April 2022 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A Thread
Happy April!
Behold the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for April 2022!
As you ponder your question for the month, I have the following requests:
Please focus your question on DMing Dungeons & Dragons or other tabletop RPGs.
Please limit yourself to one question.
Please try to keep your question brief. I love your stories but I get overwhelmed sometimes.
I'll definitely answer your question here on Patreon. I often answer questions on the Lazy D&D Talk Show. Sometimes I turn the question into a D&D Tip video or Sly Flourish article. Please know that if I only answer you here in the thread, I still love you.
Check the Patreon Questions on the newly instantiated Lazy D&D Talk Show Topic Database to see if I've answered a question like yours previously. We have hundreds of questions in the database!
Thank you so much for helping me do what I do!
Now on to the questions!!
Comments (130)
Hi Mike, thank you for another month of great content. I am currently planning my session 0/1 for Descent into Avernus using the Fall of Elturel (FoE) starting adventure. In doing so I am a little worried that I wont make it to the finale of FoE in the first session. So my question is how to add a grand reveal like the dissappearance of Elturel in the middle of a session instead of at the end as it is planned in FoE.
Hi Bo! You have a couple of potential choices. First, you can abbreviate Fall of Elturel so you can cram it into whatever you have for your session zero. There's a lot of room to cut in the middle to get it down to about 2 hours I bet. Second, you can run it as a two-parter and call for a break in the middle of the game where Elturel falls. Give everyone a few minutes to collect their thoughts, and then jump forward a couple of months when they arrive at Baldur's Gate. I think it can work well either way. Good luck!
Hi Mike! Any tips on continuing a game that's been on a long hiatus?
HI Damian! I actually answered this question on the Talk Show before. Here you go! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuhPI62EzOw&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=10&t=2596s
Hi Mike! I just watched the integrating characters into the campaign video and I loved it. I've often centered adventures around a character's background/story but I've run into an issue and I don't know if there's a solution. Unfortunately there's always a session or two during an adventure when the focused player can't make it. This leaves the rest of the group wondering if we should just cancel until they can play again, or play on without them. We've done both but it always feels like there should be some elegant solution to this. Any advice would be great! Thanks!
Yeah, that's a hard problem and there isn't a great solution. If you can make the game more episodic, you might just skip that adventure and go on another. Maybe a flashback. Maybe a one-shot for another game. It's tough when a game focuses exclusively on one player.
Greetings Mike, I am planning to run Ruins of the Grendelroot pretty soon and i was thinking of giving players improved named spells from time to time as loot. Like Grethel's fireball that could leave a place on fire. How would you handle those kind of improvement to not break the game or make non magic user still relevant ?
That's really cool. I think Level Up 5e does this as well and I like the idea a lot. You'll have to play with the balance, of course. I think I'd use spells one level up as a benchmark and probably wing it to see how it works out. It's tricky with a spell because they'll have it forever. If you go too far, it's something you'll have to deal with forever. Best best is to look at comparable spells one level up and see what sort of power they add.
Hi Mike! I’m running a Ruins of the Grendleroot campaign with the Acquisitions Incorporated downtime rules. The party has turned Starsong Tower into a thriving coffee shop. ☕️ 😄 How do you recommend deciding how much downtime occurs between adventures when there isn’t a villain or other timed front driving the story? And if many (e.g. 4-5) weeks are going by, do you play / talk through all 4-5 activities for each player, or do you limit or summarize them somehow? Thanks for your time, shows, and the podcast! 👍🏻
Hi Joe! That's a good question! I'd probably discuss it with the group, see what they'd like to do and how long it will take. Let the time pass. Go around the table and have characters describe what they want to do, and otherwise go through interesting downtime activities. You don't need to describe it on a week to week basis. You can decide how detailed you want to get. "Four months pass" is a fine way to go! More here: https://slyflourish.com/running_downtime_sessions.html
Any advice for dealing with players that love to "get the jump" on combat? I have one pc in particular who often senses that an encounter is headed towards combat, and tries to get a "free hit" in before we roll initiative. This usually triggers the other characters to try and get an action in as well, often asking "Does my spell spell/attack/magic item etc go off?". I find this really frustrating, as are just cutting to the chase, instead of letting the dialogue lead them there naturally.
Hi Kyle! The good news is that the rules are pretty clear about this. The moment any creature acts against another, initiative is rolled. You can't skip ahead of that initiative roll. You can't ready an action before initiative is rolled. You might get surprise against a foe which lets you essentially go twice before they do, maybe, but there's no way to do a bunch of actions *before* initiative. It's worth having this conversation with your players *before* it comes up in the game. Take a moment before the next session to say how you'll deal with this from now on. Get the arguing out of the way before it happens. This article has more about it: https://slyflourish.com/surprise.html
Do you have any DM Tips for running games laden with political intrigue? I'm inspired by the rich tapestry of courtly life between various countries in such shows as Game of Thrones, The Spanish Princess, Medici, or Isabel. Sadly, I find the tracking of all the parties to be a bit daunting, as well as determining their machinations. I'm hoping you might have some tips or tricks that would make it easy for a lazy DM to run engaging campaigns with political intrigue. Maybe you even have some random generators that might help with this. Anything you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Jason! I'm a big fan of mixing together a couple of ideas: Secrets and Clues (of course) and what I like to cal "pool-table storytelling". Instead of trying to map out a lot of details of the court intrigue like a big conspiracy yarn and tack chart, you focus on each of the main NPCs, what they want, and what steps they're taking to get there. Where those paths collide, with each other and with the characters, is where things get interesting. I like to think of this like a pool table. Each ball is a character. It has direction and velocity. As they smash together, the balls go every-which-way, some going into pockets and disappearing, some smashing into other balls. As our game progresses, the lines and velocities of the characters change while they smash against one another. The lazy trick is to put yourself in the eyes of the main NPCs. What are they doing right now? What do they want? What steps are they taking? How do they collide? It's great fun.
Do you have any recommendations for DMs when deciding to surprise players vs. surprising their characters? For example, if a character has something interesting in their backstory that only that player and the DM are aware of at the start of the campaign. Or, perhaps, the identity of a secretive person that the players otherwise won't learn about until much later in the campaign. I'm a big fan of twists in the media I consume, and I imagine twists can be well done in TTRPG's. However, surprising the players somewhat forbids asking for feedback beforehand, and surprising the characters isn't as exciting and could frustrate players who want to use out-of-character knowledge.
Hi Zeke! I think it's largely going to depend on the situation. The main thing is not to dork with the feelings and agency of the players. That's the one thing to worry about that you don't typically have to worry about in mainstream fiction. There are definitely fun times where the *characters* don't know something that the *players* know. It's a fun bit of mental gymnastics the players have to do. The big question is whether a particular secret is going to take something away from a player. If that's not a concern, you can choose whatever path feels like the most fun.
Your recent article on pacing (link in the show notes!) made me wonder about what you think about in-universe pacing. I am running two games with entirely different groups in completely different systems and settings, one sandbox and one investigation game, and they have the same issue: the players will not let their PCs relax. They insist on the PCs using every hour of every day engaging with the plot hooks and clues. I've told them we can just skip forward in time, but they don't want to. This wouldn't be a problem, except that it means that things happen in the setting incredibly and implausibly quickly because it has to react to the PCs' actions. How do I slow the players down without them losing engagement?
Good question! Certainly if they have a big quest that's escalating if they're not involved, they're going to feel this way. This is a problem with the pacing of Tomb of Annihilation, for example. Why go dinosaur racing if people's souls are getting eaten by a big machine? Isn't that more important! I'm going to fall back to my "tell, don't show" answer here and mention to the *players* that they should feel more free to take downtime if they want to. It's very possible the players are just driven to go on quests and don't really care about that stuff. That's fine too! It's a tough problem!
I'm curious as someone who primarily runs homebrew content if you read adventures you don't plan on running for inspiration and if you read them cover to cover our some other method
Hi Step Back! Yes, I read adventures all the time to inspire my own games. I tend not to read them cover to cover. I tend to skip around, check out the art, see what grabs me, and dip in where things look interesting. There are probably better ways.
By the time our next session rolls around, it'll have been a little over two months since our group's last session in my home-brew campaign. Do you have any suggestions for helping players get back up to speed with the active story points of a campaign after a hiatus? I'm thinking of sharing ten "revelations" covering elements that the characters know about the campaign world and things they've discovered so far in the campaign, but would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance!
Hi Sinan! I suggest almost pretending it's a new campaign, maybe doing a one-page handout to remind people what's happened and where they begin. Focus the first session around the things they need to know to get back into the groove. Piece out the info they need over time so they're not overwhelmed with paragraphs of backstory. Ask the players what *they* remember. Offer as much of a summary as you can outside of the game so they're ready to jump in when the game begins. Hope that helps!
Do you have any plans to produce a DM Screen or similar? I was gearing up to reformat a bunch of the Lazy random tables for use with my sleeved tri-fold screen, but it would be a bit silly of me to put in the work myself if you already have something better in the pipeline.
Hi Ryan! I talked about this on a previews Talk Show episode.Hhope this helps! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0hiVQz96g0&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=2&t=1061s In short, the Lazy DM's Workbook and my own Lazy D&D Cheat Sheet are the DM screens I prefer: https://slyflourish.com/revised_5e_cheat_sheet.html
Building my next campaign in the City of Arches with an Acquisition Inc type of gameplay. The City of Arches will be very Hotel California for most people who end up there. Trying to figure out a mechanic that would allow the party to travel through an arch on a mission to other planes but would pull them back in X amount of time. Thoughts?
Yay! I think its certainly possible that the mages of Kartan have figured out how to make a synthetic key that lets the characters enter an arch but sort of as an astral projection that will snap back to the city after a certain amount of time. Sort of like wading into a bubble that eventually springs back. Those mages of Kartan are a sinister and creative bunch!
How do you handle a mistake you’ve made when you realize it mid-session/combat? For example, my player asked that we take a break from animal murder and then the next session I was running a published adventure and threw some animals into the fight because I forgot to reskin it as something gross and totally killable. I only realized this mid battle. I apologized after the fact.
Hi Ryan. I think the best bet is to stop it right away. It's fine to change the game. Maybe call for a quick break so you can talk to your player and apologize, letting them know it was a mistake. It's always fine to break character and change things. The real answer, as far as I know, is to handle it right away.
Hi Mike in my Eberron campaign my party accidentally released a Dracolich that went on to rip open the gates of Kyber and release the Overlords and Daelkyr. After releasing the Dracolich, there is going to be a two year time skip, where the monsters in Kyber overrun the continent and the two Overlords and two Daelkyr in RftLW and the Dracolich divvy up Khorvaire amongst themselves to rule, in the same vein as Wolverine: Old Man Logan. How do I show the large change to the state of the world and make it really feel like the Second Age of Demons has come?
Wow! Dark!! I think there's a lot of fun to have here. One important consideration is that you ensure the players don't feel too bad that they released the dracolich. If *they* think its cool, all is fine, but you don't want to punish them too hard by destroying the world around them. As far as showing it, I think having one or more cities destroyed. Maybe the magic holding up Sharn collapses and the whole city comes crumbling down. Maybe the Droaam has risen and now takes over much of the land. Maybe the orcish Gatekeepers return. Maybe the dragons of Argonessan think its time to do something about it. There are a lot of possibilities and many of them offer ways to show the players what's changed by the places they visit, the NPCs who approach them, and the things they see all around them. Fun!
Hi Mike! I've been a sucker for Numenera since I first heard of it all the way back in 2015, but I never had the chance to play or run it. However, an opportunity presented itself to run the game in an asynchronous manner to my (very busy) group. What's your experience with asynchronous games? And do you think Numenera could run well that way? Any advice?
A good question and glad to see you're playing Numenera! Unfortunately I have no experience running asynchronous games so I really don't have any advice to offer. Sorry!
Hey Mike! I’m 20 sessions into a swashbuckling campaign (tier 2) and the characters have just defeated the second of 5 pirate bounties. Given that we play twice a month at most, I feel that it’s moving too slowly and that I’ve written myself into a bit of a corner having 5 pirate lords. Do you have any tips for picking up the pace of a campaign that is taking too long to reach a resolution?
Good question! There are a few ways you can go. The pirates could war with one another and end up with one pirate lord defeating another. An external entity could destroy one or more of the others too. Maybe they all chased to an island holding an unknown power and ended up getting destroyed by something even worse! Think of the pirate lords as their own living entities. Some rise, some fall. Maybe early actions of the characters end up putting one on top. The under-appreciated Princes of the Apocalypse adventure does this. Four cultist groups fight among each other while you're climbing their hierarchy. It's good fun.
Hi Mike, Just pondering the announcement of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel as a anthology, and wondering if you have an idea of how the last anthology, Candlekeep Mysteries, performed relative to other WotC products. Was it a particularly big seller? Thanks for any insight!
Hi Andy! I really don't. I typically look at the number of reviews a product has on Amazon compared to other books of its type. Candlekeep Mysteries has 3,400 reviews compared to 3,800 for Ghosts of Saltmarsh (about the same given the time frames), 3,200 for Tales of the Yawning Portal. So roughly the same as the other anthologies from what I see. We'll see how Scarlet Citadel does!
City of Arches question: which faction controls the food supply? Who wants to take control? And why are there Goodberry-producing sweatshops? Actual question: how do you show conflicting factions to PCs without just telling them?
First two questions: you tell me! Last question. They might learn about it through secrets and clues they discover as they explore the town, talk to NPCs, and try to buy certain things. Secrets and clues are a great vehicle for things like this.
Now that MCDM has finally started its Kickstarter for 'Flee Mortals' do you feel that Flee Mortals will replace the WOTC Monster manual at your games? seeing as they are not just having new monsters like the 'Tomb of beasts' etc but actually rewriting established monsters. Could we have too many Goblins?? I don't think so, they look amazing, In my opinion.
It won't replace my Monster Manual. I'm very excited for Flee Mortals but I see it as a book to sit alongside the MM to offer alternative takes on monsters. I think most of the MM monsters are just fine and I don't agree that lower CR monsters like goblins are boring. I plan to talk about this on this week's Talk Show.
Hi Mike. This is more of an industry question. Now that wotc has acquired dnd beyond do you think we will see digital versions of the books come with the physical copies?
We'll see! It's clearly something a lot of people want! My guess is as good as anyone's.
Following up on the question about standby/backup players? How do you incorporate the backup players into an ongoing campaign? Do they play their own characters that pop in and out of the game? Or, do they play the missing players' characters?
I just let their character drop in. If there's a good way to incorporate the character into the story, I do that. If there isn't, I hand wave it. I always mention "you can see the honorable and heroic spark in this character's eye and know they will soon be a valuable ally and fine friend" to prevent the whole "I don't trust this guy" problem.
HI Mike! First time asking a question here. I'd like to ask your thoughts about reskinning monsters vs creating custom monsters. You always suggest reskinning monsters that exist as a good lazy tip and I see the value in that, but here's my dilemma: I'm working on the BBEG for my tier 1 right now. At level 5, any CR5-7 spellcaster seems to have around 50-80 HP and no legendary actions or legendary resistances. Even with minions in the fight, I'm sure my party will gang up on the BBEG. I feel like I need a boss with more survivability. I think I need to homebrew something with legendary actions, resistances, and probably a ton more HP. Otherwise she's just going to die in round 2 and it will be anticlimactic. How have you handled this kind of thing in the past, and what would be your advice for me in this situation now? Thank you for your time - I love the show and all the content you produce!
Thanks so much for the question! There are actually some ranges of effort and effect between a purely name-only reskin and building a monster from scratch. Adding abilities, beefing up hit points, adding legendary traits; these are all things lazy DMs can do to change up a monster and make it effective as a boss. I have a lot of articles about beefing up bosses that may help: https://slyflourish.com/improving_boss_fights.html https://slyflourish.com/spread_boss_damage_to_minions.html https://slyflourish.com/action_oriented_monsters.html https://slyflourish.com/lazy_approach_to_stronger_monsters.html
Hi Mike, I find ranged combat and many of the spells with huge ranges hard to incorporate into my online battles. Maps seem to cater just for short to medium range combat. Do you have any advice on how to cater for the mix of ranges?
I've honestly never worried about it. I think there are times in the story where having a super-long-range can help but a lot of conflicts are going to happen inside a 60 foot box and that's ok. I think battles with super long ranges end up being far more boring for the characters who *don't* have that range than being fun for those who do.
Hi Mike, I know that you have spent a reasonable amount of time with 4e and wanted to get your thoughts on the Points of Light base setting and the overall philosophy on a PoL style game. How can you use the Lazy DM tools to make a perrilous but heroic PoL campaign?
I know a lot of people love the PoL style settings and I'm totally fine with them. I don't think they're anything special and think they can fit into any campaign we're running already, either our own or in a published setting. The main thing is to make sure there are untamed wilds out there. FR has them. Eberron has them. It's easy enough to do the same in a home campaign. The three-hex model I think works well for this: https://slyflourish.com/thinking_two_horizons_out.html
Now that gaming in person is possible where I live, I'm considering running at my FLGS for anyone who signs up to play. I've only ever DMed for a group of friends at home in the past. Any tips for running at a game store? Thanks.
Hi Lawrence! I'd try to get the group together before I brought them in to play. A pure pickup game can be fun but you don't know who you'll get or if you'll get people at all. You can leave a space open for a drop-in if you want. You can also, of course, run purely a pickup game. I'd keep the adventure simple, bring some pre-gens, keep the levels low, be prepared to teach, and have a good time!
How do you decide which plans of the villains the PCs get to interrupt and thwart, and which ones have already happened when they get there? I don't know how to balance giving the players agency to stop bad things before they happen, with the excitement and drama of having to respond to a bad thing that happened. For example: in Rise of Tiamat, I assume the players would be disappointed if they didn't get to fight Tiamat. But the characters will do everything they can to stop Tiamat from being summoned, given the opportunity. So how do you decide which opportunities to just not give the players, because dealing with the resulting bad thing would be more fun?
We start with what's fun first. If it's more fun for the characters to get there ahead of a plot, we let that happen unless it really doesn't make sense. Other times its more fun for a villain's plot to move forward. A plot making a surprise spring forward can be great fun. See the 14 month jump in my Numenera game for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMNLDlwNwGo We start with fun and let the plots unfold from there.
How do you handle situations in your games that would build tension with life or death scenes in movies or real life. For example: Holding someone at gunpoint or pressing a knife against a throat. Does the level 1 rogue get to kill the Bandit Captain? And would you adjudicate this the same reversed? The lowly thug holding the high level Player Character at Gunpoint. Thank you!
I think this is one of those areas where movies and storytelling don't fit well with the games we're running at the table. If such a scene happens organically as part of the way the situation shifts, I think that's one thing. I don't think there's a great way to try to force the issue as part of a story narrative. I don't think there's a great way to hold a high level character at gun point unless its really at the barrel of a disintegrate or something like that. It can happen but it's best if it follows the unfolding story at the table rather than being a planned event. Players can smell the contrived nature of such things.
What are the components for a great campaign finale? Either for homebrew campaigns, or for published ones that for whatever reasons need some tuning of the last chapter? I remember you building a list of 'desiderata' for the Eberron campaign, perhaps? But in general do you have a method to design a satisfying campaign last chapter? thanks!
I think a good fight against a hated villain, a hard choice but one that gives agency to the characters, and a fun one-year-later montage are my go-tos for a campaign conclusion. I like to give the players the opportunities to close up any major arcs and the one-year-later montage is a great way to do that. I've never been disappointed. Here's an article on the topic: https://slyflourish.com/ending_campaigns.html
What bad or ineffective DM habits/practices have you had to rid yourself of over the years?
Great question! Falling in love with my bad guys is definitely one. I think I've finally trained myself to be on the players' side. I actually feel bad when monsters make their saving throws or score a critical hit. That's been a recent change for me I think. Just Wednesday a character cast faerie fire on two monsters and both made their saves. I roll in the open so there was no way to fudge it but I felt bad. *One* of them should have failed.
Hi Mike, my players are not murderhobos (good!) and whenever possible, they try to avoid wanton slaughter (which makes for a good story). But sometimes, I want to give my party a bunch of baddies to kill, and clearly telegraph that they are BAD(TM) and that it's time for the holy smites. No regrets, no sleep lost, time for combat! Do you have any tip to telegraph that a sentient creature (usually a humanoid) is evil and deserves that holy smite? Cliches I have seen are: random torture chamber or pile of corpses in the dungeon; evidence of necromancy and/or serial killing; Demon!; Devil!; blood drinking vampire...etc. Any thoughts/ideas/tips on the matter? Thanks!
Hi Andrea! I think you're on the right track. Self defense is always a good motivation for a fight like that, of course. Defending someone else can work too. Kill the evil cult fanatic before he sacrifices poor Barney the cook's assistant! Evidence of murder and a lack of remorse works too. Obviously, there are some monsters just plain worth fighting and killing. Demons, devils, undead; those work well enough. It's a good question!
Have you had a game with an evil PC? Should I worry? Like Anakin Skywalker I have a PC turning evil without thinking of it that way. He's a necromancer who likes to animate the dead. Mechanically, he likes the fodder, flavorwise, his character likes power. I could develop Myrkul (the god of death) into a front working to fully turn the PC (like the Emperor) or am I looking for trouble?
I've had characters take really dark turns. One of my players loves to have characters corrupted over time and that works as long as it doesn't wreck the story for everyone else. I don't really allow "evil" characters who murder NPCs or otherwise try to wreck the story. I find that too disruptive. I think you can do that but it might be worth having a conversation with the player about the boundaries of that. Same thing with the other players. Good time for an in-campaign session zero refresh to make sure everyone's cool with it.
How do you present time limits to your playes/PC, do you tell them that the villains need X time to be ready for the world ending ritual or just try to sprinkle some clues about and let them make the connections, possibly missing the time limit completely?
Something like a Blades in the Dark countdown clock can work well. I try to make it clear to the characters in the world that something is coming soon. If its a hard timeline, I try to let the players know what that timeline is and what they can potentially accomplish. Best not to surprise them with "sorry, you failed".
Do you have any tips for making NPCs seem distinct from one another besides visual quirks? I use the Lazy DM's Companion to roll up personality traits, but I feel like most of my NPCs end up talking/sounding the same. They all have different goals, so how can I capitalize on those differences more effectively? Thanks!
Not really. A picture can help a lot if you can pull one up. Facecards from Inkwell Ideas or pictures from the net. Things like that. Visual ticks can help too. Do they rub their scalp a lot or make a strange throat-clearing sound when they tell a joke?
Do you have any suggestions for introducing your play group to other tabletop RPG systems? My players enjoy 5E, and while I'm happy to DM for them in 5E, I would also like to introduce them to other systems, such as Modiphius' 2d20 system (Star Trek Adventures, Fallout TTRPG) and Numenera/the Cypher system. Understandably, learning a new system can be a big ask.
It's true. If a group isn't interested in learning a whole new system, it's a big ask. This is an area where we GMs may be more interested in it than our players are. For this reason I'm not a huge fan of other RPGs with big complicated sets of rules. It's just too hard to learn and the investment is too high for a game we may only play once or twice. As with many things, a conversation with the group about their own desires can help.
QQ about Strong Starts: When we write our Strong Starts, how do we actually BEGIN the session? If it's a combat encounter, do we say, "Okay, welcome to this session everyone - ROLL INITIATIVE!!" Or do we just have that strong combat poised and start the session with the calm before the storm? I ask because I've been running it the first way, and I've had players comment they found it jarring to end one session in one place only to have the next start with a jump cut into the action. I only just considered that maybe the Strong Start is just what you do after you get everyone back into the groove and talk through what happens between last session and this one. Have I misunderstood all this time? Thanks!!
Hi Tim! Our adventure may start with a strong start but I always like to ask the players to describe what happened in the last session so we're all on the same page. Sometimes a hard-core cold open can be fun but sometimes we need a little more lead-in into the session. I find "who wants to describe what happened in last sessions game" to be a good intro although often I get blank stares back and have to prime the pump a bit.
Hello, Mike! When describing a room with an obvious monster, do you start with the monster, and then describe the room's contents -- bookshelves, treasure chests, etc. -- before the party launches an attack? Or do you start by describing the contents of room, and then end with the reveal that there's a monster ten feet in front of the party?
I wing it. I'll describe it however feels right at the time. Sometimes its funny to describe the intricate lacy pattern on the top of a teacup on a shelf and then say "oh yeah, there's also a balor in here". We don't have to wrap ourselves too tightly around how we describe things. We're all here to have fun.
Hi Mike, what are your thoughts on Find Familiar? I had a player with an Owl familiar last campaign and even though he was pretty good about it and didn't all out abuse it, I still felt that it took away from the exploration pillar of the game - anything outside was instantly scouted with no cost or risk outside of the time and paltry 10 gold to cast the ritual. And with dungeons, I feel like it creates similar problems to the sneaky rogue who wants to solo scout everything (hogging spotlight). There's not a good way to break up the familiar scouting every room, and involve the rest of the players (outside of Orcs Attack or something). I want the party to be the ones in the action exploring, not a dispensable critter. Strangely I've never had a problem with a familiar in combat, although I hate having additional creatures on initiative. If they do do something they usually die in one shot the next turn, so no big deal there. It's more the scouting/exploration aspect that bothers me.
Yeah, this can be a problem. I think it has to be taken into consideration for things like overland travel and that's ok. It is what it is. If it's taking away a lot of time from the other players it might be worth having an out-of-game conversation about it and coming up with some good ground rules for how to have fun with it. An owl lurking through a dungeon may have some trouble though and in a world with familiars, enemies might be aware of what they can do and shoot them out of the sky. I agree that anything that gives a player more than an action in a turn is often a pacing problem.
What's your opinion on using initiative for non-combat encounters where time isn't necessarily an issue? In my opinion it feels like using initiative for something like exploring a room in a dungeon with no enemies or hazards feels like a waste of time, but my DM argued that it gives every player the chance to do something interesting in every encounter, when otherwise louder players might end up talking over quieter ones. which isn't something I had thought about before.
I think it can work if a DM is having trouble remembering to call on people but if its tedious than its tedious. Some games like Index Card RPG have that as the default. It might be too micromanagey for some situations though.
Hello Mike! I need an intervention, I can't stop fudging rolls and pulling punches. My group is getting back to the table after a hiatus, and the last session ended with the party moving towards a boss battle. I want this fight to be challenging and using your Deadly Encounter Benchmark, I feel like the numbers are good for what I need. But I have a history of negating my own Nat 20s for monsters or making suboptimal combat choices to make sure I don't make any players feel like I'm focusing fire on their character. I'm considering rolling infront of the screen so I can't fudge any rolls, but I'd love to hear any advice on how to stop myself from pulling punches and trust the dice and my players. Thanks a bunch!
Don't be hard on yourself. I think the whole idea of the "killer DM" is pretty toxic for this hobby frankly. We're all here to have fun. I like to say that I don't cheat on rolls but I cheat everywhere else. I keep rolls in the open and sometimes a crit is a crit, but having monsters choose sub-optimal moves, forget attacks; that's all fair game for keeping the game fun. With boss battles in particular its hard to ride that razor's edge of challenging but not a TPK. Don't be hard on yourself. You're doing great.
Who/What are your go-to people, channels, podcasts, writers, etc. for DMing advice?
Good question and I'm going to leave some people out so so sorry! I listen to Mastering Dungeons every week. I like the Dungeoncraft YouTube channel a lot. I love Bob Worldbuilder. I enjoy the Enworld podcast too. I read DM David, the Alexandrian, and Alphastream all the time. Monte Cook has a good newsletter he puts out once a month or so. Really, though, I try to hit places like the Reddit dndnext or dmsacademy subreddits or my own Discord or even these questions to get a feel for what's going on in people's games.
Hi Mike, what else have you tried besides "the adventure begins in a tavern"? You talk about Strong Starts but how do you think about that in the first game? What do you think about rolling initiative right off the bat, like a cold open jumping straight into the action?
I've certainly jumped right into a campaign with a fight. I did it with my Eberron and my Frostmaiden games. I think I've done similar things in many games. It certainly beats meeting up in a bar. Think about the intro to every James Bond movie. Cold opens are great.
Hail to my pal, Mike! One of my Grendleroot campaign's player have a mount (with climibing speed, which is handy in caves) but i'm a bit confused with the mounting/movement/action rules in RAW. She can use the mount's movement instead of hers and she still have her action/bonus action? Or she have his own moving speed? And the mount have his movement AND have action for help/attack/whatever? I have some ideas, but i'd like to hear yours! Ironically, in all these years of playing DnD5e, no one has ever wanted to use a mount in combat....I guess there is always a first time :) Thanks and ofc huuuuuuge thanks for the Oathbreaker spotlight, I and the Elderbrain's guys (including the other Gábor) loved that! :)
Hi my pal Rex! I'm glad I didn't screw up the wrong Gábor! Two Gábors in one shop! I wish I had a better answer but I haven't dug deep into the rules for using a mount so I can't really say. If the mount has its own turn in initiative I think it can move and she'd still have her movement. I think its safe to come up with what works best for your game but I don't know the RAW. Sorry!
Do you still use graph viz for point crawls? I haven't been able to find the site you showed before anymore.
I started using Mermaid which has a bunch of online tools and can be rendered right in Notion. The site I originally used went down I think.
Hi Mike. I was wondering if you could comment on different strategies for boiling down (seemingly) complex and/or dense lore. I've been trying to take the scenario based approach to DMing but I found that in order to do so its kind of important to draw players in to the particulars of the story, characters and regional history. Thing is, when you're playing with new-ish PCs it can be a bit much for them. For example, my LMoP campaign started strong story wise but in the end turned into " defeat the evil wizard in the magic cave" . The players just couldn't retain all the details of the story at large. I don't blame them and I feel I could have done a better job of summarizing things without sounding like a pre-schooler...... thoughts?
Boiling things down is definitely helpful. The use of secrets and clues can help. It forces you to turn those piles of lore into ten sentences the characters might pick up during the game. It's ok to delve out the story slowly and in small pieces. It may make them curious for more or they may ignore it for what's in front of them. Another trick is to ask the players to summarize what's going on and see what they remember. Valve did this with the storyline for Portal 2 and they drastically reduced the story they were telling to fit what players remembered.
Hello Mike, First off, thank you for being a great light in the TTRPG hobby. As with most groups our game moved online, your podcasts and videos have really been helpful getting us up and running (Discord and Owlbear Rodeo). On to the real question. As a fairly new DM I struggle with roleplaying NPCs. It always seems awkward and goofy. Try as I might to get inspiration from other forms of media for these NPCs, it always falls flat. The more my players interact the more my roleplay crumbles. We are not really a heavy Roleplay group to begin with, but would love to add more to my NPCs then a panic mess that usually comes out. Thanks Mike!
Hello Carl! I've been in this hobby since 1992 and I've played with more than one guy who was a great storyteller - but they weren't particularly great performers. Good news: you don't have to be an amateur actor and perform every NPC like an Academy Award nominee. If it suits your team, all you have to say is, for example, "The bearded town guard doesn't seem like a genius, he answers your questions in a thick voice with a sparse vocabulary" - you don't need to have a deep voice to talk like a dolt if you don't feel comfortable doing so. If you like it and your players appreciate it, I say go for it and believe me, it will get a lot easier with time, but if it feels weird and out of your comfort zone, just don't do it. There is more than one way - and I think This is the Way :) Best regards: Rex, from Hungary
Hi Mike! Loving your show and resources, I've learned a lot, so thanks for everything already. I have a story beat I don't know how to hit using D&D rules. When my PCs return from exile I want to give them the option to raise a rebellion against a tyrant. I don't want this to take a lot of time - I'd rather concentrate on the rebellion itself - and was hoping to use the downtime rules to give this a montage feel, but also want the players to feel the weight and impact of their actions. Are there tools, rules or hacks that I can employ to support a 'thousand foot view' approach to a story beat, or will I have rely solely on my storytelling and characterization skills?
HI David! I think the best way to deal with this might be through social interaction (I learned from the comment above!) and letting the butterfly effect take over. Instead of trying to do a big macro-view of things, they can use the tools the characters have – primarily with NPC interaction – to start the rebellion and then see the results later on in the adventure. Also be prepared for the characters not to really care about doing something like that. The option might be there but they might not bite.
Hi Mike. I'd like your input on a philosophical approach that I use, and encourage my players to use, when addressing the "three pillars" of D&D or other RPGs. Those pillars are most commonly referred to as "combat" (self explanatory), "exploration" (those scenes in which players interact with the environment in some way), and "role playing" (interacting with NPCs). I take issue with the latter title. I have started using the term "social" for those scenes and encounters that involve interaction with NPCs. For one, I think the term "role playing" should apply to ALL aspects of the game. And for a second reason, I am not a big fan of letting go of character builds and game mechanics in NPC interactions. In my own longtime group, there is one player that loves to be the face character in social scenes - regardless of his social stat (Charisma, etc). I feel that that approach sidelines those players that build socially-leaning characters but who don't have a realworld aspiration to always be center stage. I am hoping to get your buy-in on the relabeling of that third pillar, and to change the narrative to allow "role playing" to apply to ALL scenes of a game.
Check out page 8 of the Player's Handbook. It uses the nomenclature you do – "social interaction" instead of roleplaying. I tend to use the terms synonymously but you're right. It's not just roleplaying. Even if that weren't the case, you don't need my buy-in to relabel anything in the game. I don't have some hold over what people want to call things =)
How do you improve your descriptive muscles? I want to describe a few days of travel through hostile landscape, describe the feeling inside the dark cave, show the majesty of the giant palace... that sort of thing. Do you have any tips for improving this? What's the Lazy DM way to take notes that you can use for location and scene descriptions? (This is of course, for areas that don't have boxed text).
Hi Karl! I answered a similar question here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCpsFb6ZTL8&t=2536s I think that covers most of what I'd say for your question as well.
Hi Mike, How far is too far when letting player ingenuity become more important than the rules? I.E, players can attempt to do anything including but not limited to emulating feats, modify spells on the fly, take more movement or actions. Sometimes at a cost or detriment.
There are bounds in the world's fiction that limit such things. One cannot simply manifest the effects of a fireball without casting fireball. We know how far a skill can take you from the descriptions in the core books. I think the rules do a pretty good job saying what's allowed and what isn't. Sometimes the answer is "no". Sometimes it's "no, but". Sometimes its "yes but only if you do these other things".
Hi Mike, how do you handle curses in D&D games beyond the levels where remove curse becomes a thing? I feel like the spell voids their impact but banning the spell seems like a cheap and lame solution to me. I think curses can be fun. (I ran some of your Fantastic Adventures & Grendleroot Adventures as oneshots and dropins for my campaigns lately, btw. They're great. I dropped the entire Blackclaw Mountain into our Margreve-Campaign.)
Good question and thanks for the Fantastic Advenures praise! I don't handle curses particularly well. They can matter sometimes when a character doesn't have remove curse prepared and a curse is going to manifest within 8 hours (yay, Varghoulle!). Some curses are slow and not curable unless something really monumental happens. Players might feel cheated if they can't just use remove curse. Otherwise, its fine if they get cursed and cured using the rules as written. I don't have a great answer beyond that, sorry!
I am an avid fan of Raging Swan Press, and have been hoarding their content. Thanks for pointing them out (not sarcasm) ! Now I find myself drowning in dressings, backdrops, villages, villains, lairs, etc. While I enjoy consuming the content, I sometimes find using them for session prep a bit non-lazy (very useful for medium-effort pre-populating an open world). Do you have a good procedure for integrating this style of 3rd party content into your lazy session prep?
I love them too! Yes, too many random tables can be hard to handle. In general having too many tools can be more paralyzing than useful. I think its worth reading through your various Raging Swan products to have an idea what they have and then hopefully remembering them when you need them. Figuring out which tables you need to prep a game is tough.
Hi Mike, I’ve just started running time of the frost maiden and your advice has been invaluable (I have stolen and reworked many of your ideas I’m sure you don’t mind) I have give my PCs one special item each which I am developing for them along a theme. Have you ever played Earthdawn? It’s something like a thread item from that game. I was wondering if other people would like to use this idea for their campaigns? I’m sure it’s not new. Love your videos and positive views on DMing.
Yes! The idea of evolving items has been done in a few different places. The Exandria D&D books have variants on these (Tal'Dorei Reborn, Explorer's Guide to Wildmount, and Call of the Netherdeep). Vault of Magic by Kobold Press has some as well. I've even included some in Ruins of the Grendleroot and Fantastic Lairs. It's a great idea.
Don’t know if this has been covered before as I’m new here, but how do you go about introducing a new world to your group? That is, a completely new setting and not just a new campaign! ( I’m going to start a new campaign in Eana by Studio Agate.)
I'm a big proponent of the one-page campaign summary. Here's more about it: https://slyflourish.com/one_page_campaign_guide.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thwe8XG9pUI
Haven't had a chance hop on the Discord (Gogocamel handle) where I would usually post this. So I'll ask here. I've started to get stumped by how to handle Augury. I have a player who is leaning heavy into their character's divination capabilities (Circle of the Stars Druid). The campaign we are playing in is definitely a "play to see what happens" style of sandbox. I'm struggling with answering Weal or Woe, when I have no idea what will happen. It makes sense in dungeon crawling, but what about complex urban campaigns where all social interactions have numerous consequences? Have any ideas on how to answer Augury spells with nuance and not make it too powerful of a divination spell?
Yeah! That's a tricky one. The same is true with being able to recon an entire dungeon when you haven't filled in the dungeon yet. The only good approach I know is to make those things true. Eventually the players were going to move the story into that territory anyway so instead of having to figure out what it is *then* you need to figure it out when the Augury spell goes. Augury has limited answers though so hopefully that helps. It also isn't a spell that sees the future. It only sees what may be or what's going on now. That helps.
What is your favourite/least favourite dragon breath weapon?
I'll go with acid as favorite and poison as least favorite (because of Heroes Feast)
I need to incorporate a female lesser demon or a creature who may have been a handmaiden to a demon to fill a plot in my 5e campaign. She needs to be benevolent so succubus is a stretch for me, though I have considered making a "fallen" (risen?) version if I can't come up with anything else. Any suggestions?
Erinyes!
Hi Mike. I’m currently running a Ruins of the Grendleroot campaign and my players are LOVING the setting😊. In order to make it feel like things aren’t coming out of nowhere I’ve tried to ‘seed’ a few things in the setting that the players encounter that prep them for adventures that will come later (in this case, finding an old journal written by Ardus Fane) but I find that my players are latching on to these little nuggets and want to try to immediately follow them to a conclusion. So here’s my question: Q: how can I effectively seed ideas that will come up in future adventures without throwing my current adventure into chaos? How can I foreshadow events-to-come without them taking over the game before my players are ready for them? Thanks!
Good question and a hard one! I fall back to my "just tell them" philosophy. I've noticed while playing the awesome video game Horizon Forbidden West that the protagonist will say things like "I don't think I can get into there yet" as though she's talking to herself. We can do something like this ourselves and just make it clear that they can't really do anything with the item "You don't think there's more you can learn about this tome at the moment". Be explicit. The alternative is to let the story go where it will and evolve the story around the direction they take!
This isn't really a question. I'm a veteran DM from the early 80s and I definitely love to be behind the screen. However, recently I had two bad sessions in a row in the same week. In one session I made a ruling instead of looking up a random rule and the player involved was angry at me for a week, even though I sent him a text letting him know he was correct and I'd rule that way from now on. In the other, I was simply unprepared for what the players chose to do and wasn't on my game enough to properly improv, which led to a boring extended battle that no one enjoyed very much. This led to a week of "DM Depression." The reason I'm writing is just to ask for a little commiseration about this. I know it happens to all of us. So how do you deal with this when it happens?
Hi Harry! I don't usually jump into the questions until Friday but I thought I might hit this one right away because I know how that can feel. I suggest taking a look at this article. I wrote this after I too had a bad few games and felt much the same way: https://slyflourish.com/recovering_from_a_bad_game.html Be kind to yourself!
I think you've mentioned having "on-call" or backup players for games. Can you elaborate on how well this works for you? In theory, it sounds great. But I'd be worried that these players wouldn't be available or would prefer a consistent schedule.
Sure! It works well when communication is open. When I recruit an "on-call" player, I describe exactly what that means. That they'll be called in from time to time when a seat is opened up. I try to seek on-call players for whom that works well. They can't commit to a regular game anyway. Sometime the on-call player would prefer to be a regular member but I think everyone understands that that's not possible with six existing players. I try to just be clear about the whole thing. It's true that they aren't consistently available and that's ok. Sometimes it works out and sometimes not.
I know you are trying to figure out some of these issues of using maps or theatre of the mind or drawing currently, but I have a question on this idea. If running theatre of the mind, how do you engage your players with tactical decisions during combat? Or should tactical combat be only limited to play with a map or miniatures?
It depends on what we mean by tactics. If we mean physical positioning and stuff like that, things that get down to the high resolution of five-foot squares, it might be best not to use Theater of the Mind for that. Otherwise, I think reinforcing that players describe what they want to do given your descriptions of the environment can work best. You can get pretty tactical in narrative "I want to position myself between the raging orcs and our cleric and wizard. I want to use my polearm mastery to hit the first orc who charges in and I want to use my sentinel feature to stop that orc from moving in and, if need be, protect the cleric whom I'm standing next to". Reinforcing that the player should describe their intent is a huge part of effective theater of the mind.
Have you had friends who aren't Player Characters run factions or powerful NPCs in your game? If so, do you have tips for how to set everyone up for an enjoyable time, GM included? I'm running 13th Age with custom icons (13 most powerful leaders of factions in the world), and I have friends (who I trust as roleplayers) playing two of the icons, asynchronously via Discord, since their "actions" will take much longer than those of the PCs.
Hi Zach! I haven't really done this and the few times I've had a player play an NPC like this, their motivation wasn't the same as mine. As a DM, our motivation to help shape an engaging story doesn't always transfer over to the player who plays an NPC like they'd play their character. It may work for some but I haven't really tried it to say for sure.
I'm new to the Lazy methods (I'm a KS backer for Companion) and will be using your tools for a new Numenera homebrew adventure I'll be running for our group. My question is, when it comes to adventure design, what are your thoughts about using the 5 traditional elements of storytelling? Specifically: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Do you use these when you are plotting out the major beats of a goal-driven adventure? Many thanks!
Hi JABD! I think that can work just fine. One thing to keep in mind is that we're not *telling* a story when we run a game; we're watching it form as we play. Sometimes the story we all create together with our players doesn't fit a nice curve like the one you lay out. I also think some great stories of fiction don't follow that model and that makes them more interesting. Think No Country for Old Men or Game of Thrones. I think if we do follow that model, the last two parts should be very quick. I think that model can work in general for keeping an idea of pacing but too formulaic and it'll get railroady.
Hi Mike! Long time lurker, first time poster! In your opinion, what is the best way to run a game in Eberron, holding on to the gritty crime noir/Political intrigue themes laid out in Eberron? I’m not entirely sure if it’s better to stay in Sharn or expand outside of the city. I’ve read some of your campaign outlines and would like to build one for a future Eberron game. Thank you!
I am very happy with how I ran it in my "Second Mourning" campaign. I think running half of the campaign in Sharn and half in and around the Mournland was a great way to enjoy the most of what Eberron had to offer. I'd probably recommend it.
Hi Mike! I just picked up the Dark Souls RPG, and while I think there are significant problems with much of the book, I like their variant on initiative. Each encounter has an initiative DC determined by the most powerful monster. PCs who beat this DC are "fast"; those who don't are "slow". Each turn, all of the "fast" PCs act in any order, then all of the monsters, then all of the "slow" PCs. This seems to collapse a lot of the work of initiative tracking and cleans up many cases where players need to ready actions to coordinate. What do you think of this as an option for regular 5e play?
Sure! It seems like a fast way to go. Both Shadow of the Demon Lord and Numenera have similar systems to this. I like it just fine. I think it tends to work best with smaller numbers of players. It think when you get to six or so, it becomes harder to manage but so does every other aspect of the game.