agency over what they're doing but still have clear measures for leveling up. That's generally my preferrred approach.
Hey Mike, As someone who go already has some buy in to DnD Beyond and I’m planning to run my games using the Maps VTT. What are your thoughts on the Maps VTT; and what features do you like that they’ve added and some features you wish it had?
I haven't used maps to run a game because I haven't run any official D&D adventures in a long while. I have other tools I can use to run games in general online, when I need to, like Owlbear Rodeo, which I'm already used to. From poking around with it, it looks great. I think it was really smart for them to focus on the bare necessities and work their way up instead of going straight for the more complicated VTT. I would totally use it for WOTC-published adventures (or their partners) where everything was already set up. That seems like a good way to go. Of course, there are other options for those not wired into Beyond like Roll20 or Foundry. I think the important thing to remember with D&D Beyond is that everything you "purchase" there is temporary. They can change it however they want whenever they want and WOTC has a history of doing so. As long as you're good with this being a temporary tool for the games you're running today, I think that's fine. I don't really have a list of features I wish they had other than things they'll never do like self-hosting =)
Hey Mike, do you have any tips on how to "quickly" wrap it up a fight scene but still deliver on the fiction and players consequence? My specific scene is actually the tail end of the scene I asked about last time, the one with the BBEG and a bunch of lieutenants. The BBEG left after a couple of rounds and after a couple of "lair actions". The PCs went through all the lieutenants performing a ritual except one, that rushed to a "monument" (Gulthias Tree) that is spawning plant blights. That was our session end, but I was thinking that resuming the fight next session might be pointless, as the party will win, and they will take down the tree and find a magic axe there. Instead I could ask for each player to make just one roll after asking how they would go about to finish the fight. And then I'd adjudicate the consequences based on the roll, like "you will succeed, but let's how well or how much will it cost". How does that sound? Do you have any insights?
I'd be tempted to keep it in the battle and bring in a new complication as your "strong start". I don't know what it would be but something the villain or the tree do that suddenly moves to their "final form" so the challenge returns but then you can still do things like reduce hit points or turn other dials to get out of the battle quickly. Just one last big explosion before the characters mop things up. I think that might work better than abstracting the whole thing down to a die-roll or two. That's my thought anyway.
I've got a long running open world campaign that's spent the last 5 sessions in a dungeon. The original idea was a zelda style dungeon, 3 themed floors, players locked inside allowing them creative freedom to find the Mcguffin and get out. Problem is, Im bored of the dungeon now and ~wouldnt be suprised if my players were too. Any advice for when you back yourself into a corner narratively and want to get out. Im probably just going to set fire to it 🤔
You can always move the macguffin closer to the characters so they can get it and get out. You can also speed things up by reducing encounters, collapsing hallways, or otherwise shrinking whatever is left and get them out again. Sometimes dungeons or arcs of our campaigns just peter out and it's time to move on.
Hi Mike, I'd like your take on an idea: when planning random encounters, in steeds of filling a table yourself (as the DM), how about asking individual players to come up with some encounter from their backstory? It could be someone from their past, a monster haunting them or even a location or monument from their backstory. Ideally the players would love to see "their" encounter happening and show the other players something about their backstory. Would this work?
Sure! It could possibly work. I'd be worried that someone's idea wouldn't come up though and they'd feel bad about it. I tend to prefer building encounters based on the story and the backgrounds of the characters yourself so they come as a surprise to the players. But give it a try and see what happens!
I'm running the Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub dungeon. It's my first time running something longer than a couple sessions with Shadowdark, and I'm worried it's uninteresting for players. I wish I had listened to your Gloaming prep podcast episodes first, since you talk about some really good ways to get players invested in the story and give motivations. How can I pivot or add to the story to make it more interesting to players and get them invested? We're three sessions in and the players are basically asking "why are we here?" and joking about just leaving and not coming back. They've met the three main factions, each of whom mostly wants them to get rid of the other two and also wants to please Mugdulblub (except the catfish). The only motivations they have for exploring further or making it to Mugdulblub is "the mystery of the Bittermolds" which they've pretty much figured out, and the search for treasure, which feels pretty weak on its own. I also made the mistake of describing the keep as a fairly isolated oddity in otherwise normal fantasyland, rather than something that is affecting the larger region. If I could go back I'd start similar to how you did with a hexcrawl in the Gloaming, but here we are.
I think this is where the expectations of more "old school" games and more modern story-focused games tends to crash together. I often find it helps to have clear goals for the characters to go into dangerous dungeons and more OSR-style games just expect that you'll go down there anyway. I think you can drop some bigger reasons why the characters might want to go in there or it's totally cool for them to leave and then come back when they have a better reason to do so. For now, I think the way to do it is to think up say ten reasons why they might want to dive deeper and then seed them out as secrets and clues you can drop in as they explore further. But also, I don't think I'd shy away from them leaving and finding a reason elsewhere. Hope that helps!
Hi Mike, I've liked what I've heard about your Raspberry Pi setup. I'd like to see what it would take to duplicate it because while I've got a 3:2:1 backup setup, I'm not really comfortable with it. (It feels more like a 3:2:0.75 plan. ) Would you mind describing what your set up is at a high level and could you make a recommendation of a good YouTube video or three so I could get started in the right direction? I'm looking to get a basic understanding of capabilities and starting points (the YouTube) and a possible end goal (your set up). I've got enough coding experience in general as well as with Arduino's so I'm confident that your pointers in the right direction will be enough for me to fill the gap between. TIA, and many thanks for your Podcast and everything else you do for the hobby!
Hi there! I'll give you a quick summary but you'll want to do your own research on this. I don't really have any single guides or youtube videos or what not. I will say, and pardon me if this isn't for you, but LLMs are a real help with stuff like this. You can install something like Claude Code on a local machine and it can manage a lot of the deeper unix-level stuff for you instead of needing to learn all of its commands. Tools like Opencode with their free models work too, and they're completely free. But here's a quick breakdown of my setup. - I have a Raspberry Pi 8GB (which got a lot more expensive with the RAM shortage going on now) - I run it "headless" so I just use secure shell to access it. I don't have a monitor or keyboard for it. - I have two external 1TB external SSDs. One of them uses rsync to mirror to the other one once a day. - Even though I install almost everything on the external drives, I also back up the main micro-SD disk that the machine boots off of daily as well. A second one is plugged in with a little USB dongle so I can swap the main drive and boot if something goes wonky. - I use Docker for a lot of the applications I have on there. - I use a Cloudflare tunnel on it so I can access it outside of my home network. This can be tricky to set up but it works great. I also have Talescail running on this as a secondary external connection and that's a lot easier than Cloudflare. - I have a docker for rclone, a backup package, that backs up to Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive once a week. This is my "1" for the 3-2-1 backup. - Once a week I use rsync on my mac to back up my Document directory to this Raspberry Pi server through Samba. Thus that is copied on the two local drives and to Amazon as well. Thus, I have a 7-5-2 backup instead of 3-2-1 backup. It's overkill but it's also really nice to hit all my documents through the server instead of them only being on my mac. I have a bunch of things I'm running on the server: - Jellyfin and MiniDLNA for music streaming - My own local httpd web server to serve web stuff for just me. - Pihole to block ads (I have another dedicated raspberry pi just for a backup of pihole) - Copyparty which is a really cool file explorer style app that runs across the network. - A custom RSS reader for my own reading of the daily news. - A custom PDF compression tool so I can compress PDFs locally and easily. - My PDF Search tool which is fantastic for doing RPG research (https://github.com/mshea/pdf_search) - A custom server health daily report generator. - A hacker news front page mirror. - A little script that keeps track of Apple $5 movie deals. - A backup script that pulls down my podcasts and saves them to the backup disks. So yeah, lots of stuff! Hope that helps!
I only see my players once every 3 months, so our games are long 6-8 hour face-to-face sessions. During that time, I am SUPER conscious of pacing so that my players 1) don’t get bored 2) feel they’ve made progress. As a result, I often nerf encounters from their published versions, tweak the dials of power, and handwave difficult things if the rolls are okay. Does anyone else do this? I worry I am taking the meat out of the game.
I think you have the full authority and responsibility to tune your game for your fun and the fun of the table. I think keeping the pacing high by lowering hit points and increasing damage is a fine way to go and it's been done in RPGs for a long time. I think if you feel like things are getting too arbitrary, you'll know and you can apply some of these ideas before you run your game – during prep. But yeah, if there isn't a problem there isn't a problem. I tune things all the time to keep the pacing of the game at a fun level.
Hi Mike! Is there a campaign that you have run over the years that sticks out as a favorite of yours? Not really asking about the setting or whether it was a specific published adventure. More curious about what made that campaign feel special and memorable compared to others you’ve run and if there’s anything we can learn from your reflections on it.
I love all of my campaigns in their own way and I don't think I can pick out just one as my favorite but I'll pick out a couple: My City of Arches 3x5e campaign was awesome. It was so great to watch the world evolve while I was publishing the book at the same time. Big meaty campaign for friends, many of whom have played together for almost 20 years. My Eberron Second Mourning campaign was great - two different groups but both were awesome. That was the first time I really realized how powerful a homebrew campaign in a published setting can be. I love my Dragon Empire game going on right now. The way the characters drive the story and the story is so big in scope is great. I also love the setting. So those three...
Hi Mike, I always feel really inspired when I read the MM entries for things like Beholders, Hags, and Nagpa. Similarly, stories with political intrigues and deceptive antagonists. But I always find myself coming up short in how to run them in the game. Do you have any tips or systems for creating political webs or puppeteer type antagonists? Ones with what may have (what seem to be) unclear motivations or many pieces in play
I'm a big fan of focusing on three villains, the goal they each have, and the three quests they or their underlings are undertaking as the campaign moves forward. https://slyflourish.com/creating_villains.html This makes them moving things in the campaign – not just bosses sitting on thrones waiting for stuff to happen. They're doing things. This approach also helps abstract villains from the story and other things going on so you have room to move. These goals and quests lead to the secrets and clues the characters can discover as they navigate the world in each session. So I don't fill out a giant web – that's too complicated – instead I just focus on getting in the head of the villian, what they want, and what they're doing about it and then manifest that into information the characters can learn during any given session.
Hi Mike, happy Friday! When having your players make characters for new campaigns (long form, or just a few sessions), do you have a general practice regarding where those characters are from? Meaning, do you recommend that the characters are local to the adventuring region, because it makes it easier to have backgrounds and hooks connected to the adventure? Do you like for them to come from far flung places to discover the region and its history or problems? Or does it really just depend on the adventure and themes of the campaign? This seems like the kind of thing I didn’t think about when starting my current campaign, and now I’m wondering how or when to consider this for the future.
I think it really depends on the campaign or adventure. Sometimes it makes sense for characters to be from around the region but othertimes they could come from parts unknown and that works fine too. It's really something to figure out given the specifics of the campaign and the desires of the players for their characters. I don't have a common approach for all games.
Hi Mike, what's the best way to add cool effects to a monument? As an enthusiastic follower of Sly Flourish, I am thoroughly convinced about the value of monuments and places of interest as sites for random encounters on the road or in the wilds. But when I try to make one for my game, I don't know how to make my "cyclopean unholy totem" or "ethereal radiant fountain" DO anything other than sit there, being cyclopean and ethereal (respectively). I've tried rolling random spells, but I don't really know how to do anything interesting with them. How do I make a battle with "three trolls gathered around a cyclopean unholy totem" different from "three trolls standing in a circle"?
I like to have some sort of improv-level tools to help. Some easy ones are the monument gives advantage to creatures bound to the monument. I use that one alot. But here are some articles with other ideas. Try to put together a list of some common effects you can reskin to wrap around your monument: https://slyflourish.com/ancient_monuments.html https://slyflourish.com/anatomy_of_an_environmental_effect.html https://slyflourish.com/tarokka_effects.html Hope those help!
I'd like to ask about Kal's death. In the session preps you mentioned bringing in a new character and going back for Kal, and then in a later episode, that Kal was now an NPC back at there base (I think). Was this all due to the player's choice, or do you have rules on character death in the game that would prevent the player from continuing to play Kal? I'm assuming the former, but I know some DMs make revivify/raise dead/resurrection much less easy, so I was just wondering if you could elaborate on that aspect of the game, both in the specific instance and in general for your groups.
Yep! This was all done with Kal's player's decisions. They wanted some reprocussions for being killed during the rescue of the Sultana but also didn't like the idea that Kal was just dead so we brought her into Four of Forty Fingers as an NPC. I'm all about working with the player to figure out what they want in circumstances like this.
Hi Mike, I love your Map Annotator on 5e Artisanal Database. Simple and easy-to-use. It's great for building out a map à la Daggerheart collaborative world creation. My question for you is, where are good places to get regional maps? Either premade variety or randomly created. Also, are there any tools for expanding beyond a map when the players expand their adventuring radius? Maintaining map continuity is always a struggle. As always, thanks for the Lazy DM tips!
I don't have a fantastic source for regional maps. I tend to either draw them up myself by hand for locations I don't have maps to or I'm playing in a published setting and I use their regional maps. You might ask folks in the Discord server to see what they have. I know there are lots of options. Various overland hex mapping tools seem popular.
Hello, Mike! Been exploring other games and found what feels like an exciting new mechanic in Legend in the Mist and Realis. I couldn't find this idea of 'tags' or 'sentences' in any of your past content - maybe under another name.. Do you have any experience with tags or the like? Would love to hear your thoughts as it seems very stealable for other games, even 5e
Not really. I think I've used tags for things like denoting abilities monsters might have or the theme of a dungeon but not in a hardened way – just one or two words to help shape my brain around an idea. I think that's pretty valuable. Themes, powers, pretty much any one or two words that helps shape your impression of a person, place, or thing.
Hey Mike! Long-time listener, first-time poster, loving the show. I've been planning to run a Spelljammer-style game in 5.5e for a while, and keep over-prepping and writing myself into a corner with the scale of things. I was wondering if you had any tips for using the lazy DM philosophy for designing adventures in larger-scale environments (e.g. a solar system), without getting too wrapped up in world building?
I think a node and edge map works down to the dungeon level, overland level, region level, and even space level. Nodes might be rooms, locations, regions, planets, or solar systems. Edges are the paths we take to get there. Games like Mass Effect can show how we network planets together with save travel routes and then each planet can have a theme or location or adventure or what not. I think it can be useful to write up a few random tables for like a planet generator. I think I have some sets of tables in the Lazy DM's Companion that can help – Lost Kingdoms, gods, and alien worlds. But I think the most helpful thing is to bound the problem with a handful of planets and some paths that connect them just like you have rooms and hallways or overland paths and locations in a region.
Hi Mike! I'm working on prepping Call of Cthulhu now, which has secrets and clues very highly tied to particular locations or NPCs. How do you handle s&c in investigative games, where part of the puzzle seems to be going to the right place or talking to the right person?
I still like abstracting secrets and clues but I'd probably put more emphasis on them and might jot down possible places they can be discovered. I still think we can improvise that sort of thing depending on how the game goes. I wrote more about it here: https://slyflourish.com/running_investigations_and_mysteries.html Also check out the investigation and mystery sections of my Secret Project on the Hero-tier rewards page!
Hope you enjoyed your vacation, Mike! I get a chance to go to Northern Africa for vacation in the next few weeks; I’m looking forward to spending some time in a brand new place and culture and letting it challenge my creativity! My upcoming trip got me thinking about your “simplest quest model” and “GM postcard” - specifically, about story tropes and the common story beats that TTRPGs cover (for instance, fantasy games exploring variants of stories that might involve assassins, goblins, dragons, evil cults, etc.). Do you have any common “tropes” you find yourself using when running/planning your games? Do you have any creative exercises or source materials you go to for when you want to explore new subject matters or add new/creative twists?
I don't think I have just one source that inspires me. I'm inspired all the time by great fiction – books, comics, video games, TV shows, movies, and so on. They often give me ideas. So do rich sourcebooks of world material. Books like the Midgard World Book and other Kobold Press products have a ton. So does the Forgotten Realms. I'm actually finding myself wishing there was a lot more in Dragonbane lore. I'm ending up having to make more of it up myself. So I'd say that's really where I get my inspiration. As far as tropes, I'm just a big dumb fantasy nerd who loves adventurers holding a torch and going into an old cairn to recover an old artifact.
Hey Mike! Loved the recent segment on systems. I think it’s because they makes me the engine of the world rather than the author. My goal is to be almost invisible even though there’s a main plot, NPCs, etc. I sometimes feel that the less fiat I have about encounters, NPCs, and travel, the more player choices matter and more verisimilitude the game has. I know you recommend to lose ourselves in the fiction, so I wondered: Where do you like to be on the “author to engine” spectrum in your games and where in the game are the best places for both?
I'm not 100% sure I understand, but if you're talking about like how much hand a GM has in a game versus letting the system manage things, I have opinions and was just talking about this yesterday on Discord. There was an article that floated around called BLORB: https://idiomdrottning.org/blorb-principles I think it's a bit heavy handed with the "my opinion is the only way" which tends to bleed into old school chatter from time to time. I think there's a lot of value in this sort of thing like prepping entities and letting the story unfold. I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with the GM as a purely neutral transparent entity. I think it's great to let the game unfold as it happens – ensuring the characters have agency over the events in the game – but I also think there are times where the game leans in a direction that isn't going to be fun and it behooves a GM to steer things back to the fun. Some of these instances are: - Too many downward beats – throw them a bone! - Important missed things - Missed cool things I'm a lot less dogmatic about everything being "real" during prep and instead, it's only real when it hits the table. That's not a very OSR style approach I don't think, but I think, for me, it leads to a more fun game.
After playing D&D for almost a decade, my friends and I have taken almost a year off from our weekly game after getting burnt out on it. However, we have the itch. Any tips of getting back into it and getting excited again to capture that magic of rolling dice? I believe we are going to be playing Shadowdark or Flail, the system isn’t so much the problem it’s just general tips on getting back into it
I think just getting started is the key! I don't think there's anything special one needs to do other than focus on a fun initial adventure and see where it goes. Flail looks really cool and, of course, I love Shadowdark if all the players are on board. Just do it and good luck!!
My wife is about to GM for the first time! She has gathered six women to play "Thirsty Sword Lesbians." I'm going to be there for technical, logistical, moral and any other support she needs. I'm sure it will be fine because the players will understand that they're all new to this system, but of course she's nervous. She has played in two D&D campaigns, one run by one of her players, one run by me, but this is a new system and new emphasis. What advice should I be giving her to calm her nerves and help her run a great game? She's running a session zero first.
I wouldn't give any advice she doesn't ask for, for one. Doing so for a new GM can actually make it seem harder instead of easier. I'd continually reinforce that she'll do great and her friends will have a great time and they can always clean things up that get messy – and they always get messy. Helping out as, say, someone who looks something up when someone asks might be useful but brand new people have been figuring out how to play for fifty years. I'm sure she'll do fine!
Hi Mike, I am going to take a leap and start writing adventures for sharing/publishing on Itch.io or DrivethruRPG (5.5e short form adventures). I plan to create all the monsters from scratch and reference anything official to the bare minimum. What would your top piece of advice be for someone who has only written adventures for their own groups? Thank you.
Playtest and have other people playtest your adventure is a big one. I'd really try to keep it simple and focus on giving the GM a toolkit to help them build the story at the table. Try not to push the narrative too hard. Be economical in your writing – GMs are busy and just want to skim read. Do the heavy lifting – work on the hard parts that GMs don't want to do. For me, I don't think it's critical to have custom monsters. I'm totally happy with a short adventure that uses the standard monster references for whatever system you're writing for. I have a habit of not trusting the design of new monsters as much as those I already know and that likely have gone through deeper bouts of playtesting. Just some thoughts – hope that helps!
I’m a huge Kobold Press fan, but was slightly underwhelmed with the Northlands Worldbook. It seems a mile wide, but an inch deep. What are you looking for in a world book/campaign guide (not adventures)? Also you were able to extrapolate a whole campaign out of the Dragon Empires; what would you do with this book?
I haven't gotten my copy of the Northlands Worldbook yet and I don't know why. I'm pretty sure I backed it! So I'll have to dive in and see but often, for me, a mile wide and inch deep is ok as long as the inch deep really gives me the material I can run with to run games. If you really want to see what I would do, check out City of Arches. I tried very hard to make that the sort of campaign soucebook I would use (and did use) to run multiple campaigns. I have a few criteria I look for: - Adventure hooks everywhere. - Interesting factions and points of tension. - A campaign world built for fantasty adventure. - Usable locations for the characters in towns and settlements. - A clear structure I can share with the players (six truths of X sort of stuff). But really, take a look at the outline and samples for City of Arches if you don't own the book to see what I look for in a sourcebook. You can find the sample here: https://shop.slyflourish.com/collections/sly-flourishs-adventures/products/the-city-of-arches
Here's a quick and simple question, and one I'm sure you've answered before, but which I've not been able to find in my cursory search through the archive. Do you get nervous before running a session? I'm an experienced GM, having run campaigns in multiple systems, and I'm running D&D for a new group tonight with two experienced players and two new players, but as usual, with five hours to go, I'm slightly bouncing off the walls. It's a curious response; between the theatre and rock climbing I'm no stranger to nerve inducing endeavours, and I am in my fifties for god's sake, but I always get like this before a game.
Yes! Just about every game! I wrote more about it in the following articles: https://slyflourish.com/calming_character_hooks.html https://slyflourish.com/pre_game_nervousness.html https://slyflourish.com/you_are_not_prepared.html I think this feeling comes from a few places: - RPGs are an open field of creativity and that open-ness can be nerve wracking. We have universes of options but have to pick just some. - We're going to be performing creative works in front of our friends. - The world has pushed us away from child-like wonder into cynicism. It doesn't even matter that we know these things to be true – we still get nervous before a game. I sure do! I think a few things can help us deal with this nervousness. First, we can recognize it's there and remember it for what it is and carry on anyway. I think pre-game rituals can help. What are the things you do to get ready for a game that make you feel like you have your shit together? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsJYi9cZmA&t=3038s Remembering that we're about to have fun with our friends always helps me too. And, not to oversell my own snake oil, but I think having a clear set of steps we follow for game prep helps a lot of people get past the infinite seas of potential story options: https://slyflourish.com/secret_of_the_eight_steps.html https://slyflourish.com/your_own_prep_framework.html Hopefully that gives you enough to chew on! Sorry for the wall of links!
Hi Mike, do you habe any advice on keeping a heterogeneous group engaged? My gaming group consists of very different types of players especially when engaging with the rules. Some players are DMs themselves and know their build in and out 12 levels in advance and some still struggle with basic class mechanics like sneak attack at the end of campaigns. I love them all dearly and I try to accommodate everybody, but it's starting to be a lot of work. Designing battles that have tactile depth, while not being mechanically complex, designing custom loot tuned to the different play styles, running procedures mostly behind the screen, as to not overwhelm the players, has all proven to yield good results, but it's eating a significant chunk of my prep and is taxing at the table. Is there a lazy way to do this?
This is a tough one. One thing to consider is really thinking about what gets in the way of the enjoyment of each of those groups and sort of shaving down those rough spots on the outside. Then just focus on making fun encounters and situations. Not every battle needs to be a big tactical enterprise nor do they need to be overly simplified "fight the bag of hit points" battles every time. I think my general advice is not to worry about it too much. Loosen your grip a little bit and just focus on what excites you about the game. Your players will come around. Otherwise, have some open conversations about what people like and don't like and do your best to accomodate those sharp edges on the outside.
I'm transitioning from D&D to Daggerheart. Besides encounter balance, which is usually something to consider when moving from one crunchy system to another, what aspects of your prep, if any, did you feel needed to change to better align with Daggerheart’s system and overall vibe when you ran your games? Were there additional things you had to consider, or things you realized you could ignore?
I am still figuring out Daggerheart. So far, I prep it the same way I prep all my games but Daggerheart definitely leans in on more player-driven world building. One trick I tried but haven't really implemented yet is to ask a world-focused question for each character as part of step 1 of my game prep. Otherwise, I think the eight steps work well for Daggerheart. The eight steps focus on the fiction of the worlds we build with our players and those components work well in just about any RPG we're going to run. But yeah, it's the character prompts that I think I might try to aid in player-driven world building.
I have followed your advice for a while about using static damage for monsters rather than rolling damage for each attack. This works best when I would be rolling lots of dice, as it speeds up combat and lightens my load as a GM. I am curious if you use the same thing for Shadowdark, where one often calculates damage with a single die roll with no bonuses. I find it doesn't necessary speed up combat, but it is certainly helpful when upscaling or downscaling monsters (e.g., Level 2 to 3, add XX damage per round) without figuring out which dice to use for these adjustments. I assume you will say "whatever works for your game," but I'm afraid it might go against the spirit of Shadowdark and its wider range of combat outcomes, considering relatively low PC hit points. What are your thoughts?
Because shadowdark has flatter math for hit points and damage, I'd roll damage instead of using static damage. Some game systems really need variable damage. I'd say Shadowdark is one of them and rolling dice in Shadowdark was never much of a burden. Daggerheart is another one. Because you have damage thresholds, you can't have static damage or it's always hitting the exact same threshold every time. So yeah, I don't think static damage works for every game. We have to try it and see.
Hey Mike, you recently discussed the usefulness of forge of foes generic statblocks and at least one listener shared your experience that players don’t notice. I assume it is safe to say this would generalize to many tables, my players sure don’t notice. But I wonder how important it is for DnD and similar games that there is an expectation that monster statblocks come from this or that tome of specifically designed monsters like the MM. so my question is: do monster books create a necessary illusion/expectation for generic FoF statblocks to work and go unnoticed? Put a bit differently: Would the game suffer if the MM and others did not exist and it was clear that all the cool monsters with interesting stories that come up in our games are „just“ generic statblocks + flavorful abilities; that dragons and giants are basically the same set of numbers except one flies and generates damage output through something you call fire, whereas the other can’t fly and doles out damage through something you say is a club? I expect this could turn off a lot of players and reduce their sense of wonder, but would love to get your take on this.
I think specific stat blocks can matter more for big bosses than it does for more rank-and-file monsters. We can almost certainly get away with generic stat blocks for rank-and-file monsters and players not care but if they're facing a dragon, they want to see dragon stuff. I've seen some games, including the game Fighter Wizard Elf by Jonathan Tweet (his sort of house rules for his own d20 fantasy game) that don't have monster stat blocks and everything comes from a table similar to the one in Forge of Foes. I really think that can work most of the time and if your descriptions are right and you add an interesting feature or two, people don't care. There are some players who fixate on the rules of the game and expect a monster comes out of a book but I think it's totally fair for a GM to modify stat blocks to suit the fiction and feeling of the game and coming up with them directly from a table is along that line. The reality is, a lot of monsters *are* the same. We have core stats for monsters whether they're a dragon or a kraken. It's the special abilities that make them special.
Hey Mike, Going into a campaign and I know eventually my players are going to start amassing huge amounts of gold. It’s a Nautical game so I know I can get them to spend money of ship repairs and upgrades. I can do taxes to enter cities and the like. But are there any real good ways to cut into players gold that feel natural and not punishing.
Some ideas: - Funding war efforts - Funding an entire business venture with multiple ships and crews - Funding the construction of a home base or port – maybe several - Fantastic upgrades to ships – ghost-sails, arcane cannons, mobile teleporters - Funding entire islands with politicians, police, and so on Those are off the top of my head!
Hey Mike, I often come across the mindset that OSR or rules-lite systems are best suited for one-shots or short-form play, and they are frequently contrasted to games like 5E when it comes to long-form campaigns. I completely disagree, and have found great success in running systems like Cairn and Shadowdark for many sessions without feeling any shortcomings. Seeing as you've had success running a long-form campaign using Shadowdark, do you have any thoughts as to where this mindset comes from? What would even make a system better suited for long-form campaigns compared to others? Thanks!
I think the general thought is that there's no character growth without character mechanical growth – something that's grown out of late D&D 2nd edition, 3rd edition, and onward. For some players this is true. My players loved Shadowdark but they were ready for a crunchier system at that point. Not every style of game is for every style of GM or player and we have to figure out what works for us. I imagine most groups are willing to try any game for a short amount of time but some players just like to have some crunchiness in their RPGs that some of the OSR and rules-lite systems don't have.