June 2022 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A Thread
Behold the Sly Flourish Patreon Questions and Answers thread for June 2022!
As you ponder your question for the month, I have the following requests:
Search the Patreon Questions in the Lazy D&D Talk Show Topic Database using keywords from your question to see if I've answered a question like yours previously.
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.
I'll definitely answer your question here on Patreon. I sometimes answer questions on the Lazy D&D Talk Show or turn the question into a D&D Tip video or Sly Flourish article. Know that if I only answer you here in the thread, I still love you.
I'll be answering Patreon questions every Friday morning.
If you posted a question in the May thread I haven't answered, I'll still go back there to answer it. You don't have to ask it again here.
Thank you so much for helping me do what I do!
Now bring on the questions!!
Comments (113)
Aloha Mike! My players have a few side quests going on where the party has been temporarily split up. To be able to determine the outcome of these side quests my players and I are going to try to do text based adventure on a shared Google Doc. These side quests shouldn't take too long to do so I think it's doable and even potentially fun. We're resorting to this only because we can't really meet more than we already do. I believe this is similar to how people play RPGs on forums. Any tips or suggestions for playing this way. Thanks for your help and support!
What are your three favorite cults? (Can be from any media)
How do you determine what gear to start a party with when they're creating characters above first level? I'm running a one shot based on your Blackweald article from Arcadia 16 (which I'm super excited about!), and I'm starting the players at level 7. I want to give them both mundane and magic equipment to match their level as tier 2 adventurers, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about determining what I should let them pick/give them.
I tend not to worry about money so much but you might give them the Starting Equipment list on page 38 (chapter 1) of the Dungeon Master's Guide. You can let them use this to purchase anything out of the DMG. I also like to give them an uncommon magic item of their choice at 5th level, a rare item at 11th level, a very rare item at 17th level, and a legendary item at 20th level. These are cumulative. I'd also throw a couple of potions their way.
Would you share how you came up with the entries for your Core Adventure tables, and how you would suggest we personalize them to meet our individual campaign setting needs?
Thanks for the great question! Some of these entries I've been refining from book to book since the original Lazy Dungeon Master. I love tools like this and have a few random generators I harvest for stuff like this. I tried to hit the big fantasy tropes for locations, monuments, creatures, types, and the like. An easy way to customize it is to add your own "Factions" list of the big factions, past and present, which you can lay on top of these lists. Here's an example Frostmaiden list: * Auril * Arcane Brotherhood * Netherese * Illithids * Tribe of the Elk * Tribe of the Bear * Tribe of the Wolf * Tribe of the Tiger * frost giants * Ten Towns * Akar Kessell * Mielikki * Lolth * Malar * Umberlee * Talos * Tempus * Torm * Lathander * Selune
Hi Mike, currently running a Tyranny of dragons campaign with 5 colleagues, but with work being busier, more travel, etc at the moment each session we managed to have 2 or 3 players max each time. Any tips on how to get our game going? I’ve tried so far a more “side quests “ approach to avoid moving too much the main storyline, but I feel I lack a bit of grandiose, impactful adventures (reaching level 10 soon, should more than fetch quests in a dungeon under waterdeep). Other approach is to run the story as if all players are here, share some notes for the missed sessions, but hard to maintain on the long run, fear that my players will miss out on important beats of the story. Thanks!
Just my thoughts: Run the main story now. Will the absent players feel "left out"? Probably. But, you don't solve the problem by making the players who ARE at your table feel left out of the main story by running side quests! One of the best pieces of DM advice I have implemented is "Use your best stuff now. If you've got a great idea, drop it into your next game. Don't plan to use it 'real soon,' because 'real soon' never comes. "
Hi Mike, I am currently running a Dresden Files Accelerated game and I am having trouble putting different factions in the forefront, making them advance and showing their advance to the players. Do you have advice on how to manage multiple faction and putting them in the spotlight to make a breathing, living world ?
Hi Baptiste! Hopefully secrets and clues can help here. Each session ask yourself what the factions are doing and jot down a line of info the characters might learn about that faction. Its important to keep in mind that if the characters (the players) don't care, it'll be hard to get them to care. Don't worry about having factions resolve their plans off-screen. You can also have agents of stale factions show up in the game. Enemies or allies alike might run into the characters. Good luck!
I'm designing an encounter for my Spelljammer campaign that I would like to take place on the bridge of an enemy flagshlp during a massive space battle. How do I get the party onto the flagship's bridge without railroading them?
Hi there, Knights! That's hard to say without more context. Maybe an important NPC needs there help over there? Maybe there's a shiny new prototype mini-spell jammer craft over there they can steal. What sort of carrot can you put over there that draws them there?
Hi Mike, I wondered what your thoughts are on digital vs analog character sheets for in person play. I've been discussing with my players the benefits and draw backs of switching to a completely analog character sheet set up. Dnd beyond and other resources offer a lot of speed for looking things up but big bulky laptops can take up a lot of space or if people are using smaller devices or phones they are often tempted to disengage. I grew up playing 2e and 3e and I just remember the novelty of leveling up at the table with everyone passing around books and having discussions. Is this blind nostalgia or is there something to running an analog game?
I think its a worthy discussion to have with your players. I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both. At my games, almost everyone uses D&D Beyond. I fear we're too reliant on it. The convenience is really good. You bring up a couple of problems but I think there are others: 1. Players become so reliant on the calculations being done behind the scenes that they don't really /know/ their character. I've heard others lament that it seems like players just pick options from a menu without knowing the story behind those options or how they really work. 2. You can't use any third party material on D&D Beyond easily (at all really). If you want to run a Midgard game and use KP's Tome of Heroes, they either have to hand-jam it all in or use a sheet. The good news is that 5e was around well before Beyond so we know people /can/ hand-write character sheets. I think its worth talking about with a group but I bet you'll get resistance from those who already use and love Beyond. It's a problem!
You had a great question on your podcast this week: if you could only buy one D&D book a month, what would it be? I have a follow-up in a similar vein: if you could only buy one D&D 3rd party book a month, what would it be (i.e., in what order would you buy 3rd party books)? And I won't even ask the obvious follow-up of which 3rd party books you'd buy before WOTC books. Really, I won't. Nope, not asking that at all because that would be too many questions... :)
Hi there! I have an article I wrote not too far back (And should probably update regularly) on my Notable Third Party books. Here it is! https://slyflourish.com/notable_third_party_products.html It'll be hard for me to pick a top three but here we go: Ptolus by Monte Cook Games (its huge, I'd have a lot of material for al long time). Midgard Worldbook by Kobold Press. Also huge and packed with good ideas for a neat world. Tal'Dorei Reborn by Darrington Press. Beautiful and amazing book packed with cool stuff.
Greetings from the Philippines! I am a new DM and have bought your library from your site. Seeing as delivery is next to impossible for my location, I bought the PDF versions, printed them, and put them in a binder. You have made DM'ing so much easier for me! My question is, as a new DM and someone very interested in world building, what DnD books should I be checking out(third party or otherwise)?
Hey JM! Allow me to step in! I live in Manila and I feel your pain, it is difficult to find some DM specific stuff here. There are a couple chain stores that have some stuff. Fully Booked has some DnD stuff and they have a store in Lazada. Going back to your question, apart from Mike's books, I could recommend you to check stuff from Kobold Press and also Worlds Without Number from Sine Nomine Publishing. Evil Hat, the creators of the FATE system, also have a seemingly good one about improvisation techniques. You may want to check that one out
I'm noticing some inconsistency in the Improvised Statistics you've posted and published. In the Lazy DM's Companion you suggest Hit Points = 20 × CR, but in a tweet on Jun 19 you suggest HP = 15 x CR. In both examples you mention AC/DC as 12 + 1⁄2 CR, but in Uncovered Secrets vol 1 it was 10 + 1⁄2 CR. Are you continuing to update these guidelines based on experience, or are some of these just mistakes?
Yeah, I've been tweaking them a little bit here and there. I think for HP, 15 + 15 x CR is probably better than 20 x CR but either work and you can always raise or lower them depending on what you're looking for. This is what I published last in the Companion: • AC = 12 + 1/2 CR • DC = 12 + 1/2 CR • Attack Bonus = 3 + 1/2 CR • Damage = 7 × CR (or 2d6 per CR) • Saving Throw with Proficiency = 3 + 1/2 CR • Hit Points = 20 × CR You might change HP to 15 + 15 x CR for a little more meat at lower CRs and less at higher but overall they tend to work. So yeah, I'm continually modifying them to try to make them both easy to use and still offer reasonable monsters at all CRs.
If someone had given me the Player's Handbook and I wanted to get into DMing but some disaster had befallen WotC and only 3rd party content was available, what would be your suggestions for the first few books to buy instead of the WotC ones?
My books, of course! I wrote a big article of notable third party products that helps answer this question too. https://slyflourish.com/notable_third_party_products.html I'd probably pick up the Level Up 5e Monstrous Menagerie for monsters since it has the same meat and potatoes monsters of the MM but more well refined in my opinion. I don't know what books offer a tremendous Dungeon Master's Guide style of useful info other than mine and maybe the work of Raging Swan for excellent tables to roll on for inspiration. Much of it depends on what one wants or needs, of course. Kobold Press books have a lot going on. It's a hard question!
Do you have any suggestions for players "wasting" abilities or spells? In a recent one-shot a bard player wanted to cast Stinking Cloud against a room full of various devils who are immune to poison. She was thrilled to have such a cluster of enemies she could hit all at once after winning initiative only to have the wind taken completely out of her sails by their immunity.
Hi Benjamin. If their character would know something, I tend to tell them. If the character /woudn't/ know, I might have them roll a check to recognize that. If this is the first time they're dealing with a monster like this, it might be important that they recognize that such creatures are poison resistant. You might even have the whole table roll a check and hope /someone/ succeeds and let that person know about the immunity. No one wants to waste a 3rd level spell.
What are you suggestions for handling sessions when they are falling flat at the table in the middle of a session? I recently had a session where, at the table, the players weren't digging what was happening. We had just finished up an adventure arc and the characters were starting to do investigation into the next adventure, but only one player was driving forward and the other two were on their phones. At the time I just kept focusing on the player who was engaged but I feel like there was more I could have or should have done.
Hi Josh! This can happen, I think, when players aren't sure what they should be doing. Downtime sessions or scenes can be a big part of this – they can be fun for some people but for others they're too aimless to be engaging. One way to deal with it might be to ensure something happens. Someone attacks. A monster gets loose. A villain shows up. They see someone they've been hunting for a long time showing up at a fruit vendor. You might not always have scenes like this on the ready but, if you have them, a "something happens" list can be really useful. The "Framing Events" table in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master's Guide (page 79) can be useful for something like this. I also have event tables in the Lazy DM's Workbook. If you're running a city and this happens, the book Waterdeep City Encounters on the DM's Guild has fantastic series of encounters that can take place in a city. You can also make up your own lists of things that might happen for a given location if that helps. Most of all, something needs to happen that the characters can react to. Hope that helps!
When you come up with your 10 secrets and clues for your game. How many of them do you normally give them players and if you didn't give them the secret do you carry it over into the next session?
Hi Noah! About five typically. Usually half. Sometimes more sometimes less. I never really kept track until I started doing Lazy DM Prep shows. I think the main thing with secrets and clues is having /enough/. The goal isn't to reveal them all. The goal is to have enough that you always have something interesting to reveal during the game.
To clarify, I think it was on the additional PDF you released after Lazy DM companion. There is a table about adventures in high technology settings and I would love to know more about your thoughts on how to run a high technology game with D&D
I think my Numenera series of videos are probably best. I've been inspired by a few sources: The Stephen King Dark Tower series (mostly fantasy but some high tech) and lately the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive). As far as running high tech fantasy, I think my Numenera videos probably offer the best insight. Hope that helps! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3mGt5pH0p8&list=PLb39x-29puaosC3qW_vYfSOKwuB4Gxlmh
I love the work you’ve done for MCDM. While we all wait for Flee Mortals! Do you have any other 3rd party books that make monsters with a similar design? The MCDM monsters feel really unique, and fun to run.
Personally, the Level Up Advanced 5e Monstrous Menagerie continues to pull me back to it. I love the design in that book overall. It's really fantastic. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/376472/Level-Up-Monstrous-Menagerie-A5E?affiliate_id=70406
Hello! Long-time fan and first-time subscriber/caller, here. Using your patented Lazy DM method, I recently converted "Rime of the Frostmaiden" into a Dark Sun adventure (changing blizzards to sandstorms, changing extreme cold to extreme heat, etc.). It worked great! Because your method works so well in re-skinning entire 5e adventure books, I was wondering if you have re-skinned any yourself, or had thoughts on ones that were particularly apt for a reskin? Thanks very much in advance!
Hi PhD&D! I haven't done a world-sized reskin myself because I'm usually happy running in the world of the product I bought. One thing about me that I think differs from many DMs is that I have no Homebrew world. Even when I was playing 2nd edition D&D back in the late 80s, I ran with the Forgotten Realms. Building an entire world never did appeal to me.
When you try to do world-building or give your players interesting lore or story-based information, how do you present the information as "just information and lore for now" and not "This is where you need to go/what you need to do" directions? I run a homebrew and my players will sometimes interpret lore and "information about history of the world" as "This is where you need to go next" despite my intention that it's more to be world-buillding or high-in-the-sky information. A shorter version: When you present information about a Tier 3-4 BBEG and your players are level 5, how do you indicate that they would simply die if they tried to confront that particular BBEG?
Hi Devon! You can consider just telling them. "After hearing the stories of the demon Tyranthraxus, you are confident you'd be turned into red paste should you try to face him now. Perhaps later, as your power has grown, can you take on such a foe." I think we can be explicit in which information is part of a quest and which information is general lore. Usually the players can see because there's no "action" to take with a particular piece of lore. Other times, though, we might just have to tell them. "You don't think there's any action to take with this – it merely reveals the history of this place" or something like that. Tell, don't show!
Hi Mike, thanks for your time. I run a long narrative 5e campaign with beloved characters. For breaks I've run high-stakes challenging oneshots, these have had few deaths but usually at the climax. **My players want to play a meat grinder / "how far can we get" oneshot and I see this as an excellent opportunity to dive into Mörk Borg. I'm excited but unsure how to handle a high mortality session with disposable characters, mainly what do the players whose characters die early in the session do in this style of game?** I've thought about retainers or wandering souls as 'backup characters', or introducing 'lives' to keep players in the game but I'm worried this would detract from the stakes and tone the players want. Giving the monsters to these players wouldn't work in MB. Any advice on balancing fun and stakes in the doom metal apocalypse would be greatly appreciated.
I've never played Mörk Borg but I love the book. Character creation can happen so quickly that dying and re-rolling a new character doesn't seem like much of a problem. Finding a reason for the new character to come into the campaign can be its own bit of improvised fun. Think up ten reasons a new character might jump into the adventure at any given point. Good luck!
I've come across many cool monsters or creatures with interesting statblocks only to find out they are "good" because they are good or lawful-aligned and I'd probably don't have a reason to use that statblock against the party. How would you run good or lawful-aligned monster/creatures as enemies, when you're party isn't necessarily evil?
Great question! As far back as Pool of Radiance we've seen good-aligned monsters like the bronze dragons cursed by the demon Tyranthraxus. That's always a good one – the cursed good guy. Fallen solars, cursed devas, we even have a cursed ancient gold dragon in Fantastic Lairs. So curses are a good one. But there's also no reason a "good" monster can't go against its alignment anyway. These days we've taken a much harder look at what alignment means and how entire races aren't either good or bad. There's no reason you can't have an evil storm giant. The particular overtakes the general.
Hi Mike. Small suggestion here, I loved your references to high technology campaigns in one of your PDFs. Would be great if you can elaborate a little bit on those in a video... Or point me to the right place if you already did!
Hi Bernaldo! Which references are you referring to?
Youtube used to have this feature where you can search ON the profile of a youtuber and it would search their whole library of videos for you. Does that feature still exist in the settings? I see some Youtubers have it and others don’t. Could you turn yours on, Mike? It would help me look through all your videos the Lazy way rather than dig through that mega document you made that links to all your videos 😂❤️
It's there! Look on the channel page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsvUHa1A3lfloZqVxNd5uWw and look for the little magnifying glass icon on tool bar above the videos and below the channel info.
What are your favorite Magitech or Science Fantasy sourcebooks? I’ve read through Ravnica, Eberron, and Monte Cook’s stuff. Do you have any other recommendations?
I introduced some NPCs in my last session but I got lost in my notes and distracted, so I didn't roleplay them with the same personality and mannerisms as I had written down in my prep. If they make reappearances, would you recommend updating my notes and roleplaying them the same way as I had previously done in game, so there's consistency for the players, or sticking with my initial notes on personality and mannerisms to help keep things straight in my own head? I remember you've said that players only remember a small percentage of what they've been told or experienced in game, but I wonder if I play the NPCs differently, it opens up the possibility that the players might get suspicious and think that the NPCs are possessed or charmed and latch on to that. Thanks for your advice and for sharing your thoughts on the talk show every week!
Hi Sinan! I recommend sticking to how they played when you ran them. Running NPCs differently than your notes is absolutely fine. Things only become real in our game when they hit the table or are spoken between you and the players. Our notes are ethereal. If you want, you can take some of the mannerisms you hadn't used and weave them in to make the NPC richer but I wouldn't invalidate the personality the players may have already begun to understand. The nice thing about NPCs is we have an infinite number of them. You can always move the personality to a new one later on.
Hello Sly Mike-ish! I am preparing for my next campaign in the published setting of Theros, based on the classical Greek myths. One key feature of this setting is the involvement of the gods. Now, a very common feature of the classic gods was how petty and vindictive they were. Anyone who boasted to be better than the gods or commit a heinous crime would be turned into an animal, a plant, tortured forever in the underworld or flayed alive. Now, I know my players, and they can be pretty rude to NPC’s. They shake down every shopkeep and kill captured enemies who beg for their lives. How would you make these gods feel like the classical petty a-holes without ruining the fun of the players? I don’t want to be a vindictive DM, but I wouldn’t mind the PC’s being humbled for once.
Not to fall back to the "session zero" recommendation all the time but I think you can make this *very* clear in a session zero that the Gods are Watching and they are a petty vindictive group. If you mishandle NPCs, someone with a lot of power may notice and they may Calibos your ass. You might even have to do it – effectively removing their character from play. Warn them before you do it, of course, but it may help them curb their behavior a bit. Just a thought!
I feel like when combat starts that everyone gets into fight mode and disregards all other options. Creativity goes out the window after initiative is rolled. How can I get players back into a creative mindset and out of a combat mindset after the fighting starts?
Great question! First, consider running either in the "theater of the mind" or with an abstract map that doesn't use a grid. This helps break people out of a board-game mindset a little bit. Second, have interesting features in the area the characters can use. Write these down on index cards or some other way the players can see them right in front of them. Third, offer suggestions on their turn. Describe opportunities their characters might see, Give them Cinematic Advantage (https://slyflourish.com/cinematic_advantage.html). Those are a few suggestions. Hope that helps!
Hello Mike I have been playing D&D, and other RPGs, for better than 30 years, but I sort of fell off new products at the 4E point. I have picked up the D&D Starter Set, and D&D Essentials, and I do believe I like it. I have an eye on a Players Handbook of course. Question: If you had a budget for one D&D book a month, what what you buy and in what order?
Hi Robin! You've started at the right spot! I have an article on this topic that might help a little: https://slyflourish.com/playing_dnd_on_a_budget.html To answer your question, this is probably the order I'd go with: D&D Starter Set or Essentials Kit (or both. If I had to choose one, I'd go with the Essentials Kit). Player's Handbook Monster Manual Dungeon Master's Guide Xanathar's Guide to Everything Monsters of the Multiverse Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft or Eberron Rising from the Last War
Hi Mike! I liked what you had to say in a previous talk show about how Counterspell is only fun if it takes fun from someone else. I’ve found this to be true as well and I’m currently seeking a solution. What are your thoughts on redesigning it to be a bit more like blue spells from Magic the Gathering and allow a little more agency/counter play? Things like forcing the caster to take psychic damage or lose the spell, forcing the caster to make a wisdom saving throw, entering into an ability check contest with the caster, etc. How would you go about making Counterspell more amenable to open fun?
Honestly, I'd just get rid of them. I hate blue decks =) Like counter spell, blue decks are only fun when you're on the giving end taking the fun from the receiving end.
Hi Mike! After 112 sessions and 12 levels, my first campaign is taking a break while another player takes over DMing for a while (hooray!). During this break, I'm preparing ideas for levels 13-20. I've been repurposing maps and tweaking storylines from published 5e adventures so far, but I'm worried that might not work as well at higher levels when the PCs have access to spells like wish and whatnot. Beyond turning the dials way up, do you have any additional advice when using published content at levels way above their intended design? I'll likely be pulling in dungeons, encounters, etc. from Descent Into Avernus, Out of the Abyss, Princes of the Apocalypse and Storm King's Thunder. Thanks!
Hi Matt! I talked about a similar topic on the talk show before. I think I'd offer the same advice here that I offered then. Here's the links! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDMiwd7IOPM&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=7&t=2127s
Hi Mike, I've been long thinking about running a campaign based on the genealogical research I've done for my family. Thought it'd be a fun way to structure a game and immerse my players (hopefully family members) into a story that is actual history to them. The main figure is a man who spent his life captaining a merchant ship and had some crazy adventures in his travels to include weather, politics, lost ships, new cultures, war time embargos, and ship owners/cargo. The plan is to hire the party as a new crew to sailing (though I've never run sea adventures or ships), have them level up during the many port visits and culminate in my ancestors life story at sea. My dilemma is do I run the captain as an NPC to keep the adventure on track without heavy railroading (I mean, the ship does have responsibilities to the owners) or, well crap, I think I just came up with a solution. I'll probably have the owners write letters to direct the course of action. Seems more reasonable than just putting the party on a ship without an NPC captain. Still, I'd like your thoughts.
Hi Ken! It sounds like a cool idea but I'd play loose with the story so it doesn't end up being forced to follow a path you already have in your history. This gets into the whole difference between situations versus story. You might use various times in your family's lives as inspiration for a number of linked situations but don't force the story to play the way it played out in your history. Just my thoughts of course!
Hey Mike, I'm starting Tomb of Annihilation with my group. The last campaign we played they complained the combat was too easy and they want it to be considerably more challenging this time. I know you can tune the "monster dials" but what other ways are there to make combat more challenging or tactical?
Hi Karl! There are a few things you can do. First, shake up multiple types of monsters. This gets to the 4e style of having brutes up front and artillery in the back. Mix up soft but hard-hitting ranged attackers with big brutes who block the way. Second, come up with other objectives in a battle other than killing the enemy. Is there an NPC the characters need to rescue? Must they stop a ritual? Do they have to stop the monsters from destroying something? Game designer Dave Chalker used to call this the "combat out". Finally, terrain can play a big part. What makes the battle area interesting? Are there cool high-ground areas to use? Things to topple over? Areas to avoid? Do the bad guys have powerful war machines they can use? Shake up the terrain. Those are some quick suggestions. Hope that helps!
G'day. While understanding you are playing low level Numenera, have you heard, or do you have a feel for, how it would play at higher 'levels'?
Hi Drogo! We're actually mid-tier right now and I expect to get to high-tier before the campaign's complete. It doesn't seem to bog down or have any weird new styles to it like D&D does when characters reach 5th level or 7th level or the like. So far, even at tier 3, it's running just as smoothly.
Hi Mike, as someone who is preparing to start a Numenera campaign, I’m curious about your experience with the mechanics of the cypher system vs 5e. What effect did the game’s rules have on your DMing or the sessions in general? Mechanics like GM And Player Intrusions, open skill list, etc come to mind. P.S: Credit to BunyipBluegum from the slyflourish discord for the question idea.
Hi Vincent and Bunyip! I plan to do a full video talking about my experiences with Cypher once we get done with our Numenera campaign I think but here are a few thoughts. I absolutely love the whole single-number challenge for monsters. It's so easy to improvise a threat and makes GMing really easy. I'm totally cool not rolling dice. I use GM intrusions to shake things up when the pacing of the game calls for it. Did a big boss get stun-locked? It breaks out with a GM intrusion! I'm not so big into player intrusions. One character we have has a lot of "interrupts" that, frankly, interrupt the flow. Myself and at least one player aren't fond of them. There's still a lot of head-scratching questions I have. Areas of effect, attacking with cyphers. Does armor end up making low challenge monsters completely inept? Things like that. More on this question in the future!
Hi Mike. How do you feel about using collaborative worldbuilding systems such as Beak, Feather, and Bone to involve your players in building the main city of the campaign. I feel like it's a good tool to get the players immediately familiar with a big city setting like Sharn or Waterdeep, but I'm worried it'll take away from the excitement of exploring a fresh new city. Have you ever attempted this, and if so what was the result?
Hi Hussain! I haven't heard of Beak, Feather and Bone. I'll have to check it out. I do a little bit of collaborative world building but its mostly focused on what the characters do with their home base and the like. I don't do larger scale collaborative world building. I guess its just not my style.
Hi Mike! How do you handle character death immediately when it happens? It sort of feels weird to just have the narrative moment and then move on as if there aren't real players sitting there, all feeling emotions and needing to process it. But it also feels strange to pause the game and have a "therapy" moment, asking everyone how they are are feeling - we may be in the middle of a really tense battle and that just kills the moment. And then there's the practical matter of what to do with the player who doesn't have a character for the rest of the session. So how do you handle this? What have you found works well and what doesn't work so well? Thanks in advance for your advice!
A really good question – one probably worthy of an article and video if I had a great answer. I have a few thoughts up front though. First, get the player back into the game as fast as possible. Hopefully they have an NPC they can run, a sidekick of the characters, or a character the others can pick up on the way. Maybe the cleric has revivify and can bring the character back. Whatever the rest of it brings, getting the player back into the game is important. If you know things may be deadly, you want to have a fallback for this. Have a potentially ally NPC ready for the next area the characters discover. Even if the story part of it makes little sense, the players will understand why you're doing it. As far as emotional processing, that's a very good question and its probably different for different groups. If it was a longtime character in a campaign with few deaths, "carefully" is the best I can offer. Give them time to process it. It won't feel good. Some DMs say that feeling is important though, even if its not fun. It bounds the game, it binds the game, in real feelings. I don't know how I feel about that. I want my games to be fun. It's a tough question worth of more research than I've given it I think.
Hi Mike. In your last Talk Show you mentioned your “raison d’etre”, that is making better DMs. Your comment made me consider: what would a player-focused content creator look like? Given the ration of players to DMs, and the often remarked upon example of Critical Role, are you aware of any content creators who really specialize on increasing the enjoyment and skill of us as players?
Hi Paul - obviously I'm not Mike, and I'm sure he will answer. But your question was just above mine and I wanted to respond to just say that I find the Dungeon Dudes to be a YouTube channel that offers really great advice for both players and DMs. Some of their videos are definitely DM focused, but many are very player focused. I personally really like their videos and recommend them if you don't already watch them.
Oh, hi Sly! How can I apply "Step1: Review the Characters" when prepping a 1-shot, when the PCs are unknown? Is there a different strategy? Is there a minimum amount of info I need from the players about their characters during prep? Are there important parameters that I should define for the players to create their characters within, to ensure my prep is effective? Thanks!
Hi Matt! The short answer is "you can't". If you have some opportunity to work on the pre-gens yourself, you can offer prompts in the characters themselves. WOTC did this with the pre-gens for Lost Mine of Phandelver and I think it works well. You can ask a little bit about each character when they sit down and introduce their characters and do your best to write down some key points and try to draw them in during the game itself. But really, if you have no characters, you can't study them before-hand.
Hi Mike! I would to know what resources that is currently influencing your resources and material because you stuff has been fire!
Thank you so much! Lots of places, really, but a big one have been the From Software games like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring. Their world design, story design, and level design are second to none if you can get past the brutal difficulty. The whole layered cake of City of Arches came from that idea.
Hey Mike! I am a big fan of the One Page Dungeon contest and how quickly it can be used at the table. Can you recommend any other similar resources that can be dragged and dropped for quick use just before (or during) a session? Thanks for all you do!
Hi Malcolm! There's actually quite a few books like these out these days but I'll offer a few recommendations: Prepared 1 and 2 by Kobold Press https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/195159/Prepared-One-Shot-Adventures-for-5th-Edition?affiliate_id=70406 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/221451/Prepared-2-A-Dozen-One-Shot-Adventures-for-5th-Edition?affiliate_id=70406 The Game Master's Book of Random Encounters https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/353873/Game-Masters-Book-of-Random-Encounters-Digital-BUNDLE?affiliate_id=70406 Fantastic Lairs (of course!) https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/338506/Fantastic-Lairs-23-Boss-Battles-for-your-5e-RPG?affiliate_id=70406
Hey Mike! I've had an extra physical copy of the Lazy Dungeon Master that I've been proselytizing among my playgroup for a long while now, but I can't get any of them to sit down and read the dang thing. I really do believe that more DMs implementing concepts like secrets and clues would improve our weekly games for everyone. In your experience, what method of pitching secrets and clues to fellow DMs has seen the most success?
Thanks so much! Videos can help: https://youtu.be/KjwSlYHdxc8 https://youtu.be/3qxYK2DgmW4 (this one is only 3 minutes long) And the original article: https://slyflourish.com/sharing_secrets.html Let me know if that works!
Hi Mike, I have a problem with estimating how long things will take in planning adventure segments (like the sausage links, I guess?). I know there are a lot of variables with players and the events involved, but some things I've planned on only spending 3-4 hrs on end up taking 12+ hrs. That isn't a problem per se - typically I feel the pacing is good with properly timed up & down beats, and the players feel the adventure segments end in satisfying ways. My issue is that when I'm pre-planning (eg. The events are leading the players towards Castle Ravenloft, I should start rereading that chapter now), I am always wildly off base on how long things will take; I always underestimate. Just so I’m not panic planning things that I won’t even get close to for a month or more, are there any tools or methods for guesstimating how long adventure segments take? How do adventure writers estimate the length of a one-shot?
Hi David! I think the time isn't wasted if you over-prepare an arc. I think the "Scenes" step from the eight steps helps you keep a firm idea of what scenes might take place in the next session to help you scope. Preparing two or three sessions out isn't the end of the world but a month out is probably too far to be useful. Some of this might come from being worried about under-preparing. If you have some tools to help you improvise should you under-prepare you might start feeling more comfortable about preparing less. Good thoughts!
How do you make the story centred around the players if they haven't given you much backstory/goals? I've asked some of them for more stuff that they would like to do in the world, or backstory to work in, but they seem happy just interacting with what Im giving them in the world. I have started to just incorporate storylines related to the races they have chosen to help this. PS - Big fan, watching your process has really helped mine, thank you
You don't have to have big threads built around a characters' background. The reality is the most monumental things that happen to characters should hopefully be happening in the game itself. Some players just aren't into their own background and prefer to dive into what's going on now. Campfire tales can help a little bit. During a rest, ask them, while they're resting, what they think of the current situation and what it gets them thinking about from their past. More here: https://slyflourish.com/campfire_talk.html
Question: I have players who have been together for 4-5 games now and they don't seem to have gelled. Do you have any ideas about how to structure encounters or game play to encourage cooperation, team building, or just plain friendliness at the table? Thanks Mike.
Boy, this is a tough one. D&D *is* a team-building activity. If a group isn't coming together while playing overall, it might not be the right mix of people. I'd probably try to look deeper and see why things aren't working out. What are they struggling with? Do they have a lack of trust? Is this online or in person? Online play has the unfortunate effect of people largely being silent because they don't want to talk over others. You can try to do a little work to connect characters together. Ask them how they work together on a problem; that sort of thing. But if its been five games and you just don't see people coming together, there might be other problems going on worth digging into. Not a super-helpful answer but its a tough problem.
Hi Mike. the avernus campaign I'm running is coming to the end. The ending of a campaign can be difficult tiring knots and closing threads. How would the lazy dm handle this?. (Not avernus specific but in general).
Hi Crasher! This article has just about everything I have on the topic: https://slyflourish.com/ending_campaigns.html
Hi Mike! Thanks for all your tips and guidance. How do you feel about the frequency of skill checks--should checks outside of combat and opposition be common or rare? Has your opinion on calling for ability checks changed over the years?
As always, it depends. I try to roll for skill checks anytime the results would be interesting. The real answer is "whenever it would add to the fun of the game". Another answer is "whenever there's an interesting chance for failure". I don't know that my opinion on it has changed much. Most of my advice on the topic you can find in my article on ability checks: https://slyflourish.com/ability_check_toolbox.html
How can I add interesting terrain and encounter elements to my combats while using a VTT? I feel constrained by the maps that I'm able to find, many of which are beautiful but often flat or bereft of things to interact with — and then furthermore, even a good map is limited by what you can visualize on a 2D plane. Is there a middle ground between pure theater of the mind (which has the most flexibility, but the least clarity for players) and battlemaps (which are great for clarity, but limited in flexibility)?
I play exclusively on a vtt and I encourage my players to use some theater of the mind vs elements…aka assume that if it could be there, it is. Ranger wants to knock over some crates in a warehouse to hide behind? Go for it. Also, not to mention another persons patreon, but if you’re on Foundry Baileywiki has a bunch of drag and drop things like crates, fire effects, tables etc to flesh out your tabletop experience.
Will there be any more videos about your Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign? I'm really interested to hear how it progresses, and how you use the incursions.
Yes! I have been doing them chapter by chapter as I finish them. I just finished Chapter 3 so it's time to write up my notes and shoot a video.
Do you have any particularly favorite adventures or sourcebooks from prior editions of D&D?
None that I use right now. I liked Book of Nine Swords a lot for D&D 3.5 because it built in a lot of ideas that ended up becoming 4th edition ideas (things that look a lot like what a battle master fighter has now). I look back fondly on a lot of 4th edition books like Dungeon Delve, the Essentials books, Madness at Gardmore Abbey. My favorite adventure is still the original i6 Ravenloft. They packed so much awesome stuff into a single simple 32 page adventure.
Hi there Mike! I am writing from Italy and you should know that here you have lots of followers of the "way of the lazy dm" that really appreciate your work!! So, I have a question: what do you think about narrative breaks? I mean, I usually set the scene describing something that happens "meanwhile" somewhere else just to give the players a glance of a living world. Have you ever used something like that? Do you think it can contribute to giveconsistency to our stories or is it a "risky business" that can unveil too much? Thanks in advance and keep up the great work man!!!
I definitely use them but not all the time. I like to give the players a view of things happening in the world that their characters might not know about. Sometimes this breaks the cognitive connection between the player, their character, and the world but if I clarify it, it can work out for a lot of fun. I like the idea.
Hi Mike. I am struggling with published adventures lately, specifically with read-aloud textblock descriptions, be they grand sweeping vistas, individual rooms in dungeons/towns, important npcs etc. I’ve been watching the creators of my current campaign run their game, naturally describing the above mentioned scenarios with effortless ease, rarely referencing their notes, likely because it’s all in their head and/or they’re making the rest up on the spot. Meanwhile, I feel like I need to stick to the script, and god forbid the players ask a question whose answer may or may not be buried in the three paragraphs of text underneath the read-aloud textblock. I find myself staring more at the campaign book than I do with the players, even if I’m roleplaying an npc, looking for (hoping) the answer or response is somewhere on the two pages in front of me, least I make the answer up on the spot, and find out it contradicts the story/canon. Is this just the nature of published adventures and why DMs find the freedom of homebrew so rewarding?
There is a misconception that published adventures take less prep than homebrew campaign worlds. I don't think I've ever made that statement. Published adventures and homebrew adventures both take significant preparation but in different areas. DMs who build their own worlds have to do more work on the creation side but, as you say, they have more of it in mind when they run their games. For published adventures, DMs need to read and often re-read sections of the adventure so enough of it is in-mind to run it. I know I'll go with my gut when I can't find something while reading a published adventure. I may miss some connection but I don't care, I'll just run with my own ideas even in the middle of a published adventure. My only recommendation is to read the adventure and try to absorb as much as you can of it and then re-read the section you're likely to run when you get closer to running it. Use this to build that situation in your mind and then let your mind fill in the blanks when the players ask questions. Hope that helps!
Hey Mike, any recommendations for a stripped down 5e character sheet for bringing in someone completely new to tabletop RPGs? The default character sheet looks like a 1099 form and is intimidating to new players. Thanks!
Yeah it really does look like an income tax form, doesn't it. I've seen some simpler character sheets out there but they're rare. If someone is likely to stick with D&D, I think it's probably better for them to learn off the default sheet as much as they can so you don't switch it on them later. One approach I've always wanted to try is to ignore skills and focus on attributes with attribute proficiencies. So rogues are proficient with dexterity and charisma ability checks, wizards are proficient with intelligence and wisdom checks, etc. This is actually one of the optional ways to play in the DMG and it would result in a *much* simpler character sheet.
Do you have any advice for encouraging overly cautious parties to play a little more adventurously? I'm all about player autonomy, but my party will spend 20 minutes peeking through key holes, rolling perception checks, cracking the door open an inch, peeking through that, then rolling stealth, on literally every room in the dungeon. When they get in there, if they see a threat that feels even remotely dangerous, they will turn tail and run, sometimes abandoning entire quests in the process. To be clear, we've played from level 1 to 13 over the course of two years, without a single player death. I don't feel like this level of caution is warranted and while I 100% want them to feel like they can play however they want to play, I just think they would have more fun if they were a little more reckless and kicked some doors down every once in a while.
This can definitely be a problem. One key is to reward bravery, even foolish bravery. Inspiration is one way to do it. Ensuring that not every room is a trap helps too. Working with and describing things to the players in a "tell don't show" approach can help. "You've thoroughly searched the room and are confident there's nothing left to find" and "you thoroughly search the door and recognize it has no traps". Of course, you have to follow through with that. If you short circuit the investigation like that you can't surprise them later. It's a hard problem if *no one* in the group is willing to take the risk. It might be time for an out-of-game "be bold" talk.
Yours and Brandes' recent MotM observations about the future game becoming an AC arms race vs NPC spellcasters feels incredibly valid. Love the quick reskin tech tip to DC saves of 8+attack bonus, this is the sort of forward thinking we're going to need in the months to come. What are another couple of systemic current edition or 5.5e problems on the horizon that might be ripe for similar intuitive solutions so DMs can mitigate these potential future design pitfalls?
Hi Cloaker! It's hard to say because we don't know what the future holds. Something that's been on my mind is how we DMs have to select what material we allow for a given campaign. With so many races and subclasses now available, its up to us to say "for this campaign world, these races and sub-classes make sense". We can, of course, work with our players on this but starting with an "opt-in" approach feels more important as the game expands in scope and scale. This is something I had to do in the late 3.5 and 4e days as well and it's generally worked well. The "opt in" approach also lets us bring in more third party material than we might otherwise bring in. I don't know that I have any other tricks for managing the growth and shift of 5e as new things come about. Having our hands on the monster dials is still relevant. I think, given my look at some MotM monsters who hit *really* hard, it might be worth dialing *back* more than we're used to. Some monsters are hitting for twice as much as we'd expect for their CR for example.
Any advice on how to handle the common tropes of D&D vs a) enfranchised player expectations and b) new players learning the game? For context, my first 5e campaign which went Tier1-3, included one new to D&D player and three veterans of various editions. Often the new player found it off-putting when the other players would state “truths” about the world based on their enfranchised expectations without really backing up those statements. It actually broke their immersion, when the other players seemed keen to get them into the game more with these “there’s definitely a trap on that door, because we’re in a dungeon” statements. The new player’s lack of trope knowledge actually led to them taking novel approaches to things that impressed the other players when they’d leave room for original thinking. I’m at level 2 of a new game where the party includes one brand new player and I’m trying to thread the needle of teaching them the game without accidentally indoctrinating them into the default approaches to common D&D scenarios.
That's a good question and a hard one! I've had mixes of new and veteran players and just let inertia have its way with things. Each group picked up ideas from the other. If real meta gaming is a problem you can, of course, subvert the expectations (turns out that isn't where the trap is). You can also have an out-of-game conversation about metagaming. Changing up the world and the rules it uses shakes up everyone's expectations. Just a thought!
Just wanted to say thanks for the one-sheet campaign overview idea. I wrote up a few and put them in front of my players and we collaborated on picking one (and even did a mash-up with elements we liked from others). Since this is a Q&A forum, have you ever included your players in making foundational decisions about your world/game?
Honestly, not really. Part of it is that that's my fun to have. I also tend to run published campaigns most of the time. In games like Blades in the Dark they certainly had a bigger hand. During a game I also take what they bring and feed it into the world. The one time I tried to really build a world out from what the players brought, they were sort of all over the place and what we ended up with was a game I wasn't too keen to run. If I'm going to be the one running the game, I get the veto vote.
Hey Mike I've been using your Notion Campaign Template and it has been a huge boon in helping me prep my new Numenera game!!! It has been really difficult to parse all of the published Numenera information. It feels like it is all spread out across so many books and not well organized. So, I have taken to pasting info from my PDFs into my copy of the Campaign template in Notion. I created some additional tags and filter views to help me access the character options, backstories etc. As I have been onboarding my players, they are also having trouble parsing all the info. So, I was considering making a set of notion pages (prob run by your same database) just for them. Have you done this at all with any of your games/players? How might have you used Notion to aid your players specifically? Do you have any tips/tricks that might help? Or, what other kinds of "wikipedia" like informational aids have you used? We're a 100% virtual group and we're using R20 for a VTT/dice roller. Thanks for everything! JABD
Yeah, I don't know why but its hard for me to find what I need in the various Numenera books. I'm only now remembering where the character advancement rules are in Numenera Discovery. I haven't made Notion pages for players really so I can't be of big help. I did buy copies of the Numenera Player's Guide for my players so they have the PDFs on hand. Some had the core books too. One thing I have to remember with Numenera is that I really only need Discovery to run the game. The rest is gravy. Good luck!
I'm planning a sci-fi campaign that puts the PCs in the middle of some big and powerful star empires. I have a good handle on the organizations (ie what the different empires want and how they go about it), but I'm getting stuck in thinking about the lower level NPCs that the party will be interacting with. How do I keep the NPCs from just being generic stand-ins for their larger organizations?
Hi Dom! It probably depends on the NPCs. I'd say you can build some heralds for each of the main villains and recycle them as they die or whatever. It's always good for the organizations to have a "face" the characters can recognize. If you need more generic NPCs to fill out the world, random generators are your friend. Build a handful of NPCs using random generators, store them somewhere, and whip them out when you need them at the game. Face cards help make them real. And, of course, have a good list of random names to generate NPCs on the fly during the game. Good luck!