May 2022 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A Thread

I push heavily for the discovery of secrets and clues in chambers like this. What can they learn with history or investigation checks? What can they learn about the location's history, the movement of inhabitants, any plots going on, potential secret passages or doors; anything like that. Secrets and clues are the rewards for exploration. Bathe your dungeon in them and keep them abstract so you can put them anywhere.

I have not, sorry!

I think you have to focus on your friends first and the story second. I think its important to make sure the boundaries are set and the players know they are both comfortable with the theme (or at least expecting to be uncomfortable) and have safety tools in place. I wouldn't spring a grim dark campaign on them without their buy-in.

I'll be honest – character-focused stuff really isn't where I put my attention so I tend to miss stuff like that. I didn't notice.

Good question! Here's an article I wrote a while back about hooks: https://slyflourish.com/adventure_hooks.html This gives some motivation but ways to learn about it can be tricky too. Starting with a group patron who already has jobs lined up is a good way. Ye olde job board isn't so terrible. Getting thrown into the situation as a strong start. Jumping ahead to the moment the characters are already going *in* to the dungeon and putting the hook as backstory works. Try to write down ten ways the character can learn about a job and see what comes out!

Yeah, this is a good reason to put off character creation until you run a session zero. It's really hard to stop players from thinking a lot about their characters for a new campaign. Best is to get consensus about the campaign as close as you can to the session zero so the players can build their characters together. Hope that helps!

The Paizo Flip Mat is amazing. A big acrylic sheet for our table so I can slide maps under it is also a wonderful investment. My own DM cheat sheet is great. I like it better than a DM screen. Index cards, of course. Those are probably my top ones. https://slyflourish.com/revised_5e_cheat_sheet.html

Hi Felix! Sure! I think Arcana of the Ancients and Beasts of Flesh and Steel and even Where the Machines Wait are great ways to dive into Numenra style worlds but stick to 5e. Having played both systems, I like them both in different ways. Good luck!

Thanks so much Terje! Important is a powerful word! I certainly wouldn't call my show important (maybe to me). This is just all of us getting together to talk about D&D! One of the problems with adventures with big twists is that players either figure them out or they don't really have a shift based on the actions of the characters. Such twists work well in movies because we're passive participants but in D&D players are active. They're doing things. If the game shifts like that, they don't usually have any agency. Sometimes surprising things happen all on their own to all of them. See the 14 month jump in my Numenera campaign. That was a big Christopher Nolan shift and it happened all on its own. Seek out those sorts of shifts. Thanks!

Hi Ryan! Why limit yourself to -5 / +10? You should feel free to modify monsters however you see fit to match their story in the game and the fun at the table. I often add 7 (2d6) or 10 (3d6) damage of an elemental type to monsters to get their damage up. Most monsters don't have great attack scores to begin with. They're often much lower than characters. Thus, I don't think a -5 penalty works for them. Feel free to boost your damage and tell them Sly Flourish said it was ok!

Hi Dan! First, best of luck! I love to see places like this come up. As far as requirements go, here are a few things I'd really hope to have: - A good comfortable space with a table big enough for the people sitting at it. - A safe inclusive place with clear posted harassment policies and trained staff prepared to deal with it. And the nice-to-haves: - Fun decorations would be great. - Some way to post and sign up for games. - A library of books and tools. - Big acrilic sheets on the tables under which DMs can put maps. Those are the things that jump right out at me. Good luck!

Hi Eric! Check out https://slyflourish.com/sly_flourishs_running_epic_tier_dd_games.html It was written for 4th edition but a lot of it can help with tier 4 games. I'd say the biggest thing is making sure the types of threats and challenges they face are appropriate for their power. More here: https://slyflourish.com/tier_appropriate_adventure_locations.html

Hi Bo! Besides the material in Volo's Guide to Monsters, which has a lot about mind flayers, I'd take a look at Call from the Deep on the DM's Guild which has a long campaign focused around mind flayers. https://www.dmsguild.com/product/280922/Call-from-the-Deep?affiliate_id=70406 I haven't seen a whole lot about Aboleths but they're great fun enemies to run. Good luck!

Good and important question! I hadn't covered the topic of GM Burnout very much so I reached out to Twitter to see what people had to say. Here's the thread! https://twitter.com/SlyFlourish/status/1525218888316755968 For myself, I can feel overwhelmed and having two games a week can stack onto that feeling of being overwhelmed. Sometimes I just want a night off. Often that's because I'm too busy in other aspects of my life too. D&D being a creative enterprise, takes energy to run. Like all creative activities, I think we have what Steven Pressfield called "The Resistance", a voice in the back of our head saying anything it can to get us to avoid engaging in our creative activity. It's worth thinking about why it's saying that and what we can do about it. I wrote more about that here: https://slyflourish.com/not_prepared.html Many people recommend taking a break for a few weeks to reset and recalibrate. Find and focus on the parts of running a game you love and see what you can do to remove the parts that make it hard. For me, even if I don't feel like running a game, I try to remember where that's coming from and remember that, when I'm in the game, I'm just hanging out with my friends and enjoying a story. I focus on my prep, focus on the fun parts, and enjoy the rest. I don't think I've every been in the middle of a game and wishing it was over. I still love hanging out with my friends and watching the story evolve. Hope this helps!

Hi Andy! This is a tough one. If the player's being generally disruptive to the game, it's worth having a conversation with them out of the game to see if it can be addressed. One of the things I hammer pretty hard on is that all characters are working together in cooperation to serve the theme of the campaign. I put this into my one-page campaign summary and reinforce it during group character creation during our session zero. It doesn't /always/ help but a good strong session zero can often solve a lot of these problems. If it's after the fact, an out-of-game conversation can help. Talk to the player about how their character might grow into greater responsibility and support for the rest of the characters. Sometimes, that sort of recklessness can help propel the story forward when everyone else is being too cautious. That's something to consider as well. Good question!

Hi Chad! I've done a house-rule where we separate "temporary XP" from "permanent XP" and its worked very well. It's sort of like milestones. We essentially have character advancement XP which they gain by completing major milestones in the game and then temporary XP which they get through GM intrusions which they can spend on re-rolls and short-term benefits. That's worked well but I think it probably breaks away from some of the ideas of the game. I worried that players would hoard XP and never spend it on re-rolls because permanent character advancement is so much better.

Hi Redmonk! I try to choose races and themes that fit the theme of the campaign as much as I can. My players are pretty experienced so giving them a lot of access to subclasses helps keep them interested. We also use D&D Beyond so offering subclasses available in Beyond is important. I eliminated Peace and Twilgiht clerics because general experiences seem to be that they break the game a lot. I had personal experience with that with Twilight clerics and heard Peace is pretty overpowered. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of subclasses in Tasha's Cauldron but those two really force the DM to change the game.

Hi Miles! Obviously I'm not great at it! I think some thing we can do are to bring it up during campfire conversations (https://slyflourish.com/campfire_talk.html) or other moments where we can ask the players to describe what their characters think of a situation or how it affects their background.

Hi Jamey! Good question! This is one I'm not great at. I think a bit of pre-planning can help. Choose the big milestones ahead of time and tell them to your players. "When you discover the land of Yon, you'll reach 6th level!" or "You reach 5th level once you defeat the pirate queen". Define an event and the reward. Matt Coleville had a good video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwpQwCWdhL8

Hi Doug! I don't think this is a bad way to go. If there's an unintended consequence, you can cure it by just giving out more gold.

Hi D.Vincent! This is a good question and a hard thing to do once the NPCs get in there. A big tip I have is to make them non-combatants. Don't give them a turn or, if they *are* a combatant, add an extra enemy or two and have them do their attacks against one another in the narrative rather than rolling dice and making attacks. Hand-wave the descriptions of it so you can focus on the characters and their actions instead of NPC to NPC stuff. Here's an article that can help! https://slyflourish.com/tag-along_npcs.html

Hi Bram! I don't think counting gold, arrows, food, and other resources fits the theme of the super-heroic mythical fantasy of Theros. We never cared where Perseus got his arrows or carried his rations. In my games, I don't worry about the characters counting resources unless that part of the them (like when running Out of the Abyss). The big question, for me, is "is this an important part of the theme of this campaign?" If it's not, I hand-wave it. If I was running a Lawrence of Arabia adventure, I'd probably worry about water. Otherwise, nah.

Hi Justin! I'd suggest running something like the D&D Adventurer's League Epics – big multi-table events where each group is part of a larger whole working on some part of a big plot. DM David wrote about these here: https://dmdavid.com/tag/how-to-forge-the-most-epic-multi-table-role-playing-event-ever/ but you can find other info, including Adventurer's League adventures built for multi-table events. A common approach for this is to break down a larger adventure into smaller group-sized timed adventures whose success leads to a bigger goal. There can also be a villain or event that sweeps from table to table engaging in a round of combat or some other sort of challenge. That's how I'd try to run things for a multi-table event like that. Good luck!

Hi Mike! This is one where I'm a bit of a hypocrite. Most of the time I only allow WOTC classes and subclasses and what-not because I'm playing WOTC adventures in WOTC campaign settings. When I run worlds like Midgard by Kobold Press, I allow those player sources. I've done that with Tales of the Old Margreve and I'd do that again if and when I run Empire of the Ghouls and Scarlet Citadel. The hard part is, of course, D&D Beyond not including those sources and my players love D&D Beyond.

Hi Craig! I always try to remember to lean in on exposing secrets and clues as much as I can. Players are only going to grab about half of what you're throwing their way so it really helps to "tell, don't show" as much as you can. Don't worry about sounding cliche or like a bad James Bond villain. It's perfectly ok and we can laugh at ourselves along with our players even when they point out how ham fisted some of these approaches can be. Here are some old standby tricks I keep in mind to expose important secrets: - A character has a prophetic waking dream. - An enemy minion has a note that explains *everything*. - You call for a group insight check and the highest one has a Sherlock-Holmes-like observation (that you narrate) describing the plot and situation. - A friendly NPC or quest giver spells things out for the characters. - One of the villain's henchmen turns sides and tells the characters what's going on. - The characters find the conspiracy map board of an assassinated NPC that spells everything out. - The local magistrate writes out clear quests and rewards on notices on the community bulletin board that spell things out. - A character has a visit from their diety or patron with descriptions of the situation. - The wildest rumors at the local pub turn out to be true. - The characters are invited to a council of elders where clues are pieced together into a clear understanding of the situation. I hope these help!

I don't think people lose track of recognizing that consenting adults can play how they want - that's the whole purpose of safety tools, getting that consent. We just didn't seem to consider formalizing that consent before we jumped into the deep end, to our peril and the peril of the fun of our players. The best tools I've found for this are "lines and veils" and "pause for a minute". Both tools can be described during a session zero. They're not weird to bring up. They're very useful. You can learn more about them here: https://slyflourish.com/safety_tools.html When I'm about to run a campaign, I let players know what they might expect for potentially sensitive topics. I did this for my Frostmaiden game for example: https://slyflourish_content.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/frostmaiden_one_page_campaign_guide.pdf

Hi Andy! Back in 2016 I think I was more apprehensive at bending the rules of a monster. I think what I have there can work but its probably a little complicated. I think I'd go with a Matt Coleville style action-oriented approach (more on that here: https://slyflourish.com/action_oriented_monsters.html ). Each round I'd give Strahd one action outside of his others that he can take. Positioning, escape, and explosion. I think he already has a lot of these built into his legendary actions. Move without provoking (adding a to of flavor as he bursts into a swarm of bats, moves to a new spot, and returns to his humanoid form) and sometimes exploding into a fireball of bat-bites or something like spirit guardians but with bats. You can also certainly run Strahd as a multi-phase fight, letting the characters hunt him down three times before they can really pin him down and defeat him. Good luck!

I don't have a brilliant solution for this. I just take the tokens off the map and remember roughly where they are. Then they pop in where it makes sense that they would. We're not playing a board game here so its ok if we cheat a little bit if it makes sense for the story and the fun of the game.

Hi Sam! Stephen King had the same problem when he wrote "The Stand". Too many characters, too many plot threads, the book was already like 400 pages, and he didn't have any idea where to go. He ended up blowing up about half of the main characters and sending four others on a single prophetic quest. He focused it back down again. You may have to consider murdering your darlings. Which threads are important? Which ones grabbed the players the most? Which one can you focus in on for the remainder of your campaign? Which threads can you safely lose? Which villains get destroyed by their own plans? Which villains eat the others? Which threads simply fade away? Maybe talk to your players about it too. What story threads do *they* like? Which ones do they want to see resolved? Which ones never seem to come up when they talk about this? I wouldn't ask them about *every* thread. I'd see which ones they remember and focus on those. Hope that helps!

Hi Rolen! None of us truly know what direction WOTC takes. Since you already have material in D&D Beyond, I don't think I'd re-buy it in another platform like Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20. The good news is that, if you *do* decide to use Roll 20 or Foundry and use their D&D Beyond integration middleware (Beyond 20 for Roll 20 and FoundryVTT for Foundry) you're not out any serious money if things change. Not to muddy the waters but you can check out Above VTT, a Chrome extension which sits right on top of D&D Beyond, or Owlbear Rodeo which is completely system agnostic as well. Both of them are free. I think considering how damaging it would be should WOTC walk back on access to D&D Beyond content or licensing to third party VTTs is a good thing to consider before dropping a lot of money. Otherwise, I wouldn't get too happy with any one tool that you aren't willing to switch.

Hi Iain! Yes, indeed. This is a problem. On the DM side, things aren't so bad. It's easy to run adventures or campaigns from other third party publishers. Monsters are a little harder but we can always default to rolling real dice and reading a stat block from the book again. Too much integration can lock us up more than it helps sometimes. Character options are harder to manage. I tend to let that fall back to the players to decide. Worst case, they can use a normal character sheet instead of using D&D Beyond but that's not ideal. Hammering in the material into Beyond as a custom feature ends up taking a lot of work. D&D Beyond is a powerful and useful tool but it definitely makes it harder to use third party content, particularly on the players' side. There's no great answer. I wish there were.

Hi Karl! You might take a look at material from Out of the Abyss. It's a little dated and not the strongest hardcover adventure but it all takes place in the underdark which works nicely. The dungeons from Princes of the Apocalypse also can work well. As you mention, reskinning the Tomb of the Nine Gods from Tomb of Annihilation can work too. I think any of the hardcovers can probably work if you dig their plots and can tailor them to fit the output from Grendleroot. Good luck!

Hi Rich! I have some advice for running episodic adventures here: https://slyflourish.com/running_episodic_games.html Let me know if that helps!

Hi Steven! I love being a player! Here are some things that help me be a good player: 1. Focus on my character and the story and the background. This helps prevent me from analyzing the game as a DM. 2. Support other players' characters. I love being a side-kick or support character. Build relationships that elevate the other characters. 3. Take notes! I love taking notes and it helps me stay engaged with the group. I'm a pretty terrible player otherwise. 4. Don't offer unsolicited feedback. If they're not asking, I'm not telling. If they /do/ ask, offer constructive positive feedback that helps steer them in the right direction. 5. Tell them how much you love Sly Flourish and Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master! =D

Hi Martin! I've never had a good handle on it. I'm too busy. Instead, I just have them roll on every non-cantrip spell. It only triggers once in twenty times already so it won't happen all the time.

Hi Kevin! Eight or nine players!! Oof! I'm usually happy when everyone else is happy. I always try to gauge how people feel about the game and let that drive how I feel about it. I think its useful to find ways to improve the game but certainly we need not go overboard. Make small changes when you want to try things out. Save the big stuff for special occasions after you've given it some time to think it through. I do find it really useful to list seven things I learned in my last game. This is actually how I come up with my #dnd tips on Twitter. They're all little observations I made about my own game. Try this, choose a small one to work on, and keep your game going in a fine direction.

Hi Robin! Welcome back to the hobby! It's so great to see the game bring family together. I always recommend both Dragon of Icespire Peak and Lost Mine of Phandelver from the D&D Essentials Kit and the D&D Starter Set. Wizards has a new starter set coming out in a month or two as well for which I have high hopes. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't offer up Ruins of the Grendleroot, my own book of subterranean adventures (https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/fantastic-adventures-ruins-of-the-grendleroot-pdf-map-pack). You can also try out the City of Arches! It's built to be a home-base and adventure location all in one! This is a Patreon only product at the moment which you can get here: https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/city_of_arches.pdf Good luck!

Hi Cloaker! From my reading, the core rules really don't have much to help with this which means you'd have to find or make your own system. I'd always make sure your players are into this style of play as well. D&D 5e, at its core, is a heroic fantasy system. 1st level characters have unlimited light sources and 5th level characters can basically make food forever. I'd argue its fundamentally not built to be a resource-focused game and not all players will be interested in one that is. I haven't researched other systems to see if they have better handling of this. Five Torches Deep is one such system. It has a bigger focus on things like supply and encumbrance. You could probably shoehorn these ideas into a 5e game but it'll take some houseruling and you'll want to clarify those house rules with your players as well before the game begins.

Hi J! It sounds like you're already doing what I would do which is sit down and explain that, for this type of game, they're just not going to be able to dive into their characters' backstory and they'll have to agree to be ok with that. Do you run other more story-focused games where you think they'd have more fun? How disruptive is their shoehorning for you and the other players? You'll have to find these answers for yourself to know exactly how to approach it. Hopefully it's not so bad you have to ask them to find another game. Stuff like this is always hard.

This is really hard to do without giving the players something to look at. A quick sketch on a piece of paper can do the trick if you don't have anything else. Drawing it out ahead of time on a big sheet of gridded paper can work. You can show a digital version of the map on a tablet or even a phone. If you can use a screen in your room, that works too. I put an old computer monitor up on a book case in our gaming room so everyone can see what I'm talking about. Of course, for digital play, I highly recommend Owlbear Rodeo; my favorite virtual tabletop. This is a great question and one I plan to dive into more. I talked more about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOvTsXzl8M0&index=2&t=3782s

Hi Morkaphene! I talked about chases in a previous talk show. You can find the answer here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrEaoocazjQ&t=2904s

Hi Jasmine! This adventure is probably better suited for smaller groups than most but any of them can work. One trick is to give the group a companion character so they have a fourth character but you can also scale down the number of monsters and get a good effect. The game will certainly go quicker when you have fewer than four as well. Most of it is about scaling monsters and the best way to do that is to remove one or two monsters from any given group and turn the other dials to suit the fun of the game.

Hi Jaakko! This is a good question, and similar to the one Mertok posted above. I'm going to do some research and I'll come back to it. I've been spending a good deal of time thinking about how to run a Dungeon Crawl but don't think I have my hands around the whole question yet. Stay tuned!

This is one of those areas where I don't think how I feel about it is particularly important. WOTC's going to do what they're going to do and I'll either like it or I won't. I'm not making my own game up so I don't really have to dive into the design. Generally I like simplicity so I'm not crazy about feats with level restrictions. It doesn't seem like a rule that brings a lot of fun with it. So meh.

Not sure if this is a reference from something, but I like the idea. I play a lot of the Boardgame Sentinels of the Multiverse, which is played with the Villain takes a turn, then each player, then the Environment goes. The environment is a mix of effects that can hurt or help the players or villain, in a way that makes sense to the environment theme. I could see in 5e adding environmental effects in initiative.

I try to offer suggestions to their characters. You can ask them to roll insight or perception checks or things like that to learn of the options in front of them. Give them some choices. Let the players see how they can do things outside of their sheet and after seeding a few ideas, they may come up with some of their own.

Good question! You can often think of such times as a good time to reboot the campaign. Find three villains with big goals and quests they're trying to accomplish. Rewrite your campaign seed and refuel what's going on. Have a big event that restarts the adventure. Does a comet smash down causing all sorts of ancient evils to awaken? Check out World Shaking Events in the Dungeon Masters Guide in chapter 1. Roll some random dice and see what comes out!

I don't think I handle gold particularly well but giving the characters things to spend it on can work. Check out Xanathar's downtime guides for hunting down magic items. Let them spend it on upgrades to their base. Maybe they need it to buy something important for the story. Don't forget those expensive spell components!

Hi Ryan! I talked about this on a previous Talk Show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egmrwp2dNhU&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=15&t=2051s Good luck!

One thing you could try is just not allowing the party to split? Might be a bit railroady, but on the other hand, it's not really fair for the players to put you in that position. "Not-railroading" doesn't mean "the players can do whatever they want."

Hi Eric! I actually wrote little bits of Primeval Thule back when it was a 13th Age book! If you're looking for that dark age sword and sorcery Conan style stuff, I think focusing on the theme of the campaign, the villains, the snake cults, the ancient tombs, the vast history; just the overall narration you give it; that's what's going to make it come alive. After running some grim-dark campaigns and now a high-fantasy fairy tale campaign, I've become aware of how important the words and atmosphere we build is when we're running the game. It's not mechanical. It's not the game part. It's how we describe the world through every aspect we reveal: every NPC, every item, every monument. My quiver of lazy dm tips is probably all packed into the Companion. Find a scenario you like, roll on the tables, grab what excites you, and share a tale of high adventure!

Hi Stache! I'm so sorry you're having to deal with that. Dealing with the people issues of a group can be really hard to do. Not being in you're shoes, please take my advice with a grain of salt. You know the situation far better than I do so anything I offer is limited. That said, I'd probably start by talking to each of the players and letting them each know that what they're doing is not ok. It's not good for you. It's not good for the group. It's not what you want to be doing when you're running your game. Focus on the *situation* and not the people. Don't judge them, judge what's happening and ask for their help to fix it. Try to dig into *why* this is happening. If you go to any Reddit forum, these questions come up all the time and almost always the answer is "walk away. It sucks but you'll be happier". That may not be the best situation but I'll tell you this. There are thousands of excellent players looking for a good caring DM who can't find one. In many cases, breaking up a group and starting a new one ends up with a stronger group. It's hard and it can hurt but the end results may be better. It's just a hard situation and I'm sorry for it.

Hi Vincent! You're right! I don't like puzzles =D And for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. They tend to break out of what a *character* would do and challenge the *players*. I know that's a particular style some like to play but it isn't really for me. Thus, I don't really have a great solution for challenging the characters when you've already put something in place that feels like a challenge to the players. I haven't really come up with any new ways to handle puzzles from running Numenera. I haven't run into any within the books themselves. I like to let the situations drive what sorts of things land in front of the characters and puzzles just feel...gamey.

I think you can certainly use secrets and clues as a random rumor table. Sure. That's not where I got them from but it can certainly work that way. I haven't really tried it and I'm not a fan of false rumors most of the time because players have enough trouble hanging on to the true ones.

I like to have them weave and overlap. I usually like to have three I know about with a couple actually visible to players but villains can come and go too so don't be opposed to having them die off and new ones coming in. It's a flexible tool so use it however it fits the game you're running.

If your players don't seem inclined to seek out loot at all, it sounds like you effectively have to hand it to them on a silver platter. Here's some ideas off the top of my head, but the TL/DR is basically hang a big sign saying "You might want this stuff": 1) Make it really obvious that monsters/enemies are using magic items against them. Describe the enemy warrior's sword as it glows or burns with its own fire, or how the oni's wand radiates blue before a lightning bolt shoots out of it, or the enemy shaman's staff briefly blossoms with flowers as she heals one of her comrades. 2) Have a big obvious chest, armoury, shelves, etc. with loot in it in or just next to the room where the PCs have their boss fight or other significant encounters. 3) A friendly NPC (sidekick, person they rescued, etc.) suggests looting or just starts looting themselves, saying "hey, do you guys see this good stuff?" 4) The questgiver asks the PCs to recover a specific item, "but anything interesting you find with it is yours to keep". 5) The questgiver rewards the PCs with loot directly upon completion of the adventure. This can be payment stated up front, a bonus for a job well-done afterwards, or both.

Hi Tim! I tell them. Here's a video I shot on this topic: https://youtu.be/2Zq2TZD9GuQ Thanks!

HI Alex! I'll use it to help flavor my narration but no, I don't really have anything special I do with damage types. You might consider how big types like poison, acid, lighting, fire, or thunder affects the environment – setting things on fire or alerting a whole castle or something like that.

That's just how the random generator throws its dice!