January 2022 Sly Flourish Q&A Post

Hi Mike! This comes one day late, but I hope that's OK. The question: My table consists of me (DM), 3 people playing physical and 1 person playing remotely. Currently we have her on discord, all the maps on foundry and we use dndbeyond. So the tech part works fine. My question is - how can I make sure the remote player stays awake and involved in the game? All tips are welcome! She has said herself that she finds it less fun, but doable at this point. (We have been playing like this almost weekly since july 2021).

Hey Mike, when players miss a session, who's responsibility would you say it is for the missing player(s) character(s) to be involved? My party almost TPKd during combat because no one thought to utilize the missing player's characters. I kept waiting for one of the players present to do something with one of the missing player characters and no one ever did (I turned it in to my own little experiment to see if anyone would catch it)... and I quickly turned down the Death Kiss dial! While in combat, instead of 6 characters fighting, only 4 where fighting. Our missing players don't mind letting other players utilize their characters, usually doing the easiest, simplest attacks and spells. Thoughts? This situation going to be one of my session zero notes moving forward... who's responsibility is it for missing player characters being utilized?

Hail to my pal, Mike! I bought the Companion (it's cool AF) in PDF, bc the "analog" version's transit fee is too much for me. I like to use physical book, so it's legal to print the PDF and make some spiral binding for personal use? And your other books? (I have only one version in physical version The Return of the Mike, bc i saw that in a hungarian rpg FB group and i grab that faster than Gollam the One Ring :) )

Hey Mike, I've been brainstorming a campaign idea to introduce my players to Numenera as outsiders who aren't from the Ninth World, with the campaign starting as they arrive there. What kind of info should I be giving in Session 0 in a case like this, where their characters should share their unfamiliarity with the world, or I guess any other campaign based around the party being in a strange new place?

Hey Mike, how do I get my players to role play with each other? My players are all very good friends, we've been playing for years, and we have a great time. I've noticed, though, that they almost exclusively engage with me. I've tried friendly reminders like, "one of your party members might have more information about that religion" etc. This only seems to work once and the behavior returns to each player only engaging with me DM'ing. How can I get them talking to each other?

Heyo Mr. Flourish! I have come to really love traveling and the implied downtime of using the rest rules for Gritty Realism. Lately, my players have really been wanting to craft more with their downtime and I'm all for but half my group (only 4 players) want something more in-depth. I mostly used the rules from Xanathar's Guide but how do you handle giving your players the depth they want without forcing it on everyone without overburdening yourself? Do you have any tips or recommended reading for crafting?

Hey Mike! Me again. Just wondering if you already have some videos out about tips on running a premade module. Thanks again!

Hi Mike, I'm starting WBW next week and I love your idea for the dread incursions, but I'm concerned about the rewards. Just looking at your session 0 you are giving level 1 characters (realistically level 2 by the time they use it) a 4th level spell . I know it is only one cast but I feel like it will trivialise any encounter in chapter 2, possibly 3 as well. They wouldn't be able to cast it as a spellcaster until the final chapter. Do you just roll with it and if they walk an encounter so be it? or do you tweak the encounters to account for the increased power level? Thanks!

Hi Mike, My players spend a lot of time during combat discussing strategy and planning their turns. This means a typical combat encounter often takes over an hour. Sometimes, a single player's turn can involve a 15-minute discussion! While they generally enjoy these tactical elements of the game, they have now suggested several times that we try to speed up combat. Do you have any suggestions on how to do this? I've tried restricting a player's turn to 60 seconds, but I haven't been very good about enforcing this (keeping track of a timer also adds to my mental load). And sometimes we do need more time to clarify the rules or the situation, so perhaps a rigid limit is not appropriate. Thanks!

Hey Mike, I picked up Aeon Trinity, because I think the theme and setting is fantastic, but it uses the truly dreadful D10 system. I was considering other systems for storytelling, and while FATE seems the best, do you have any specific experience converting settings to a different system? Do you have any tips for running FATE and getting your players enthusiastic? Thanks!

Hi Mike, I've started running Ruins of the Grendleroot for my group and have the hope of running it into tier 4 to complete the overall story arc you have laid out. Any suggestions on other material (other than yours, all of which I already own) that I can use to help flesh it out once I get done the adventures in the book?

My 11-year-old son wants to play a one-on-one game with me and he wants to DM. Any advice for how I can help coach from the player's side of the table?

Hi Mike! I'm planning to offer a short adventure for free on the DMs Guild. I used your Lazy DM prep to organize it, particularly the inclusion of secrets and clues. How do you prefer to be credited?

Hey Mike, I’ve never run point crawls for my group and am very interested in doing so but not too sure how. Looking at the overland point crawl map in the DM’s Companion, would you give the whole map to the players or just describe certain sections / pathways? Thanks

Hey Mike! I am currently running a sort of darker gritty campaign and the character are in this abandoned town that is being reclaimed. While the characters are there as muscle and to complete story missions they have shown interest in actually helping out in the town rebuild. How would i go about this and what sort of skill checks activities and things like that do you think i should add?

Hi Mike! Finished up a big 1 to 20 campaign last summer and I'm now thinking about starting up another campaign. I've been juggling with the idea of running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist into Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. My question is what are your overall thoughts on Dungeon of the Mad Mage and have you heard about anyone actually running Dragon Heist into Mad Mage. Thanks!

Hey Mike! I have been running a fifth edition campaign for my two very good friends, both of whom are much more experienced than I am, as they have been playing D&D since second edition. We have been playing in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for 14 levels, and keeping up with their knowledge of lore has been exhausting. We’re planning on “going vertical” and Spelljamming our way to greener pastures after they finish up sabotaging a re-apotheosis or two. Do you have any advice for high-level Spelljammer-esque campaigns, both in terms of spelljammer combat mechanics and campaign/adventure/encounter style? Things seem like they’d operate much differently when players can just pick-up-and-go whenever they’d like, and I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the boundless nature of things to come.

Hey Mike. New DM here (12 games so far). Can you help me better track monsters in combat when there are more than 1. I have tried the dndbeyond combat track which works well with an encounter with the same monster type but really falls down when there are multiple types and multiple of them. Any tips?

Hi Mike. How do you present and integrate monuments in your games? Do you tell your players a "crumbling necrotic slaughterfield of the frost giants" is over there and leave it to them how they'll interact with it? If the adjective typically denotes a detrimental state, do they quickly deduce not to mess with these monuments? Thanks for all the tips and inspiration!

Hail to my pal, Mike! A follow up questions; how YOU "lead" a cca LVL 7-8 party from the Grendelroot campaign to the middle of the Avernus modul? 😀 I have a loose idea about a kind of Black Star Archmage hunt... My player form a strong bond for their Grendelroot characters and they want to ride with them if we will able to play that modul. I never did that before; transfer party from one setting to a megamodule. Have fun, your new microphone is awesome 😃

Great stuff, as always! In a few recent videos you touch on the rumors of the next generation of D&D and whether they’d limit what third parties could produce. Do you think the OGL has helped the incredible growth of D&D compared to other systems that never opened up? Ie would Namenera have a larger following if it also had an OGL?

Hi Mike! Sulicius here. Back at it again with the request for high level advice. At this point I see more and more monsters who can use devastating debilitating effects against my players. For instance, soon they will face an Adult Amethyst Dragon In it’s lair. It can cast Forcecage psionically as a lair action every turn! It might feel like “giving the players a taste of their own medicine”, it taking out the barbarian for the whole fight without any counterplay just sounds frustrating to me. What would you do? Make the effect less invulnerable? Not use such an ability? Mind you, the barbarian is a Zealot who can’t be killed with damage.

I’m going to start running a West Marches style Eberron campaign soon. I plan on having some core players who are usually there and I want a somewhat through-line story from chapter to chapter but I’m concerned that 10 secrets per session is a lot for the players to keep track of in a West Marches game. 5 or less just feels right to me. Any advice on this and in general about the Lazy DM approach to West Marches games? (Btw, I’m watching your prep series on Eberron and I’m stealing a bunch of ideas so thank you!)

What is the best way to gradually reveal paper maps? I use Dyson Logo maps, and I'd like to geep the secret doors secret, and reveal the maps over time. Arohanui, Anton.

For a campaign, such as Wild Beyond the Witchlight that you are preparing now, how often do you add in encounters or sidequests into the story line? Such as CZRPG's Encounters in the Feywild or Crooked Roots while traveling during the campaign, or a whole level increasing module as a side quest? Every five sessions of the normal book? Eight sessions? Random? When the story lags? Thanks!

How has your experience been with using “devastating critical hits”?

I would love a rundown of how you run a game online. I know you use owlbear, but do you use two monitors/expect your players to? Do you use Dndbeyond with it? How do you handle initiative (use tokens in owlbear or just write it down? I struggle with screen management running online games and VTTs so really curious how you do it/what is shared with your players.

I'm starting a new campaign shortly (after finishing RotFM at the end of last year, similarly to yourself) and have prepared a one page campaign summary. The six truths are on there, but it is my first time running a game in a homebrew world, and I feel like the players will want/need more info about the world to build their characters, and have good links to the world and knives for me as DM to stab them with. It's hard to capture stuff like regions, factions and relations between them in one page, and the homebrew is pretty basic stuff like "Dwarves good, but Elves bad" and "there's lots of Undead over here, but good faction don't do anything about it because they're at war over there". Maybe I just have more than six truths?? Would you include this sort of thing in a separate, optional to read handout, maybe 1-2 pages in a gazetteer style? Or just leave it to the players and hope they ask lots of questions?

I have used the lazy campaign template with great success! It really does help to keep me organised. How would you use the template to track factions throughout a campaign? Through NPC/Villian cards or would you ever create a new category?

I'm toying with the idea of running a D&D campaign at work. However the only real time available would be our lunch hour. Do you have any tips for hour long sessions? Are these even feasible?

I really enjoyed the one-on-one videos you did with enrique. have you, or do you intend to, published any other live-play videos? (either one-on-one or a larger party?)

Dear LDMaster: I have picked up a free adventure entitled, The Sanguine Tide by Nicholas Martignago, it's about Vampires interjecting in the affairs around Neverwinter from the Forgotten Realms. He uses vampires who are trying to take over locations. The local villages he uses are named differently in relation to the more common local villages around Neverwinter (LMoP and DoIP). His challenge rating for these vampires is a solid 3 with AC of 16 and an average hp rating of 144. This seems a little off and maybe too much downplay of a Vampire within the MM especially around the Neverwinter campaign area. My question is how you would downplay a vampire into CR 3 if it is at all possible using your dials that you talk about on your videos? Also, he uses Lesser Vampires at CR 1 with AC of 15 and HP of 45, is this even possible to set-up such a CR for Vampires? Both have legendary resistance, regeneration, a bite and grappling ability. To me it sounds a little wonky for a low-level Vampire Adventure. DMTimothy

Hail to my pal, Mike! First thing first: Happy New Year! :) As you perhaps remember, i'm DMing the Grendleroot campaign (which is cool, my players & i like it) fitted in my homebrew world. Before that we played the BG's Descent to Avernus campaign, but bc some real world things we have to cancel it. (the player group disbanded bc personal reasons, Covid, etc) Two of my players played in there and they (and i have) kind a "unfinished business" feeling about that. So, perhaps i will do that (i'm not sure)...just a curious question: if you have to do that, you have any idea how the Hell i can involve a new party in the middle of the Avernus campaign - to the HELL ?!? The first party is about to find the Hellriders crypt after some kind of vision quest...

I bought a copy of Fantastic Adventures and I really love the pregen character sheets and the way levelling up is presented there. Can you provide a template for that sheet so we can prepare our own pregen characters? Levelling up is always a hassle when playing casually. Thanks

I was a late backer through backer kit. Do late backers get advanced preview copies of DMs Companion, too?

Happy New Year Mike! I'm DMing for a group of 5 players and recently got the feedback from them that they feel like our combat encounters could be more interesting. And I agree with them! I usually try to use some tactics and think about what the monsters would do in certain situation. But a lot of times the bad guys just end up attacking once or maybe twice and then getting killed. With tougher enemies that do not die that quickly, I also often struggle to keep things interesting because they end up being "big bags of hit points", attacking multiple times but being too stationary. Do you have any thoughts on how to make interesting encounters so that they don't feel all the same and keep players engaged in combat?

You are slowly creating resources for DMs to have at their table during prep and during play, I feel like a natural progression for you would to create a DMs screen. Have you thought about this before and what do you think you’d put on it?

One more question: TL:DR: What can you suggest for a lazy whole party retreat mechanic? The details: My PCs are reluctant to retreat in the face of an overwhelming adversary or group of baddies because it doesn't "feel right" or, on the whole, work out well. Disengaging and running feels cowardly to them and - maybe more importantly - doesn't allow for enough movement to flee to safety. Also, if one PC is left behind because of their location on the battlefield while others run, that lone PC faces an uphill battle to survive. Anyway, this idea of whole party retreat came up on a recent stream by The Alexandrian so I thought I'd ask if Sly Flourish had any ideas on the topic. Cheers.

Hi Mike! I'm about to start my second campaign with a group that I have DMed for over the last 3 years. During our last campaign, Tomb of Annihilation, I worked to incorporate aspects of the characters backstories into the adventure, especially various small 1-3 session adventures during the hex crawl. I noticed that while all of my players enjoyed having their character's story spotlighted, some were more hesitant to be thrust forward as a the main driver of the parties story. In preparing for my next campaign, should I ask all my players individually how much they want their individual character's backstories to drive or play into the larger campaign plot? How do I make sure players don't feel left out if their character's backstories aren't as tightly integrated with the larger campaign plot?

I'm all for reskinning monsters rather than making new ones from scratch. However, I feel like a spend a lot of time combing through the monster manual to find the right monster to reskin. I know you have some go-to monsters you like to reskin but I wonder if there is a more robust/generalized way of using the custom monster table from the DMG (pg. 274) to generate stats on the fly for monsters. Any thoughts on this?

Using your Three of Five Keys design, I've set up five conditions/McGuffins for a slaad apotheosis but I'm struggling with how to present the quests in a "fantastic" manner e.g., "You see before you the Legend of Havoc the Slaad and the 3 of 5 things he needs to become a god". I think that sounds weird. Does that sound weird? Maybe it's just me...

Do you have solutions for players that race for treasure? As a player, I've been in a long-term game where a player was very grabby. Five levels and months into the game, and everyone was still being nice, but the problem player had two magic weapons (only one of which he could use), and the rest of the party had less money and no magic items. As a DM, I've had tables where players (mostly younger players) that would grab everything for their character. I and my DM eventually resorted to assigning items, mandating even splits of coinage, and ignoring in-game positioning by players hoping to grab up the best loot. What else could we have done to address this problem?

Villains and plot exposition - any tips on making this seem more natural in the three rounds of combat that they are likely to last? I have my list of secrets and clues, but sometimes it feels a little awkward or forced to have them be revealed in the BBEG's last breath!

Hey Mike, sorry for making this post so long and not really a question. Feel free to ignore it :) The Numenera setting and the Cypher system as a whole make a part of the experience points (XP) awarded to the players dependent on them making discoveries about the world. When they discover something that is useful to them (which is important!), then they get 1-4 XP depending on the size of the discovery/usefulness. I have therefore replaced the "Secrets and Clues" step with a "Discoveries and Clues" step for my prep in Cypher. The differences are that 1) I do not just create 10 secrets which the players might not care about, because I always have to come up with at least one important use for the discovery. 2) I actually have a reason to come up with at least some Clues (as in the name of the step), which you intentionally do not do because clues should be improvised. I ask myself "How do I expect my players to at least learn where there is something to discover, so that they can do the rest?" Do you have any thoughts on this and the discovery theme of Numenera, given that you said you will play in this system and setting soon?

Happy New Year Mike! Do you have any recommendations for good 4th edition adventures to run in the Nentir Vale setting, using 5e rules? I'm doing Harkenwold for a group, and I would like some other ideas to continue the game after that.

I'm in a few Discord servers besides the Sly Flourish one, and I'm interested in running games with players drawn from them. Do you have any tips on recruiting players from Discord Servers that aren't explicitly set up for games, but bring people together with a shared interest, that is in the same kind of realm as TTRPGs?

When I dm, I think a lot about how npcs/monsters approach a fight, and one of the things I have a hard time with is morale. The dmg rules don’t really make sense to me, and I haven’t yet hit upon a good solution of my own (mechanically), so I usually wing it. I’m wondering if you have any tips on this topic.

Do you have a sense for why third-party content creators don't release their content digitally along the lines of D&D Beyond? Is it the lack of a good platform like D&D Beyond that's open to them to publish their content? (I am assuming D&D Beyond must not be open to publishing third-party content as they haven't so far.) PDFs just aren't the same experience.

With techniques like failing forward and turning the dials of monster difficulty, it's possible to virtually assure PCs never die. Under what circumstances have PCs died in your game, and how often has character death happened?

If you were to look at the core rule mechanics of 5e and how they are implemented in your current 5e game at the table, what would rank currently as the 3 biggest "time sinks" (either for your players or yourself) that you'd like to see streamlined or even eliminated from the game either by revision of ruleset or collaborative consensus with your player groups? To offer some examples; 5e encumbrance going to a slot based system, tedious and incremental wealth tracking moving to abstract resource style (the 80's TSR Marvel game did this well) or Exhaustion rules crippling entire pillars of play (disadvantage on skills).. Interested to hear what you'd like to still cut out or refine out of your 5e game. Happy New Year!

Hey Mike, Do you have places where to get “bite-sized” lore or inspiration for D&D sessions? Something like one paragraph or page for a fantastic locale, monument, quest hook, NPC or other stuff you want to use. The tables on your website and in your books are already a great resource, but what if I want more of that? :)

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the benefits and problems associated with D&D "canon". When does it help and why, and where is it problematic? I've heard your thoughts across multiple streams on D&D being "our game" but I wonder if there's a way to pull all those points together so it might be a reference point for the community.

Hi Mike, Do you use callbacks in your games like they do in movies and books? If so, what are some good ways to build in callbacks that are memorable. Something I'm guilty of of is turning random NPC's that might get mistreated by the players into a bad guy later on. Not the Big Bad, but one of their minions etc.

I would like to see some discussion about how you would build the World without heroes teaser you just posted? How would you combine the various published modules etc?

There's a lot of good advice out there about running successful scenes or encounters but I have more trouble with the transitions between scenes. How do we find the right "resolution" for transitions for them to feel natural? Narrating a whole transition from scene to scene can sometimes feel a bit abrupt (and rob the game of potential gameplay) but allowing the characters to enact each tiny step on the way can bog things down somewhat.

Hey there! (1) (I think you explain this somewhere, but) how come you suggest settings DCs between 10 and 20, rather than the full 10-30 range? (2) Do you find yourself setting DCs differently for identical challenges based on player level? (silly example, a performance check for a dance is dc 15 for a low level character, but the same dance is dc 10 for a high level character, simply because they are assumed to be more capable in general at a higher level?)

Hello, Mike! I've always ran homebrew adventures, but for the first time, I'm incorporating short published adventures into the campaign. The problem is, I don't really know how to evaluate whether an adventure is good or not just by reading it. Do you have any advice on how to spot problem areas in a published adventure before I run it? And are there any red flags I should keep an eye out for? Thank you!

In 2015, you joined Matt Click and me to talk about "One Year of D&D 5E" in a YouTube livestream. I asked the question, "what are your favorite and least favorite things about 5E." I believe your favorite was the speed of combat and what that opens up in the game. Your least favorite was "debilitating effects on boss monsters" (save vs suck or things like force cage). I'd love to know if your answers to that have changed after another 6+ years.

Hello Sly, I have a world I have been building for years now, since 3rd edition, and I want to turn it into a campaign that I might be able to publish but I have a couple of issues that I was wondering if you could weigh in on. Some of my content is stuff I created on the fly for specific players and characters but turned out really well and I want to incorporate this into the world as an adventure path but as they were created for specific characters should I just make those characters NPC’s that the players can help or set rules and a structure about how to apply it to the players characters? Example is I had a player who didn’t like their Assimar Paladin so I created a Mad Paladin of another god that gained a relic of power that allowed it to slay their god and as the last Paladin of their order they were bestowed the gods power to slay the Mad Paladin. I merged this with another players patron story to make it a prophesy that the two of them would slay the Mad Paladin. As this was something special they got to basically play level 20 versions of themselves and fight the cr 20 Mad Pally. How would you handle making this generic enough for an adventure path?

Hi :) How do you handle an unexpected PC death at your table? One that comes totally out of the blue, maybe in a random encounter? My players got dangerously close to two of the PC's dying and I just wanted to know your thoughts on the matter.

Hi! How do you prepare more sessions in advance for home-brew campaigns using the Notion template? Would you create the next locations and NPCs or try to guess what would be the scenes two games upfront? Thanks for the content, your Notion template and Lazy DM book are helping me a ton DMing for the first time. It's been easy and a lot of fun prepare the sessions, and the players are loving it.

Hi Slyflourish! Your advice on sticking to value-adding preparation for our games has really been helpful, but it also got me wondering - have you ever revisited stuff that you previously deemed non value-adding, and found a new worth in it, and if yes, what did you change your mind on? For context, I previously decided to give up on nerding out on unique cuisine and dishes in my setting, but when I recently went back to it and introduced my players to a special dish when they were staying at a tavern, two of them discussed it with me after the session, and told me how they loved stuff like that, giving the world a unique feel of authenticity. Felt pretty awesome! :)

Any tips on running with less than 4 players? I'm running Ghosts of Saltmarsh with 2 experienced players and one who's never played an RPG before.

Ok, two questions for you: 1. In a day or so I'm having a child. So obviously the question is how young can you start playing RPGs with children, and if you have any suggestestions vis a vis systems or how to approach it. 2. In more of a short term question. I've been trying to revisit Hamlet's Hit Points for advice on getting into better pacing. My problem is that I'm often far too easygoing to allow for enough downbeat. Any advice for internalizing and exercising Hamlet's Hitpoints in your gaming

Hey Slyflourish! I published my first adventure on DMsguild last year and am hoping to produce more ttRPG content in 2022. Thinking about shorter projects maxing out at 5ish pages, what do you think are the most useful 5e products that you see out there in the community at present? I think you've mentioned locations and short encounter prompts before, but wondering if your thoughts have changed or if there are others you've come across and liked. Thanks and keep up the great stuff!

Do you have any advice on constructing "complicated" (political) intrigue for a lazy DM?

I have 2 questions about gaming rituals: (1) What, if any, start-of-game rituals do you have to help the players settle into the gaming space and get ready to adventure anew? (2) What, if any, end-of-game rituals do you have? How do you reflect on the just finished session and look ahead in a structured and predictable way?

Copied here at your request: I’m excited to start a Ruins of the Grendleroot campaign this year, and I was wondering when you like to give out a one-page campaign guide to your players? Neither your post on this topic nor the one on session zero actually says when. During session zero, to simplify talking people through the world and answering questions, and maximize the chances that players build their PCs together? Or before session zero, to give players a chance to read over and absorb the material, and have time to think about how they would like to tie their PC into the world? Thanks for your time and advice!

Any chance of getting your work on roll20? Also are you working on any more adventures to post online or in a book etc?