January 2023 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A

Hello Sly Flourish Crew - So, I have begun two RPG groups, one for 6th graders at my school, and I'm about to start a third for colleagues and former colleagues. In starting these first two gaming groups I have neglected a useful, productive segue way by using other small publisher/indy RPG titles rather than D&D. I'm fixing that now starting with this detailed forum message. Now, to the meat of the situation: The game club that I run for the school is running into an attendance issue (low number of players and one of the players is my joint adult supervisor that often has to skip). One of the more RPG aware parents suggested something interesting. He suggested that I just run a series of "one-shots". The first things that came to mind was the five-room dungeon concept! The next thing that came to mind was I still want a plot/circumstance that ties them together (a campaign). So, it occurred to me that I could design a guild that contracts out the PCs to clear ancient underground ruins for expansion and exploitation of the kingdom (with hidden plots to be discovered). This "guild" could have a pool of Player/PCs that may or may not be available at the same time (accounting for my attendance issue). The problem is how do I give some continuity to their leveling up with potentially unequal and inconsistent availability of experience points? What are your thoughts on this or for that matter do you have other formats with similarities to this guild idea? Thank you, Vince

Hi friends! Thus ends the January 2023 Patreon Q&A! The February Q&A will open up on Thursday, 9 February 2023! I'm running a little late these past months =)

At that high level, the characters should have lots of resources available. I'd make sure to let the players know that they shouldn't expect a long rest. You can scale the battles a bit so the early ones aren't that hard and they get worse as the seals get broken. That gives you a chance to really push them in their final battle. Just be aware as you build encounters that they're going to have to hold their resources back. You can also give them some sort of mid-day blessing through an artifact or monument they find that gives them the equivalent of a long rest. I'm a big fan of the glowing healing font.

Hello Mike My party just finished Tyranny of Dragons (and thank you for your advice in October btw). I am adapting blocks from the Scales of War 4e adventure path to get the party to forge a God-Killing-weapon and go to Avernus and Kill her. The party (level 17 or 18) will go shortly to Hestavar where they have to break 4 seals to get a shard to forge this weapon. I want to drive this part as a series of events (the 4 seals) that need to happen in the same day. As the party breaks one seal the whole city guard will become aware and it would not make sense to let the party take any long rest. How can I plan for the encounters and encounter difficulty this way? There will be 3 seals + 1 final seal which represent 3 mini dungeons and a big boss battle at the end all spread out through Hestavar in a range of a day. Sorry for the long question and the best of luck with your new book launch!

Hallo Mike, I hope I am not to late for January. Did you test the new Notion AI feature for game prep? Or will you never use it in your process? happy prepping

Hey Mike. Do you have suggestions for places to find beta testers for a digital rpg tool? Many of the communities I'm aware of (such as various sub-reddits) forbid self-promotion, which seeking beta testers arguably is. Any thoughts?

Just became a huge fan this week!! I'm somehow ended up with a HUGE D&D group? I'm a librarian and have been doing one-shots here for years, and I've dabbled with friends, but this is our first legit campaign. There are 9 total players are sincerely committed to weekly sessions, but there are 7 others who show up when they want to show up. How can I pace things in a way that's more fun for everyone? Is it just plain TOO much? Should they just be guest stars or... teleporters..? Any advice is appreciated!

Hey Mike. Listened to the recent podcast today. Your ideas for lair actions were so clever. The positions of advantage for the characters too. Will you include lists of these two ideas in your new book?

Hey, anything interesting happen lately? Yikes, what a month. So, no question this month. I thank you for your speaking up on your public platforms in youtube, podcasts and articles. Its hard to believe, but now that 5e srd is in creative commons, the entire community now owns 5e! We own 5e! I’m not dreaming here…We own 5e!

Thank you so much Mike for your fair and level-headed approach to the whole OGL debacle. (Question is after the next paragraph) I'm 48 and have been playing D&D since I was 12, starting with the basic box set. I switched with my friends to Pathfinder 1st edition when 4e edition came out, and then back to D&D when 5th edition was released. It is my favorite edition, and despite WOTC's recent mess, my friends and I don't plan on changing system. There may be a number of executives that make bad decisions for that company, but I'm not going to stop them from playing the game I enjoy (I own all the physical and digital 5e books [well... "unlocked" them]), but I will continue to encourage 3rd party products. I did take a look at Pathfinder 2 when it came out, but it didn't appeal to me the way 5e did... Still too 3.5-ish to my (our group's) taste. I'll continue to buy official 5e content -- there are a lot of good people that work on these products, and I'm supporting *them* if anything -- but I am glad 3rd party content creators got a good deal in the end. Question: DMing Curse of Strahd right now, with the PCs caught in the politics of Vallaki. Last session finished with an encounter that could have been a TPK. I played the adventure as written for the combat encounter (# of monsters, their CR...), but I knew it would be very powerful against a group of four level 4 PCs. I had Strahd's minions stop the combat and offer the PCs a way out instead. "Now you know the real power of the Lord of this Land. But He is merciful. Leave Vallaki and never return" or something to that effect... but it still felt forced. By this point, I see no reason why Strahd would have his minions spare the troublemakers. Why does he, in fact, let the PCs wander Barovia in search of the artifacts? I know the way the adventure offers another way out for the characters, but why doesn't he simply kill the party? Any idea besides "he likes to toy with them" ? (Feel free to shorten the question :P )

If you were to design an adventure inspired by the recent events surrounding the OGL, what would it look like?

Hello, with the D&D "exodus" 99% of the recommended systems are roll d20+some bonus, have you tried other types of systems like d100-based e.g Warhammer fantasy, and dice chain-based like Savage Worlds? Do you have an inside how the system's dice mechanics affects the game?

As my patronage is shortly coming into its 3rd year, I thank you for your continued inspiration and materials. I've found your one-page guides to be excellent and your recently released "Dungeons of Fate" one-page guide to be no exception. I'm considering introducing a group of teachers to TTRPGs in general and would like to use the "Dungeons of Fate" rules in a teacher's conference for this purpose. This is my request for permission to use the materials. Thank you in advance for your consideration regardless of the answer.

Hello Mike! I always struggle with roleplaying encounters in published content, because I'm afraid to overwrite the canon. When a player asks about something that isn't on the page in front of me, I'm afraid to make up an answer, because it might contradict other information that will come later. I know to read through the whole adventure before gametime, but I can't memorize every facet of a 200-page adventure. How do you deal with this?

Hey Mike, At our last session I navigated myself into a difficult position as a DM. The party arrived into a middle of a huge battle - two armies clashing against each other. I'm using some homebrew mechanics to handle the armies. But there are some some important NPCs on each side, plus the player characters. While I runned the session I had the feeling like playing chess against myself. There are the PCs turns, and the important NPCs turns, the NPCs sometimes attacking the PCs, sometimes the armies... No one complained after the session - at some point I just narrated some of the actions instead of rolling each possible outcomes to speed up the fight. But this felt like I'm cheating (which is not my intention). We finished the session at a big turning point in the middle of the battle - but the next session should continue and conclude this battle. So, how do you handle big battles with lot's of NPCs? I want to keep the random factor, I want to keep the chaotic feeling of being in the frontlines... but I don't want to spend endless minutes to keep rolling for each possibilites. Because I think these minutes could be potentially boring for the players - I want them to take the spotlight. Any advice? Also I don't want the next session to be just be an endless dicerolling - I don't want to turn this into a Warhammer 40k skirmish. Do you have any advice how should I inject more RP elements between rounds? How should I dish out secrets in the middle of a big battle? How should I create some short, interesting conversations between turns? Cheers, Jun

Hi Mike, Do you have two or three favorite short 5E adventures you could recommend? By short, I mean roughly 2-6 sessions long. Love listening to the podcast and appreciate all the work you do! Josh

Hi Mike After our last session, my players started asking questions about the dungeon we just finished. They enjoyed the dungeon and wanted to know if they missed any important NPCs or treasure. How much would you reveal to your players in this situation? I feel like giving a behind the scenes summary of the dungeon could be fun for them to see that the world is full and fleshed out. On the other hand, I'm worried it breaks verisimilitude because the NPCs are not roleplayed or revealed organically and can feel like just pawns on a chess board. What are your thoughts?

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!

Hi Mike, Not a question, but check this ChatGPT prompt I made using the LazyDM’s workbook. Copy/paste it into ChatGPT. If it stops, type “continue.” Here it is: Act as a Dungeon Master for a game of Dungeons & Dragons, and create a listing for a Session Outline using subject headings. Each subject heading might have instructions or examples in brackets {like this}; if there are examples, DO NOT USE THE EXAMPLES IN THE LISTINGS they are for example purposes only. Please fill in the details for each of the following subject headings: “Strong Start {Set the stage for the session and define where a game session starts getting as close to the action as possible - when in doubt, start with a fight}: Potential Scenes {Create a short list of 4 to 5 potential scenes that might unfold. Usually, it’s enough to come up with only a few words per scene to help the DM think about what might happen during the session. For example, ‘Investigate the armored caravan’, ‘Talk to the NPC about the book the monsters wanted’, ‘Talk to the archivist about the history of the estate’, ‘Find the creature who escaped from the battle’, ‘Follow the monsters’ trail back to their hideout’. DO NOT USE THESE EXAMPLES IN THE GENERATED LISTINGS}: Secrets and Clues {Make ten secrets and clues A secret or clue is a single sentence that encapsulates a piece of your game world, its history, or the current story. It’s a piece of information the characters can discover as they explore the world and interact with its inhabitants. But secrets and clues are never trivial. For example, ‘the archivist for the noble family, is a secret cultist’, ‘The monsters have taken over a ruined mountain fortress’, or ‘monsters haunt the old watchtower, which sits above tunnels connecting it to the lower levels of the city’. DO NOT USE THESE EXAMPLES IN THE GENERATED LISTINGS}: Fantastic Locations {Create eight or nine evocatively-named fantastic locations each with aspects of the location written after the name. For example, ‘The Hill of the Great Skull — Huge saber-toothed bestial skull bursting out of the ground; sharp bone shards thrust up out of the earth; circle of glyphs on the skull’s forehead’, ’The Bridge of Teeth — Narrow bridge of bone spanning a gorge; bones tied together with cracked and splitting leather and sinew; howling wind sounds like moaning’, ‘The Path of Screams — Icy path winding around sheer mountainous drop; faces frozen screaming in the icy walls; continuous small avalanches’. DO NOT USE THESE EXAMPLES IN THE GENERATED LISTINGS}: Important NPCs {Create a list the main NPCs who drive the session. That includes major points of contact for the player characters, primary quest givers, notable villains, and other NPCs critical to the story. Build out their appearance, mannerisms, and the ways in which they interact with other characters.}: Monsters {Create a list of the relevant monsters for the session. Ones that make sense for the story, situation, and location. Make sure to include the tactics of the monsters. Make sure to make the boss extra interesting.}: Treasure {create a list of magical items that are relevant to the adventure. Items that make sense for the story, situation, and locations}:” You must ALWAYS ask questions about the session BEFORE you answer so you can narrow down the type of adventure the questioner is seeking.

First off, want to gush. I appreciate all that you’ve done for TTRPGs, and I consider your ‘Return of the Lazy DM’ to be the DMG 2 for 5E. I could go on, but I know you have questions to answer. Anyhoo, onto the question. I hope I clearly communicated it. I’ve been thinking about how system generic settings/campaign books could be done well before the OGL debacle, but now it is on everyone’s minds. I thought one way to do it would be to simply write qualitative/narrative descriptions for maps, NPCs, towns, enemies, and abilities. Obviously, some folks need stats in order to make such things useful. I was also thinking of assigning a challenge number scale of 1-10 on different aspects of a setting/campaign. 1 would be a weak challenge/monster, and 10 would be nearly impossible. So an easy area of a map (Frolicking forest) could be 2, while a foreboding fortress in the plane of shadowfell could be a 6. An NPC tavern owner could be a 1 when it comes to persuasion checks, but a king could be a 7. This sounds like the Numenara system you spoke about last year. I also imagine the 1-10 numbers can be converted to the “ladders” of other systems. For example, 5e has a set of DCs (10-30), and CRs for Monsters (1/4-25, think Paul Hughes Monster Manual on a card) that can probably convert from the 1-10. FATE and Worlds without Numbers also have set number spreads that can probably easily convert a 1-10 number to their own statistical spreads. I feel like this is such a smart idea, but, I don’t know why it hasn’t been implemented yet. My feeling is there is an obvious flaw, and that is why it hasn’t been implemented yet. Your thoughts? Are there better ways to make system neutral resources/settings? Is the idea of getting a base stat that can easily be converted between systems is a pipe dream?

Hi Mike, Just wondering if you have impressions about your Empire of the Ghoul campaign? I know Scarlet Citadel feels antagonistic towards the players, I was curious if this one did as well.

Hey Mike! I’ve been DM'ing a lot of virtual one-shots recently where my PCs battle hordes of monsters. Each round is a new wave of creatures added to the initiative tracker. (PROBLEM) I’m implementing minions (group attacks) and rolling attacks/damage dice together to speed up combat, but it’s still taking a lot of time. I want each wave to feel fast paced and action packed, and I don’t want my players sitting around simply waiting for their turn while I roll dice. (MY SOLUTION) To speed up combat, I will create a table in Excel (and title it “Bite Pool” or “Flail Pool” for instance) and record dozens of dice rolls that I actually make with d20s. Then, during the game, when the Gnoll steps up to the Barbarian and uses their Flail attack, I just grab the first number I rolled on the table. To take this further, I’ll even add a second column that adds the attack modifier (+4) to the roll, so I know that the “8” that I rolled in my pool is actually “12” to hit. (QUESTION) I’ve found this is immensely helpful in speeding up combat, and it allows me to be more narrative if I see ahead of time that the attack is going to hit/miss… But I wonder – Is this cheating in same way? Am I robbing my players of something important I’m not seeing? Thanks for all you do!

Good evening Mike, I'm planning an Eberron One-Shot and looking to establish the tone of the setting in a quick and effective manner. Do you have a method for introducing a new setting in session 0 or 1? Cheers, Josh

Hey Mike :) With everything going on with D&D at the moment I've lost my enthusiasm for the 5e adventure I was writing. I'm thinking I might rework it to be system-neutral, but haven't a clue how to go about writing a system-neutral adventure. Have you any advice on how to approach it?

Hi Mike, I'm running a campaign where my players are now 8th level. I have an idea for a character related fun side quest/dungeon, but I feel that balancing it for level 8 characters wouldn't make sense for the story. Is keeping it at a low level balance a good idea, or should I be putting effort into making it balanced to their level?

I'm looking to move away from D&D for the time being with everything going on ATM and was curious on your thoughts for some replacement systems. Which of these would work best for a longer campaign in a high fantasy setting? Staying away from a grid if possible. - 13th Age - Cypher/Numenera - Blades in the Dark - Shadow of the Demon Lord - Worlds Without Number - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e - Other suggestions you may have?

Hey Mike. I just started running a campaign in the Old Margeve from Kobold Press and want to tie it in with elements/adventures from Tales from the Shadows and Book of Ebon Tides. There is so much content between them but I think my main plot focus will be to have the threat of the Shadow Fey and the Dusk Queen be the main “antagonist” and slowly present a threat of an invasion from the shadow realm into Midgard. I had an idea to create some kind of “alliance” between the dusk queen and other powerful being from the shadow realm such as the empire of the ghouls who reside there. I also have 2 players who are playing fairy brothers whose father is a vassal of one of the fey lords, the River King. I have developed a backstory driven plot for them about their family which is inspired by dredgen yor and thorn from the game Destiny. Any tips for integrating the margeve and the shadow realm in Midgard and advice for developing a growing threat using adventures from the books I mentioned? Sorry for the rambling lol Thanks!

Hi Mike, did you ever have players who were so opposed in their gaming tastes (such as character focus vs. combat focus or PHB only characters vs. more exotic ones) that you had to cancel or restart games because of that? What’s the best strategy here? My group and I hadn’t played for a long time and rushed into Session 1 without a Session 0, and now I don’t know the best way to move forward. Thanks in advance! Cheers, Axel 😊

Hi Mike, A former boss of mine once told me that people go through three stages when they are facing a significant change: Stage 1 – Oh my God! (As in, “my world is falling apart!” Stage 2 – What’s in it for me? (Hm, what’s in these changes that I can use to my advantage?”) Stage 3 – Let’s talk (“I have adjusted to the new norm, let’s move forward.”) I don’t know about the rest of the D&D community, but I am at Stage 3. At this point, I would like to thank WotC. The changes and uncertainty of WotC’s OGL seemed to be the catalyst we needed to bring the rest of the community together. “The Time of the Orc has come.” Paizo has communicated about the ORC (Open RPG Content) License they will be producing, and putting into the control of a non-profit. Kobold Press has also so stated that their new core rules set will be based off of the ORC License. It feels like we are moving to a more community-based D&D system. My question is: Has Wizards lost control of what the gaming community will view as the TRUE core rules of modern D&D?

Hey Mike, I'm going to run my Session 0 for The Wild Beyond the Witchlight next week, and I'm planning to use your Dreadful Incursions idea. I've been making my way through your episodes about each chapter while I've been reading the book, and I haven't made my way through all of the episodes yet - apologies if you answered my question in a later episode. You mentioned that you worried your players would feel that resorting to combat (without incursions) was a failure in a campaign where nonviolence is always an option. Did you do anything in your session zero to make it clear that there might be these dreadful incursions where violence is the solution? If not, would you do anything differently if you were to do the session zero again - perhaps some warning or other that might mitigate some of the loss of the sense of whimsy you talk about throughout your episodes on the campaign? If you have any ideas I'd love to hear them! ------ Unrelated to the above - I posted a question a while back about running a one shot based on your Blackweald mimic. It was an absolute blast - quite literally, with several cartloads of construction explosives being the eventual solution to the Blackweald problem. Thanks for that and your great episodes/ideas for WbtW!

I am interested in asking maybe a 2 part question, however it may have the same answer. For someone brand new to, or wanting to start playing some TTRPGs, as a player or a GM what games would you recommend as a starting point? For the new player I would recommend 'Ten Candles' and for the GM Mutant Zero by Free League. Your thoughts?

Hi Mike. I was curious after your review of your Numenera campaign and ran the numbers about the cost of applying effort and the resulting average damage and compared it to the average damage without using effort. And the result is in normal circumstances using effort is not worth it, if the only bad result is damage. So I plan to make a Cypher System campaign, where combat is something really rare. Do you know of a resource with lots of engaging and interesting non-combat encounters? P.S. If you'd like, I can translate my document into english and send it to you or upload it somewhere. Even when tripling the damage it is rarely worth it to use effort to defend yourself against an attack or trap.

Hi Mike. It seems campaigns are often divided into either wilderness settings (monsters, survival, dungeons) or urban ones (guilds, politics, sewers), but that leaves out rural/countryside/pastoral settings, where the landscape is dominated by farmland, river valleys and villages: i.e. still civilisation, but outside the cities. How would you go about making a campaign setting with a distinctively rural feel?

Hey Mike. Given your history in analyzing and building around the 5E CR system and the emergence of the “Lazy RPG Talk Show”, what are your thoughts about putting forth a set of “monster converters” to other popular fantasy RPG systems? While I know others exist, I can think of no one better suited and more trusted to put out this kind of product. Thanks for being a pillar of our community!

I have seen and heard you mention Fate Condensed in your e-mails and videos and I was wondering if you had experience with Fate Core or Fate Accelerated. If so, what sets Condensed apart from the other two? EDIT: I think you answered this with the "Ten Great RPGs that Aren't D&D" video today (1/18/2023)

Hi Sly! My preferred in-person map is the classic Chessex wet erase mat because it has complete flexibility for me the DM, while still giving the players enough visual information to understand what's happening — especially in combat. However, one of my party is now permanently remote so we need a digital solution I use Owlbear now, but have felt constrained by needing to find the right map instead of drawing one up on the fly Do you know of any digital tools that approximate the flexibility of a wet erase board — namely, the ability to draw whatever you want, share with players and have some mechanism for moving tokens around? Or do I need to rip the bandaid off and go full mind-theatre in order to have the flexibility that I desire? Thanks for everything you do for the TTRPG community 🙏

Hi Mike, last month you shared Teos Abadia’s article with me, on why no other company would ever beat WotC as leader of the TTRPG industry. But what if it wasn’t one company, but a community of companies? I wonder if there is an opportunity for collaboration amongst third-party stakeholders. A few of the larger publishers are already planning to release their own rule sets. Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds will be threatened by WotC’s D&D Beyond VTT. Would it be possible for these groups to work together and publish a shared base rules set? A community System Reference Document? This may be a left-field idea, but I am curious to hear your thoughts. Cheers, Graham Dyer Alberta, Canada

Hail to my pal, Mike! Suprise: it's isn't a question, but i HAD to wrote it, so sorry for that :) I've been playing D&D since the early nineties and there have been some nasty affairs between roleplaying game publishers in Hungary (I know; small country, small problems, but from our point of view they were pretty rough) but I never felt so betrayed, even when they cancelled the print-ready Hungarian D&D edition for financial reasons (or rather greed/control mania). I admit, I was sceptical about your "remember, WotC is a billion dollars company, not a charity foundation" kind of statements before, but I saw you were right, so it wasn't totally unexpected. We didn't get to play over the holidays, but last week and this weekend we did, we finally got to sit down and play D&D. (We're about to get to the fourth chapter of the Avernus campaign, finally.) There was a little nervousness in me, in us, about how we were going to feel, and you know what it was? It felt damn good. :) Sitting there at the table with my friends, having fun, rolling dice, laughing big - it just felt damn RIGHT. Then I had a flash of a thought I've heard from you several times, but yesterday it seemed truer than ever: they don't own D&D, we do - the players. So, yeah... we have our dice, we have our books, but mostly we have the people we like to spend time with and have fun with. The things that really matter haven't changed a bit. And I LOVE that, a LOT! :D So, keep up the good work everyone, keep up and play D&D - or any other RPG, it doesn't matter, just play! My pal, Mike, you do what you've been doing; I'll be watching you like, I always have! ;) Sincerely yours, Gabor "Rex" Hegedus, from Hungary

You’ve highlighted a LOT of wonderful third-party content on the Talk Show; any favourite products or publishers you recommend we invest in? I have some extra spending money at the moment because of…ahem…reasons. Assume we’ve already bought all the Sly Flourish stuff. :)

A dungeon is in essence a way for the DM to limit choices of PC’s; Left, right or through the door. I have many years of experience and have noted that players will take their PC’s into any cave, cavern, crypt, castle, tunnel, dungeon or mine. But I have noticed on more than three occasions that players are less willing to enter restricted space without a ceiling. I recently set up a walled maze without a roof and my players tried everything to not enter. I played a game where we had to escort a wagon through a high walled canyon and some of the other players wasted nearly the whole session trying to avoid the walled canyon in the scenario. I once ran similar a walled canyon at a convention and it seems to me that players often try to avoid reduced choice features while outdoors, but recklessly head into any dungeon or tunnel where they are even more restricted. Is this something you have noticed and how do you fix it?

Hey Mike! You're probably sick of the OGL questions by now, but I was just hoping for some clarification on one of your statements in your "Thoughts on the OGL 1.1" page regarding the Jan 13th update. You said that WotC's response "says nothing regarding their attempt to cancel the OGL 1.0a", but I interpreted them saying that "[c]ontent already released under 1.0a will also remain unaffected" to mean that they are planning to leave 1.0a alone for content that is already using it in perpetuity - I was just hoping you could elaborate on that a little. I really appreciate the work you do for the community - your Notion template (with a few additions to suit my own thought processes when I prep) have been a massive help!

Hey Mike, huge fan of everything you do! Your notion page and lazy DM books have literally saved my game, and let me do things I would not have been able to do before! My question is in regards to a creature from Kobold Press' TOB3, the venom drake. I loved the creature, although a couple of my players did not. The group is level 6, there are 5 PC's with 2 sidekick's (more or less from Tasha's, I count them as 1 pc for the lazy DM encounter threshold) and I threw 2 venom drakes at them. There is a cleric, but still only 6th level. The party was ambushed (this was an encounter plagued with bad rolls) and the barbarian failed his con save vs the venom. The players with issue felt the Drakes were unfair (they do not have greater restoration being level 6), possibly even broken, as the party couldn't fix the venom. I argue my encounter design was at fault. (no foreshadowing, laying a scroll of greater restoration somewhere prior, using them as "random encounters" instead of a story unto themselves, still hitting the barbarian a few times, when incapacitated) I did compensate mid encounter by dialing back hp, and at a certain point the 10 INT drakes felt the jig was up, tried to flee and were subsequently slaughtered. It didn't save the barb from bein incapacitated for 3 rounds during it (I don't remember why he kept getting hit but he did). What are your thoughts on the drakes and where I went wrong, if I did? Ps, sorry it's long, I tried!

Mr. Shea, another OGL question, but more curious about it from a 3PP and finance angle. I think one thing the OGL allowed is for new publishers the ability to tap into a large, established consumer base. If that base is fractured among several different systems, could that impact the 3PP market as there is no longer that base to tap into? For example, if MCDM didn’t have a 5e base to generate successful kickstarters, would they even be in a position to launch a new system? My worry is these new OGL restrictions coupled with several new possible systems would make it harder for new 3PP to flourish (pun intended). Thanks!

Are you planning on using the new ORC license that Paizo is funding after the OGL fiasco?

One of my players sold their Mirror Image to a Hag and I want to create a Monster out of it for them to fight. On a cursory search I didn't find any good examples of that in the published content, which surprised me. Do you have any Tips on creating Monsters from concepts in general and any ideas on Mirrors in fights in general?

Hello! What's your advice for a DM who wants to introduce their players to a new game/system? How to introduce, convince, etc? In my case my players have only ever played 5e and are reluctant to put any time towards learning a new game, but there are several that I'd love to run for them. Thanks in advance for your reply!

Mike! Given all the OGL drama I am looking at other systems - a good exercise regardless - I was wondering if you had experiences/opinions on non-d20 systems. There's so many I'm trying to find some sort of general overview of some of the more common ones.

Got a Lazy Approach to Running a Chase? Mike, what's your take on running a good old fashion chase, but not any old chase... a lazy approach. I need some mechanics and advice when that foe turns for the hills to get out of dodge. I imagine there are variables that could always complicate a chase scenario like bystanders, the environment, wandering dogs and an occasional tree branch, right? Thanks!

Hello! I was curious if you’d tried Ars Magica. It looks like an interesting game. My group have been playing Curse of Strahd since 2021 and the end is slowing hoving into view. I’m quite keen to try a different system and have been looking at Ars Magica, Forbidden Lands, the Dark Eye, Call of Cthulhu amongst others. Cheers.

Hello Mike. I love the City of Arches! I was wondering if at some point you might consider adding an Arena. Perhaps the Arena of Fate. I know the one page in the secrets 2 has the fighting rules, but I would love a mini arena setting with perhaps combat training featers, or betting rules, and champion reward systems, ect. I know I could coble something together, but I would love to see your creative take on this. If not in The City Of Arches, than maby a few suggestions would be much appreciated! Thank you for your time, and all that you do!!

Hi Mike!, so are you in a "wait and see" on the OGL 1.1 fiasco, or are you in the "stripping the OGL" camp yet? OH! and If Kobold Press does come out with a suitable game license, are you going to migrate? I know you make predominantly DM tools and not so much GL dependent products, but I would still like your take on it as if you were more dependent.

Aloha Mike! I see a lot of energy for people to get Hasbro/WOTC/Dungeons and Dragons to reverse the (leaked) revocation of OGL 1.0; but, in your infinite wisdom as a fan, publisher, and industry insider, wouldn't it benefit the entire TTRPG community to have these changes in OGL 1.1 be a catalyst to promote and push other systems with flexible and accessible OGLs? I understand D&D has name recognition in the GenPop, but what are ways that we, fans of the TTRPG space, can help ensure the creators, artists, game designers, and writers who depend on system OGLs for a living do not need to rely on a monolithic brand that is beholden to shareholders? It's 2023 and marketing, publishing, and dissemination are much more democratized and accessible now to creators than in the oughts but what do you see as barriers to entry? (I'm encouraged to hear things like Blades in the Dark being adapted to television; as consumers, how can we help ensure more of this happens?) I always appreciate your thoughts and perspective; thank you for doing all you do to inspire, inform and educate us DM/GMs/Keepers! Aloha!

Hey there, DM here: we are having the last couple of sessions of our 2 year campaign, with an upcoming fight against the bbegs of course and some revelations and last things to do. I notice that I'm re-designing monsters and possible endings again and again to make sure I can think of everything that might happen, which is of course exhausting. How would do you handle the stress/anxiety to really finish everything in a satisfying way?

I asked this on the Discord, but to maximize visibility I'm also asking here: is there a list of OGL titles on DriveThru that everyone should get before they go offline this Friday the 13th? I'm poring over the OGL listings there and there's so much content that I don't want to miss out on something really good before it is too late. Would you be able to put out such a list before Friday or it too short-notice?

For my next campaign I plan to run "Dragons on Stormwreck Isle" and use "Stars Over Stormwreck" to transition into "Light of Xaryxis". My question is how to incorporate character backstories into adventures with such remote locations. Usually I ask the players for a list of NPCs and factions they might be affiliated with, but in the case of Spelljammer adventures, I can't imagine many plausible situations in which these NPCs or factions would come into play. Can you offer some other ideas shaping the adventure around the characters?

Hi Mike! Do you have any advice from one consumer of D&D to another, on how to navigate this OGL nonsense. I own hardback copies of most all of 5e and play it exclusively. I really hate what the leaks are showing and don’t really want to support the evil overlord that is Hasbro. Should I even be worried or feel bad about using what I already own?

Happy New Year Mike! After diving in to two long and complex campaigns as a new DM, I've learned a lot and now look back on my growth as a Dungeon Master. I find myself with a new desire to go 'Back to Basics' and refine the skills that I have picked up over these big and wild campaigns. Do you ever have impulses like this, and how do you like to approach working on your DM craft?

Good morning Mike! I'm taking a play from your book and trying to have a regularly scheduled game, where we play no matter what PCs are available. Do you have any suggestions for what to do with PCs that are not in attendance for a given session? How do you handle that for your games?

Hi Mike Big fan! My question is this...what is the best way to deal with players making "interesting" decisions that conflict with their character's alignment? For an example a player with a Lawful Good alignment decides to stab someone they are interrogating. I don't want to take agency away from the characters but I do feel a check is necessary. Thanks

Regarding social encounters in mega dungeons: I'm running a rather large 3rd party dungeon that I dropped into my campaign. It's been fun; My players enjoy the exploration aspect with puzzles and traps (which I struggle to create on my own). Naturally there’s lots of combat encounters. But they typically take multiple sessions to finish, which is a long time to go without the social pillar. I've inserted NPCs here and there to help with this, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on how to spice things up in that department (for example what can I do when the party is three floors under an ancient pyramid).

O, dang, Mike. Sorry to hear you started the new year with COVID. Hope you're feeling better soon. And good luck to us all with the uncertainties WotC has gifted us. Game on!

Have the show times changed? Am I missing something?

How do you handle conflicting wishes at the table? Mostly my players agree on the next steps but every other game they start arguing in and out of character for a multitude of reasons. I thought about "Orcs attack" out of the blue... but that just postpones the discussion. I also do not want to railroad them. Yesterday the final decision was made bye "me" when they asked what encounter I had fleshed out the most.

Do you have any spells you recommend home brewing changes to or have played with homebrewed changes? That might be spells like Jump that are considered underwhelming or spells like Shield that some consider op.

Happy new year! I'm setting up a level 10-20 D&D story for my home group which will use the Kobold Press Dragon Empire and the Magdar Kingdom conflict. I anticipate war will be a strong theme. Other than Red Hand of Doom, what other adventures should I consider reviewing for plot inspiration?

Hey Mike, happy new year, mate! Any suggestions for Lazy One Shots? My regular campaign had a week off so I prepped a one-shot D&D adventure from Radiant Citadel and boy, did that end up being a lot of work. A one shot is so different; there is no momentum and I often have 3-4 hours to get to a conclusion. I've run one shots in other systems, like Feng Shui, and they are awesome experiences. How can I capture that in 5e?

Hey Mike, no question--just a hello to say I've been thinking of your great work (both the Lazy DM stuff + everything you do to highlight really good 3p 5e products) with this whole OGL nonsense. I've been a fan for a couple years and a patron for about one. I've loved watching your Numenera videos and am now watching your stuff on Blades in the Dark as I prep to try that out with my Sunday group. Who knows where we go from here, but as you always say our own tables are the only ones that really matter.

What drains your energy at the table? Could be D&D mechanic or it could be player behaviour. For me it's when players interrupt each other or try and make every sentence a funny punchline. Also kinda when a player intentionally give their characters a disadvantage like being blind or not being able to speak. It's fun for a session or 2 but gets old and annoying very quickly.

Another one, since I asked a question answered in Return of the Lazy DM (and now I'm just seeing the response): is there a tradeoff between the "plot-based" style where the DM has some idea of what's going to happen + character backstories can be a main driver of the drama, vs a "location-based" style where the players encounter a very open situation optimized for perpetrating shenanigans?

Happy New Year Mike! <br> After listening to your December 26th episode, I jumped into the show notes and found a link to your article called “The Lazy Encounter Benchmark”. I have heard you discuss this method to determine encounter deadliness many times before. I am a HUGE fan of this approach, and I use it all the time. This article is a great reference. My question is this. Toward the end of the article under Benchmark Assumptions, you state, “it assumes you don’t have more than one legendary monster in a battle” and “it assumes you’re using more than one monster in a battle.” I think I understand the reason considering legendary actions, action economy and such. That said, what are your thoughts on adjusting the math for these types of encounters? Is it possible? If so, how?<br> FYI. Choosing monsters based on the story and not an encounter is something that needs to be sung from the rooftops.<br><br> -Colin

Happy New Year Mike! You have had several discussions now regarding encounter benchmarks, CR and designing memorable encounters. An issue that is often brought up is the imbalance in action economies between the party and monsters (especially in "boss" encounters), which can result in combats feeling very swingy as the monster unleashes a barrage of attacks on their turn before the party burst it down in one go during the sequence of theirs. I'm generally not keen on the reliance of monsters on multiple hits, generally splitting them between the last characters to deal damage to the monster (or those in range). I wonder if you have considered allowing certain monsters (without minions) to have multiple turns within the same combat round to balance the action economy out a bit and spread attacks and damage out throughout the round? To your mind would this require massive rebalancing? Or would this allow higher CR creatures to live up to their level a bit more, without the need to up their HP or damage?

Anxiety over creating your own content: I've been meaning to create my own one shot adventures. I have tons of inspirational material, both official and unofficial, but whenever I actually put something to paper I just think that my efforts can't be as good as what is already out there in terms of published adventures. How do you cross that line to actually finish creating something and have enough confidence to bring that to the table? I don't have any trouble running published adventures or campaigns.

Hello! I'm in the middle of running a campaign and have been feasting on your Eberron prep series; shamelessly stealing ideas (a self-aware crazy war train with a chaos engine? Hell yea.) Anyways, around episode 35(I think) you mentioned a potential Achilles heel in the Lazy Dungeon Master system: Keeping track of all the plot threads that you end up creating during the development of an extended campaign. I believe you were referencing how you had a great NPC that was essentially taken out of the game because of a mix-up of two magic items - you had messed up and thought it worked like another. That was about 2 years ago so I was curious if you have any evolutions, ideas, or guidelines that someone could use with the Lazy Dungeon Master rules to more effectively track the hundreds of plot threads that end up created towards the end of a campaign. Thank you and happy New year.

Happy new year! Last year you played Blades and Numenera, do you have plans for playing another system this year? if so which ones?

Combat encounter length: It depends, of course, but do you or your players have a base expectation of how many rounds feels too few or too many for a main story-related fight? You often talk about buffing hit points on monsters and villains, is that because you expect them to last a minimum number of rounds? Thanks Mike! - Hayley

I am looking to create a BBEG based off an existing PC character sheet. Is there a suggested process to do so? Or should one start with a monster stat block and update that instead?

A most basic 5e question: can skills be trained? because I'm seeing a mention of proficiencies in the manual but no reference yet to skill level.

Dear Mike, my group is entering a vast and dense forest to find one specific location. I was planning on creating a mega dungeon-style forest with three fractions living in there. Your tips on mega-dungeons were very helpful, especially the adventure recommendations (DotMM and Scarlet Citadel). Can you recommend some media that goes in the direction of a forest mega dungeon?

Since you recently shared your product of 2022, the Monstrous Menagerie by Level Up 5e and also recently highlighted your vampires of the Flee Mortals monster book by MCDM, I was wondering which book you would recommend if I were to get one as a replacement for the monster manual. Both seem really interesting but I would probably only get one. Do you have a recommendation? Thanks!

Hi Mike I’m about to start running Empire of the Ghouls. In the book, when looking for treasure, they often write things like “rose quartz ring worth 15 gp”, “silver hand mirror worth 50 gp”, and “bright red garnet worth 100 gp”. What do you do? Does the party have to return to a merchant and sell their loot or do they just get the money, not needing to play out the transaction every time? And what do I do when the party gets extremely wealthy, and the adventure doesn’t give them anywhere to unload their wealth? Invent a castle for them to buy? - Jeppe

I'm starting up a campaign in the Brancalonia setting (Spaghetti Fantasy in fantasy, medieval Italy) and I've found that the plot of a lot of disney movies (beauty and the beast, hunchback, the movie with the mermaid chick, etc) fit really well with the themes and overall feel of the setting. How would you reskin a plotline so it's not too obvious to the players what you're stealing from? Hope you had a great christmas and a happy new year! - Colin

Hey Mike, as I accumulate more awesome TTRPG content, I am faced with the struggle of keeping track of them all. Do you have any suggestions or tips for how to keep track of such a rapidly growing collection of pdfs/files? Thanks!

Hi Mike. I want to run more dynamic combat encounters, and I think the problem stems from a lack of interesting environments or “battle arenas.” I try to get lair actions and things to change up the surroundings, but having trouble developing a “process” to address the combat environment during prep. How do you approach making a more engaging and dynamic combat space? Thanks, and I hope you’re recovering well from Covid

Hi Mike. How are you doing?

Several of the classic adventures ( Keep on the Borderlands, Isle of Dread, et. al.) seem like they might be good fit for Lazy DM-style spiral campaign development. If you were going to start a new campaign using one of those adventures, how would you handle that?

Depth crawls (e.g., Emmy Allen's "Stygian Library"), seem like a fun way to create entropic and dynamic point crawls. The Alexandrian has done two excellent posts discussing the mechanics. For my dungeon23, I am building a location, description, treasure, event, and encounter table for each floor/region (one region a month). I aim to use depth crawl procedures to present the illusion that the dungeon floors are large in scale and scope. I also suspect it will be useful for running low-prep open-table games. What are your thoughts on the depth drawl procedure and generating content for it?

Hi Mike, ever try to foster a strong start by skipping forward to the drama and letting the players figure out what happened since they last played? Did it work? is there something you did to make it work? My players just stepped through the mirror in the Witchlight Carnival. They have no idea what's on the other side, so that was a cool ending to the session. But what actually is directly on the other side is exposition: you're on top of a pillar, in a swamp, and you see a balloon, then you have no problem getting down especially if you're the fairy, then the DM literally does a song and dance, then he probably explains some feywild rules, and THEN you make your first important decision. Instead of blah blahing at the players, I'd like to skip into the conflict with Jebbek (in my case there is an unconscious new PC on the snail's back) and drip feed impressionistic Hither details as he explains the rule of ownership and demands the PCs memory. This way the players are piecing together the situation on their own during a tense moment. Is it a bad idea, and if not, tips on making this work?

Hi Mike! Love your practical approach and great advice. Adapting or lifting parts from old published content seems a natural part of the lazy DM way, and many folks have offered suggestions for updating to 5e or even procedures for improving them mechanically—like Justin Alexander’s three clue rule. Do you have any suggestions for updating old content to improve representation and a broader, more diverse world view? Do we make the mayor a they/them, change the identity of the damsel in distress, or give the kobold tribe a more complex motivation? A set of things to consider when updating old sourcebooks and adventures would be awesome!

Happy New Year! Apologies if you've answered this previously but I love and utilize your suggestion of dropping single-use magic items - typically in the form of "{trinket} that casts {spell} when {how to use}". However, there's some friction with coming up with how the characters know, for example, that the snowglobe they found casts Tiny Hut when they smash it in the ground. When I handwave and outright tell them what it is, it feels like it cheapens the discovery a bit - "how does my character know that?". Whereas, if I just say it's a snowglobe, the players never give it a second look and miss out on some cool stuff. Any suggestions?

Hi Mike! My players are part of an adventuring guild and they have recently arrived in a new city, which will be their “home base” for the foreseeable future. The players have expressed an interest in starting some sort of business enterprise. What are some challenges or hurdles I can place it front of them to make the acquisition of a business or start up make it feel like an epic adventure to add a fun element to this business venture. Thanks and keep up the great content!

Happy new year! You've created so many cool locations and adventures. (And it's been fun, on Patreon, to see City of Arches grow!) How do you get your creativity flowing? Do you have any tips for DMs working on creating new worlds or adventures, or aspiring adventure writers, about how to generate new ideas, and how to filter them? (Which ones to invest in more, and which to discard?)

My players are about to enter a city run by a council of 5 guildmasters who can all become patrons or rivals for this next leg of our campaign. The party is in a hurry to seek the aid of the city so they are most likely barging into a council meeting. How do I manage introducing 5 key NPCs and their conflicts all at once without both overloading the players and having a 5-way conversation with myself?

Hi Mike, thanks for the podcast version of all your material! It’s very useful to me. I’m about to start a new Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign with up to 7 players. 😳 The adventure doesn’t list how many players are expected, but I’m pretty sure it’s less than that. 😉 Do you have any advice on adjusting the adventure material for that many players, beyond your usual monster dials?

I’m going to run Wild Beyond The Witchlight for two very new players, with a DMPC to round out the group (his “lost thing” will be language- so he can’t talk with NPCs or solve puzzles, and his combat role is support). Do you have any ideas about establishing the world OUTSIDE of the Feywild, to set the context for how weird and wonderful the things in the carnival and Feywild are? I’m having a hard time figuring out how to express what’s strange when they don’t have any idea of what’s normal in this world.

Any best practice recommendations for navigating the "Experienced DM being a PC in a new DM's first campaign" relationship? I'm loving the experience so far (first time I've been a PC since 2e was the current edition...), and I think the "sit tight and focus on staying in character, offer explanations when asked, and otherwise get out of the way" approach is working ok so far. But I'm concerned that there may be some pitfalls that I just don't know about yet, so I'd love any perspective on how you've done this successfully in the past. Or, perhaps more importantly, lessons learned from when you've done it UNSUCCESSFULLY and learned from those mistakes.

I enjoy when you share mechanics or approaches from other TTRPGs that help any game master run great games, regardless of system. I’m curious if you’ve seen anything from Pathfinder 2E that you think would benefit all GMs. I’m curious about that system in general but haven’t explored it.

Hi Mike. Simply put, how do you keep your games from ballooning out of control? I’m currently running a modified version of Curse of Strahd. I’m finding that despite cutting storylines and “streamlining” less relevant sections my custom material keeps getting bigger and bigger. It’s not because I want it to, but my PC’s keep engaging minor NPCs or digging deeper into storylines that I never meant to be whole acts on their own. I don’t want to discourage their play style, but I’m also having a hard time getting the game back to Strahd. Thanks very much in advance!

Hello, more than a question is suggestion. Last year you did two campaigns using Cipher System and Blades in the Dark, and at the end you did a review of the systems, what did you players think about them, etc. What do you think about making of that a thing and do limited edition 3 to 5 session adventures using other systems. I would like to propose Pathfinder 2e and Shadow of the Demon Lord as candidates if you are interested. Thanks of your work and Happy 2023!

Hey Mike, I have been having an issue with a couple of players and preparing spells. I run a weekly-ish (sometimes we play more) homebrew campaign where I have a player who has been secretly cheating when it comes to preparing spells. We play over Foundry and the other week between sessions I was checking the player's character sheets in case anything wasn't working (we use a lot of homebrew and third party materials) and noticed that he had 13 spells prepped when he should have only been able to have 8 prepped at once. I talked to him about this and he told me sometimes when he's nervous in session he will just click random buttons on his character sheet and they must all be mistakes. Last session I had a section where an incredible niche spell was needed to find a secret and he, of course, had luckily prepared it. I don't want to spend my time watching his spell list all game to make sure he isn't cheating but I don't know what to do. Is this something small enough that I should just let it go? Thanks for your input.

What would your ideal replacement of Red Tower in Scarlet Citadel look like? I.E. What are the most important aspects to include for a mega dungeon home base.